The Thing About Alexandria’s Death, Right, Is That I’m Not Sure If It’s, Like, Possible? If Skitter

The thing about Alexandria’s death, right, is that I’m not sure if it’s, like, possible? If Skitter could literally have pulled that off given how their respective powers work, or whether you can justify Alexandria having lasted this long at all without someone pulling off something similar. It’s been a while since I’ve read Cell, and I should probably read it again.

 But I’m inclined to be charitable because of all the other levels on which it works very very well thematically. Skitter meeting (and killing) the woman she once looked up to the most, albeit at a distance and as a civilian. Skitter killing the personification of everything she’s come to hate about Authority, but then functionally taking her place as the person in authority strongarming and killing to advance the goal of saving the world. Skitter going apeshit because of how strongly Alexandria’s behavior maps onto the kind of person she hates most in the world, going apeshit because she believes her friends are being murdered, and at the end of the day, what else does she care about? Skitter consciously choosing not to rescind the kill order her bugs are carrying out before she passes out. On that note, the fact that Skitters bugs can operate independently of her, and that she’s abnormally difficult to read due to offloading her emotional reactions into her swarm, both coming back with a vengeance in a chekov’s gun kinda way. I like everything surrounding the killing! And I like everything that spills out from it. So if the killing itself does not work I Do Not See It.