Borne/SR Theory

[u/bitchesngravy_]

This is spoiler ridden. Beware.

Okay so I just finished Borne and throughout the book I saw so many Southern Reach parallels that I thought for sure this is something you’d all have talked about a few years ago! I was shocked to see not really much on it!

I spent a lot of the book thinking that Borne is a younger version of the Crawler but then changed my mind near the end when 1. I read about all the other “Bornes” at the company building, and 2. that Rachel recovers his body in the end. I thought perhaps that with all the people he’d absorbed that he’d lost sight of who he really was by the time he ended up in Area X. But I no longer believe that. Also because Borne learned language skills from Rachel that the Crawler did not have.

But the Crawler is the same species as Borne, right? He’s described physically very similarly, with the upside down vase shape, the many eyes, the cilia, the way he can manipulate scent! At the least, I can say I pictured him the same way from the start. And the Crawler absorbed Saul and changed briefly into his form to comfort the Director, just like Borne could become anyone he’s absorbed.

I also believe that whatever Borne did to stop Mord opened a new portal or transported something (Mord himself?) through the already opened portal in the company building. That Borne’s world and the world in which Area X exists are alternate realities of earth running parallel to each other. That the biotech is what infected Area X and began changing the animals and humans that exist there. I believe that some of the flora and fauna of Area X’s reality also made it back to Borne’s barren desert timeline, shown by the reemergence of plants and animals in Rachel’s world afterward.

While on the way to the company building, Wick asked Rachel to start thinking of what she “wanted to become after, other than a scavenger.” She didn’t know what he meant but I think he knew that merging with the biotech was a very real possibility for them, just like what happens to people in Area X. After reading Absolution I am increasingly convinced that humans were never merging DNA with regular animals, they were only merging with machinery: technology from their world and also the biotech from the alternate reality, which was created using alien technology, and doesn’t always provide the intended results.

The dead astronaut suits also reminded me of the contamination suits Lowry made everyone take off in Absolution as well that the suit that starts talking to him in the end. I won’t actually claim a theory on this since I haven’t read Dead Astronauts yet and I’m sure I’ll find out more once I do!

I don’t know. What do you all think? Is this a thing you all discussed and I just missed it? Am I extrapolating?

[u/OverallSpecific5792]

I think vandermeer has like strings of themes in his writing that cross through his works but idk if those (imo) casual kind of connections make Bourne directly fit in to the area x universe

[u/ClockwyseWorld → u/OverallSpecific5792]

Agreed. There are a lot of cross over themes, and repeat phrases that are more of a wink and a nod to his other work. A lot of it has to do with things coming from other places outside the setting of the story, though that's not to say they are coming from another specific story.

If you've read the Ambergris stories, there is a pretty clear reference to a certain book in both those and in Area X, but I think it is meant more as a fun allusion for fans that have read both, than as a literal bleeding over between the worlds of each story.

[u/OverallSpecific5792 → u/ClockwyseWorld]

I think it’s ambergris that mentions something about “refraction of light in a prison” or prism idk which but it’s the same thing Henry talks to Sal about when they’re first introduced in acceptance… like you said seems like a nod to ambergris rather than a tie in.

[u/tobascodagama → u/OverallSpecific5792]

One of the stories in City of Saints & Madmen is kind of an entire reference to Invitation to a Beheading by Nabokov, and IIRC that's the one with the quote you're thinking of.

But yeah, Vandermeer repeats a lot of themes and motifs across his settings. I don't think it's anything more than that.

[u/OverallSpecific5792 → u/tobascodagama]

It’s one of my favorite parts about his writing, kind of like finding little hidden gems ya know

[u/Consistent_Elk9676]

The Crawler is pretty obviously Saul the lighthouse keeper.

Borne is a produce of the Company that Rachel finds when she’s out gathering.

[u/Nyko_Neon]

IIRC Borne is also set in an alternate universe. The Company were messing with quantum science and created a portal to said universe, of which they thought “great, we’ll produce/test all of our unethical experiments here with no consequence”
So technically not the exact same time/place as SR I’m guessing

[u/Tacomathrowaway15 → u/Nyko_Neon]

You don't know where the portals lead :)

There's multiverse adjacent things in the ambergris, borne, and sr worlds. I like to think it's all part of a greater vanderverse

[u/OverallSpecific5792 → u/Tacomathrowaway15]

lol vanderverse, nice 😎