BattleAxe Sporking: Part Six
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theepistler wrote in antishurtugal, 2018-01-17 20:19:00
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tiredMUSIC: Coco soundtrack
BattleAxe Sporking: Part Six
Well, I finally finished reading Inheritance. Shockingly, I didn't enjoy it, though it wasn't actually as bad as I was expecting. I'll have some more detailed thoughts to share later. For now, more BattleAxe sporkage!
The group travels on to the Silent Woman Woods. It rains and everyone is cold and miserable. Timozel tries to cheer the women up with “amusing stories” but gets no gratitude and eventually gives up. The zillionth POV shift takes us to Axis, who keeps trying to talk to Faraday but is politely shrugged off.
They come in sight of the woods and Belial is scared about the prospect of going in there, but Axis says he can stay behind and he’ll just take a few guys. Faraday is also scared of the forest and asks Axis why they’re called the Silent Woman Woods. Axis, aka King Jackass, spits back that it’s because they don’t ask as many questions as most women.
Wow, fuck you, Axis. Is this seriously supposed to be the hero?
That night Axis has another nightmare. This time though rather than a monster claiming to be his dad, he hears voices muttering about how they don’t know who he is or how he “found the paths”. Axis gives his name and titles and the voices are instantly pissed off (they must have been reading the book too). A “thousand voices” scream at him to get lost (I wish he would), and he finds himself in a forest facing a stag-headed man wearing a “brief loincloth”. The what now? How can a loincloth be “brief”? Is Herne the Hunter here wearing briefs? Does his loincloth only last a short time? I got nothin’.
Axis wakes up yelling once again, just as the sun rises from “the eastern horizon”, aka the place the sun always fucking rises from, so I don’t know why the author felt the need to spell that out. End chapter.
The next day Axis and his cronies head into the forest. Gilbert chooses this of all times to say that the last guy who went in there never came back, and also they haven’t heard anything from the Keep in thirty-nine years. What, you didn’t think anybody should have been informed about that before? Either he’s been keeping it to himself for some nefarious reason, or he’s an idiot. Could be both.
Naturally this doesn’t encourage anyone, though nobody yells at Gilbert for keeping this rather shall we say pertinent information under wraps.
They finally enter the forest, and after they’ve ridden for a while everybody’s axes suddenly start being dragged downward by some sort of invisible but powerful force, so much so that Axis is pulled right out of the saddle. He and the others manage to ditch the axes, and the earth swallows them up. Axis notes that maybe the last guy didn’t get his belt off in time and that’s why he never came back.
They ride on for eight freakin’ hours (how can they tell? Do they have watches?) and eventually reach a stream which shines with golden light. My assumption was that the sunlight was reflecting off it, but these bumpkins all seem to think it’s magic or some such. The Keep is just beyond it, so Axis goes up and rudely bashes on the door. Some old guy peeks out and refuses to let him in because he thinks Axis’ predecessor is still in charge of the Axe-Wielders so therefore Axis is a fraud/liar. Axis insists that they need food and shelter (what, they didn’t bring any with them?) and the old guy lets him in.
The monk-looking guy minding the keep, Brother Ogden, turns out to be your typical cranky, doddering old eccentric. He has a kitchen range, but I have no freaking idea where he’s getting food if he’s seventy and has been stuck in the middle of a forest for close to half a century. His offsider Veremund, who’s just as old as himself, joins them, and Ogden explains that the magic of the wood is so strong that so far the Seneschal has been unable to cut it down because it eats axes.
The visitors are served ridiculously luxurious food, and when they ask where the hell it came from when there’s no garden or livestock outside the two brothers evade the question. Wow, that’s not suspicious at all.
Rather incredibly Axis doesn’t pick up on this and eats the food. It’d serve him right if it was drugged or poisoned, but unfortunately it isn’t. After dinner he explains the situation to the brothers, and one of them says it could be worse than he realises. He thinks it’s possible that the situation is being caused by someone called “Gorgrael, the Destroyer”. He then horrifies everyone by saying the records kept in the keep are records of “the Forbidden”, even though those records were supposed to be all destroyed.
Axis says the Forbidden are “little more than beasts” so how can they have records, and Ogden says that actually they had a written and oral history even more complex and amazing than the human ones, and that they were “beautiful peoples”. Gilbert calls this blasphemy, but Axis tells him to shut up and asks what they mean by “peoples”, plural.
Apparently there were two non-human races, the “Icarii” and the “Avar”, also known as “the people of the Wing” and “the people of the Horn”. The Icarii, who as you will learn are the author’s favoured race like Paolini with his insufferable elves, left most of the records, and once upon a time all three races lived together and spoke a common language.
Vermund goes to fetch an Icarii book, which is of course very pretty to look at, and talks about how the Icarii and the Avar had a shared prophecy about two special babies (it’s always about the special babies, isn’t it?). He pretends his eyesight won’t let him read the prophecy in question and asks Axis to do it for him. Axis protests that he can’t understand the writing, but is urged to try again and finds out that he can just magically make sense of it.
