as_sporkive | StarMan Sporking: Part Twenty-One

epistler posting in antishurtugal_reborn Nov. 26th, 2018 03:11 pm

Current Location: Arkansaw, USA

StarMan Sporking: Part Twenty-One - The End

And now, after 10,000 odd pages of wasting time on Sue praise, pointless melodrama, descriptions of landscapes and other fluff, it’s finally time for the final showdown. 120 pages of sporking and I feel like I've aged ten years.

Prepare for an anticlimax.

Axis grabs the Rainbow Sceptre and now for some reason he’s not disoriented by the maze any more. Oh, and also the Sceptre becomes warm and the “rod” pulses. No innuendo here, cough. Blah blah, the stupid prophecy is calling him and it has “ice-hot talons” somehow (ice can’t be “hot”, numbnuts), and finally Axis gets to the door. He then proceeds to take out his temper on his one remaining supporter, Rimmer, because that’s just how he rolls. Hell, he actually assaults the guy and grabs him by the throat! But Rimmer just magically knows he’s really just angry with Gorge, and when Axis “snarls” at him to stay behind, he just meekly goes along with it.

When a guy treats you like this all the time, that's how you know he's your buddy!

Axis takes his sweet time actually opening the door, and takes a moment to think about Azhure and the Sue Baby and their “love” (no mention of RiverStar, I see). Then he opens the goddamn door, and there’s Gorge. He is of course “evil and putrid”. Still no indication as to whether he’s wearing any clothes, but Axis can sense “envy” coming from him.

Now of all times we pause for even MORE Sue Praise, as we learn that from Gorge’s point of view Axis looks “confident” “golden” and “princely” and how he’s everything Gorge wishes he could be. Oh, and also Gorge is holding Faraday with his claws at her throat and stomach. Naturally like a good little wimmens she looks pleadingly at Axis to save her poor weak helpless ass.

Axis and Gorge then proceed to try and talk each other to death, and Axis tells him the blisteringly obvious – namely that the “Dark Man” is really WolfStar, and also the Prophet. When did Axis figure that out, exactly? He tells Gorge that the pair of them are just pawns in some sick game Wolfy is playing. Adding a nice little anachronism, he also refers to a “script”, as in this whole thing is being scripted. Groan.

But then Axis just says he doesn’t give a fuck because he’s going to win against Gorge and Wolfy. He then whips out his penis – uh, I mean, uncovers the head of the sceptre. The thing starts up a rave party with rainbow lights shooting everywhere, and Gorge starts throwing around unspecified “dark power”, while Axis does something where he syncs up his heartbeat with the Star Dance thingy, all while thinking about how he can hear the heartbeats of Azhure and Caelum and “all those who loved him”. Oh barf, are we seriously resorting to Teh Powah Of Lurve again? And with THIS guy, who very clearly loves nobody but himself?

Somehow or other this breaks Gorge’s power, and Gorge decides the only thing that’s going to break Axis’ concentration is killing Faraday. So he rips her in half.

FATALITY.

Axis has no reaction to this, though he does think that “He could not, would not, help her”. Yup, just let her be a human sacrifice so your perfect little Sue Queen gets to live. He didn’t even try to negotiate for her safety or anything.

Somehow or other Azhure senses this happening and screams “as Faraday died in her place and the baby that slithered onto the bed between Rivkah’s legs opened his mouth and screamed”. Babies don’t scream the instant they come out of the womb, you know. They come out with all this amniotic crap in their lungs. But clearly Sara Douglass wouldn't know an actual baby from a hole in the ground.

Cut back to Gorge realising that Farday’s body has vanished and Axis’ concentration hasn’t broken because – whoopsie – he’s killed the wrong bloody woman, and has officially lost.

He then proceeds to drop to his knees and start begging for mercy, pointing out that he’s never known love and that the stupid prophecy has been using him too. Naturally this has absolutely no effect, and Axis just stabs him with his “rod”, right through the heart.

And just like that, Gorge dies.

Well that was easy.

Then Axis has a good cry over Faraday, the woman he groomed while she was a teenager, raped by deception, raped by the other kind of rape, repeatedly lied to, and then did absolutely nothing to protect. Crocodiles weep more sincerely than you, Axis.

But oh no – it turns out Gorge was a Load-Bearing Boss! The ice fortress starts to collapse, and Rimmer points out the blindingly obvious, namely that they’re at “the heart of a gigantic, shifting, cracking mountain of ice!” You wanna belabour the point a little more there, pal? He goes and grabs Axis, who’s busy watching Gorge’s body disintegrate, and they finally make a run for it.

They get out safely of course, in time to see the entire thing collapse, and Axis just randomly knows that the “beautiful ice prism had been the outward manifestation of the beauty [Gorge] craved within his own person”.

First off, there is no way Axis could have figured that out. He didn’t know anything about Gorge on a personal level. And second, this sort of thing is only clever if you don’t spell it out in big capital letters. Let subtext be subtext.

