maybe the ring induced an early menopause

Someone bigger and smarter is always pulling strings you can't see, your free will is often fabricated whether you're the puppet or part of the audience.

Like, Malachi and Branson are touted as religious figures before a devastating downfall. Valentine and Branson are the first and last of their kind respectively and are exploited by capitalists because of it. That barely brushes the surface.

After I finish Stranger in a Strange Land I definitely will try to write at least a couple pages on the parallels between these three stories. I'm just so fascinated.

And on their own the books do say a lot about what blows up in the media and why, propaganda, whatnot but together? One could write a whole essay, hell I'd write an essay if I could organize my thoughts better.

They are all very different characters but their stories are so similar, the way they are used to further this or that agenda, the way their life stories are written and rewritten by outsiders looking to capitalize.

—Malachi Constant, Valentine Michael Smith, and Tender Branson are all made icons against their will, sensationalized in the media, and become tools of those in power. They are stripped of personhood. They are life lessons, golden geese, new messiahs, but not human beings.