Except… is he?

This story centers around, as I said, a mongoose who is taken in by a very nice family and proceeds to repeatedly save them from a pair of cobras, Nag and Nagaina, and their kid, Karait. Helping him out are Darzee the tailorbird, the obnoxious singing guy who wants his kids to be protected from Nag; Darzee’s wife, the smart one; and Chuchundra, a cowardly muskrat who gives Rikki advice. With their help, Rikki kills Karait, kills Nag, breaks Nag and Nagaina’s eggs, and kills Nagaina, keeping the family safe. However, this doesn’t automatically make Rikki heroic.

At the beginning of this story, Nag poses an interesting question: “You eat eggs. Why should not I eat birds?” Of course, this is just a setup to lure Rikki into letting his guard down and engaging in conversation so that Nagaina can attack him from behind. Still, it calls into question everything about Rikki’s heroism.

I mean, think about it. Rikki isn’t protecting Darzee because he has care and respect for all Earth’s creatures. It’s because the mongoose and the snake are natural enemies, and they would’ve ended up fighting even if Darzee weren’t involved. Same with Teddy and his family - the only reason Rikki is protecting them is for the reason I just mentioned and because it gives Rikki a whole new environment to explore. If mongeese and humans or mongeese and birds were natural enemies, Rikki would’ve just as easily turned on Darzee’s family and Teddy’s family. In short, he’s not helping Darzee and Teddy because they’re sweet and kind (although they are), and he’s not fighting Nag, Nagaina, and Karait because they’re malicious and evil (which may not even be the case). If their personalities had been reversed, he still would’ve fought Nag, Nagaina, and Karait, because it’s just what mongeese do.

The ending of the book describes what happens afterwards - Rikki keeps protecting the garden from snakes, and everyone lives happily ever after. However, it doesn’t describe what happens with Darzee, and, given what I already know about mongeese from this book, I have a guess.

Here goes: Darzee’s descendants, some of whom were devoured by Nag and Nagaina but some of whom survived, grow up and lay eggs, and Rikki eats them. Because, even though he appeared to be friends with Darzee and it was assumed that he would respect his descendents, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi eats eggs. Mongeese eat eggs, so Rikki eats eggs, too.

In conclusion, WHY ARE THE KEYSTONE TESTS EVEN A THING???? WHY DO THEY EXIST? Is it purely to torment students? I’m 94% sure it’s purely to torment students.

I feel like it’s a requirement at this point for literally every young adult book written to include a romantic subplot. In kids’ books, it literally never happens. In adults’ books, it usually happens, but there are exceptions. But in young adult books? It’s like publishers won’t even consider them unless there’s a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship.

It actually makes me kind of worried for the generation of young adults in this decade - like all we can think about is love. Kind of like how the Vikings were totally war-obsessed, and they needed something to justify that, so basically every Norse god was a god of war. We needed something to justify our desperate need of romance, so basically every young adult book is a love story.

But what is my point? you may be demanding of the computer you may be reading this on. (Give it up. I don’t live in the computer, and it certainly won’t respond on its own.) (Unless you have Alexa or Cortana or whatever the newest Siri is. Then maybe.) Luckily, I’m choosing to cover all my bases. I actually didn’t start this rant with a point in mind, but, since I don’t want to have to delete all that writing, I have arrived at the conclusion that my point is: ‘Send’ would’ve been much, much better without any romance, most of which I believe is the fault of Julie.

She’s not necessarily a bad character - or at least, she wouldn’t be. However, she’s very erratic, and her opinion of Daniel is constantly changing based on seemingly nothing at all. As I’ve covered before, she hates him at the beginning of the book because he caused her brother to commit suicide. Then, when she sees him helping out a little girl and her mother, she instantly falls in love with him like the star-struck, obsessive, idiotic girl that she his. The book tries to address this in some capacity when Daniel has a conversation with his mother. She explains that teenage girls are often quite erratic and that Daniel shouldn’t let this scare him off. However, being ‘erratic’ is no excuse for FORGIVING THE BOY WHO PRETTY MUCH KILLED YOUR BROTHER WHOM YOU LOVED.

At the end of the book, Julie tells her father that Liam, her brother, would be ashamed of him. She’s… right, but not fully right. While Liam would be very ashamed of their father, he’d be even more ashamed of Julie. As inexplicably great of a person as Daniel may be, Julie, you really shouldn’t get into an intimate relationship with him after watching him do one good thing for one person, especially if you were previously enraged with him. While Daniel may not have deserved his punishment, he also doesn’t deserve someone as seemingly awesome as you.

And it’s not like there’s no ‘Send’ without Julie. In fact, you could still keep Julie in as a friend instead of a lover and have the exact same plot, except without all the awkward sexual tension that I believe ruins the book. Julie and Daniel still team up to help save Brandon from killing himself and his bully, she still helps talk her father down from killing Daniel, and the story doesn’t feel quite as overblown. Kenny can still be in love with Julie, but, by the end of the book, Daniel can help him realize how stupid that is.

I don’t know. To me, it definitely seems like a better story, prioritizing the things that actually seem like priorities. Instead of ‘a book about love with a dash of important issues’, it becomes ‘a book about important issues with a friendship that helps address these important issues’.

Maybe I’m taking all this too seriously. Maybe ‘Send’ is just a love story for the sake of being a love story, some mindless entertainment that doesn’t try too hard to convince you of its point. But I don’t think you should be allowed to put depression and suicide in a mindless entertainment in a book. It trivializes their importance and makes them seem secondary to some basic boy-meets-girl plot when they’re 143% not.

In conclusion, I AM TOTALLY FED UP WITH ROMANCE, IN BOOKS AND OUTSIDE OF THEM. SERIOUSLY, FELLOW TEENS, DO SOMETHING WITH YOUR LIVES INSTEAD OF CONSTANTLY THINKING ABOUT LOVE…

It was at this point in writing the script that I realized that I was being a complete hypocrite, since I wrote it while listening to the Guardians of the Galaxy soundtrack, which is almost all love songs. WHATEVER. THEY’RE STILL GOOD SONGS. WHO CARES IF THEY MAKE ME A HYPOCRITE?!?!?!?

Probably everyone.

I’m going to end this response before I contradict myself even more.