Snow is cold, water is wet, the Coterie sucks

“Snow is cold, water is wet, the Coterie sucks” is Ava’s scornful formulation of a truth she considers beyond argument. By placing her judgment of the Coterie beside ordinary certainties, she makes her anger sound less like an opinion open to revision than a fact of the world; the added phrase “Some truths are immutable” states that stance outright.

Meaning and Form

The expression works through a sharp shift in register: the plain, familiar observations about snow and water lead to an uncompromising verdict on the Coterie. Its final clause is deliberately blunt, while the follow-up about immutable truths turns the complaint into a refusal of debate. The effect is both emphatic and darkly comic, particularly as Ava extends her accusation to the possibility that the Coterie “probably stole candy from babies.”

Context and Use

Ava uses the expression while speaking with Duncan about whether she should learn more about the Coterie. Les has just teased her for not following the advice to know her enemy. She answers that knowledge will not change anything: the Coterie is responsible for her mother’s death and her current misery, so, to her, further information cannot alter the essential truth. Duncan’s next question—who led the Coterie before Venus—tests the assumption that Venus and the organization are one and the same, but Ava says Venus is the problem she cares about; what came before her is not.