How we cite our quotes: (Page)
Quote #7
I suspected that Ga was the same person on the inside but had a whole new exterior. I could respect that. But wouldn't the real change be, if a person was to go all the way, to get a knew inner life? (276)
A perceptive observation by the Interrogator, who is trying to figure out just how far Impostor Ga had to go to transform his identity. In fact, it is through Imposter Ga's inner life—his memories, thoughts, personality—that we link him back to the Jun Do for whom we no longer have official records in the story. Without any recollection of his name in the narrative of the second part of the book, Johnson is able to reveal this guy's true identity quite easily in this way.
Quote #8
Mongnan pulled him to her. "Your Captain fought back," she told him. "He resisted, he wouldn't let them take his identity. He died free." (297)
The Captain's attempt to escape Prison 33 reinforces what we know about his personality from Part One: he's not going to languish in prison again. With that decision made, he clings to that little bit of self-determination and refuses to allow starvation and exhaustion to rob him of his will. He dies a wretched death (at the hands of a compassionate Jun Do), but like Impostor Ga at the end, it's a death of his own choosing.
Quote #9
Every consciousness has an electrical signature, and the autopilot's algorithm learns to read that script...picture a pencil and an eraser engaged in a beautiful dance across the page. The pencil's tip bursts with expression... filling the page, as the eraser measures, takes note, follows in the pencil's footsteps, leaving only blankness in its wake. (316)
The Interrogator comments on the beauty and complexity of his form of physical torture, the autopilot. This machine does what the Pubyok can't do: it erases the personality of a subject without brutalizing that person externally. It's also what makes his work more insidious. While he's squeamish about broken bones and blood, the Interrogator is entranced by the idea of uprooting a person's inner life and replacing it with... nothing.