He reads out the prophecy, which is the exact same one from the front of the book, and as there it just goes on and on until you want to scream.
When he’s done Ogden – groan – explains the prophecy. The gist of it is that when the three races lived in harmony the land was called Tecendor instead of Achar and that one day Gorgrael, the Destroyer, would being his Skraelings down from the North and try to – you guessed it – take over the world. Why, I have no idea. He just does because That’s What Villains Do.
Also, the StarMan is totally Gorgrael’s brother. Well they say “maybe” they’re brothers but the answer is yes because of course it is. Gilbert butts in that this is all ridiculous and blasphemous, etc., and the author repeatedly reminds us that he has a “pimply face” just to let us know he’s evil and untrustworthy. The brothers – who we know are Good because they look harmless, sweet and quirky – abruptly bring the conversation to an end and say how everyone should go to bed now. Gilbert objects until he “inexplicably” starts feel very tired. I see nothing at all suspicious about this.
Once everyone is asleep, Ogden and Veremund talk privately. They note that nobody’s been able to read the prophecy in forever, and that nobody can unless they have Icarii blood in them. Gosh, could that mean Axis’ dad is actually…?
The two of them reflect on how nobody’s ever heard the final verse because it has “wards” – FUCKING WARDS! – that mean only one person can ever read it. It doesn’t say who, but obviously it’s the Chosen One- uh, StarMan. You don’t exactly have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure that one out. End chapter.
We’re 14 chapters in and all we’ve accomplished so far is introducing the main characters, vaguely establishing the central threat, and seeing someone recite an annoying prophecy we already read at the beginning of the book.
I’m just going to take this opportunity to re-iterate how much I dislike prophecies, and especially Chosen One prophecies. I don’t like the way they set one character above everyone else by declaring them Special even if they haven’t done squat. I don’t like the way they rob characters of their agency. I don’t like the way they almost always railroad the plot. Every now and then I see a prophecy done right, but not often, and now is most definitely not one of those times. Plus in this case the character it’s elevating to legendary status is fucking Axis, a guy who if I met him in real life would be the kind of person I cross the road to avoid. This must be how Star Trek fans felt when Wesley Crusher was revealed as the Next Stage in Human Evolution.
The next chapter finds us with Faraday again. She’s having trouble sleeping, so she gets up to go for a walk. She comes across the Kitty and correctly thinks that some Kitty Snuggles will help her sleep. But Kitty decides to be a pain in the neck and keeps moving when she tries to pick her up. No! Bad Kitty! (I really wasn’t joking when I said the cat was important, by the way).
Faraday finally catches Kitty, and is then confronted by several scary mysterious dark figures! However the stranger just turns out to be an apparently harmless swineherd with his pigs. His name is Jack Simple and Faraday concludes that he is in fact a simpleton. Jack pets the cat and says her name is Yr and he hasn’t seen her in about fifteen years.
Faraday smiles indulgently because there’s no way the cat is anywhere near that old, and patronisingly thinks about what a “wonderful fantasy world” Jack must live in. Well, he certainly does live in a fantasy world, young lady, but then so do you. And it sure ain’t wonderful. It’s primitive, it’s rainy, it’s being invaded by monsters, and most of the people living in it are stupid assholes.
Jack tells her he’s just come from the woods and actually they’re nice. He offers to show her, addressing her as “pretty lady” (apparently even he’s hung up on how attractive Faraday is). Faraday is mortified, but Jack says the trees are magic and can tell you your future. This grabs her interest, and she asks how close they have to get to try it out. My, isn’t she trusting.
We cut to Ogden and Veremund, or rather “the creatures that had assumed [their] forms”, and their eyes are glowing golden just like the possibly magic water outside. They spy on their sleeping guests, and Veremund touches Timozel’s face and somehow knows he has a “good heart” but is troubled and will have to make “difficult choices” in the future. Okay, so apparently Veremund is psychic and can see the future or something. Who wants to bet this ability will never actually be used for anything important? Actually, knowing this author as I do I suspect it will never appear again after this one scene.
Then they check out Gilbert and surprise surprise, conclude that he is Evil and cannot be redeemed ever. Even less surprisingly, snakes are used as a metaphor for his Evilness. Never seen that one before, no sir.
After that they check out one of Axis’ guys, conclude that he’s 100% loyal (and this will never change, ever, because people don’t change with their circumstances or have sides to them even they themselves are unaware of. That would mean having to deal with more than one dimension after all, and we can’t have that). They implant a secret message in the guy’s mind to watch Axis’ back in case of future treachery, though I’m not sure why that was necessary if he’s already super duper loyal to the guy. Methinks this was just the author trying to jam in some mysticism and/or supremely clunky foreshadowing. Entirely unnecessary foreshadowing at that – we’ve already read the damn prophecy, so we already know there’s going to be a Traitor In the Ranks. Can anyone guess who?
