From: martin@cs.curtin.edu.au (Martin Dougiamas)
Subject: Re: Mostly Harmless ending questions (definate spoiler)
Organization: Curtin University of Technology
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 06:33:44 GMT

kyraan@bach.udel.edu (Stephen Ch Litterst) writes:

>In article <6444@m1.cs.man.ac.uk> ross-c@scs.leeds.ac.uk (R Clement) writes:
>>*******SPOILERS*********
>>
>>
>>
>>In article <1bebapINNo0v@bigboote.WPI.EDU> jseaver@bigwpi.WPI.EDU (Jason John Seaver) writes:
>>>In article <1bd4p2INN4e5@aludra.usc.edu> cokin@aludra.usc.edu (Darren Cokin) writes:
>>>>confused by the ending.  It may be a while before I have time to reread it,
>>>	Aren't you supposed to be? :)
>>>>Ok, let me tell you what I think happend, and you tell me how right I am.
>>>>The Grebulons destroyed the earth.  This of course is nothing new, it's been
>>>
>>>	Huh?  I thought the Vogons destroyed the Earth all by themselves in the
>	READ THE DAMN LAST PAGE!!!  DA does not say who does what, he just says
>that the Grebulons do something, and the Vogons are done with they're job. The 
>ending is a typical DA ending in that it gives him the option of writing 
>another book or not.  NO ONE KNOWS (other than DA) WHETHER OR NOT ANYONE DIES!

No, you are wrong.  Read the last page yourself.  The "blue and green
watery sausage" that represents the existence of Earth in all possible
universes disappears.  "Options collapsed, possibilities folded into
each other, and the whole at last resolved itself out of existence."

It is impossible for all possible Earths to have disappeared and *still*
have Arthur and Trillian running around, because where would they 
have come from?  All traces of Earth had to be destroyed together.
(From the Vogon point of view) In all parallel universes.
This was the point of the Guide MkII wangling things so that all
traces of Earth were on Earth at the crucial moment.

There is no way for Douglas to write a sensible sequel or even a
prequel... since Earth has been wiped totally from the WSOGMM.
Unless he does something totally lame like having the Vogon display
of the "sausage" be wrong... but I doubt Douglas would do that.

Some more things I liked about MH : the way Agrajag's perception 
of his final murder was quite wrong in the third book, but the
two versions still melded together quite well... ie Agrajag thought
Arthur ducked an assassination attempt, when in fact the gun was
fired accidentally when Random lifted the gun just as a bystander
made a grab for it from behind, to take it off her, presumably,
and Arthur only threw himself to the floor instinctively.  (perhaps
he was trying to fly :)  )

Also liked the fact that the street number of Club Beta was 42.  :)

And the bit about the woman oracle that Arthur visits would be 
a much better choice of passage for DA to read than Chapter 7. 

Martin
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