#why is that plural theory line so cringey?

[sophieinwonderland]

Other Hybrids and a Fan Theory!

Okay, I said I wasn't going to go over all the plural characters before...

But I changed my mind. I HAVE to talk about the other Hybrids in the book.

Just remember, spoilers here are going to be HUGE!

Larger than any other part of this post. It basically spoils everything. You've been warned. Again.

Hally/Lissa

These are the first other Hybrids we're introduced to. I'm going to confess, I have a hard time differentiating these two. They seem very similar in personality to each other. But many real systems have headmates who are hard to distinguish from the outside.

The big thing I want to talk about with them though is just that their introduction is fantastic.

After trying to befriend Addie for a while, Hally lures Addie to their room.

Have I mentioned yet that I love how this book describes switching? Because I need to! 💖

I also love how Addie's immediate reaction is to run the other way.

This goes into the internalized pluralphobia I talked about before, and how it extends to people like themselves.

This, quite honestly, might be one of the worst ways to come out as a system. Sorry, a "hybrid." but Hally and Lissa both have a habit of barging into things and making messes of them. So just switching in front of them and letting Lissa introduce herself is very in-character for both girls.

It does seem like Lissa might be the more reckless of the two. But I suspect since many of the decisions are being made in their heads, one reason Lissa and Hally are hard to tell apart is because they have a close relationship and they'll take cues from the other.

I really like these characters, even in spite of having a hard time telling them apart.

Ryan/Devon

These are Hally and Lissa's older brothers. Ryan serves as the love interest for Eva. Devon is more reserved and less talkative than Ryan, which makes it hard to get a good read on his character for me.

In order to help Eva regain her mobility, the two use a drug that silences the dominant soul. It left Eva trapped in a paralyzed body without Addie, trying to regain her mobility.

Which seems... really extreme to me. The thought of being frontstuck in our head, unable to contact any headmates while the body is also paralyzed seems horrifying.

But during these sessions, Ryan is often there talking to Eva, helping her focus while trying to relearn how to move.

Kitty/Nina

As the plot unfolds, Addie and Eva are found out and taken to an institution. There, we're introduced to a number of new kids. One is Kitty, who Eva often describes as being fairy-like.

I don't get much of a read of the differences between the girls since there just isn't a lot of time with them, but I loved this scene:

Something this book captures amazing well is just the euphoria of being acknowledged as your own person after so long trapped in what feels like someone else's head or pretending to be someone else. It does this with Eva, with Nina, and with Cal.

Which brings us to...

Eli/Cal

Eli and Cal are different in a couple ways.

First, they're only eight. Two years before they were supposed to be taken. Their parents supposedly gave them up. Eli and Cal were unwanted due to being hybrids.

What's most interesting here is the experiments being done on them.

The doctors were playing God, and using the previously-mentioned drugs to lock away Eli, the dominant soul. But because Eli was the previous dominant before the experiments, Cal is forced to pretend to be Eli and go by Eli's name.

This is interesting to me because it's the only time in the book we have an instance of a headmate being frontstuck and essentially forced to mask as the host. (Using plural terms. The word "host" isn't in the book.)

Masking happens in other parts of the book, but not in the same way as when Cal is made to front and everyone is expected to act like he's Eli.

It's implied that Cal would be punished for going by his actual name, and that the other kids would be punished for calling him Cal.

Bridget

Yes, just Bridget. Bridget is a patient who truly believed she'd be cured, and discourages anyone from suggesting anything suspicious or bad was going on.

The identity of her recessive soul isn't revealed in this first book yet. But what we do see is someone who hates having another part of her, and would do anything to repress that other soul.

I mentioned Addie's internalized pluralphobia earlier, but we see this even more pronounced in Bridget in her few scenes.

Jaime

And this is where our story gets dark. Even darker than Cal and Eli's.

One of the later reveals in the story is that they've been experimenting on children to surgically remove their other halfs. (Wait... child gets locked up in a facility where people are experimenting on children to remove part of the soul? Is this The Golden Compass?)

How the surgery works isn't clearly explained.

But when we first meet Jaime, it's with him being dragged out on a gurney unconscious. Only later is the fate of the boy revealed. The next time he's shown, we see he's been left damaged. His other half has been cut from him, he's crying, his sentences are fragmented, he keeps uttering "he's gone," and the brain damage seems to be irreparable.

Oh, and of the kids who have undergone this procedure, Jaime is the only survivor.

A Fan Theory: I Don't Think The Souls Are Souls.

"Two souls" is a great way of selling the book to audiences. And it's not a bad shorthand to avoid having to explain how things work.

But this book doesn't involve spirituality or religion much beyond that. The closest it really gets is one line when Lyle, Addie and Eva's younger brother who settled, asks if he''ll get to be with Nathaniel (his other soul) when he died.

