2021.11.18 更新

When I first started reading the book, I thought that the antagonists were just bad people. However, the author dove deep into the past of some of the antagonists, and I realized that the antagonists were only acting on their rage. A big theme in this book is forbearance and redemption. However, people can not just do bad things and expect others to forbear their actions. When I started reading more of this book, I saw that the antagonist’s parents were the people responsible for their actions. As the parents just neglected the antagonists and expected that their children would understand. However, this was the cause of the antagonists’ motivation, as they did not forgive their parents.
This leads to the second theme, redemption. What I was wondering while reading this book was what redemption means. Does redemption just have to be a change of heart? Does the character need to right their wrongs if they want redemption? Does trying to right wrongs count as redemption?
The good thing about this book is that redemptions happened on both the protagonists’ side and the antagonists’ side. Note that I used “protagonist” and “antagonist'' and not “hero” and “villain”. In this book, I do not think that there was a clear side of right and wrong. In the end, the antagonists realized that it was not right to hurt people just because they were mad. Thus, the main antagonist sacrificed himself to save humanity. Similarly, the protagonist realized that their neglectance of the antagonist was what caused them to turn evil. Thus, the protagonists resolved to right their wrongs, even though most of the antagonists were dead. The story ends with both the protagonists and antagonists doing some kind of redemption.
I like how this book puts more emphasis on conflict than determining right and bad. In real life, there is often no right or wrong, good or bad. What people can do is try to spot their wrongs, and try to fix them. Wrongs are sometimes like an avalanche, they bring unexpected consequences to others’ lives. When people’s lives are harmed, redemption can be hard and sometimes useless. Thus, from reading this book, I learned that it is important to put oneself into others’ shoes, as it is only when one understands others that one can prevent the “cause and effect'' problem from happening.