#nick writes

So. We figure out who Grace is, why he is 12 light years away from Earth, what he has to do: he has to save Earth from a major extinction event by sacrificing his own life. The rest of his crew died while they were in comas for the voyage, so the entire fate of humanity is resting exclusively on his shoulders. This is where I kind of heaved a sigh. At least it's not a twelve year old saving the world, but it is a white American man. This plays into the white saviour trope stemming from colonialism in the 15th-16th century, wherein concepts such as humanity and civilisation are values inherently tied to whiteness, exclusively possessed by white societies and must be spread to "uncivilised" areas through colonialism. Overall its an ethno- and eurocentric way of thinking that views the image of the white man as cleaner, better, more educated, et ceatera. This bias remains present in Western society and therefore in our media as well, in the form of the aforementioned white saviour trope, which I had expected Project Hail Mary to unintentionally cater to.

In the case of Project Hail Mary, Grace must be the saviour of humanity by journeying through space. The book makes references to Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey, and you can see the general similarity in the premise of both stories: men are sent on a voyage further into space than ever before with varying certainties of return. While the men abroad the USSC Discovery know they will be placed into cyro-freeze and retrieved by another mission in the vague future, the crew of the Hail Mary have no such hopes. They are sent out into space at nearly light-speed with no fuel for a return trip. Hail Mary plays with the trope of the traveler changed by his journey by making return both figuratively and physically impossible for Grace. As readers, we assume he was aware of this when setting out.

The audience also assumes that Grace is on the Hail Mary mission because he volunteered. He is set up as feeling great responsibility for his students and the children of the world, so although we are not shown for a long time why he decided to volunteer for the Hail Mary, we assume that at some point he must have, since we are tied to his first person perspective and he assumes the same. We keep on waiting for some sort of eureka moment in his flashbacks when he realises what he must do and with newfound conviction pledges his life to save humanity. We find out that he was not the first choice for the mission's science specialist; he wasn't even the second. The book introduces Shapiro and Du Bois, and as the audience we know that they will either die before the launch or be incapacitated in such a way that Grace is forced to step up. Again, I was rolling my eyes here. Somehow, Grace had to be switched into Du Bois's place, changing the intended protagonist from a black man to a white one, and I thought somewhat begrudgingly that if the author acknowledges that it could have been Du Bois who saves Earth, then why not just write it as so? After all, all the accidents and consequences through the story are conscious choices by the author. Why does it need to be the white man who bravely steps up and declares that he will sacrifice his life? I felt that there were biases in the writing and in the choice to portray the white man as the brave, lonely hero who will die for the greater good in the far depths of space, alone, afraid, and without complaint.

The actual reveal of the circumstances that landed Grace on the Hail Mary is expertly teased and foreshadowed. We see from the start that Ryland Grace isn't a particularly courageous man. He leaves his academic field after his paper is badly received, he surrounds himself with students who are easy to impress and who idolise him, he doesn't seek out relationships or even friendships because he fears rejection. He throws up in zero g, is not used to space travel, he's queasy around the idea of self administered death and generally lacks the brave enthusiasm and commitment that other astronauts in his flashbacks are shown to have.

So when we find out that Grace is actually a sort of coward, it all falls into place. Stratt gives him the option of joining the Hail Mary mission after Shapiro and Du Bois die, and Grace presents an obviously weak excuse and it's painful to read because the eureka moment we were waiting for never comes. I was personally thinking "wait a second, this isn't how it's supposed to go". But it also makes sense, after all, Stratt is asking him to go die in space and he's a high school teacher.

Stratt is also set up as someone who always gets what she wants. She is legally exempt from any consequences; she could kill a man and she would be pardoned since pulling together the project that will save Earth is her responsibility. She is ruthless, but as a readers we think that Grace is safe from her decree; he's her right hand, and furthermore Captain Yao is adamant that no one be forced to join the mission. If Grace decides to go, it must be on his own. Up until the last moment, we expect Grace to experience sudden onset character growth, to stop when he reaches for the door-handle and to overcome his cowardice and to say "yes, I will go, I will die for Earth".

And it doesn't happen. At this point I was texting all my friends "i am gouing to throw up". It is revealed that Grace was only given the illusion of a choice. In hindsight, it makes sense; he was given no choice about joining the project to begin with or at any step in the process. Stratt was hoping that he would choose to join, but when he refuses it the carpet is immediately pulled from under his feet and it becomes apparent that he has had no agency at all since meeting her. He has been set up and manipulated to be the second backup for the role of the science specialist on board of the Hail Mary by being placed with Shapiro and Du Bois and learning to use space equipment under the guise of testing it. He was kept close to Stratt, so he would always be at hand. Even more terrifying, Stratt has a way to work around Yao's demands. She has Grace drugged so he forgets that he is on board involuntarily and he is heavily sedated until launch.

This is what I meant by saying that Grace's autonomy is entirely taken away. Thorough the entire book, he is dragged and ordered around by Stratt's men, and now he is drugged and forced into a coma. His violation goes to the extreme; not only is he not allowed to say no, he is also not allowed to Remember wanting to say no.

Overall, Grace is a really interesting character to me. He is faced with a situation where only he can do what must be done and instead of rising up to the challenge he pleads and begs for someone else to be chosen. The book completely and satisfyingly flips the white saviour trope on its head. The protagonist is so against the idea of self-sacrifice that he threatens to doom Earth by self-sabotage if he is sent into space. Grace is not a bad person, but he has accepted that other people will take care of the crisis, that other people must die and that is the way things must be. It reminds me of Omelas; it is impossible to walk away, so how do we each accept the world that we live in? Grace accepts that three people must be sent to die in space in order for the rest of the Earth to have a chance of survival, but he thinks of that sacrifice as something that unquestionably happens to others. This echoes the contemporary state of affairs more closely; Western society is upkept by Eastern and Southern labour. We are aware of this, but still benefit from it.

