| Feb. 28th, 2008 @ 04:18 pm A geeky thought |
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Current Mood:  thoughtful
In James Alan Gardner's Explorer Corps series, each member of the Explorer Corps is drilled into acquiring one of three automatic responses to being surprised: some Explorers drop, roll, and rise in a fighting stance; some become utterly immobilized; and some (I believe) drop and crouch or cower. The idea is that, when Explorers are poking around in unknown planets, they have no idea what local predators are like, and what behavior constitutes a proper defense versus provocation of an attack, so you might as well try each technique and hope at least one person gets out alive.
Anyway. As you can imagine, Gardner uses the trained responses as a characterization technique. Festina Ramos, Our Heroine, is trained to the first response. She also has a tendency to seek out and/or attract conflict, and wades right into it. Youn Suu, the protagonist of Radiant (the latest novel in the series), is trained in the second response. Her personality, as well as the arc of her narrative, involves observing, deliberating, and coming to a conclusion, rather than fighting directly.
This isn't the only potential interpretation of the "freezing" response - someone who reacts that way could also become immobile and impotent, refusing to interact with the surroundings and letting things pass by without either engaging or learning about them.
I'm afraid that, at times, I react to surprise or conflict in this way - freezing rather than simply pausing, withdrawing rather than acting judiciously. I do try to move towards the latter, though - the Youn Suu response, I guess you could say. I want to be a deliberate, thoughtful person who takes considered actions. But sometimes I fall prey to weakness and just hide.
Just a thought I had. No real point to this besides that. |
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