(No, it’s not Borneheld).
Finally they decide to “read” Axis himself, and both of them act like they’re one step away from having an orgasm, with one of them exclaiming “Yes! Oh yes!”. Oh yes, Axis! I’m the dirty stableboy and you are my master! Whip me, master! Whip me hard!
Okay, I might have been exaggerating a tad, but even so.
They intuit that the Destroyer has been sending Axis nightmares to make him doubtful and put “hate in his heart”. Oh no, if that happens Axis will become an insufferable jerk who’s nasty to everyone! Oh, wait.
They conclude that they need to find Axis’ dad, so they can learn more about the Destroyer. Trust me, you don’t want to find this guy’s father. He’s even worse than Axis. (Yes it’s possible).
Now we cut back to Faraday, who is apparently about as easy to lure as a little kid with a bag of sweets and a dolly. She’s decided to trust Jack because a creepy eternally smiling guy who wanders around with a bunch of pigs in the middle of the night tempting young women to come with him alone is definitely the pinnacle of trustworthiness. I mean if you can’t trust a guy like that, who can you trust?
He finally starts touching her hand, while calling her “lovely lady” on every other sentence, and in another book we’d cut to the police finding her dismembered remains by the side of the road three days later.
Instead he talks her into, ugh, talking “with her heart” while touching the tree. Hey, just like Pocahontas. She does and realises she can feel the tree’s emotions!
It’s a tree. Trees do not have feelings. What is this, a Disney movie?
She presses herself against the tree like a stripper with a pole, and breathlessly declares that it’s singing to her, and the section ends very abruptly with the line “Jack’s eyes filled with tears.” Uh… what?
The narrative cuts back to Ogden and Veremund for a paragraph, sensing the tree singing… thing, just as Movie!Galbatorix sensed Saphira hatching somehow.
Then it cuts back to Faraday, still hugging the tree and warbling about how the whole forest is singing to her. Jack hugs both her and the tree (still creepy), and Yr the cat, watching… starts crying because “Tree Friend had been found at last”.
I swear I’m not making any of this up.
Faraday asks the tree about Borneheld, and is given a vision of the future (this would make the fourth or fifth such vision in this chapter alone). She sees Axis and Borneheld in the castle banquet hall fighting each other in a duel, and there’s lots of blood. There’s also a lot of feathers and she hears herself melodramatically yelling “nooooo!” like all good fantasy protagonists do. Even more blood shows up and Faraday freaks out and starts screaming her head off as the vision ends.
I swear to gods, this book has spent more time spoiling future events than it has actually portraying any events. Might I add, we’re now a quarter of the way into the bloody thing.
Jack tells Faraday that the trees only show you part of the truth (uh, why?), and as you would expect Faraday screams at him to fuck off and then runs away because she wants nothing more to do with it. To nobody’s surprise the moment she’s gone Jack turns out not to be a “simpleton” at all and tells the trees that Faraday needs a reason to fight and they’d better hope she comes back because she’s their only chance.
And now you’re starting to see the some of the many completely insane things in this series: singing trees that can tell you the future for reasons which will never be explained, also a crying cat. How do you even pronounce “Yr” anyway?
Keep reading, because as the ringmaster says, you ain’t seen nothing yet.
15 comments
[1]
cmdrnemo
January 17 2018, 22:15:13
I hope the traitor is Belial. That way at least one name in this book would actually mean something.
If all the trees are creepy singing fortune tellers that slowly corrupt people into simple jack. I can totally understand and get behind cutting all the forests down. Screw that noise. Evil Disney trees are not worth the hassle. Coal burns just fine. We can make things out of metal, brick, stone, hide, and or bundles of grass. You'd think a place out of contact for nearing 40 years'd be off the list of approved accommodations for the escort mission. Like sure, your one job is to keep the girls safe. But, that's no reason not to take them into the deadly forest of horrible agonizing death from which no one has returned for 39 years. It'd take solid hours to get around that. That cuts right into the pretending axes matter time. Without trees we need to run all the grass through mincer. Then mix it all with a crap ton of glue to make rounds. Then use the axe to chop those rounds into firewood. Super vital process. Way more important than avoiding the fire swamps.
When I see Yr I think "yer." Or however you spell it. That slurring of "your." My accent forces all vowels to bow to the mighty schwa anyway. It makes me feel like the cat is a bit of a Newfie 'r somesuch.
[2]
ghostwyvern
January 18 2018, 07:48:58
Well if the traitor isn't Gilbert, I don't know who it is. Though "pimples" to me would say "this guy is young," rather than "this guy is evil." I'm reasonably sure there are a lot of guys who had acne problems growing up who weren't evil at all! But no, this is one of those books where we base people's good/evil alignment purely on their appearances and not their actions. You can be super nice, but if you're ugly you're evil. Likewise, a monumental jerk like Axis is clearly good because he's pretty.
