as_sporkive | StarMan Sporking: Part Nineteen (Reply)

epistler posting in antishurtugal_reborn Nov. 20th, 2018 07:26 pm

StarMan Sporking: Part Nineteen

The next chapter is with the Avar. Specifically Barsarbe. She’s at the ~~Menoa~~ Earth Tree for Fire-Night, and now she stalks around and tells the other Avar that they have to decide whether to help Axis by giving him the Rainbow Scepter. The other Avar are confused by this, and one of them wonders when the hell Faraday is going to show up. He finally says that they should let her do the deciding when she finally does make an appearance.

Now Barsarbe takes her cue. She steps up and tells them about how Axis has betrayed “Faraday Tree Friend” by going off with Azhure and not even letting Faraday provide him with an heir. She then proceeds to trash Azhure, calling her “violent” and describing how she’s become ten times worse and even destroyed her own home village with everyone trapped inside. While smiling.

And she’s 100% correct! If the author seriously thinks I’m going to take Azhure’s side here, she’s sadly mistaken. This is the woman who kills children and openly considered infanticide in the last fucking chapter.

Someone else pulls the stupid prophecy card, but Basarbe points out that this is hardly their fight, and some people start to agree with her.

Whereupon – you are not prepared for this – Shra steps up. Might I remind you she’s five fucking years old. So of course she makes a speech of her own in which she sounds like she’s also thirty. Just like every single child character in this entire trilogy. Does childhood even exist in this setting? Because she seriously says shit like this:

“I am appalled at Basarbes misrepresentation of the true nature of the events and people that surround us”.

What misrepresentation? What Barsarbe said was the unvarnished truth. Oh, but apparently she’s just Wrong Wrongity McWrong from Wrongsville because she’s “addled by spite and jealousy”. Shra keeps on with the Sue apologetics, claiming that the Avar are a load of hypocrites and how Azhure killed Artor for their sake (absolutely NO mention of the child-killing, by the way). Barsarbe comes this close to slapping the little brat, and eventually does lose her rag and grab her while telling her to shut the hell up. Shra’s dad steps in, whereupon Barsarbe goes completely off the rails and starts manhandling the kid and yelling about how she’s going to punish her. See? This is how we know she’s completely wrong about Azhure being in any way a horrible murderous piece of shit! Then she tries to blame the ensuing struggle on Azhure’s “violence”, and Shra yells back that Barsarbe’s only trying to persuade them all to stay neutral because she’s so totally jealous of the bloody woman.

Really? Because I hate Azhure’s guts and think she’s a horrible horrible person, and I’m sure as hell not the least bit jealous of her.

Shra’s dad offers the lame counter-argument that Gorge’s mother was an Avar so therefore they have a responsibility, and Shra adds that if Axis doesn’t kill the guy All of Alagaesia Will Fall Into Darkness. Or something in a similar vein which carries about the same dramatic weight.

Finally Barsarbe invokes something imaginatively named the Test of Truth, which means putting the question to the trees. Apparently this is the same test “All Avar children who showed the potential to become Banes were administered [snip] when they were only toddlers”. Which flat-out kills a lot of them. And of course it can’t possibly wait until they’re older and more resilient because *mumblemumble*.

Now Shra and Barsarbe are going to do it together, and only one will survive because reasons.

This of course entails both of them getting naked and being tied to the Earth Tree. It’s official – this author has a gratuitous nudity fetish. Involving small children.

I feel unclean.

Somehow or other the pair of them wind up walking through a misty forest. Nude. Look, can we just get this over with already? You know and I know that Shra is going to win, and the less time I spend reading about a naked five year old the better.

One of them, identified only as “she”, encounters Raum in the mist. This of course means we’re due for a fake-out death in the very immediate future. Raum leads her to a chasm with two bridges. One leads to the safety of the regular forest, with a friendly fireplace. And there’s Axis right with them. What makes this funny is that Axis being there is supposed to make "she" want to go over there. The other bridge leads to an ice tunnel, and there’s Faraday, who then gets grabbed by Gorge.

“She” chooses the Axis bridge.

After this another “she” is brought to the bridges. Unlike the first “she”, she sees a Horned One on one bridge, and the other one leads to a guy who’s clearly Evil Timmy “standing in a pool of blood” in the middle of a snowstorm. “She” chooses Evil Timmy.

Yup, the second “she” is Shra, and Barsarbe just snuffed it. Bet you fifty bucks.

Back in the real world, Faraday finally shows up. She’s all smiling and beautiful, naturally. She goes over to Barsarbe and “emotionlessly” declares that she made “a bad choice”, which is why she’s dead. And then everyone just forgets about it in favour of praising Shra.

