Fallom

Fallom
species: Human
from foundation series
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Fallom is a character in Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Series. She appears in Foundation and Earth. Fallom is dual-sexed but referred to with the feminine pronoun. This is because Asimov had the sense to realize that ‘it’ is not an acceptable pronoun for people but not the sense to utilize ‘they’ as a non-gendered, singular pronoun. Fallom’s gender-identity is not addressed. Fallom is telekinetic and somewhere between eleven and fourteen years old.

Fallom is rescued by Bliss after Bliss kills Fallom’s biological parent Bander in order to save Golan Trevize, Janov Pelorat, and herself. Trevize, who has strong intuitive abilities, dislikes and distrusts Fallom. It is unclear as whether the text supports Trevize or not. One could argue that his intuitive abilities were correct only in that Fallom is a child who has just been taken away from the only life she has known by the people responsible for the death the robot Jemby, who is the only parent Fallom has ever known. It is Fallom’s understandable distraught and confusion at the situation that leads her to attempt to take control of the ship. After all, Fallom’s flute playing is part of what convinces Hiroko to save the group while they are on New Earth. Further, Fallom has a role to play in bringing about the new future of humanity; Fallom is to merge minds with Daneel, whom the quartet meets at the end of Foundation and Earth and whom Fallom takes to immediately, utterly convinced he is Jemby (despite attempts to persuade her otherwise.) It could be said, then, that while Trevize’s intuitive abilities were correct as usual, he could have stood to be nicer to Fallom, as his rudeness towards her did not help anything. However, the final paragraph of the book seems determined to cast Fallom as unchangeably different and dangerous, which contradicts what was previously shown. As there are no novels in the foundation series set after Foundation and Earth, the purpose of the final paragraph – if any – is never explored.