Ultimately, Grace rises to his task and manages to save humanity. He could even return to Earth, but he doesn't. That's the part I think about the most. The journey changes and improves Grace, to the point where he does choose to sacrifice himself in order to save Rocky and Erid. We can ask what happened to make him more willing to save an alien world than he was to save his own. He does have a real choice, he could return to Earth and experience no consequences for leaving Rocky behind. I think the reason is that Grace has changed, yes, but Earth has changes as well in his eyes. Earth violated him, and in way exiled him, ruling through the figure of Stratt that his life was expendable.

Ignoring it, Dean sets a bowlful of mac and cheese in front of his little brother, praying it will buy him time as he slips into the bathroom. The door clicks shut softly and Dean’s breathing picks up, heaving in lungful after lungful of air as he looks at himself in the mirror.

He’s got pigtails in his hair, little pink elastics holding the two clumps of hair on top of his head, the bottoms of the pigtails still brushing against his shoulders as he turns his head. His hair is blonde, just like his mom, but he looks in the mirror and he hates it, hates to see a juvenile reflection of his own mother staring back at him.

Walking away from the mirror, Dean sighs and sits down on top of the toilet lid, pretending for one minute that he’s not in some scummy motel room, but that he’s home, that he’s just brushing his teeth before his mom will come tuck him into bed. What would he do then?

His hands find the hem of the skirt he’s wearing, frayed from a year of constant wear. It was easier to have him in skirts all the time, Dean knew that, he was growing so fast that pants wouldn’t fit for more than a couple months. Dad was saving money with Dean, refusing to buy him a solid pair of jeans, but he bought Sam new pants every other month, so why was Dean any different?

Then Dean is tearing at the fabric, ripping a long slit in the skirt before finding another place along the hem and doing the same. This isn’t who he is, it never was, so why is his dad trying to make him something he’s not?

Back when his mom was still alive, when she’d tuck him in at night, she’d press a kiss to his forehead and tell him he was loved. She’d say, “I love you, Deanna. Sleep tight,” and close the door, nightlight flickering away in the corner. He hadn’t had an issue with his name then. He’d wake up in the morning and put on jeans and a t-shirt, run around the neighborhood, climb trees in the backyard. He’d come inside for a PB&J sandwich and his mom would press a kiss to his forehead, muttering softly, “My little tomboy,” before tending to Sam, whispering in turn to him, “My baby boy.” Why didn’t Dean ever get to be his mom’s baby boy?

Soon enough, Dean’s down on his hands and knees, frantically shuffling through the cabinet under the sink, hands digging through his father’s duffel bag. There had to be something there, anything Dean could use. His fingers brush against his dad’s electric shaving razor, grabbing at it as fast as he can.

Dean’s hair falls to the ground in clumps. First the ponytails, the little pink elastic still wrapped around the hair as it sits on the dirty tile floor, then little hairs as Dean runs the electric razor back and forth over his head. Looking in the mirror, a part of him hurts, the last bit of his mother lying on the floor with Dean’s hair, but something inside of him sings despite that hurt; he feels like he’s finally himself.

Sam’s still stuffing his face full of macaroni and cheese when Dean emerges from the bathroom, ignoring his brother to run to their shared room. His hands shuffle around under the bed before he grabs hold of Sam’s travel bag and pulls it into the light. He unzips it carefully, as if it holds some kind of treasure, because it does. Sam’s got two extra pair of jeans, and they’d be short and tight, but Dean could make them fit; he’d just have to steal some of his own sometime, maybe tomorrow if their dad still wasn’t back.

Dean feels like he can’t breathe in Sam’s little jeans, the bottom of them squeezing around his calf, but Sam says nothing as Dean walks back into the kitchen and takes a bowl of mac and cheese for himself. It’s not until they’re both finished with their dinner that Sam speaks at all, pushing his bowl towards Dean and smiling. “All done,” he says, barely taking a breath before adding, “Where’d your pigtails go?”

Swallowing thickly, Dean stands up, taking Sam’s bowl and ignoring the question. He didn’t know how to explain that he hated it, that every time his little brother pulled at his hair he wished he would pull it right off, and so he explains nothing.

“Deanna,” Sam giggles, his happiness contrasting Dean’s disgust, “Why’d you get rid of your pigtails?” God, the kid won’t just drop it, will he?

“Dean,” he snaps, all the anger leaving his body at once, “I’m Dean, Sammy, or at the very least, Dee. Not Deanna.”

The room instantly falls silent and Dean turns to look at Sam, worried he’s going to cry. Dean wasn’t supposed to snap at Sam like that, they both already got enough of it from their dad. Instead of tears, there’s curiosity welling in Sam’s eyes, his head tilted as he repeats it. “Dean,” he says, slowly at first, “Dean, why’d you get rid of your pigtails?”

That question again. Sam was fixated on it, clearly, because what was he supposed to pull on and play with now? The kid loved pulling Dean’s hair, and now that it was short, he wouldn’t be able to. “I didn’t like them,” is the best response Dean can come up with, the selfishness of it sinking into his bones. His brother liked his pigtails, and who was Dean to take that away from Sam?