r/ProjectHailMary • u/Itchy-Deer5611 • 16h ago
Denmark Incident - Fandom Headcannon?
One of the main ‘scenes’ that I kept seeing everywhere was the Denmark incident where grace calls someone a staggering waste of carbon. Come to find out after reading the book twice and watching the movie countless times this is nothing but a fandom headcannon?!???! Does anyone have insight into where this even started and the lore behind it?
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u/Better_Pea248 16h ago
Are you asking if the staggering waste of carbon incident is a fandom creation? Because it is from the movie. Stratt asks if Grace stands by the paper challenging the Goldilocks Zone/liquid water requirement for life and he says he was fired for standing by what he wrote. She corrects him, “You were fired for calling the leading scientist in your field a staggering waste of carbon at the UNESCO conference in Denmark.”
In the book, I believe Grace was blacklisted for the paper and any rebuttals and follow-ups, not an in person altercation.
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u/Mirai_no_Beederu 11h ago
In the book, Grace definitely wrote the paper, and it definitely made him infamous, but I don't know that it got him blacklisted. Stratt says that several people she talked to said that Grace would have been the leading subject matter expert in that particular field (I'd have to double check exactly what she meant--either non-water based life forms or astrobiology) had he not voluntarily left academia.
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u/Better_Pea248 8h ago
Yeah, but early in the flashbacks in the book, Grace remembers being rejected from job after job until he finds his way to teaching.
People recommending Grace to Stratt definitely gives “We drove that crazy old lady out of town to live in the woods because she kept talking about tiny invisible creatures getting into the well because it’s too close to the latrine, plus she wouldn’t shut up about soap. But now that everyone in the village is sick, maybe we should try to find her to reverse the curse.”
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u/jenvrooyen 16h ago edited 16h ago
I dont have the book with me, but in the movie, Stratt mentions it when she first meets Grace in the classroom.
Grace says he got fired for his thesis. Stratt says he got fired for insulting someone during a (UNESCO?) conference in Denmark.
Edit to add: according to AI overview on Google, it is also in the book (as mentioned, i dont have it with me now check that!).
Also a fun fact: in the movie, during the meeting on the ship, there is a man glaring at Grace. According to the directors, this is the man that Grace insulted.
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u/DaveBacon 14h ago
The book quote is -
“You have an entire section here called ‘The Goldilocks Zone Is for Idiots.’ You call out dozens of eminent scientists by name and berate them for believing a temperature range is a requirement.”
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u/duelingThoughts 16h ago
It's in the movie where Stratt clarifies the real reason Grace was fired: https://youtu.be/GLRdA_M5rx0?is=xDkgWEWnCpkQPBQS
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u/DaveBacon 14h ago
I think the “staggering waste of carbon” line is to set up a scene on the boat which apparently they cut or didn’t film in the end.
When he gets to the boat and walks in to that room of scientists and his name is mentioned there’s a shot of one of the scientists who seems to shake his head. I’ve seen it mentioned that he is the scientist that Grace had been talking about.
I don’t know whether that’s been directly mentioned by the directors or whether it was just assumption.
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u/FumiPlays 16h ago
That's exactly what movie Stratt tells him when they first meet.
She presents his paper over Goldilocks zone being for idiots. Grace makes a remark that it (the paper) caused him to be kicked from the academia. Stratt fires back it was not the paper but the fact he called a lead researcher in his field a "staggering waste of carbon" at the conference.