This isn't answered, by the way, which leaves me further wondering about the theology of this world. Maybe it will be covered in later books, but it feels like religion was intentionally omitted to avoid being too controversial.

Unlike His Dark Materials, the book is very grounded and the "soul" doesn't seem to be an objective spiritual thing. Personalities can be suppressed with drugs, and as we see with Jaime, you can even seemingly remove one of the "souls" through surgical means.

But of course, if this isn't spiritual, then how could something like this happen??? How could you have a world where everyone is just born with exactly two people in their head?

Isn't that a reach? Unbelievable?

Actually, I think there's a relatively simple neurological explanation.

Here's are the divisions of the human brain:

Wait... no. Wrong angle!

There we go! The brain is divided into two hemispheres, a left and right. Each has all the lobes of the other half. And both can perform largely the same functions. These two parts of the brain are connected by the Corpus Callosum in this totally accurate drawing:

I believe that the reason people are always born with two "souls" is because this is a universe where each hemisphere of the brain develops its own consciousness and sense of self separate from the other.

Perhaps the Corpus Callosum in the world of the Hybrid Chronicles works differently when you're a young child and allows each half of the brain to develop its own sense of self. (And, I imagine, that sense of self develops earlier.) And it might not do as well transmitting data relating to the sense of self between sides, resulting in dissociative barriers between them so they can mask their emotions from the other.

Maybe each side of the brain gains self-awareness separately from the other. Then the connection grows later allowing better communication but the identities each side created for themselves already exist.

And like imaginary friends can help improve socialization skills in children, perhaps hybrids would have a similar evolutionary advantage.

This type of split brain explanation could also explain why they're so good at parallel processing. Throughout the book, Addie and Eva are shown to have the ability to focus on completely different things without interfering with the others' thoughts, allowing one to drift away and think about problems while the other studies or focuses on some other task.

This is something I find hard to do as a system, as it seems the more processing power one headmate uses for a problem, the less that's left to be split around for the rest of the system.

But maybe Hybrids have fixed processing, where each has access to exactly half the brain's processing power at any given time. This would make sense in a splitbrain scenario, where each is based in a different hemisphere.

And there is a real procedure called a hemispherectomy where a hemisphere or part of a hemisphere is removed in extreme cases of epilepsy.

And it's totally survivable! Although this surgery is dangerous and has the best outcomes when a child is young.

What I believe is that the two souls are just located in separate hemispheres, which is why they can removed how they are in the book.

But remember, that's just a theory... A Plural Theory! 😁

Thanks for reading! 💖

The Plurality of... The Hybrid Chronicles: What's Left of Me

Over the past couple weeks, I've been listening to book one of The Hybrid Chronicles, What's Left of Me.

And it is AMAZING. Fantastic story with a fantastic narrator!

As always, expect huge spoilers ahead!

A World of Twin Souls

The Hybrid Chronicles takes place in an alternate reality where every person is born as two people. Each has their own name. Each has motor control of the body at different times and can switch who is in control. And they communicated with each other internally with mindvoices just like most systems.

This is how it is in the beginning, at least.

There's a recessive soul that usually fades away naturally though childhood. Usually around 4 or 5. Some take longer. If the recessive soul doesn't fade away, if they don't "settle", then the two become a Hybrid.

If a child reaches 10 and hasn't settled yet, they're sent away to nightmarish institutions.

The history the government gives explains that Hybrids are all terrible and chaotic. At some point in the history of The Americas (The whole supercontinent appears to have one centralized government in this universe) people rebelled against the Hybrid leadership, massacred the Hybrids, and took control of their new Hybrid-free nation.

The Americas became intensely xenophobic and trade was cutoff from the rest of the world.

The government of The Americas pushes constant anti-hybrid propaganda, showing the other nations as violent and destructive because of their hybrid leadership.

A weird note on names: One of the least believable things about this story to me is that parents give their children two names. It seems like it would make much more sense for them to just call each soul by the same name. Maybe with a number attached. For example, you might just have Addie 1 and Addie 2 instead of Eva and Addie. Then when the recessive soul fades away, it will feel less like your child just died. Because it seems really messed up that there's just a world where you're expected to name two children, knowing that one would be guaranteed death. (In real life, it's common for places with high infant mortality rates to not name their babies immediately.)

But then again, maybe some people tried that, and it just resulted in one of the souls choosing a different name for themselves anyway. And then if that soul with a different name settled as the dominant, then the parents get a child with a name they didn't choose. I suppose I could accept that headcanon. 🤷‍♀️

Eva and Addie

That brings us to the main characters. Our viewpoint character is Eva, a recessive soul who has lost motor control of the body. But she didn't fade away completely. She shares a head with Addie.

The two have to constantly hide who and what they are from the world, lying to everyone and saying that only Addie survived.

At the same time, Eva longs for nothing more than to be able to move her fingers again. To talk to people outside of their body.

