Author commentary: Remember the fact that Sollux goes blind later on? Well, linking the two universes to red and blue, and therefore also to Sollux's eyes, means that his blindness carries a certain symbolism beyond just his being the hard-luck cast member walking the path of the blind prophet archetype. Losing his vision is a way of linking him to the destruction of both universes, or forecasting the event before it happens. Another, less obtuse way of putting it is that this is foreshadowing. Later Sollux is only half-blind, because due to an overexertion to save everyone he ends up half-dead. (Why yes, you're right, this is kind of a stupid fact, but whatever). Which matches up with the fact that later, due to the scratch resulting in the Alpha Kid timeline, the human universe appears to have renewed life. Note that this does not mean the scratch literally resurrected the big frog Jack murdered. It simply means the post-scratch timeline always existed within that frog somewhere, and when we view the Alpha Kids, we are witnessing moments that took place before the frog was killed. But I think we're too close to the end of the book to get bogged down in the mechanics of amphibious cosmology, so I'm gonna chill on all that.


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