yeah you know what i’m realizing with the dreambot is that dave was double-right about it being a voyeurbot - not because JADE is watching people in her dreams (which she would do regardless of the bot) but because thanks to the bot any third party can also observe her movements and dreams, from watching her robot fly around to literally looking at the recordings that may not even be uploaded at jade’s will. it wasn’t built for jade to explore her dreams, it was built for her grandpa to do so.
jade doesn’t even seem to use the recordings herself. apparently she organizes the information she learns with colorful finger reminders. the robot is pretty much worthless for her beyond being really cool
this also makes the dead grandpa smackdown make more sense imo. she’s beating up two thieves at the same time - cd who surreptitiously stole the ring, and grandpa who surreptitiously stole her dreams. both of these taking a piece of prospit to which they are not entitled for themselves, albeit perhaps for some greater purpose on the behalf of their organization, but a pickpocket is a pickpocket and pickpockets get dead-grandpa-smackdowned.
with regards to “to what end”
i would say the most concrete example of potential usage lies in the fact that grandpa obtains jade and immediately is granted the inspiration to find and settle bec’s island. how did she give this information to him? it’s certainly possible that he already knew, since we know the guardians seem to be in the loop on the end of the world and some of what that entails, and that jade’s arrival indicated to him that it was go-time on going to the frog temple. but i do wonder if her presence somehow gave him the information in the first place, and jadebot was an attempt to mine more information out of her! someone needs to tell this girl her awesome toy is just a bitcoin machine.
wonder how bec fits into that. if grandpa knew and was waiting for go-time, maybe jade’s presence is what appeases the dog allowing people to approach. really don’t know what’s prognostication or space-instinct with that little beast. feel like i’m lacking information still and don’t know what path forward to take with this yet
Hussie’s commentary suggests that the dreambot was built “to prevent her from sleep walking” (Book 2, p. 157)… one has to wonder how the hell a dream robot is supposed to stop someone from sleep walking, but that probably isn’t really important; what it suggests is that before the dreambot was built, Jade was a sleepwalker. logically I think it follows that she could have been a sleeptalker, too, and that the dreambot was built to replace her sleeptalking with a more reliable stream of information?
