<style>
table, th, td {
border: 1px solid;
}
</style>
<h1>Gregor the Overlander Annotations</h1>
<h2>Blurb:</h2>
<blurb>When
eleven-year-old Gregor<br/>follows his
little sister through a grate in the<br/>laundry room of their New York
apartment<br/>building, he hurtles into the dark Underland beneath
the<br/>City. There, humans live uneasily beside giant spiders,<br/>bats,
cockroaches, and rats -- but the fragile peace is about<br/>to fall
apart.<br/>Gregor wants no part of a conflict. He just wants to<br/>find his
way home. But when he discoveres that a prophecy<br/>foretells a role for
him in the Underland's future, he realizes<br/>it might be the only way to
solve the biggest mystery of his<br/>life. Little does he know his quest
will change him -- and<br/>the Underland -- forever<br/><hr/></blurb>
<h2>Part 1: The Fall</h2>
<h3>Chapter 1:</h3>
<table>
<tr>
<td>Page </td>
<td>Comment</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Page 1</td>
<td>Suzanne Collins uses an extended metaphour of Gregor being a caveman
here. Could this allude to how he sees the Underlanders as prehistoric and
is embarrased by Vikus later on? Or perhaps just his teenage instinctual
actions?</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Page 2</td>
<td>Gregor is repulsed by rats - foreshadowing at the Gnawers being the
main antagonists</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Page 4, Line 9</td>
<td>"Golden Glow" - Aliteration</td>
<tr>
<tr>
<td>Page 6</td>
<td>Foreshadowing to Gregor falling down the laundry shoot, and how he is
later in the series exited to go to the underland</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Page 7, Line 2</td>
<td>Is this a JoJo's reference?</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Page 9, Line 6</td>
<td>This metaphour of music taking him to "Another world altogether" is
foreshadowing of The Underland</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Page 10-11</td>
<td>Gregor and Luxa both deal with missing/dead parents in the same way by
being strict on themselves and not allowing themselves to be happy</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Page 12, Line 6</td>
<td>Cliffhanger ending</td>
</tr>
</table>
<h3>Chapter 2:</h3>
<table>
<tr>
<td>Page </td>
<td>Comment</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Page 16, Line 7</td>
<td>Gregor falls for longer than 70 seconds, as we see he counts 70
seconds. If we assume Gregor's weight at 50kg, as is is said to be quite light
and the density of air is 1.225 kg/m<sup>3</sup>, we also know his clothes
are "ballooned" so he is likely falling vertically so his cross sectional
surface area would be about 0.1 m<sup>2</sup>, we know he has been falling
for quite a bit so has already reached terminal velocity (would this be
differnt due to the vapours?). Finally we can estimate a drag coefficient
of 0.7 as he is falling feet first, using the equation Terminal Vel =
sqrt((2 * mass * gravity) / (air density * area * drag ce)) we get a
terminal velocity of 106.9408 m/s or 350.8513 ft/s (if the vapours have not yet taken affect of
slowing his fall yet (he later describes the vapours begining to take affect)) so then if we multiply this by 70 we find that he
has fallen approximatley 7486 metres during this 70 second period, however
repeating this for a 3 minute period (estimated) we get 16041 metres
fallen which is 16 km (10 miles) which would fit up with Gregors later
description of the Underland being "miles beneath the city of New York" in
the second book. The maths checks out!
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Page 16, Line 24</td>
<td>Could running towards the light at the end of a tunnel be an Islamic reference?</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Page 18, Line 10</td>
<td>The Crawlers are already shown to have a liking to Boots</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Page 24, Line 4</td>
<td><img src="/theunderland/images/wingspanmaths.png" width="400"/><br/>15' is around 4.5 Metres and that's the smallest bat so the largest
likely go up to 20' (6 Metres). Using the image of a Flier from the Marks
of Secret cover we estimate (using Luxa's torso height as 1 m) that the
wings (to the edge of the image) are about 7.05 Metres (using pythagoras) so the whole wingspan, including ~1 m for
the back of the flier is about 15.1 Metres, then we add on about 4 metres
for the part of the wing that is cut off and get about 19.1 Metres +- 3
Metres range for inaccuracy. The maths checks out! (especially since Ares
is meant to be a big bat)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Page 26</td>
<td>Gregor initially does not like Luxa, he judged her book by her cover
(rookie mistake)</td>
</tr>
</table>
<h3>Chapter 3</h3>
<table>
<tr>
<td>Page </td>
<td>Comment</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Page 27-28</td>
<td>For somebody to be so transparent you can see their veins and organs
is ridiculous with only 400 years of evolution and likewise for purple
eyes, I think it is most likely these are genetic mutations inherited from
the original underland settlers as opposed to having any relation to the
lack of sun, the white hair also, though this is pretty common so it might
not have any significance. Even if one never sees the sun, ones skin
would not be transparent.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Page 29, Line 23</td>
<td>The word cool, to mean fashionable
originated <a href="https://www.etymonline.com/word/cool">around 1933</a>
and so it makes sense that Luxa doesn't understand.
</table>