Pern Would Be A Great Subject For A Modern-Day Videogame.

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Pern Would Be A Great Subject For A Modern-Day Videogame.

As a dragon-obsessed child, I was a big fan of the Dragonriders of Pern series by Anne McCaffrey. On a visit to my parents' house a little while ago, I found myself looking at some of my old Pern books, thinking about how much I'd loved the series when I was a kid. I flipped All the Weyrs of Pern open out of nostalgic curiosity and went from 'idly skimming' to 'ravenously devouring'.

I don't think I actually read All the Weyrs of Pern when I was a kid! At the age of twelve or thirteen, I was mainly into the 'mediaeval-style society with dragons' aspect and slightly resented the introduction of higher technology to Pern. As an adult, though, I'm fascinated by the 'mediaeval-style society discovers an intelligent computer' concept; it reminds me a little of Horizon Zero Dawn.

I'm not planning to revisit the entire Pern series, but the way All the Weyrs connects to the early history of Pern got me thinking about that early history, so I've just finished a reread of Dragonsdawn.

Anne McCaffrey: Here's the story of how the planet of Pern was settled! I'm more interested in the worldbuilding than in characterisation, really, but there are a handful of character traits to be found: this kid is wary and resentful, this woman is sexy and evil, this minor character is big and loud and aggressive and dramatic and causing a lot of problems for everyone...
Riona: Er, could you - could you repeat that last one?

I was not expecting to come away from this reread with Ted Tubberman, of all people, as my favourite character, but apparently 'it's easy to envision this character being played by Robert Grove' is all I need. I particularly enjoyed him dramatically going 'Do your worst. I am man enough to take it' when nobody has the slightest intention of torturing him.

Anyway, justice for Ted Tubberman. He was trying to protect everyone when he stole and launched a homing beacon to call for extraplanetary help! I do not think 'order the entire population of the planet to shun him, forbidding them to speak to him or even to fight Thread that falls over his home' is a reasonable response!

I'm not entirely sure why everyone was so dead set against calling for help in the first place. The main arguments being put forward seemed to be 'it'll take ten years to get a response anyway' and 'we're a strong proud planet and should deal with our own problems', which almost seem to cancel each other out. Send the call for help off; now you've got ten years to deal with the problem yourself, and, if Thread proves too large an issue and is still destroying everything by that point, at least you haven't screwed yourself out of help by being too proud to ask for it a decade ago.

To be honest, I am giving a Tubberman-biased summary of the issues here. There are some genuine concerns about whether the Federated Sentient Planets will hold their assistance over Pern's head and the people of Pern will have to give up land in return, although these concerns are barely brought up in comparison to 'oh, it'll be ten years, and they might not even send help, and we're strong and cool enough to deal with our own issues'. It still seems worth at least sending out the call, so you have options if you're teetering on the verge of extinction in a decade!

And everyone hates Tubberman so much! Just because he's unlikeable and constantly causing problems! Yes, I know 'everyone hates him just because he's unlikeable' is a ridiculous thing to say, but I really didn't like the outright glee with which the administration decided he was to be officially shunned, a punishment that is, in the words of the people imposing it, 'psychologically destructive'. There's no room for unlikeable people in this utopia, apparently.

I just went on a desperate hunt for anyone else with some sympathy for Tubberman, and I was reassured to find this transcript of the Dragons Made Me Do It podcast:

Tequila Mockingbird: But, in this broader context, Ted is grieving, and nobody else seems to be interested in engaging with that, or sympathizing with the fact that he’s legitimately upset, for a good reason.
Lleu: Yeah. Everyone’s response to this is, like, “Ugh, Ted’s so annoying. He’s complaining again; he’s crying in public all the time.” Yeah, ’cause his daughter just got eaten alive!
Tequila Mockingbird: “Forget it, Tubberman.” “Sit down and shut up, Tubberman.” There’s no empathy from his community.

Yes! Tubberman's not just kicking up a fuss for no reason; he's grieving his daughter! He's trying to prevent more deaths from Thread! And none of the Good, Heroic characters around him react with anything other than eyerolling and 'hey, let's shun that guy nobody likes'!

