Whatever Happened to Auntie Jane? (AEG spoilers)

Dave Tallman · 13 Nov 2008, 16:02 · from 2008-November.txt.gz

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From: davetallman at msn.com (Dave Tallman)
Date: Thu, 13 Nov 2008 09:02:55 -0700
Subject: (urth) Whatever Happened to Auntie Jane? (AEG spoilers)
Message-ID: <1bf4dd40811130802g564fa118u40dfad438d234db5 at mail.gmail.com>

There is direct evidence that Norma is Bill's ex -- she comes right out and
says it: "I used to be married to the volcano god. Did you know?" (p. 176).

Cassie misunderstands and asks "Vince?", and Norma chooses not to correct
her, but we can see that "volcano god" is not capitalized, so we know she
doesn't mean Vince. Reis wrote the play (p. 268) and no doubt intended the
Volcano God character to represent himself. Norma would know that.

Bill Reis was married twice before (p. 275). We can reconstruct that Norma
was Bill's first wife, not the one who accompanied him to Woldercan (p.
301). Their son Rian is sixteen (p. 276), the marriage only lasted two years
(p. 176), and Bill's appointment as ambassador to Woldercan only recently
ended, during the term of the current President (p. 19). It would also be
difficult to get much medical help for a child with a defective heart valve
(p.. 277) in a place so remote that even tampons are hard to get (p. 298).
"Nobody could cure him" (p. 26) implies lots of doctors, so we can assume
Rian was raised on Earth. The second wife may have died on Woldercan or
divorced him there and returned to Earth. In the picture where he announces
he will retire (p. 14), Reis seems to be alone.

In spite of Norma saying that there were no hard feelings (p. 176), she
still has negative things to say about Bill, "...what he really wanted
wasn't a wife, it was a servant who screwed." I think this assessment of his
relationships with women may be accurate. If his enemies are telling the
truth, he has blackmailed for sexual favors (p. 17). He condescends to
Cassie more than once: "Do you really think I want you, Cassie, for the same
reason I want Chase?" (p. 147) and "You're a trusting woman, and I love you
for it. That doesn't mean I'd put you in an executive position. I wouldn't.
It's not what you're cut out for" (p. 269). This is in contrast to Chase,
who is condescending as well but at least a bit respectful of her insights:
"You're not at all intellectual... but every so often you show the most
marvelous penetration" (p. 222). I may want to reassess my idea of Reis as a
Christ figure; he may be a false Christ.

Reis chose to have Norma in the play as Aunt Jane, and this may have been a
bit of spite. She has to sing a song about loving the Volcano God ("And how
I love his boiling lava..." p. 138). Hers is not a happy part -- Aunt Jane
is only supposed to smile once in the whole show (p. 131). Norma is
uncertain if she will be kept in the show for long (p. 178).

A whole new possibility opens up. We know that the ATF uses ex-spouses (p.
193). The sniper was set up on the roof of a building about three hundred
yards away (p. 180), which required advanced knowledge of the path the women
would take. It was Norma who got Cassie to walk with her that night (p. 175)
and she seemed to know the way better than Cassie, who said "Another darned
old alley!" (p. 178). Could Norma have been leading Cassie into an ambush
and gotten shot by mistake (or on purpose, betrayed by the ATF)?
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