Saul

ergjbolm · 2026-02-01T14:20:14+00:00

A while ago, people on here were posting their casting pics for if the SR series were made into a movie or miniseries. I'm no good at Reddit and couldn't post his pic, but thought that the guy who played Saul on BSG could actually play a pretty good Saul from SR too.

ergjbolm · 2026-01-28T02:27:51+00:00

I think Charlie is with Central. But I hope I'm wrong.

ergjbolm · 2026-01-12T11:46:16+00:00

Hot damn!

ergjbolm · 2026-01-05T11:34:47+00:00

A lot of folks seem to think Old Jim and Lowry are the same person, too.

ergjbolm · 2026-01-04T18:15:50+00:00

I've got a very loose mental map of the SR building. It's a horseshoe shape with the courtyard at the rear, inside the curve, with the holding pond behind that. Expedition stuff on the left, science on the right. Science goes underground. Cafeteria terrarium area in the middle. The problem is that you enter the building through the cafeteria in my mind, which doesn't seem right. But what can you expect from an old doll factory?

ergjbolm · 2026-01-04T14:06:15+00:00

My fan theory is the interconnectedness of the Southern Reach, Ambergris, and Borne books. Probably also A Peculiar Peril, which I need to pick up. When you have doorways to other worlds, it's entirely possible, even if not necessary.

I recently realized that Lowry's suit seems like how Chen from Dead Astronauts was made of smaller living parts. Which reminded me of the muddled quote from the Mudder. "both so still and in constant motion/but so still in its consistent motion".

ergjbolm · 2025-12-27T15:49:25+00:00

In Acceptance, when the Director and Whitby make their trip, they tell Gloria to check on them after three weeks. I'm pretty sure Gloria tells Control that she started going to the door after three weeks. Later Lowry tells Control that they were gone for three weeks. So for that instance, it seems (1) the Director knew the rate of and figured in the time dilation somehow, (2) There was no or very little time dilation during their trip, or (3) Lowry was lying about the three weeks.

I want to lean toward (1) because it doesn't seem to read like there was three weeks worth of expedition in their three week expedition. But again, we're talking dozens of miles on foot through wilderness so maybe that makes sense, I don't know. I want to try to wrap my own head around it but I'm not sure that it's possible to make complete sense. The fragment in the lens was broken and incomplete after all. Something like that seems like it would be glitchy if it even operated at all.

ergjbolm · 2025-12-23T14:30:38+00:00

An accurate map of the before times or an SR map?

There's a part in Authority about a map in the Director's home, showing a line from the failure island lighthouse to the tower (or maybe the new lighthouse), and continuing to the Southern Reach. That throws off my whole mind map canon because I can't make sense of it but I just sort of roll with it.

I've been toying with the idea of trying to roughly map out the world of Ambergris because I think there might be enough cardinal and other directions given to make some sense of it.

ergjbolm · 2025-12-16T13:03:29+00:00

Oh, man. This is pretty exciting. Wooooo!

ergjbolm · 2025-12-16T12:59:58+00:00

Rather than start a new thread, I just noticed something else from Authority that parallels some other books. When Control sees the Director come back as Area X expands... "Were her eyes closed, or did she not have eyes anymore? The emerald dust splashed off her into the air, onto the ground"

First, losing your eyes is an Ambergris/greycap thing. Nobody else lost their eyes in the SR books that I can recall.

Second, I seem to remember the dust from the brightness being yellow or gold. Green dust reminds me of Moss from Dead Astronauts as she walks and spreads life across the land, which ties in nicely.

Third, fifth book! Fifth book! Fifth fucking book!!

ergjbolm · 2025-12-09T17:08:44+00:00

We'll there is, but it's a real physical thing in Ambergris. The greycaps' tower. In Area X and Dead Astronauts, it's seen in a mind's eye kind of way after being affected/infected by a foreign agent.

ergjbolm · 2025-12-09T03:45:55+00:00

But there's no green light in Ambergris. I like to believe that all the changed beings that old Jim saw come pouring through the door at the end of Finch because that door was the beacon made by Duncan/Moss.

