BtS: Axiom of Infinity

Chapter 21 is called “Infinity” for a few reasons, but the main one is that I consider this chapter to be the first time that you the readers really get to meet the main character of this series. That’s a pretty wild thing for me to say here, and you probably weren’t thinking about it like that before I said it. So why do I have that opinion?

Let’s back up a step and talk about how we got to this point. I make very heavy use of lies of omission in this book. It is heavily designed to present you with information that seems to clearly indicate one thing, but actually indicates something else with a little more context. It tells you it is doing this, but I’d be surprised if anyone catches it.

The sequence where Bea warns Infinity about manipulation is there for a couple of reasons, but one of them is to point out that manipulation to the reader. Another instance occurs even earlier, when we see this same sort of thing being used against Valera. There we get to watch Infinity realize the truth after The Adversary nudges him in the right direction, but this scene is also designed to clue in the reader that your perception of things can be manipulated by what isn’t said.

One of those things is the name of the book. The word “Souleater” has certain connotations, and I lead you to believe that it’s because Infinity is eating the souls of monsters. Then Infinity realizes that, no, in fact she’s eating spirits using her soul-space. It’s a fun pun! Except both are true. Infinity did eat a soul, Tavi’s soul. I actually get three uses out of this one because Infinity gets the title from eating the Reality Seed, something we later learn is like a soul.

The process of “digesting” Tavi has taken Infinity from the opening scenes to the moment of crisis shown in this chapter. It has been an uncomfortable experience (as digestion sometimes is). I don’t explain here how this works or why Infinity was able to do this, but there are hints scattered about, and we’ll get the full story eventually.

What it means for the character going forward is a significant reduction in internal conflict. That is in fact what eating a soul entails: Somehow managing to incorporate the entire idea of a different person into your own identity. Internal conflict IS the digestion process. What was once two separate people who’s entire identities were in conflict with each other has now become a single person who is the sum of those two people. This is why, among other things, Infinity is once again able to see women as attractive.

This is also part of why it was important to the plot to have both a gender and orientation flip. It let me demonstrate the conflict happening inside Infinity’s very identity in an extremely visible way yet hide what was going on in plain sight. It was “obvious” why Infinity was having issues with gender identity, and I presented you with not one but two potentially valid reasons why their orientation had changed (physical and spiritual). I’m pretty sure basically everyone takes all this at face value, and it makes me very happy.

Two of my beta readers are trans, and it was fascinating to see their different takes on this. One heavily related to it, saying it mirrored a lot of their experiences. The other was very uncomfortable with it until reading this chapter, because of the implication that gender and orientation are tied to sex instead of our identity as a person. I try not to describe Infinity as trans specifically because of this scene. She does go through many of the same things a trans person does, but she can’t rightly be called trans. Pangender is probably most accurate. Going forward Infinity will typically identify as whatever gender her current body is presenting as, just out of convenience.

In the past I’ve referred to this sequence as speedrunning puberty because the sequence is intended to mirror what that feels like for a lot of people. It hits differently for queer audiences, but I think everyone can relate to some degree. The parallel is there because both of them are ultimately about discovering who you are after your identity is altered by an intrusive force. You come out of puberty a different person than how you went in, and that can be for good or ill, but it’s almost always hard. When it’s over you can still see the place you came from, but you can’t go back even if you want to.

So, now you know a good bit about what I was thinking with all this. There are a few loose ends, obviously. Some things happen in this scene that have no clear explanation. We’re left wondering how much of it was Infinity’s fragile sanity buckling under the pressure, and how much was real. Infinity rather abruptly stops thinking about it, but the hints are there, and there will be more in the future.

I’ll be looking forward to hearing what people think about all this. In particular I’m really interested in hearing from people that didn’t like either the gender bender or orientation change. I’m really curious if either the chapter or this explanation changed how they feel about it. I haven’t given all of my reasons for these things, some are still spoilers, but this is the core of it. I’m not really expecting anyone to turn around and outright like the gender bender aspects if they didn’t previously - but I am hoping they’ll understand and agree with my decision to include them.

As always, thanks for reading.