Posted by John Nichols on May 13, 2016 at 07:14:54 user Mcneacail.
In Reply to: Re: New S&A Film posted by Mike Field on May 12, 2016 at 13:52:59:
Hypothesis:
Buchan had no strong female characters.
If a character can take one of two states, let us call them A of B.
Let us assume all male characters are A and all female B.
Hannay is the first and main character is n = 1.
In the books starting with The Thirty Nine Steps, clearly by induction n=2 is a male being the dead man, and let us assume the milkman is n=3 and as tradition required it at the time - the milkman is a man -- we can conclude that all n+1 has to be men, but some n for n >> 1 has Mary Lamington as a strong character and female, I advance deliberately a women for the plot, therefore there is an n+ 1 that is not a man and the hypothesis once broken is false. You only need one break. Of course the fact that the sum of A is >> than the sum of B in Buchan is also obvious, if you want to advance the hypothesis that the sum of A is greater than the sum of A then I agree, that it is no the same as there are no strong female characters, in Buchan there are at least n=3 that are B.
QED and self evident
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