On Thursday, the Antichrist meets Anathema, and I don’t know where this is going. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to read Good Omens.
Thursday
I definitely didn’t expect an entire day devoted just to Adam Young. He is remarkably ordinary in a lot of ways, but you can tell that those close to him see something different in him. It’s more of a dynamic than any sort of expression of Antichrist power. He’s the leader of the neighborhood group of friends, called Them, but that’s pretty much the extent of his… well, Antichrist-ness.
Seriously, these kids are normal kids. They make up fantastical stories about people they don’t understand. (In this case, that’s Anathema, who just moved to the neighborhood.) They create elaborate real world fantasies, such as the beginning of the Spanish Inquisition (But Soon To Be British Inquisition Since That’s Where They All Live). There’s interrogation, torture, and victory, just like any good Inquisition, but it’s not evil at all.
The Antichrist is a perfectly normal kid in a perfectly normal household with perfectly normal friends and he has perfectly normal predicaments and fears. Like, he’s totally afraid of witches taking over and forcing the world to eat nothing but health food. That’s a pretty legitimate fear. The only real strangeness we see is from the hellhound, but even he is adjusting to suburban life as a dog rather well. He’s chasing rats, learning how to frighten cats, and is generally enjoying his very dog-like existence.
Things get interesting when Anathema and Adam actually talk. I wonder if she knows that Adam is the Antichrist. Did Agnes Nutter nicely predict the name of the Antichrist? Is this why Anathema invites him to her house? Or is this all yet another coincidence? I think it’s probably the latter. When Anathema realizes that she can’t see Adam’s aura, she doesn’t immediately start thinking that she’s speaking to the Prince of Darkness. But it sets things up for some sort of inevitable confrontation. She’s going to figure it out eventually. Is she a good witch? Are there such things? I don’t even know, honestly. But this is a pivotal moment in this story. Anathema has met the Antichrist, and as it says on the pages, a butterfly is emerging from this act.
And then the end of “Thursday” is just CONFUSING. In a good way, that is. The very same nuclear power plant that Adam had visited at one time in his life suffers from a bizarre incident of disappear power. It’s revealed that five hundred tons of uranium is missing from a reactor and in its place is a lemon drop. Which Adam was eating earlier. So… WHAT. WHAT. Is Adam doing Antichrist things without knowing he is? What the hell is going on?
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