Comments | xf_book_club: Story 148: "If I Die in a Combat Zone" by Sabine

amyhit in xf_book_club

Story 148: "If I Die in a Combat Zone" by Sabine

Feb 17, 2011 14:41

Here we have...well I'm not entirely sure what to call it. Late seasons pseudo-apocafic? It defies genre, that alone has me intrigued. And do check out "the even-numbered pages" too, if you can. It got a little stiffed for time of its own.

TITLE: If I Die in a Combat ZoneAUTHOR: Sabine (sabine101@juno.com ( Read more... )

short-short

Comments 4

amyhit February 19 2011, 04:28:06 UTC

As a temporary place holder for the longer, better comment I eventually want to make, I've been thinking over the last couple of days, how interesting it is that both this and Heaven were posted within a month of each other, and that both were posted before the start of S8. It changes them in my mind, to think that they were speculation on how things really were, and not simply little ficlets designed to creep out the readers with unfulfilled 'what-ifs' for five minutes, or an afternoon. And I like that the two fics are quite different, yet they share such similarities because they focus so closely on Scully's emotional and psychological state, and they both return to the "bigger picture" of the mytharc in order to make us feels Scully's anguish.

amyhit February 20 2011, 02:45:58 UTC

Um, I've always loved the title ( ... )

estella_c February 20 2011, 22:21:14 UTC

I've always thought that the test of good fiction is that it arouses all sorts of ideas and sustains many interpretations. amyhit has certainly provided all I could entertain.

I really think that Scully is suppressing a great gestative fear that emerges when she sleeps and lets down her guard. Her lover has gone to the war and she knows, better than anyone else in the world, that the REAL war to end wars is coming. The children soldiers are her child, or rather her child is just the emblem, the place-marker of all the children she'll never be able to protect (as she in fact does fail to protect William).

To have no legs is to have no power, maybe to have no partner.

IIDIACZ is just fear, great and justifiable fear, of warfare. I haven't said anything particularly original here, but I didn't want amyhit to be lonely. She's done such heroic explication.

amyhit February 21 2011, 00:29:10 UTC

Thank you, Estella, I appreciate the company. And I think your comment was a good one. We're bound to end up expressing similar things in different words (we are commenting on the same short fic, after all) but that doesn't make your expressing your thoughts any less valuable.

The children soldiers are her child, or rather her child is just the emblem, the place-marker of all the children she'll never be able to protect

I'm glad you said this. My comment kind of focused on her child specifically, but you're absolutely right - the fact that she's going to be a mother herself is just going to make her more empathetic towards all children.

IIDIACZ is just fear, great and justifiable fear, of warfare.Yes! The first couple of times I read it I kind of got distracted by the descriptions and little details, so it resounded with me less. But when I came back to the fic a year or two later what came through so strongly was as you've said, the great justifiable fear. For all the complexities of how the dream can be analyzed, fear is the ( ... )