A fifteen-year-old cat isn't really that unusual in the modern world, but in the setting this cat is in, with the kitty living outside and fending for herself, it's unheard of.
Nevermind she wouldn't be spayed, so she'd be having a litter or two of kittens every year, which by the way is exhausting for cats.
I'm not 100% against prophecies and Chosen Ones myself. I'll be fair and say that someone could potentially do them well, though personally I wouldn't use either without having a huge twist or the like. On the one hand, like dragons and elves, they are a staple of fantasy. On the other, it's immediately boring if you know that the Chosen One is going to succeed and the prophecy will be correct no matter what. Nothing you've described makes me think any of this is being done well. The motto of this author seems to be, "Let's telegraph the entire plot so the reader has zero suspense!" And I agree with you, it takes away agency from the story.
Also I still think Faraday is not all that bright. I suspect we're supposed to think Axis is funny and wise-cracking and ha ha ha, but snapping at Faraday for asking a reasonable question just makes him a jerk. And let's not forget the two of them are already supposed to be in Twu Wub. Again I fail to see it. If you "love" someone who's that nasty to you, you probably have some major self-esteem issues at best.
[2A]
theepistler
January 18 2018, 20:50:32
But no, this is one of those books where we base people's good/evil alignment purely on their appearances and not their actions.
Yup. And the author just keeps going on and on about it, too. Just like Smeyer with that asshole Edward. But he's just so handsome you guys!!1
Oh, I agree - Chosen One prophecies can work. I've just yet to see it happen. And I'd say that along with elves and dwarves, it's one of the fastest ways to make a prospective publisher lose interest in your manuscript. (Trust me, I know someone who tried to sell something with elves in it. Publisher wouldn't touch it with a seven-foot pole, even though it was well-written).
[2A1]
Anonymous
January 18 2018, 20:59:40
Y'know, I am planning a story in which the main thing is prophesy. There are a bunch of 'prophesy riders' (basically prophets) who interpret prophesy and sometimes try to change the future/past. In this story, prophesy is like a chaotic function (non-linear dynamics) and the events that happened/will happen are like a strange attractor. People can do things differently, but the overall structure is very hard to change. The prophesy riders can latch onto trajectories in the strange attractor and follow it/manipulate it slightly etc. The story involves concepts of lynchpins etc.
-TTT
[2A1A]
theepistler
January 18 2018, 21:03:12
Now that I like.
[2A1A1]
Anonymous
January 18 2018, 21:12:50
The story is inspired by this forum (and my love for non-linear dynamics). So many people have said that they hate prophesies! I just had to think of a story all
about it!
-TTT
[2A1A1A]
theepistler
January 18 2018, 21:19:44
This is such a great place for developing ideas! It's also invaluable for finding out what other readers are sick of seeing in novels, or wish someone would write. I've walked away with a boatload of handy new ideas just by being here. It's half the reason I stick around - it's a direct line to seasoned fantasy readers, which makes it about the most useful thing imaginable as far as I'm concerned.
[2A2]
ghostwyvern
January 19 2018, 05:39:03
It's a shame people immediately flip their lids over things like elves. The few people I've told about the elves in my elf story are like, "Actually that sounds pretty interesting." If you shrug something off simply because of a name, who knows what you'll miss out on?
[2A2A]
theepistler
January 19 2018, 08:05:45
Yeah, it's pretty childish. The moment publishers see the word "elf" they apparently assume it's going to be a big old cliche-fest ripped from Tolkien. That or it's "too difficult to place", which is code for "we can't think of an easy marketing angle".
But it was totally fine for Paolini to publish a big old cliche-fest ripped from Tolkien, elves included with not so much as an attempt at originality. Double standards much?
[2A2A1]
ghostwyvern
January 19 2018, 08:56:41
Well in his case he self-published first and somehow managed to reach a publisher with no sense of actual taste.
I will say this for Paolini: He wrote Eragon in a time when there was a market for it, and no matter how trite and unoriginal it actually is, he obviously did something right because it sold. Not only did thousands of people read his first book (and plenty of those read the subsequent ones), but he got a movie made. And even though the movie stunk, it still translated to dollars in Paolini's pocket. I think part of that success was marketing--especially over Paolini's age when he wrote the initial draft and self-published--but there were plenty of young people who thought the writing was the most amazing thing ever. I've stumbled across a few things on the internet that suggest some people, whether for nostalgia or other reasons, still think so--even if the series has lost its popularity as a whole. I've also seen someone give a poor review to Morgan Rice's books (which are perhaps the worst thing I've ever read other than some terrible fanfiction, and even that is debatable) while simultaneously praising Eragon--even though even that person blatantly called Eragon "Star Wars with dragons." Which is, plot-wise, exactly what it is.
It is what it is. I'm increasingly seeing the merits of self-publishing anything I actually manage to finish and polish to my satisfaction, though I've still heard it's best to at least try to publish traditionally first, since traditional publishers will handle the marketing etc. If I went the self-publishing route, I am well aware I'd need oodles of help on marketing because I just don't know how to. And the expense, too, is discouraging.