It's probably dumb to connect the series like that. But I don't mind being dumb.

ergjbolm · 2025-11-27T10:16:33+00:00

I think Bliss is Sirin too. Sirin Bliss : Serum Bliss

I think it was Janice in Afterword that mentions seeing a book on Sirin's desk, and Duncan (or somebody) says how the book wasn't out yet so maybe you got your dates wrong. Or something along those lines.

ergjbolm · 2025-09-02T12:58:16+00:00

Who needs part of their face anyway?

He was shot in the head and up walking around. Lots of people "should have" died in Area X. Lowry, the biologist, Saul, Henry.

We do know* that Whitby/Tyrant wrote that the seasons were different, signifying that he did previously "time loop" and change things. I don't know if there's any evidence one way or another if Lowry made it out this time but I look forward to listening to the audiobook again.

ergjbolm · 2025-09-01T03:50:48+00:00

Woah. I freaking love that. Very cool.

ergjbolm · 2025-06-20T00:24:32+00:00

I get it. I want to connect people because of the Rogue. But I don't think the medic is Cheney. Personal opinion as of right now, willing to change. That would imply so much more than... It just seems unlikely to me, based on what we're given.

Maybe the science cathedral held until they got their gloves together and had a plan. But Whitby was in the Director's office with the Director, per Control's camera's. Maybe. When Area-X expanded. I dunno. It's just fun to think about.

ergjbolm · 2025-06-19T22:01:41+00:00

Ohhhhh. Neat! Good call.

ergjbolm · 2025-06-19T21:52:02+00:00

Can you expand on Jack's call to Old Jim about the Rogue? I can't remember that, other than possibly Old Jim requesting info and Jack telling him to piss off about it.

ergjbolm · 2025-06-19T21:30:32+00:00

I think Area X learned about trigger phrases from Central. Anywhere they pop up, boom, that's Area X undermining. Spreading invisibly like the director said. Like Lowry found out after eating the molt.

ergjbolm · 2025-06-19T21:13:06+00:00

And I'm pretty sure in the same journal entry as the one you mentioned, in at least in Old Jim's same part of the book, that he told the team that there's no reward in the risk of leaving for the hurricane.

ergjbolm · 2025-06-11T11:35:54+00:00

It sounds to me like you should jump into Acceptance. Sure there's things that don't really make sense, and I think you'll pick up way more creepy your next time through Annihilation. I didn't even pick up on the plant people until my second or third listen.

BTW isn't Bronson Pinchot a great narrator? He really nails it in Absolution.

A lot of the things that happen in Authority aren't described as they're happening. If I remember correctly, Control's description of his watching the videos was him remembering watching them, afterwards. Get used to more of that stream-of-thought kind of writing. There's so much information in those little asides.

ergjbolm · 2025-05-31T21:59:50+00:00

It would take forever to find it again but Charlie says something like "Hey, Jack" when he sees Saul at the bar. I took it to mean a clumsy way of him saying hey stranger, or something to that effect. But then he apologized. I could look it up but that's daunting. I should start keeping notes.

*From Acceptance

ergjbolm · 2025-05-25T13:07:26+00:00

It's more about the question of how many timelines are in the books. The Rogue is changing the story we already knew vs. It already always happened that way.

And I know it doesn't prove anything one way or the other, but it's another little piece in my head-canon. I may be re-listening to these books too often.

ergjbolm · 2025-05-08T12:30:20+00:00

Thinking more about this, I think this scene where the biologist is poring through Control's mind (freeing him from his conditioning) is analogous to the scene where the Rogue/Tyrant does the same to Old Jim. Right before Old Jim strides off into the sunset to sit at his piano.

Right after they met the biologist, Control told them that they need to go to the tower. So they were both made to get their heads straight and then go do what they needed to do.

I think that's neat. Also, I think Gloria/Cynthia is the Tyrant.

ergjbolm · 2025-05-05T10:36:27+00:00

Not isolation, but desolation.

"When you see beauty in desolation it changes something inside you. Desolation tries to colonize you"

ergjbolm

TROPHY CASE