ok I was thinking about the infantilization thing and I invented a better version of project hail mary that exists in my mind. They play a lot of language quirk for comedy. "fist my bump" and in the book he actually says "fist me" trying to say "fist bump." also its hard to argue with "do puppet show." and like, the other thing is Rocky infantilizes Grace a LOT.
"Humans are so stupid for not being able to calculate orbital trajectories in their head. " Now, this is also played for comedy cus its fun to have an alien call you stupid. and I think there is the alloplatonic "friendly ribbing" going on, but also, if its infantilization, it isnt necessarily a criticism. I'd argue its terribly interesting. Two aliens who struggled to see each other as full people because they are so different. the best analog they have are kids. doesn't that cause a tension? that friction there is so interesting, even if they overcome it, they have to work for it. You could take this EVEN further and say that Grace was really good at relating to kids as a teacher, and very often plays the teacher with Rocky. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? It it just a thing?
then there's the other thing that's interesting. They know each others languages but only kind of. Of course they would use simper words with each other. You know what that's like? real life. People use simpler words and speak slower with nonfluent speakers. Even more, this is often something that those speakers are grateful for. I am always grateful when people use an effort to use simpler language or speak slower for me to understand. Often, I do the same too for people who don't speak English fluently. It's not inherently a bad thing. You could say "well then they aren't infantilizing each other, its just they are nonfluent speakers of each others languages." Which, sure, but the more interesting take, and if Weir had an ounce of self awareness and was more interesting writer, would be "Very often people speaking with nonfluent speakers infantilize them." which is true. It is something that everyone has to work to unlearn. You could make this book more interesting if you explored that context.
Anyways, I invented Project Hail Mary if it was A Memory Called Empire.