[2B]
cmdrnemo
January 19 2018, 01:25:34
Oh, I'd bet hard on that being a "cat." It's probably actually 700 years old and was once the main character of a mecha anime until the bad times happened.
[3]
vorpal_tongue
January 18 2018, 20:27:42
Axe-eating earth? Never heard of that before. That said, this seems to be a world where trees have higher IQ than people, so it might be forgivable.
I swear I’m not making any of this up.
Given the general state of humanity, I can believe that.
[3A]
theepistler
January 18 2018, 20:32:12
When I'm really stressed out I've been known to have some really fucked-up dreams (some of them so vivid they're basically real, which is as terrifying as it sounds), and I've still never managed to come up with anything this insane. If only this was the "fun" kind of insane rather than the "facepalm because it's so idiotic" kind of insane.
[4]
snarkbotanya
February 10 2018, 16:24:48
They finally enter the forest, and after they’ve ridden for a while everybody’s axes suddenly start being dragged downward by some sort of invisible but powerful force, so much so that Axis is pulled right out of the saddle.
Well, of course he is... I mean, if axes are being dragged down, then of course the axis would be among them!
*facepalms at own math pun*
[4A]
theepistler
February 10 2018, 16:27:39
The group travels on to the Silent Woman Woods. It rains and everyone is cold and miserable. Timozel tries to cheer the women up with “amusing stories” but gets no gratitude and eventually gives up. The zillionth POV shift takes us to Axis, who keeps trying to talk to Faraday but is politely shrugged off.
They come in sight of the woods and Belial is scared about the prospect of going in there, but Axis says he can stay behind and he’ll just take a few guys. Faraday is also scared of the forest and asks Axis why they’re called the Silent Woman Woods. Axis, aka King Jackass, spits back that it’s because they don’t ask as many questions as most women.
Wow, fuck you, Axis. Is this seriously supposed to be the hero?
That night Axis has another nightmare. This time though rather than a monster claiming to be his dad, he hears voices muttering about how they don’t know who he is or how he “found the paths”. Axis gives his name and titles and the voices are instantly pissed off (they must have been reading the book too). A “thousand voices” scream at him to get lost (I wish he would), and he finds himself in a forest facing a stag-headed man wearing a “brief loincloth”. The what now? How can a loincloth be “brief”? Is Herne the Hunter here wearing briefs? Does his loincloth only last a short time? I got nothin’.
Axis wakes up yelling once again, just as the sun rises from “the eastern horizon”, aka the place the sun always fucking rises from, so I don’t know why the author felt the need to spell that out. End chapter.
The next day Axis and his cronies head into the forest. Gilbert chooses this of all times to say that the last guy who went in there never came back, and also they haven’t heard anything from the Keep in thirty-nine years. What, you didn’t think anybody should have been informed about that before? Either he’s been keeping it to himself for some nefarious reason, or he’s an idiot. Could be both.
Naturally this doesn’t encourage anyone, though nobody yells at Gilbert for keeping this rather shall we say pertinent information under wraps.
They finally enter the forest, and after they’ve ridden for a while everybody’s axes suddenly start being dragged downward by some sort of invisible but powerful force, so much so that Axis is pulled right out of the saddle. He and the others manage to ditch the axes, and the earth swallows them up. Axis notes that maybe the last guy didn’t get his belt off in time and that’s why he never came back.
They ride on for eight freakin’ hours (how can they tell? Do they have watches?) and eventually reach a stream which shines with golden light. My assumption was that the sunlight was reflecting off it, but these bumpkins all seem to think it’s magic or some such. The Keep is just beyond it, so Axis goes up and rudely bashes on the door. Some old guy peeks out and refuses to let him in because he thinks Axis’ predecessor is still in charge of the Axe-Wielders so therefore Axis is a fraud/liar. Axis insists that they need food and shelter (what, they didn’t bring any with them?) and the old guy lets him in.
The monk-looking guy minding the keep, Brother Ogden, turns out to be your typical cranky, doddering old eccentric. He has a kitchen range, but I have no freaking idea where he’s getting food if he’s seventy and has been stuck in the middle of a forest for close to half a century. His offsider Veremund, who’s just as old as himself, joins them, and Ogden explains that the magic of the wood is so strong that so far the Seneschal has been unable to cut it down because it eats axes.
The visitors are served ridiculously luxurious food, and when they ask where the hell it came from when there’s no garden or livestock outside the two brothers evade the question. Wow, that’s not suspicious at all.
Rather incredibly Axis doesn’t pick up on this and eats the food. It’d serve him right if it was drugged or poisoned, but unfortunately it isn’t. After dinner he explains the situation to the brothers, and one of them says it could be worse than he realises. He thinks it’s possible that the situation is being caused by someone called “Gorgrael, the Destroyer”. He then horrifies everyone by saying the records kept in the keep are records of “the Forbidden”, even though those records were supposed to be all destroyed.
