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Southern Reach / Area X Trilogy theories - SPOILERS!!


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I just finished the Southern Reach trilogy (aka Area X trilogy) by Jeff Vandermeer - easily the weirdest thing I've read in a long, long time. Kind of like "The X-Files" at its best, or what "Lost" should have been, for a TV comparison.

What do my fellow-Sharders think happened at any point during those books? The author left it vague enough that there's no way to really know, per se, so it's all just theory. (FYI: I have not gone looking for interviews with Vandermeer where he explains anything, so they might exist, but I'm just going on the books themselves.)

Post your own questions too, not just theories/answers.

And please feel free to post info on other books that have this same kind of mysterious quality, as others here might be interested to check them out.

SPOILER ALERT:
Because the whole idea here is to theorize on what happened at any point in the trilogy, including the very end, don't read this thread at all unless you've either [a] read the whole trilogy already or don't care re: spoilers. If we don't say that, everything we post will have to be behind spoiler tags, which could get tedious real fast. (Hope this is OK with the moderators.)

So, without further ado, I'll start us off with some questions and some of my guesses.

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Is the tower/tunnel actually Saul (his body, transformed), and the entity in it his doppelganger? I think this is possible.

Were Suzanne and Henry really agents working for Central? My answer is Yes.

Is Cynthia/Gloria still around anywhere, and if so, where and in what form? No guess from me on this one.

Was the owl the husband of the biologist? I thought so, until it talked about her rescuing an owl long before - that muddied the waters for me.

Was the marmot John/Control? I think so.

When Grace and Ghost Bird see the now-ruined Southern Reach facility at the end, was it actually breathing, like Ghost Bird thinks, or is that just her perception of a living ecosystem? I think it is the latter.

Did Jackie intentionally "sacrifice" her son in an attempt to shut down the anomaly? I think she did - it may have been the reason she got married and had a child to begin with.

Did Control/John change things, or was it Ghost Bird who did, or both, or neither? I think it was Ghost Bird or both.

Do Grace and Ghost Bird ever reach a border? I think they do, and cross back over. I think that the anomaly "let go" of Earth after Ghost Bird held that orb and somehow communicated with it - at least, that's my rose-colored-glasses idea.

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Hey, I've read this series! :lol:

 

As you've said, this is weird! Which happened to be what I was looking for... something with cosmic horror without all the...garbage... a lot of modern Lovecraftian writers (that I've read) seem to add. As was mentioned, there are plenty of elements to make one think of Lost, and a friend of mine pointed out another island-fantasy it is like: Myst. I'll respond to individual things as I have time and refresh myself on the story, and I'll also try to locate a response I have used to "explain" the mystery of Area X.

 

Is the tower/tunnel actually Saul (his body, transformed), and the entity in it his doppelganger? I think this is possible.

 

 

Saul certainly transformed into the Crawler in the tower/tunnel, though I am not certain about the tower/tunnel itself. Like you said, it is certainly possible, and a connection does exist, but I wonder if it could be the result of something, maybe the original alien object, burrowing into the ground. I'm spitballing right now, so we might end up coming to a different conclusion as the discussion continues.

 

Do Grace and Ghost Bird ever reach a border? I think they do, and cross back over. I think that the anomaly "let go" of Earth after Ghost Bird held that orb and somehow communicated with it - at least, that's my rose-colored-glasses idea.

 

 

I have a more...chilling? interpretation of the end. The anomaly is still loose on the Earth, the change that Control effected on it, however, made it less deadly, it's something that humans can adapt to now, but I think it is still going to change the environment about it.

 

And I found my previous comment:

 

The "organism" was in many places, probably different planets. You'll recall the biologist in her leviathan form crosses into other worlds in her journey and Ghost Bird sees the writing on the wall as a sort of cosmic map while she communicates with the Crawler. 

Area X exists separate from Earth, may even be a completely different construct. We know this because time passes differently in Area X than on Earth.

Lowry, like others, was trying to combat Area X by somehow understanding it. This is impossible, whatever the organism is it is so different from us that we could not understand each other, even if it wanted to. And since it is building a construct that links several bubbles in different dimensional space times, we can assume it is pretty advanced...in some aspects at least. 

 

 

Woo! I'll add more as I remember more.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Yeah! Glad to have a discussion on this creepy and absorbing trilogy! :D

 

... I wonder if it could be the result of something, maybe the original alien object, burrowing into the ground. ...

 

I agree - that is probably what the tower is, but no way to really know.The word "thorn" kept coming up in the books, like something that would pierce or penetrate, and that aligns with your idea. That said, it seems like everything else that's "alive" was created out of a person/animal, so the description of the tower breathing, plus the biologist's initial analysis that it was all neural tissue, made me think of the stairs being inside something like a spinal cord.

 

... The anomaly is still loose on the Earth, the change that Control effected on it, however, made it less deadly, it's something that humans can adapt to now, but I think it is still going to change the environment about it. ...

 

Yeah, I think this is what the author meant for us to take away - hence my "rose-colored glasses" attitude. :unsure:

 

The "organism" was in many places, probably different planets. ... it is building a construct that links several bubbles in different dimensional space times ...

 

Wow - your description is so concise yet packed with ideas! I hadn't been thinking of the entire anomaly as a single organism, but it really makes sense. So the "map" would be like an anatomy chart (to make a really rough analogy)? Would the leviathan biologist be "swimming" in a kind of circulatory system? When I started thinking about this, I had a quick mental flash: What would it be like to be that kind of organism, to exist like that? What if we actually do, in some vague metaphysical sense?

 

I'll be interested to read more of your insights, Orlion. Hopefully others will contribute as well!

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  • 2 years later...
  • 1 month later...

I saw the movie "Annihilation" yesterday.

As expected, it's pretty much a different / new story.

It's good but doesn't follow the book, so as long as you keep that in mind it's an OK movie.

Just OK? Yeah - I'm not sorry I spent the $6 to see it (yes, movies in Ohio are that inexpensive), but it was waaay less mysterious and intriguing than the books. IMO you just can't convey the weirdness with visuals alone - you need words to describe the characters' subjective impressions. For example, the "pull" of the Tower, and how the party felt drawn there, and how it had a "heartbeat" that they could feel but not hear, or the fact that they all instinctively thought of it as a "tower" even though it was underground. Most of that aspect of the books was missing.

And the new ending pretty much closed off the story, so I don't expect to see movies of Authoruty or Acceptance. It's an interesting ending, but much less vague and creative than the books.

I think Vandermeer (the author) will be pleased with the movie, not miffed or embarrassed, but his own story is on a much higher plane.

Anyone else see "Annihilation"? What did you think?

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I want to see the movie but what you said is exactly what I figured it would be. When I first saw there was a movie adaptation I couldn't wrap my brain around how they would follow the books because they are so internal. Then I thought no way movie goers who haven't read to book would be happy with the ending of Annihilation. 

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