The relationship between these two characters is the heart of What's Left of Me. The two are like sisters. They comfort each other when they're hurt or scared. They fight with each other. They fight for each other. And they are both willing to sacrifice for the other.

Addie has to wrestle between her desires to remain "normal," and to support Eva and let Eva be herself.

As a system, something I often hear come up from singlets is a question of why you would let someone take control of your body.

And I think this amazing bit of dialog when Addie and Eva find a way for Eva to regain her mobility encapsulates it perfectly.

When you care about someone, of course you would be willing to give up time for them. Even if it's hard sometimes to step away from the reins.

At its core, this book is about pluralphobia. In part, from a society that is openly hostile to plurals. But it's also about internalized pluralphobia. It's about Addie and Eva's self-hatred instilled into them by a world that refuses to accept them.

It's about their own struggle to be able to accept themselves.

This is such a poignant quote and it stuck with me more than anything else in the book.

So far, most of the excerpts from this are focused on the general premise of the book and the relationship of the protagonists. What I'm going to say next is more spoilery as it's from near the end of the book. If what I've mentioned already as enticed you to read it for yourself, this is a good place to stop...

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Acceptance

Through the story, Eva gradually regains motor controls and the two start to accept themselves more.

And I must say that it's an amazing journey. I love seeing Eva so excited to talk to people and even just move her fingers for the first time in years.

Every new milestone is so well-written. (And the narrator does an incredible job playing the characters in the audio book.)

And it all culminates in this exchange, with Eva in full control and no longer hiding, or ashamed to be who she is.

Proud. Determined. No longer afraid to be who she is.

Parallels to Real Pluralphobia

The ages of settling are interesting to me. If it's not done intentionally, it at least feels like a pretty big coincidence.

I recently mentioned my feelings about imaginary friends and the belief that many of them are sentient beings. Through that lens, you can see a lot of parallels.

An imaginary friend in childhood may be treated as if they're real by the rest of the family, just playing around. It's often seen as a normal thing. But as a child ages, imaginary friends are more stigmatized. Children are expected to outgrow them. And most will disappear.

Except when they don't...

And then having people in your head is suddenly treated as an illness. You're suffering psychotic hallucinations or a dissociative disorder. Much like with hybrids, you're treated as if you're "sick" or "broken."

And the age range of this is pretty close. Most imaginary friends fade away during early childhood. This is also when self-states are alleged to become fully integrated and why 10 is usually considered the maximum cutoff for the trauma that causes DID.

Stigma of plurals as "dangerous" is persistent through our media in the form of the evil alter trope, and through media that portrays malevolent psychotic hallucinations as self-conscious entities with their own identities and personality.

There's not some huge government conspiracy in real-life. But the connections are definitely there between the fear of hybrids in The Hybrid Chronicles and the pluralphobia and ableism plurals experience in the real world.

And with our country's history of ableism, even being forcefully shipped away to an institution for being plural would have been a real fear 50 years ago.

On mechanics of Manifestation Types and Emotion Influence...

Having compared the plurality of the book to real plurality and to imaginary friends, I should mention that the souls of the book are exclusively fronters. There are no inner worlds, nor do either Addie or Eva have external visualized mindforms.

And even when she lacks control, Eva seems to almost always be attuned to the body.

Another thing the book handled really well, I thought, was the sharing of emotions between the two and how they can both experience emotions from the other, while clearly identifying those emotions as belonging to the other soul.

And with this excerpt, I feel I should also give a shoutout to the unique formatting choice to denote their mind speech. Though, full disclosure: the audio book can be confusing sometimes when that formatting doesn't exist and you have to depend heavily on context clues to figure out if something was said in their head or through their mouth. Sometimes I didn't realize that something had been verbalized... or not verbalized... until a few sentences later.

Conclusion

What's Left of Me is a fantastic book exploring (whether intentional or not) plurality and pluralphobia in an alternate universe where everyone is born with two souls. It's such a great story, and the dynamic between Eda and Addie is handled amazingly.

Writing this felt weird. When doing The Plurality of… Batman (Failsafe), I was focusing on one character who happened to be plural and ignoring most of the story aside from what was relevant to that.

Likewise, The Plurality of… Skyward - Diones dealt with a single alien species. None of these really felt like I was writing a review of the whole work.

But with What's Left of Me, the plurality is so central to everything that it's practically unavoidable. It's seeped into every layer of the worldbuilding and the characters.

I still left a lot out. There are a bunch of hybrids in this book and a lot I could say about each of them. Maybe I will another time. I chose to only focus on Addie and Eva to keep this from getting too unfocused and avoid giving much more away than I needed to.

And that itself is a situation I haven't been in, where I feel like I need to omit a lot of the plurality in a story just because there's SO MUCH there.

It's a plural world where about half the characters are plurals.

And I only talked about the main two.

There is just too much plurality in this book to cover it all in a single post. So do check it out for yourselves.

And as always, thank you for your time. Have an amazing day! 💖