Axis says the Forbidden are “little more than beasts” so how can they have records, and Ogden says that actually they had a written and oral history even more complex and amazing than the human ones, and that they were “beautiful peoples”. Gilbert calls this blasphemy, but Axis tells him to shut up and asks what they mean by “peoples”, plural.
Apparently there were two non-human races, the “Icarii” and the “Avar”, also known as “the people of the Wing” and “the people of the Horn”. The Icarii, who as you will learn are the author’s favoured race like Paolini with his insufferable elves, left most of the records, and once upon a time all three races lived together and spoke a common language.
Vermund goes to fetch an Icarii book, which is of course very pretty to look at, and talks about how the Icarii and the Avar had a shared prophecy about two special babies (it’s always about the special babies, isn’t it?). He pretends his eyesight won’t let him read the prophecy in question and asks Axis to do it for him. Axis protests that he can’t understand the writing, but is urged to try again and finds out that he can just magically make sense of it.
He reads out the prophecy, which is the exact same one from the front of the book, and as there it just goes on and on until you want to scream.
When he’s done Ogden – groan – explains the prophecy. The gist of it is that when the three races lived in harmony the land was called Tecendor instead of Achar and that one day Gorgrael, the Destroyer, would being his Skraelings down from the North and try to – you guessed it – take over the world. Why, I have no idea. He just does because That’s What Villains Do.
Also, the StarMan is totally Gorgrael’s brother. Well they say “maybe” they’re brothers but the answer is yes because of course it is. Gilbert butts in that this is all ridiculous and blasphemous, etc., and the author repeatedly reminds us that he has a “pimply face” just to let us know he’s evil and untrustworthy. The brothers – who we know are Good because they look harmless, sweet and quirky – abruptly bring the conversation to an end and say how everyone should go to bed now. Gilbert objects until he “inexplicably” starts feel very tired. I see nothing at all suspicious about this.
Once everyone is asleep, Ogden and Veremund talk privately. They note that nobody’s been able to read the prophecy in forever, and that nobody can unless they have Icarii blood in them. Gosh, could that mean Axis’ dad is actually…?
The two of them reflect on how nobody’s ever heard the final verse because it has “wards” – FUCKING WARDS! – that mean only one person can ever read it. It doesn’t say who, but obviously it’s the Chosen One- uh, StarMan. You don’t exactly have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure that one out. End chapter.
We’re 14 chapters in and all we’ve accomplished so far is introducing the main characters, vaguely establishing the central threat, and seeing someone recite an annoying prophecy we already read at the beginning of the book.
I’m just going to take this opportunity to re-iterate how much I dislike prophecies, and especially Chosen One prophecies. I don’t like the way they set one character above everyone else by declaring them Special even if they haven’t done squat. I don’t like the way they rob characters of their agency. I don’t like the way they almost always railroad the plot. Every now and then I see a prophecy done right, but not often, and now is most definitely not one of those times. Plus in this case the character it’s elevating to legendary status is fucking Axis, a guy who if I met him in real life would be the kind of person I cross the road to avoid. This must be how Star Trek fans felt when Wesley Crusher was revealed as the Next Stage in Human Evolution.
The next chapter finds us with Faraday again. She’s having trouble sleeping, so she gets up to go for a walk. She comes across the Kitty and correctly thinks that some Kitty Snuggles will help her sleep. But Kitty decides to be a pain in the neck and keeps moving when she tries to pick her up. No! Bad Kitty! (I really wasn’t joking when I said the cat was important, by the way).
Faraday finally catches Kitty, and is then confronted by several scary mysterious dark figures! However the stranger just turns out to be an apparently harmless swineherd with his pigs. His name is Jack Simple and Faraday concludes that he is in fact a simpleton. Jack pets the cat and says her name is Yr and he hasn’t seen her in about fifteen years.
Faraday smiles indulgently because there’s no way the cat is anywhere near that old, and patronisingly thinks about what a “wonderful fantasy world” Jack must live in. Well, he certainly does live in a fantasy world, young lady, but then so do you. And it sure ain’t wonderful. It’s primitive, it’s rainy, it’s being invaded by monsters, and most of the people living in it are stupid assholes.
Jack tells her he’s just come from the woods and actually they’re nice. He offers to show her, addressing her as “pretty lady” (apparently even he’s hung up on how attractive Faraday is). Faraday is mortified, but Jack says the trees are magic and can tell you your future. This grabs her interest, and she asks how close they have to get to try it out. My, isn’t she trusting.
We cut to Ogden and Veremund, or rather “the creatures that had assumed [their] forms”, and their eyes are glowing golden just like the possibly magic water outside. They spy on their sleeping guests, and Veremund touches Timozel’s face and somehow knows he has a “good heart” but is troubled and will have to make “difficult choices” in the future. Okay, so apparently Veremund is psychic and can see the future or something. Who wants to bet this ability will never actually be used for anything important? Actually, knowing this author as I do I suspect it will never appear again after this one scene.
