I finished Garth Nix's "Shade's Children" the other day, and was struck by how much justice is incorporated into the storyline. The whole book is simply an elaborate case of revenge. The world goes through (cue dramatic music) "The Change", and lives are turned downside-up. Everyone over the age of fourteen disappears, and all the remaining children are herded into vans by creepy people with candy and facemasks. What's the first rule about strangers, kiddos? Anyways, the kids are used as, erm, parts for robots, but the "Shade", a man who exists in a computer, wants to stop that. So, he gathers a small misfit army of small children to fight several-hundred pound armed monsters and exact revenge. Great plan there, buddy.
So anyways, what can we taake away from this? Not to get into white unmarked vans? Yes. Not to trust multiple-personality electronic men? Definitely. But there's deeper meaning here. I think Nix meant to show us that we can't allow the world to be controlled fully. We need to keep a small bit of control, always, so that control can't be taken away from us. Delve anywhere in history, it's there. We make the same mistakes over and over again, leading up to wars, dictatorships, denial of rights, etc.