Axis stands there supposedly grieving for Faraday for a while, and then gives Rimmer the sceptre. He tells him to take it to Sigholt and give it to Azhure, and when Rimmer says he’s staying Axis – what else? – screams at him. Hey, remember how this guy is supposed to be all charismatic and charming and such per word of author? Because what I’m still seeing is this. Over and over again.

Rimmer protests that he doesn’t have a pack or anything for his journey, but then Urbeth the talking bear conveniently shows up and says she’ll get him out of there. She adds that she likes Rimmer for his “sense of humour”. What sense of humour?

The two of them leave together either way, and Axis walks off.

Now he’s on his own, Axis throws himself a pity-party over how Faraday is dead and how “in order to win, he’d had to let her suffer… and she knew it”.

Yes, that’s right. He HAD to let her suffer and die. Because never mind about free will or risking it all for the people you care about; if it’s too inconvenient or goes against what the Plot-O-Matic demands, just let ’em die.

Then Axis has another cry.

Nope, still not buying it.

After this the “Dark Man” shows up. He’s “whistling some merry ditty” and snapping his fingers like a jackass. For once I agree with Axis when he gets pissed off and tries to attack him. But WolfStar just kicks his ass and says Axis doesn’t stand a chance against him. He then proceeds to exposit about how he found Gorge as a baby, and now finally starts showing off all his oh-so-clever and not at all obvious disguises – the musician who sang to young Rivkah about the Forbidden (duh), the blacksmith who told stories to Azhure as a kid (duh), and finally – no fucking shit – Moryson. Axis is suitably shocked, and “Moryson” explains how he manipulated Jayme into stranding Rivkah in the wilderness, and raising Axis, and later making him BattleAxe, and how he – yes – taught Axis as a baby.

Finally WolfStar lets Axis go and turns into – stay it with me – “a beautiful Icarii birdman”. I now hate that word and everything to do with it. Axis asks him what the hell the point of this whole prophecy thing was, and Wolfy turns into his true form – in other words a slightly different “beautiful Icarii birdman”. Groan. He sits down and explains that the stupid prophecy has “deep meaning”, and he didn’t create it – just wrote it down. Supposedly after dying he went through the Star Gate and “existed” on the other side for a while, and found “certain knowledges”. Unspecified, naturally.

Axis wants to know about the other worlds that supposedly exist out there, but WolfStar just tells him that the prophecy supposedly found him out there and used him, too, and that he’ll “stop at nothing” to make it come true. Axis yells at him about how Faraday died, and asks whether Wolfy made that happen. The answer is yes, but when Axis gets angry Wolfy yells “Would you rather that [Gorge] had Azhure embraced in his talons?”

Personally I would have loved to see that happen, but Wolfy explains that if it had been Azhure, Everything Would Have Been Lost. He then calls Axis out on his bullshit by getting him to confess that he intentionally let Faraday die because “I had no choice”. Hah, nice one Wolfy. Wolfy adds that Faraday willingly sacrificed herself (says you). Now Axis has to go and get “Faraday’s gift”, and then go and Make Tencendor Great Again.

And with that he just walks off.

End chapter.

In the next – mercifully final – chapter Axis uses a random song by which he is “transferred into the Sacred Grove”. And that’s a bit of phrasing that just sounds way too Science Fiction to me. Beam me up, Ur!

He wonders what on earth the Stag Heads are going to say. But there’s no-one around. Axis feels all lost and nervous, like something big is about to happen, and lo and behold, he finds “a tiny naked baby” lying in the grass (and again with the nude babies). Congratulations, Axis, it’s a boy. The kid wakes up and looks at Axis with “Faraday’s green eyes”.

(Caucasian) babies are born with milky blue eyes, author. Axis picks him up and can tell it’s his son, and duh – figures out that Faraday must have been coming here to feed and play with her kid. If she only did it twice a day, don’t ask me why he’s looking so plump and healthy.

Then the leader of the Stag Heads shows up, and says the kid’s name is Isfrael, no relation to the proud nation of Israel. He also says Faraday wanted Azhure to raise him. Axis thinks about how ironic this is, because once Azhure was afraid Axis would take Caelum from her and give him to Faraday to raise. Uh, no she didn’t. This never came up at any point previously.

Stag Head adds that one day Axis has to give Isfrael to the Avar, because as Faraday never actually led the Avar anywhere, her kid will have to do it in her place and become “Mage-King of the Avar”. Oh, you just made the up on the spot, Bambi. Admit it.And since when was "mage" a word that existed in this setting anyway?

The Stag Head leaves, and Raum the Stag shows up. He telepathically tells Axis that he still owes Axis a “life”, and he’s repaying it now. He reveals that actually Faraday is alive, but in a form which means Axis will never be able to speak with or touch her again. Good for her. And then Raum-Stag runs off.

And now, at last… it’s time.