Then they check out Gilbert and surprise surprise, conclude that he is Evil and cannot be redeemed ever. Even less surprisingly, snakes are used as a metaphor for his Evilness. Never seen that one before, no sir.
After that they check out one of Axis’ guys, conclude that he’s 100% loyal (and this will never change, ever, because people don’t change with their circumstances or have sides to them even they themselves are unaware of. That would mean having to deal with more than one dimension after all, and we can’t have that). They implant a secret message in the guy’s mind to watch Axis’ back in case of future treachery, though I’m not sure why that was necessary if he’s already super duper loyal to the guy. Methinks this was just the author trying to jam in some mysticism and/or supremely clunky foreshadowing. Entirely unnecessary foreshadowing at that – we’ve already read the damn prophecy, so we already know there’s going to be a Traitor In the Ranks. Can anyone guess who?
(No, it’s not Borneheld).
Finally they decide to “read” Axis himself, and both of them act like they’re one step away from having an orgasm, with one of them exclaiming “Yes! Oh yes!”. Oh yes, Axis! I’m the dirty stableboy and you are my master! Whip me, master! Whip me hard!
Okay, I might have been exaggerating a tad, but even so.
They intuit that the Destroyer has been sending Axis nightmares to make him doubtful and put “hate in his heart”. Oh no, if that happens Axis will become an insufferable jerk who’s nasty to everyone! Oh, wait.
They conclude that they need to find Axis’ dad, so they can learn more about the Destroyer. Trust me, you don’t want to find this guy’s father. He’s even worse than Axis. (Yes it’s possible).
Now we cut back to Faraday, who is apparently about as easy to lure as a little kid with a bag of sweets and a dolly. She’s decided to trust Jack because a creepy eternally smiling guy who wanders around with a bunch of pigs in the middle of the night tempting young women to come with him alone is definitely the pinnacle of trustworthiness. I mean if you can’t trust a guy like that, who can you trust?
He finally starts touching her hand, while calling her “lovely lady” on every other sentence, and in another book we’d cut to the police finding her dismembered remains by the side of the road three days later.
Instead he talks her into, ugh, talking “with her heart” while touching the tree. Hey, just like Pocahontas. She does and realises she can feel the tree’s emotions!
It’s a tree. Trees do not have feelings. What is this, a Disney movie?
She presses herself against the tree like a stripper with a pole, and breathlessly declares that it’s singing to her, and the section ends very abruptly with the line “Jack’s eyes filled with tears.” Uh… what?
The narrative cuts back to Ogden and Veremund for a paragraph, sensing the tree singing… thing, just as Movie!Galbatorix sensed Saphira hatching somehow.
Then it cuts back to Faraday, still hugging the tree and warbling about how the whole forest is singing to her. Jack hugs both her and the tree (still creepy), and Yr the cat, watching… starts crying because “Tree Friend had been found at last”.
I swear I’m not making any of this up.
Faraday asks the tree about Borneheld, and is given a vision of the future (this would make the fourth or fifth such vision in this chapter alone). She sees Axis and Borneheld in the castle banquet hall fighting each other in a duel, and there’s lots of blood. There’s also a lot of feathers and she hears herself melodramatically yelling “nooooo!” like all good fantasy protagonists do. Even more blood shows up and Faraday freaks out and starts screaming her head off as the vision ends.
I swear to gods, this book has spent more time spoiling future events than it has actually portraying any events. Might I add, we’re now a quarter of the way into the bloody thing.
Jack tells Faraday that the trees only show you part of the truth (uh, why?), and as you would expect Faraday screams at him to fuck off and then runs away because she wants nothing more to do with it. To nobody’s surprise the moment she’s gone Jack turns out not to be a “simpleton” at all and tells the trees that Faraday needs a reason to fight and they’d better hope she comes back because she’s their only chance.
And now you’re starting to see the some of the many completely insane things in this series: singing trees that can tell you the future for reasons which will never be explained, also a crying cat. How do you even pronounce “Yr” anyway?
Keep reading, because as the ringmaster says, you ain’t seen nothing yet.
15 comments
[1]
cmdrnemo
January 17 2018, 22:15:13
I hope the traitor is Belial. That way at least one name in this book would actually mean something.
If all the trees are creepy singing fortune tellers that slowly corrupt people into simple jack. I can totally understand and get behind cutting all the forests down. Screw that noise. Evil Disney trees are not worth the hassle. Coal burns just fine. We can make things out of metal, brick, stone, hide, and or bundles of grass. You'd think a place out of contact for nearing 40 years'd be off the list of approved accommodations for the escort mission. Like sure, your one job is to keep the girls safe. But, that's no reason not to take them into the deadly forest of horrible agonizing death from which no one has returned for 39 years. It'd take solid hours to get around that. That cuts right into the pretending axes matter time. Without trees we need to run all the grass through mincer. Then mix it all with a crap ton of glue to make rounds. Then use the axe to chop those rounds into firewood. Super vital process. Way more important than avoiding the fire swamps.
