Great discussion as always. In the discussion of which character could be Jesus it seems to me Diane is the only one who fits the bill. She sacrificed herself so that others could be saved. I actually don’t think any of the characters fit but it’s an interesting question.
IQ was often made a big deal of in the 70s and 80s. I don’t think it’s being used correctly by most people and I’m glad it’s out of favor as a measuring standard.
I am always interested in fiction that have serious questions about how culture should work. In this story Wolfe created a world that valued IQ and asks at what point does that measurement no longer matter? This last year I saw a great movie called Ad Astra that asked the same kind of questions about the engineering culture of NASA and how that would translate into human migration into space. It is a fascinating movie with a lot of sutb points, like a Wolfe story needs to be seen multiple times to be appreciated.
Oh wow, Ad Astra completely escaped my notice, but it looks like it was made specifically for me. I will have to check this out as soon as possible. And I remember IQ being a huge deal in the 80s. There was some standardized test we all took in third grade that, among other things, scored our IQs. And for a few weeks after the results of this test, our whole system of social strata was reorganized around those numbers as if by magic. I don't know if any adults really took notice, but thinking back on it now the whole thing feels very Lord of the Flies.
I like Diane as Jesus, especially if we think that her sacrifice was in some sense self-aware, that she knew what she was getting into at the end.