The Mysterious Benedict Society Manipulation Quotes

Okay, that's just creepy. We've kind of come to terms with the fact that yeah, advertisers and politicians and lobbyists and corporations are sending us messages all the time. But we can tune them out, right? We can turn off our TVs, unplug from our screens, and go outside and listen to the birds, who (as far as we know) aren't trying to sell us anything. But this idea, that hidden messages could be transmitted through the air, like radio waves aimed at our minds… yikes.

What Mr. C calls The Improvement, we call The End of the World As We Know It (and we don't feel particularly fine about it). But regardless of how we feel, we have to give him props for his naming skills. Like so many things in this book, his titles (The Emergency, The Improvement, The Learning Institute for the Very Enlightened) remind of us stuff in our real, non-fictionalized world.

Like what? Well, take a look at this list of bills that have been considered in the U.S. Senate, and then check out some of the bills introduced in the House. Hmm… what do you think? Has Mr. Curtain been helping the U.S. Congress with its naming strategies? What purpose do these names serve? Think about it, then go ahead: talk amongst yourselves.

This particular instance of manipulation is a bit more overt than Mr. Curtain's campaign of messages, because in this case he's actually erased people's memories and more or less reprogrammed them. And he did it by physically restraining them and sticking them in the Whisperer against their will, so it wasn't exactly subtle. Or subliminal. But the end result is the same, right? He's got a bunch of people doing his bidding without question, which is the aim of the hidden messages, too.

So our question to you is: Does the method matter? Are both of these forms of manipulation equally bad, or is one way worse than the other?