Cut to the Avar unanimously promising to help Axis Sue, and Faraday says Shra is in charge now. Yup. The five year old. Not the grown woman specially anointed by the forest or anything like that.

They’re being led by a kid. Because gods forbid Faraday actually get to be in charge of anything.

I still like her, though.

The chapter ends here. In the next one, Axis will finally show up and be handed the Most Fabulous Weapon Ever, for free, and then go and kill the alleged arch-villain at no personal cost. I have rarely if ever read a book this completely lacking in any kind of suspense.

Sure enough, the sole voice of dissent having been murdered by the author, we open with Axis wearing his fancy getup and we’re assured for the umpteenth time that he looks totally handsome and could “dazzle any court”.

He wonders how this is going to go, and despite the fact that he’s apparently nervous, the author quickly assures us that to the Avar he looks “relaxed and confident” and has a sexy walk and “[wears] his power as easily as [his stupid cloak I’m sick of hearing about]”.

All the Avar are staring at him in silence, but then Shra shows up dressed as Santa Claus. No really; it’s a “blood-red” robe with “a tracery of leaping white stags” embroidered on it. Omg so festive!

The author then proceeds to unintentionally(?) sexualise the kid, as Axis’ instant reaction on seeing her is to think that she’s “a pretty little thing” and then she kisses his hand, which leads to him thinking about “how good it had felt to hold her tiny body in his arms and suffuse it with life”. And then he calls her “my first enchantment”. The fact that Shra speaks and acts like an adult in this scene just makes this even more incredibly uncomfortable. It’s been demonstrated over and over again that Douglass has no freaking idea how to write children, instead just treating them as miniature adults, and nor does she seem to have any concept of at what age it’s appropriate to sexualise a character or make references to their romantic/sexual entanglements to be. It’s as if she doesn’t think childhood is a thing, so therefore it’s okay to drag kids into sexual matters and expose them to nudity and incest.

Seriously – who molested this woman? I’m not trying to be funny in the slightest, by the way; I’m dead fucking serious. This isn’t right. This isn’t right at all. No-one in their right mind would depict children this way, or incest, or rape. I just… ugh.

We get a throwaway bit of dialogue about how Shra is smooth of tongue because of the “mystical filaments” Axis wove into her when he used the resurrection spell in the first book.

Axis wonders briefly where the hell Barsarbe went, and then Faraday appears. Axis rhetorically asks himself how he could have treated her so badly. It’s because you’re a selfish asshole, Axis. You treat everyone like shit. Faraday just happens to be the only one who actually noticed. Faraday meanwhile has resigned herself to her unspecified fate, which I take to mean that she knows she’s going to die at the end. But she’s bravely facing it up to it anyway. Hey, just like Borneheld. Anyone remember that guy?

Bella Swan-like, Axis suddenly realises that he totally does love Faraday, and that it’s not what he feels for Azhure (because we’re still supposed to believe those two actually like each other), but “his love for Faraday was like a still, cool lake in the hot, tangled jungle of his existence. He would never remain true to it because he could never be sated by it, but now and again he would like to touch it, to rest by her side, to draw strength from her stillness”.

Goofy metaphors aside, I think this bit of description is rather telling. Because if you read it closely you realise that it specifically refers to “loving” someone as being a state of getting something from them. There’s absolutely no consideration given to what he has to offer her in return, nor is it brought up. Instead the focus is entirely on his wants and needs. Which is exactly how it is with Azhure as well – he sees Azhure as a source of really great sex and pretty much nothing else. Which is why in the last book he threw a screaming fit at her because she stopped putting out. Because in his mind, that’s all a relationship is – getting sex from the other person. There’s nothing about mutual emotional fulfillment or companionship, or anything like that. Nope, just sex and physical comfort. As long as he’s getting it, all is well.

Did the author never realise how incredibly selfish this makes him look? Not to mention misogynistic as all get-out. Is this seriously the character we’re supposed to believe is worthy of literal godhood? Pardon me while I throw my hands up in despair. I shall then wave them in the air like I just don’t care. (I probably shouldn’t spork while listening to dubstep).

Faraday’s now looking the worse for wear (which only makes her more “beautiful”, because fragility and vulnerability in a woman makes her easier to dominate and is therefore desirable). She steps forward and ceremonially asks the Avar if they’ll help King Sue, and some random elder guy we’ve never seen before (who doesn’t even get a name) answers in the affirmative. She also ceremonially asks if the Avar will give “blood” to make the scepter thingy, which for some reason upsets Mr Psychopath. After that he’s introduced to all the clan leaders, and he keeps expecting them to start being jerks to him again. It doesn’t happen and he realises that “something had been accepted”. Yes, it was the Avar giving into the Sueness after successfully resisting it for longer than any other character or group of characters for three huge books. In the end, even the strongest will eventually succumb (Barsarbe dying in a contrived ceremony thingy with painfully obvious symbolism was effectively the author’s way of saying “the Avar have turned Good now, children”).

