How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
Tool blinked once, slowly. "Richard Lopez had many half-men, well armed. I do not lunge into battles that cannot be won."
Knot and Vine curled their lips at Tool's answer and growled guttural contempt. Tool didn't flinch, just looked at the pair. (19.26-27)
There's tension between unthinking violence and calculated risk. Tool views his intelligence as more valuable than his genetic tendencies toward violence, but Knot and Vine, two other half-men, scorn him for viewing his survival as more important than the honor of battle. Which point of view is right, and why do you think this?
Quote #8
Pole Star was a trading vessel but also a warship, accustomed to fighting Siberian and Inuit pirates as it made the icy Pole Run to Nippon. The pirates were bitter enemies of the trading fleets and perfectly willing to kill or sink an entire cargo as revenge for the drowning of their own ancestral lands. (20.5)
Violence permeates the entire society in Ship Breaker, and if characters aren't initially violent, they often have to respond to violence with violence. But there are also more abstract references to violence as a justified means to an end. The pirates use violence to extract revenge on the people who destroyed their homes. In fact, because destruction is more important than goods or cargo, we have to wonder what the story is behind the enmity.
Quote #9
"Don't worry about a killing blow and don't go for the head. It will extend you. Go low and hit them in the belly, the knees, behind the legs. If they're down…"
"Cut their throat."
"Good boy! Bloodthirsty little bastard, aren't you?" (20.60-62)
Captain Candless is giving Nailer tips about how to handle himself in the battle to come. The captain is rather flippant about taking human life, praising Nailer for the method of killing almost as one would praise a dog. And it's clear that despite the differences in social level—swank and ship breaker—the two classes can share the same disregard for human life. This makes Nailer's moral reactions against violence all the more important.