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by lmm
735 days ago
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> She learns the Chinese general's phone number from a memory of the future and then calls him. Didn't she do something like this in the short story as well? The part where she learns the non-zero-sum phrase? > In the movie it wouldn't have made sense for her to see her daughter die in an accident and then not act on that information at all It didn't make sense in the story either. I remember being infuriated. |
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> and on my first read, I thought [Story of My Life] was downright mediocre—it seemed like some formal experimentation ... wrapped around an unnecessarily confusing plot & second-rate physics mumbo-jumbo in the service of a heavy-handed point. On my second read years later, having read some more about related topics in physics & philosophy since, I realized that I (along with almost everyone else who read it, judging from online discussions & reviews of the story and Arrival) might have been badly mistaken and that the plot was deliberately open to misreading and the physics mumbo-jumbo was in fact the whole point and the formal structure nicely reflected that.
> Didn't she do something like this in the short story as well? The part where she learns the non-zero-sum phrase?
If you carefully read the section, she learns the "non-zero-sum" phrase before having her daughter. The flashforward where she uses the "non-zero-sum" phrase is just her recalling the memory - no precognition required.
> “Mom, what do you call it when both sides can win?” I’ll look up from my computer and the paper I’ll be writing. “What, you mean a win-win situation?” … “I’m sorry, I don’t know it either. Why don’t you call your dad?”…A representative from the State Department named Hossner had the job of briefing the U.S scientists on our agenda with the heptapods. We sat in the video-conference room, listening to him lecture…“You mean it’s a non-zero-sum game?” Gary said in mock incredulity. “Oh my gosh.”…“A non-zero-sum game.” “What?” You’ll reverse course, heading back from your bedroom. “When both sides can win: I just remembered, it’s called a non-zero-sum game”