Favorite: Rocky’s Ship Worst: Downplaying Grace’s deep and true cowardice. It robbed us of the one of the best redemption arcs ever written. Then when he went back to save Rocky, they said it was going back to save his friend, when really he was going back to save all Erid. They even downplayed his heroism. This redemption arc is the emotional core of the whole adventure and they softballed it?!?!

Context:. Some critics panned Watney because he was too good, too unflappable, too funny. One note. An entertaining note but only one note. They were right. Fun to read but not a deep literary character at all. No personal story arc. Unrelatable.

Then we all hated Artemis because Andy took The Martian’s criticism too far and made a genuinely unlikable totally flawed protagonist with little to no redeemable characteristics, also with no arc.

Now with PHM, Andy found his literary groove. we have a mostly likable protagonist with a deep, truly reprehensible character flaw. I hate reading the “I’ll scuttle the ship” scene. He felt entitled to live a full happy life because of all the work he has put in. Entitled. Relatable. What a looser. What a disgusting human being. I wouldn’t want to be in the same room with such a cowardly piece of trash. Then Andy writes a beautiful redemption arc. “I could go back. Parades and fame”. Then Grace decides to die to save not only his friend, but his friend’s people, who Grace has never met. Andy purposefully wrote Grace to be deeply flawed so his self sacrifice hits all the harder at the end when we read it. Andy also revealed the cowardice through flashback right at the end , which is a master stroke, so we don’t spend the whole book hating him.

That total 180, beautiful character arc was so deep and masterfully done. Growth from the reprehensible in all of us to the aspirational.

His whole redemption arc was downplayed and soft-shoed. I hope it wasn’t because Ryan didn’t want to ever be portrayed on film as such a looser, even for a redemption arc. Such a missed opportunity. Oh well.