The story is over, and now all we have left is the epilogue.

Nine years later…

Axis is walking through the Avar forest – which is of course beautiful and peaceful – and he’s got an older Isfrael with him. Apparently Axis and Azhure have been in the habit of coming to the edge of Minstrelsea with their kids twice a year to have a picnic. Azhure accepted Isfrael without any trouble, and they’ve had nine years of perfect happiness with no inconvenient PTSD or anything silly or realistic like that.

Nowadays they’ve got five kids, but Axis only thinks of three of them as actually his. Charming. Drago has grown up to be a surly, “withdrawn” kid who as expected never grew wings and has no magic, and doesn’t even have Icarii looks. That doesn’t sound so bad to me. As for RiverStar she got her wings and the oh so important Enchanter powers, and gets on well with StarDrifter (and you just know he’s going to tap that ass sooner or later). Predictably the now twelve year old Caelum has grown into the perfect kid. Because of authorial fiat he hasn’t grown any wings, but supposedly he has an “overwhelming sense of compassion and humility”. If he’s compassionate and humble as his parents, I can’t say that’s much of a compliment.

Oh, and Axis and Azhure had one more kid after the story ended: a daughter named Zenith, who supposedly has “the eyes of a reborn soul”. And just wait until you find out where that’s going (spoilers: it won’t be pretty).

StarDrifter is still living on the island with the priestesses, but now he’s coming to the forest for Yuletide with everyone else. Ugh.

As for Rivkah’s kid, his name is Zared and apparently he’s perfectly nice. Let’s just hope he never finds out you and Azhure openly considered having him “accidentally” die at birth, Axis.

The recapping over with (oh, and Belial and Cazna had two kids, in case you care), Axis and Isfrael enter a clearing and find Shra waiting. She’s about sixteen now, and is – what else do you expect? – beautiful. To my distaste, the author makes her beautiful by also making her “unusually tall and fair-skinned for her race”.

Because in order to be beautiful, you have to fit the exacting Westernised standards of what constitutes beauty. You can’t just be attractive according to the standards of your own people. (Ever notice how Halle Berry, a woman considered one of the most attractive women of colour in the West, is comparatively fair in complexion and in general looks more “white” than most? Not a coincidence).

Shra welcomes the pair of them, and Isfrael proves to be just as shallow as his daddy as he thinks about how if all the Avar as “as beautiful as Shra” he’ll love living with him. Yeah, that’s not cute.

It turns out the place they’ve come to is Niah’s Grove (you know, the place where Azhure murdered all those women and children and old people). It is of course suitably picturesque, and Isfrael is taken into the centre while Axis waits outside.

Eventually Stag Raum shows up. He says hi to Axis, and then a a red doe appears along with him. It’s Faraday. She goes over to her kid and lies down, and Axis has a bit of a cry and thinks about how “Faraday-that-had-been” doesn’t want him to join them because she’s finally gotten a clue and doesn’t love his selfish Sue ass any more.

Faradeer comes over to Axis for the first time ever, and he tries to touch her, but Raum puts himself in the way and she runs off “unfettered”.

The end.

Honestly, considering everything that came before that ending was very melancholy, and actually rather effective. We could have ended with Axis flexing his biceps in front of cheering throngs of devoted fans before ascending to godhood – or worse, Azhure doing something Suetastic while fireworks explode in the background. But nope. Indeed, Azhure never appeared again after leaving Axis to go and deal with Gorge. Instead the story ends by wrapping up Faraday’s character arc at last, she being the only character in this thing to actually have an arc. No, getting Sue powers doesn’t count as character development. I’ve been over this before.

If only the focus had been on Faraday and her doomed romance with Axis instead of the endless glorification of Azhure, the Sueiest Sue Who Ever did Sue, this could have been a good book. Instead of which about 98% of it is just a boring and increasingly ludicrous parade of Azhure getting more Sue powers/accessories and magically fixing everything for free while anything potentially interesting gets buried under saccharine mounds of melodramatic clichés and swooning over how beautiful and special and powerful the new favourite character is.

This is what happens when you start focusing on wish fulfillment instead of story and character. Even the most interesting and original world and story (not that this had much in the way of that, and especially where the plot is concerned) will die a horrible death. Sure, you probably wish you were attractive and powerful and admired – who doesn’t? But let’s face it: nobody wants to hear about that shit. And especially not in excruciating detail over three huge books. Hell, this trilogy might have been saved from complete idiocy if the author had had the sense to get rid of Azhure, or let her remain a minor character instead of allowing her to take over. But that sort of thing takes discipline and self-awareness, and unfortunately, a lot of very popular authors routinely lack both.

Also, it helps if you have the sense not to (quite clearly intentionally) write the characters we’re supposed to like as irredeemably horrible people. Sure, Axis finally acts like he gives a shit about Faraday toward the end, but it’s all way too little, way too late.

Way too little.

Way too late.

For comments: see here.