After that they all go and stand in the stone circle around ~~Yggdrasil~~ the ~~Menoa~~ Earth Tree, and Axis sees someone approaching. Or rather several someones.

It’s the Sentinels. Ogden comes first and now he’s all diseased and horrifying, covered in sores with his face swollen up, scarcely able to breathe. What makes this moment funny is that I’m supposed to care about this, and also care about that unfunny jerk being reduced to this sorry state. And the same goes for Yr, Little Ms Patronising Personality Free Zone 2018, and Zara the nonentity, who now can’t even walk.

In a truly horrible piece of dialogue Axis actually yells “I have to help!”. That’s still not how people talk. Faraday stops him, but wait… there’s someone missing. Where’s Jackass? Why am I not getting to see him suffering horribly too?

Oh wait, there he is. Unfortunately he’s apparently in slightly better shape. They all start doing the glowy eye thing, and apparently this is All Part of the Prophecy. Specifically the thing about power corrupting “the bright eyes’ hearts”. Right, whatever. The sooner I don’t have to hear about that thing any more, the better.

Jackass laughs creepily, and then confidentially tells Axis to be careful of the ~~aliens~~ ancient gods at the bottom of the magical lakes and that he shouldn’t go poking around. He then reminds us all why we hate his guts (well, I do), as he starts calling Faraday “lovely lady” again. She bursts into tears and apologises for being mean to him and the others back in Carlon because “I did not understand”. Dude, the stupid prophecy is going to KILL YOU. Stop being such a goddamn pushover. Though I suppose to be fair it’s now killing them, too, so maybe it’s just me who’s being unreasonable (because I hate the Sentinels. A lot).

Jackass declares that “we have always loved you”, insert Whitney Houston joke here. Then he sticks his staff in the ground (no, not that staff. Pervs), and they sit in a circle around it. For some reason this causes Faraday to start screaming “NO!”. Dude, they’re just sitting down.

They start chanting, which causes the staff to “burst into fire”.

Yeah. Not “flames”, but “fire”. My gods, Douglass and Paolini really are kindred spirits! (Except that for all his faults, Paolini doesn’t sexualise childr- oh wait, that bit with Elva having a voice like “warm honey”. Never mind).

Then the most glorious part of the book so far happens, as the Sentinels also burst into flame. YES! OH GOD YES! MORE! Oh man, if I wasn't an asexual I’d start fuckin’ masturbating right now. Axis looks away because he can’t bear to watch them die, but I just want to keep on staring and smiling merrily as I do.

All five Sentinels plus the staff are reduced to a heap of glowing coals. Goodbye and good fuckin’ riddance.

The coals turn into ashes, and Axis sifts around in it and finds the head of Jackass’ staff. Now it’s all pretty and set with gemstones – one for each Sentinel. When he moves it around it shoots “multicoloured rays of light”. Holy shit, forget fighting Gorge – hang this thing up, find a DJ and some LSD and throw Tencendor’s first rave party!

Instead Shra declares that they’re going to give Axis a “rod”. Innuendo!

Faraday starts singing Hazel’s little song from earlier, and for absolutely no reason she just suddenly knows the words, and it’s all about the Sentinels and how they need a rod and blah blah blah. This is so stupid.

This causes the Earth Tree to sing along, and then the entire forest, and finally Shra grabs a branch off the Earth Tree, which turns into a “slender rod”. That’s good; it should be small enough to fit in Axis’ bunghole. The innuendo just keeps coming as Axis fits the head on, and “rod and head become one”.

Axis starts swinging it around, which causes bolts of light to shoot everywhere. I’m having flashbacks to the old He-Man cartoons from the 80s, I swear. BY THE POWER OF PLOT DEVICE!

Faraday gives him some cloth to cover up the glowy bits, and tells him to leave it on until he gets to Gorge. Killjoy. If it was me I'd be running around waving it in the air and going "WOOHOO!"

After this one of the other Avar says they can do one other thing for him, namely finding Gorge. Five of them will go with him because somehow Gorge’s blood calls to them or some nonsense like that. Faraday says she’s coming too, and then someone unidentified yells “No!”

Who was that? Don’t know, don’t care, will probably never find out because the chapter cuts off there.

We’re now at the 87% mark. Almost done. I’m hoping there’ll be a bunch of advertising at the end of the book so the “story” will end sooner than it looks as if it will.

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