Banks' Most Poignant Scenes

[Mercenary whoreboy]

I'm just re-reading Excession and I'd forgotten about the passage with the soliloquy of Genar Hofoen's module as it decides how/whether to kill itself. The whole thing's written with such a sense of hopelessness and resignation that it's hard not to feel a bit sorry for it.

Soon. The choice, the choice. He could spin a coin, but that would be… cheap. Unworthy.
He walked to the device that would destroy the embassy compound, and the city too, if he chose.
There was no choice here, either. Not really.

[amerelium]

Quite from me from another thread here: (from Excession)

But one scene more than ever really stands out in this story for me, something that really made skin crawl on my neck as I re-read it; a single sentence that tells us all we need to know about the Minds. They are benevolent, they are quirky, but more than anything they are the gods of the Culture. Their power is absolute, and they follow their own agenda.

Genar-Hofoen is pleading the Sleeper Service as it is racing like a missile towards the Excession, telling it it would surely not endanger their lives after all the trouble it went through to help Dejeil and him find closure, to which the Sleeper simply replies:

'No Genar-Hofoen, I'm doing this for myself...'