THE SOLARIUM

Ten Words: Necessary? No. Good OCD rep? No. Unfortunately, I love it.

Or More: WE’RE SO BACK!

I know it’s been a thousand years or more since my last Artemis Fowl review, but trust me when I say I’m delighted to finally get a chance to discuss my second favorite book in the whole series.

I made my case for Book 5 being the best in my review of The Lost Colony. Back then, I had arguments, evidence. Facts and logic, one might say.

Well, my feelings don’t care about the facts.

As someone whose favorite type of fanfiction is “character experiences mental illness in real time, whether they have said condition in canon or not”, I am here for Artemis’s OCD era. If Eoin Colfer didn’t beat me to it, teen me probably would have written a far more angsty take on the same subject. Adult me honestly hasn’t ruled it out, either.

I’ve written about my experiences with OCD in a few Constellations posts, as well as metaphorically in my poem “A Memoir in Spiders“, so clearly this is a meaningful subject for me. One would think this means I only appreciate well-researched, tactful representation.

One would be very, very wrong.

Artemis’s OCD symptoms are played for laughs at least as often as Colfer uses them to create genuine conflict and pathos.

Artemis is completely cured six months later due to his genius-level intellect because anyone struggling with lifelong mental health issues is obviously just stupid.

Artemis, technically speaking, doesn’t even have OCD, but the titular Atlantis Complex, which happens to cause OCD-like symptoms.

None of this adds up to what I would consider great representation, nor do I think it does much to educate the book’s young audience about OCD. So, why do I like this book, exactly?

I used to read about Artemis’s over-the-top displays of madness with detached amusement. I never once connected them to the obsessions and compulsions that ruled my life from an early age.

Now, I feel the pain of Artemis’s mental battle more keenly. I don’t find the book as funny as I used to, but I’ve only come to appreciate it more over the years.

Is it a good representation of what it’s like to live with OCD? No, but it’s a middle-grade fantasy novel, not a psychology textbook.¹ For everything the book misses on a factual level, The Atlantis Complex aches with emotional truth.

Have I ever had to fight my way back to consciousness after being supplanted by a split personality while a rogue space probe controlled by the brother of one of my dead friends goes on a rampage in pursuit of immortality for his dying wife? No.

But I have crawled through the plasma conduit in my mind. I have slogged through cold, congealing thoughts, mired within them, claustrophobic, the threat of conflagration ever looming.

I have had friends want to help me without knowing how.

I have felt sick, cornered, helpless, determined, paranoid, prideful, ashamed–every aching, tangled emotion Artemis experiences.

My favorite thing about the Artemis Fowl series has always been the bond between its characters. Seeing them tested to their limits in this book proves how strong they truly are. The concern Artemis’s friends have for him is touching, even if some–looking at you, Mulch² and Foaly–take his condition less seriously than others.

It’s especially heart-tugging to see the strain between Butler and Artemis as a result of his advancing paranoia, complicated further when Butler mistakenly believes Artemis endangered Juliet.

And Juliet’s back! Finally! As much as I missed her in previous books, I will say that I think her involvement here–being pulled away from her otherwise full life by fairy shenanigans–is just right. Her arc in the third book was learning to accept that she doesn’t want to follow the same path as her brother, so it was nice to see the life she ultimately chose for herself.

Plotwise, this might be one of the most unnecessary adventure of the entire series. It’s like an OVA for the Artemis Fowl universe: irrelevant to the overarching plot of the series, nothing introduced in this installment will ever be seen or referenced again.³

This is more understandable in some instances than others. Turnball Root doesn’t come back? Well, yes, he did kind of explode. What I want to know is how Artemis Fowl seemingly solved global warming, but everyone just forgets within six months.

I do appreciate Turnball Root, though. His love for Lenore, twisted as it is, feels genuine. Turnball truly delights in his evil antics, much like Opal Koboi, but the fact that he cares about one thing in the world other than himself sets him apart and grants him some complexity.

A missed opportunity for further complexity–Turnball’s connection to his late brother. Nothing about the story changes if you remove the fact that Turnball is related to Commander Root. Turnball’s motivation has nothing to do with his brother. There’s no explanation or exploration of why Turnball became a criminal and Julius joined the LEP.⁴

Even Holly, who has history with both Root brothers, barely even seems to care. Why should the reader?

I think Turnball is fun enough on his own merits that he doesn’t need the Root connection, but that makes its presence feel all the more unnecessary.

Speaking of unnecessary presences. . .

I’m not even going to touch on the “representation” aspect of Artemis’s “multiple personalities.” I will just say that, regardless of how he came to be, Orion as a character is hysterical. His cringeworthy, m’ladying attempts at flirting with Holly and his use of phrases like “goodly beast” get me every time.

Overall, The Atlantis Complex is a ridiculous, unnecessary, problematic disaster on so many levels that I can’t help but relate to it. I give it four stars and any shards of credibility my opinion might have once held.

1. Not that textbooks do a great job humanizing people with mental illnesses, either. ↩︎
2. And even Mulch has his moments, like when Artemis yells at everyone to line up in order of height and Mulch asks if he can make fun of him for it later. It’s the closest he can get to being thoughtful, and I love him for it. ↩︎
3. Aside from brief references to Artemis having had Atlantis Complex in the earliest chapters of the next book and the moment when he yells “Four!” to see if he’s hallucinating. ↩︎
4. I was going to make a joke about how there’s also no explanation for the parents naming their kids Julius and Turnball, but honestly, if I was named Turnball and my brother got a normal name, I would probably become a villain, too. ↩︎