I will give Drake Bonneau some points for hearing 'you're not allowed to fight any Thread that falls over Tubberman's home, he's been shunned' and going 'no?? I'm going to fight Thread anywhere it falls??? I'm going to at least check that things are okay at the Tubberman residence.' Nobody else gets any points. I demand compassion for the most obnoxious man on Pern >:(

I occasionally wonder how my twelve-year-old self would react if she somehow came across my present-day online presence. For the most part, I think she'd think I'm pretty cool! She'd admire my fanfiction; she'd love my websites; she'd largely enjoy my blog posts. But I think this one would mystify her. Who makes a Pern post entirely about Ted Tubberman, with barely a mention of dragons?

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I remember the Pern books! I was super into the Harper Hall books as a kid, because those are just perfect for angsty adolescents.

Also my family had the original Dragonriders of Pern video game, I’m pretty sure.

Ted Tubberman has that Robert vibe, yes. And I remember the way the grubs he made would turn out to be super useful, but the whole community had turned against him and rejected him. (And “You’re not allowed to fight any Thread that falls over his home” is beyond psychologically destructive, that’s what you do if you want to leave someone to die. In later books a method of execution is to tie people up and leave them outside during Threadfall.)

There's no room for unlikeable people in this utopia, apparently.

This is a very real issue for a lot of Utopian Community ideals. What do you do with someone who’s just unpleasant? Not a terrible and monstrous person, but someone most people understandably don’t like? How do you keep responses proportionate? How do you navigate things when “just avoid him if you don’t like him” doesn’t work the way it does in a large city?

I remember the way the grubs he made would turn out to be super useful

The grubs were so cool! I'm glad he left a lasting positive impact on the planet, at least. (I mean, he also bioengineered killer cheetahs that would cause problems for centuries to come, but I'm laying the blame for that one at the feet of the society that left him to fend for himself.)

And “You’re not allowed to fight any Thread that falls over his home” is beyond psychologically destructive, that’s what you do if you want to leave someone to die.

I was shocked by that stipulation! On top of the fact that it's monstrous in itself, Ted Tubberman lives with his wife and children, who have not been shunned. But, because they're under the same roof as a shunned man, they all have to fend for themselves during Threadfall, I suppose. Tubberman's house is safe because he's shielded it with metal, but would they just have let him and his family die if that weren't the case?

This is a very real issue for a lot of Utopian Community ideals. What do you do with someone who’s just unpleasant? Not a terrible and monstrous person, but someone most people understandably don’t like? How do you keep responses proportionate? How do you navigate things when “just avoid him if you don’t like him” doesn’t work the way it does in a large city?

This is so interesting! Yeah, people are going to rub each other the wrong way in any community, and you need to be able to manage that in ways that aren't just 'this is a nice place, so anyone who isn't nice enough must be pushed out of society'.

Yeah, if you leave a bioengineeering expert isolated and rejected while he’s suffering from terrible grief and pain, that’s kind of asking for a bioengineering disaster.

It’s like a community in a wildfire-heavy area deciding that someone is shunned, so no one will fight a fire on their property! Yeah, maybe that person will be good enough at protecting themselves and their family to not die that way, but it’s deciding you’re willing to leave that whole family to die and also risk the threat spreading to neighboring properties. (Thread in the ground spreading through potentially agriculturally useful land is, if I recall properly, Not Good.)

This is a very real issue for a lot of Utopian Community ideals. What do you do with someone who’s just unpleasant? Not a terrible and monstrous person, but someone most people understandably don’t like? How do you keep responses proportionate? How do you navigate things when “just avoid him if you don’t like him” doesn’t work the way it does in a large city?

Yeah this is something I like to point at people who are rhapsodising about Community, for obvious reasons

And none of the Good, Heroic characters around him react with anything other than eyerolling and 'hey, let's shun that guy nobody likes'!

Oh god I'm so glad it's not just me. This is a theme, not just in Pern but a bunch of books I used to read as a tween, where a character who had logical motivations and a reasonable point was designated Bad by the narrative and Shunned. I usually overidentified with them, tbf.

