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Originally Posted by RB
I thought the Gwen/Hazel character had a lot more depth than Mary did. |
Don't forget, though, that Mary only appears in one book whereas Gwen/Hazel has a long back-history - The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Space Family Stone, and I think she pops up at the end of Number of the Beast as well - so she's bound to be a bit more of a rounded character.
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Originally Posted by RB It finally dawned on me that Heinlein needed a porter for Tree-San. The way the story went in the first two parts, Richard and Gwen couldn’t carry Tree-San themselves and deal with the other calamities and obstacles. Otherwise, Bill struck me as superfluous and unbelievable |
Nice idea, but surely there must be more to Bill than just that - If Tree-san had been cut from the story, would Bill have vanished as well?
I think he's what I've come to think of as a
Heinlein Foil: someone fairly peripheral to the story, but with views that enable the main characters to "bounce" off them. Another example is
Duke in
SIASL, - there to argue against ideas espoused by the main characters, but not really necessary to the story,