Mitosis's Weakness

[Retsam]

So I listened to the Mitosis audiobook a few days ago; (pretty good, by the way; makes me want to go back and get the audiobook for Steelheart; the puns seem to work better in audio format, for one).

 

Searching through this forum a bit, it seems that Mitosis's weakness is commonly understood to be his own music.  It's certainly the obvious answer, with it being what defeats him, and it's what the characters view his weakness to be at the end of the book as well.  

 

But, rather than his music itself being his weakness, my take was that his weakness was a specific set of chords in his band's music (or possibly just derivative, unoriginal music in general).  Mostly, I just love the idea of a supervillain whose only weakness is the Axis of Awesome's Four Chords, but there are other supports for the idea:  (Unfortunately, having only the audiobook, this is going from my memory)

• Multiple times Mitosis complains about how derivative his band's music was, and at least once I'm pretty sure I remember him specifically saying something about "those chords!".
   
• It makes more sense that he'd go around destroying music shops.  Epics generally seem to avoid telegraphing their weakness, when possible, which destroying music shops pretty clearly did.  
  
  If Mitosis's weakness were really something as obscure as the music of a single band, then destroying those stores was a pretty bad move; it would have been better to just hope no one happened to play that particular band, rather than giving hints about his weakness.  But if his weakness were a common musical chord pattern, then, yeah, it makes much more sense to destroy music stores because they're a much bigger risk.
   
• It fit's better with his powers and his character.  In this interpretation, he was a musician who hated the derivativeness and repetitiveness of popular music, that musicians were basically just copying each other, and his power was to copy himself, and his weakness was the set of chords that were being copied by so many musicians.  

 

I'm trying to work this into a more general pattern for Epic's weaknesses, and not really coming up with anything; but this does seem more like something that would fit into a pattern than his weakness being as simple as his own music, which, as David points out at the end of the book, seems sort of arbitrary.

 

Thanks for reading,

   -Retsam

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles]

I hadn't thought of it that way , but you make a pretty convincing case.

My theory is that all Epoc weaknesses fall into three categories: powerlessness, trauma, and self-perception. Either the weakness is something from their past that made them feel powerless, or it's a reminder of past trauma, or it's something that messes with the way they see themselves.

The four chords theory could fit into the powerlessness category. He was unable to keep his band from becoming derivative, so he fixated on those four chords. Kind of like how people will fixate on one thing that irritates them, until they can't even stand to be in the same room as that thing.

I could be wrong, though.

[Retsam]

Revisiting this topic with added information from Firefight, namely 

that Epic powers and weaknesses are tied to their fears.

 

It seems that I was mostly wrong, but partially right.  Mitosis's weakness does seem to be his music; and not something more general, like the particular chords in it, as I had guessed.  But I do think I hit on the underlying aspect of his weakness in the line about "hating the derivativeness and repetitiveness of popular music": in light of Firefight, it seems that's mostly right, but more accurately:

he feared that his music was derivative and unoriginal, and his power reflects that fear; hence why he has duplication powers and not, say, music powers.

Edited February 28, 2015 by Retsam

[Senor Feesh]

Revisiting this topic with added information from Firefight, namely 

that Epic powers and weaknesses are tied to their fears.

 

It seems that I was mostly wrong, but partially right.  Mitosis's weakness does seem to be his music; and not something more general, like the particular chords in it, as I had guessed.  But I do think I hit on the underlying aspect of his weakness in the line about "hating the derivativeness and repetitiveness of popular music": in light of Firefight, it seems that's mostly right, but more accurately:

he feared that his music was derivative and unoriginal, and his power reflects that fear; hence why he has duplication powers and not, say, music powers.

 

Perhaps he feared failure? Or success? Success probably makes more sense; hearing your own music being played/sung out loud is a pretty good indicator your band is doing well.

[happyman]

I don't think it can be success, based on his comments in Mitosis. He actively disliked the music itself, discussing what was *technically* wrong with it. That sounds to me like his fear was bound up with how generic it was, not anything to do with audience reaction. Fear that all his music is derivative and ultimately irrelevant sounds like a safer bet to me.

[Blackhoof]

Indeed, he hated "those four chords", and the band never let his own songs be played. The idea that his fear was the irrelevance of his music makes sense, and ties in nicely with his power.

What is interesting is how suicidal each copy is. None of him gave any care to their own lives, despite each theoretically being another equal and exact copy of him.

Edited March 9, 2015 by Blackhoof

[Sarcasm]

Slight thread necromancy here, but I think that with this type of power, Epics believe that they are immortal. Could it be that when

Calamity gives powers, he also gives subservience, so all Epics would put Calamity's desires (killing David) in front of their own need for self-preservation)?

[apepi]

I was thinking maybe his music reminded him of something. Not that his own music was his own weakness itself.