I will give Drake Bonneau some points for hearing 'you're not allowed to fight any Thread that falls over Tubberman's home, he's been shunned' and going 'no?? I'm going to fight Thread anywhere it falls??? I'm going to at least check that things are okay at the Tubberman residence.'

Good, that's basic humanity. You don't deny assistance in a natural disaster.

I think my twelve-year-old self would actually be pretty happy with the life I've got! Would probably also want to know why there were no dragons in my writing these days.

It's so weird when a book apparently decides 'this character is Inherently Bad, therefore all their actions and feelings and opinions are bad and should be dismissed.' Sometimes you have to give thought to the actual value of those individual actions and feelings and opinions, rather than going 'oh, these are all poisoned by the person they're coming from.'

Good, that's basic humanity. You don't deny assistance in a natural disaster.

Yes! There's a point at which your handy alternative to the death penalty just becomes the death penalty at one remove.

Would probably also want to know why there were no dragons in my writing these days.

It's a question we should all consider, probably.

[It's so weird when a book apparently decides 'this character is Inherently Bad, therefore all their actions and feelings and opinions are bad and should be dismissed.' Sometimes you have to give thought to the actual value of those individual actions and feelings and opinions, rather than going 'oh, these are all poisoned by the person they're coming from.']

Graaah, there's a variant of this that drives me up the wall when I encounter it, and it cropped up A LOT in some of my formative fandoms (e.g. Stargate). Where, say, there's a legitimate criticism of things the main characters are doing or the way in which the protag group is set up, but you don't want to actually grapple with that issue because grappling with that issue would upset the Formula, so instead you just have the canon's most hated character voice the criticisms and then move on. It's like "Oh, no, we're not ignoring these valid criticisms! They're just the criticisms the Bad Guys use and we're on the side of the Good Guys! Argument solved." No! No, it's not!

Ah, yes, the 'you don't want to agree with this arsehole, do you?' approach: a devious but infuriating storytelling technique. I think McCaffrey may have been aiming for this when she had Tubberman be the one to propose calling for help, but she will have no luck with me, in part because I'm capable of going 'you know, that's a valid point, regardless of its source' and in part because she has underestimated my ability to fall in love with arseholes.

Oh also non-Pern book rec that the early settling history made me think of: Semiosis, by Sue Burke.

Ooh, thank you for the recommendation!

and slightly resented the introduction of higher technology to Pern

I resemble this remark...

I keep having the urge to revisit Pern, to be honest. I binge read many of the books sometime in my mid teens and haven't really touched it since.

It's interesting to come back to Pern! I feel that they're flawed books in many ways, but somehow I still find them very engaging.

I know nothing of this, but I feel sorry for Ted.

Someone needs to! He's very poorly treated, I think.

Somehow I've never managed to read this one even though it came out well within my Pern phase - presumably my local library and used bookstore didn't have it. Or maybe I just disdained the prequels? I read the one where they discover AIVAS and then I'm pretty sure there's another one where they're sort of trying to get to grips with AIVAS but that might be where I stopped. I was definitely more into the dragons and less into the tech.

Maybe they just disliked him because his name was Ted Tubberman. You have to admit that 'Tubberman' is a name that practically screams "please shun me."

and then I'm pretty sure there's another one where they're sort of trying to get to grips with AIVAS but that might be where I stopped. I was definitely more into the dragons and less into the tech.

You're thinking of All the Weyrs of Pern, I think! Kid me also refused to read that book, for exactly the same reason: too much technology, not enough dragons. It's been interesting to read it at last as an adult, though.

I did read The Skies of Pern, the one after All the Weyrs; that was the last book I read in the series. I remember almost nothing about it, but I know it's the reason I dropped my 'I could be the specialest girl and Impress a bronze' aspirations and decided 'actually, greens are cool and I want a green dragon'; I think green rider Tai was my favourite character in the Pern series when I was a kid. Maybe I'll give that one a reread as well.

You have to admit that 'Tubberman' is a name that practically screams "please shun me."

True! Tem read this entry and asked me, 'Do you have a crush on a man named Ted Tubberman?' with such incredulous disgust.

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