Little A is such a nasty little freak, and I love that for him! But he’s not a big listener. After everything he’s heard from the hybrids he keeps wondering what his uncle would do yet it doesn’t look like his uncle would do anything except allow ‘the centre’ to do their thing.
From what we’ve heard, Mr A (I know I should call him A but using the title helps me differentiate him from Little A with more ease) took in unwanted hybrids rounded up as part of the human-livestock project (HLP) to work on his farm. NPC claims that A was the visionary behind HLP, but that doesn’t match what we’ve heard so far. Little A has a notebook that supposedly belonged to Mr A however the farmhands hint that A ran away.
When explaining how he got to Mr A’s Farm, M says he and the other hybrids were grateful to do ordinary farm work instead of being treated as animals. It sounds like the hybrids at this farm were treated far better than the hybrids sent to some other farms, but because we’re yet to see Mr A directly, we don’t really know his true actions and opinions.
Though M, a dairy cow hybrid, relays his experience in wanting to give back and produce milk for HLP, he was met with an apology from Mr A. I keep thinking of this scenario because M does initially consider Mr A is sorry that M is becoming more like a cow and less like a human in his “beast-like behaviour” but seems to take it more as an apology for having to deal with G, the researcher. Yet Mr A is the one who suggested M speaks to G in the first place. G may have been sent by The Centre but his role appears to be nothing more than interfering with the animalistic sides and functions of the hybrids (totally different motivations to NPC who… well, he’s a weird one, let’s just say that).
G is someone we already see to be an adversary of sorts, especially with his liberal use of mysterious injections that we’ve only seen K the chicken willingly take, yet we don’t have evidence that Mr A disagrees with him at all. In fact, a few of the hybrids even tell Little A their suspicions about Mr A not liking them, or at least not looking at them and knowing they weren’t fully human. Would a man who pities a dairy cow who wants to produce milk, or a man who ensures his employees’ uniforms mask their true nature, be at the forefront of the HLP? I can’t say I believe that to be the case.
Fluffy, the very interesting looking dog who guards the farm, is a mystery I hope we see unpicked soon. We’ve heard that Fluffy followed Mr A around but because the farmer has disappeared we don’t know how he actually treated Fluffy. I believe that knowing how Mr A treated Fluffy is key to understanding Mr A’s views on hybrids overall.
We hear that Fluffy is loyal by nature and we see that he is protective of the hybrids on the farm. Looking at Fluffy’s behaviour, mostly consisting of throwing people about in the direction of problems to get them to sort things out, we can guess certain things but we currently cannot know for sure. Is fluffy getting Little A to stop G because that is what Mr A would have done, or is that what Fluffy wishes Mr A had done and those days trailing Little A gave him hope?
Again, I think it is necessary to look at what other characters are saying. The other hybrids knew that their existence made Mr A uncomfortable. G has been speaking to Fluffy this entire time as though he doesn’t expect any pushback on his requests to restrain/manhandle the other hybrids — and this is something I’m holding in quite high regard. It stands to chance that G essentially had free rein on the farm even when Mr A was present. If that was the case, Fluffy may well have followe all those orders because it is what Mr A wanted from him. And now here comes Little A who thinks these hybrids are really cool and he thinks of them as having a sense of dignity even in the inhuman sense.
Of course, it has been years and years since Little A saw his uncle. Farm work is just a lot of fun for Little A at this stage and he’d like to work under his uncle if he gets the chance. That being said, who knows whether an arrangement like that would work out. The text has so far shown us that Mr A and Little A’s perspectives on hybrids don’t align. There is only one instance which makes me think this was not always the case but even that feels too flimsy to put much stock in it.
Why is it that K, when going through the pain of laying eggs, calls out for A? What is it about Mr A who allowed The Centre to take K’s eggs, who is uncomfortable with hybrids, who seems disgusted by the almost maternal instincts brought about by hybridism, that makes K call out to him in a time of need? Is he calling out to a man who at one point viewed hybrids with dignity in their mutated forms? Or is he calling for help from the point of authority on the farm who should do something regardless of his personal views? For now it is impossible to say, but it is something worth thinking about.
Regardless of Mr A’s past and current views, I think we can safely say he would not be approaching any situation the same way as Little A — especially not with so much gusto. For now Little A keeps on wondering what his uncle would do, but do you think there will be a point where he finds he’d have a better solution than Mr A’s approach?
Leave a comment