Ok, I canÂ’t stress this enough. GO READ THE CHRYSALIDS by John Wyndham!
Honest to god, all X-fans will love it: it’s the perfect marriage between Chris Claremont’s character/emotive introspective and John Hickman’s world-building! All in a short read of 199 pages, you’ll get through it in a day and my god will it get you.
So, spoiler alerts from here, you’ve been warned! (Because IÂ’m on mobile and I can’t format it properly!)
I think Hickman has actually borrowed a lot from Wyndham’s concepts. This isn’t a sin, of course, nothing’s new—but the attitudes displayed by the character from Sealand at the end of the book is identical to how Xavier conducts himself now. It’s ominous; a sense of piteous compassion tempered by ego. A superiority complex which David, our lead mutant, explores in a manner not unlike (classic) Scott Summers. He’s caring, but dutiful and ultimately swayed by the ideology with seemingly little question. However, it’s the recent extremes David experiences then and there that dictate how the reader might react to his reasoning—but ymmv and I digress:
The main theme of the Chrysalids seems to be community and how close one is within it in relation to their success. This is a theme I’ve seen carried over in the recent X-men and Excalibur. Wyndham, like Hickman, seems to like to delve into the concept of what makes up a society and the ideologies they thrive on—in fact, the end speech by the Sealand character at th end of the Chrysalids is, literally, what Hickman’s going for. How it’s only the like-minded that thrive together; the distance between people’s and how chaotic it is. I found, actually, that Wyndham’s writing acted as a challenge to Hickman’s (that is, from my perspective reading it) both in how it conducted itself solely from one character‘s point of view, but also in how it did a great job of illustrating what happens when people separate themselves to the extreme. “The one true image,” The right way to evolve” While David’s society was absolutely rigid in how it held this view, the Chrysalids, much like the X-Men currently might have been a bit hypocritical in how they commented to the contrary: what right did they have to dictate the ”right”way to evolve, more inclusive or not?
I suppose what both Hickman and Wyndham we’re trying to illustrate is that those faithful to their dogmas will never be swayed, so it’s best to just leave, but then, in Wyndham’s writing, we see it’s not so easy as that: every society is made up of individuals, those who question and face their own kind of punishments and persecutionÂ’s for it. Aunt Harriet was butchered for wanting to keep and protect her mutant child, while Rosalind’s mother was quick to help her escape. There’s even the friendship between David and Sophie, two completely different ‘kinds’ of mutants who are both so close and so ostracised from each other. That in itself felt like a really poignant parallel of the X-men and the morlock’s—different degrees of mutantdom and how both two people and two societies can view each other.
In fact, the Chrysalids almost read line a prequel to Krakoa. The Sealand native we met was a product of her own society; one that had it ingrained that those who weren’t telepathic automatically lived a “boring, stupid life,” a sentiment that can be easily inferred by the attitudes displayed by Apocalypse and Magneto. I actually wouldnÂ’t be surprised to find out Aocalypse founded the Chrysalid’s society! It’s that close in attitude.
So, yeah, I really do implore people to go and read the Chrysalids, if you havenÂ’t already, and come then come back and reflect on it in relation to DOX!