When I see Yr I think "yer." Or however you spell it. That slurring of "your." My accent forces all vowels to bow to the mighty schwa anyway. It makes me feel like the cat is a bit of a Newfie 'r somesuch.
[2]
ghostwyvern
January 18 2018, 07:48:58
Well if the traitor isn't Gilbert, I don't know who it is. Though "pimples" to me would say "this guy is young," rather than "this guy is evil." I'm reasonably sure there are a lot of guys who had acne problems growing up who weren't evil at all! But no, this is one of those books where we base people's good/evil alignment purely on their appearances and not their actions. You can be super nice, but if you're ugly you're evil. Likewise, a monumental jerk like Axis is clearly good because he's pretty.
A fifteen-year-old cat isn't really that unusual in the modern world, but in the setting this cat is in, with the kitty living outside and fending for herself, it's unheard of.
Nevermind she wouldn't be spayed, so she'd be having a litter or two of kittens every year, which by the way is exhausting for cats.
I'm not 100% against prophecies and Chosen Ones myself. I'll be fair and say that someone could potentially do them well, though personally I wouldn't use either without having a huge twist or the like. On the one hand, like dragons and elves, they are a staple of fantasy. On the other, it's immediately boring if you know that the Chosen One is going to succeed and the prophecy will be correct no matter what. Nothing you've described makes me think any of this is being done well. The motto of this author seems to be, "Let's telegraph the entire plot so the reader has zero suspense!" And I agree with you, it takes away agency from the story.
Also I still think Faraday is not all that bright. I suspect we're supposed to think Axis is funny and wise-cracking and ha ha ha, but snapping at Faraday for asking a reasonable question just makes him a jerk. And let's not forget the two of them are already supposed to be in Twu Wub. Again I fail to see it. If you "love" someone who's that nasty to you, you probably have some major self-esteem issues at best.
[2A]
theepistler
January 18 2018, 20:50:32
But no, this is one of those books where we base people's good/evil alignment purely on their appearances and not their actions.
Yup. And the author just keeps going on and on about it, too. Just like Smeyer with that asshole Edward. But he's just so handsome you guys!!1
Oh, I agree - Chosen One prophecies can work. I've just yet to see it happen. And I'd say that along with elves and dwarves, it's one of the fastest ways to make a prospective publisher lose interest in your manuscript. (Trust me, I know someone who tried to sell something with elves in it. Publisher wouldn't touch it with a seven-foot pole, even though it was well-written).
[2A1]
Anonymous
January 18 2018, 20:59:40
Y'know, I am planning a story in which the main thing is prophesy. There are a bunch of 'prophesy riders' (basically prophets) who interpret prophesy and sometimes try to change the future/past. In this story, prophesy is like a chaotic function (non-linear dynamics) and the events that happened/will happen are like a strange attractor. People can do things differently, but the overall structure is very hard to change. The prophesy riders can latch onto trajectories in the strange attractor and follow it/manipulate it slightly etc. The story involves concepts of lynchpins etc.
-TTT
[2A1A]
theepistler
January 18 2018, 21:03:12
Now that I like.
[2A1A1]
Anonymous
January 18 2018, 21:12:50
The story is inspired by this forum (and my love for non-linear dynamics). So many people have said that they hate prophesies! I just had to think of a story all
about it!
-TTT
[2A1A1A]
theepistler
January 18 2018, 21:19:44
This is such a great place for developing ideas! It's also invaluable for finding out what other readers are sick of seeing in novels, or wish someone would write. I've walked away with a boatload of handy new ideas just by being here. It's half the reason I stick around - it's a direct line to seasoned fantasy readers, which makes it about the most useful thing imaginable as far as I'm concerned.
[2A2]
ghostwyvern
January 19 2018, 05:39:03
It's a shame people immediately flip their lids over things like elves. The few people I've told about the elves in my elf story are like, "Actually that sounds pretty interesting." If you shrug something off simply because of a name, who knows what you'll miss out on?
[2A2A]
theepistler
January 19 2018, 08:05:45
Yeah, it's pretty childish. The moment publishers see the word "elf" they apparently assume it's going to be a big old cliche-fest ripped from Tolkien. That or it's "too difficult to place", which is code for "we can't think of an easy marketing angle".
But it was totally fine for Paolini to publish a big old cliche-fest ripped from Tolkien, elves included with not so much as an attempt at originality. Double standards much?
[2A2A1]
ghostwyvern
January 19 2018, 08:56:41
Well in his case he self-published first and somehow managed to reach a publisher with no sense of actual taste.
I will say this for Paolini: He wrote Eragon in a time when there was a market for it, and no matter how trite and unoriginal it actually is, he obviously did something right because it sold. Not only did thousands of people read his first book (and plenty of those read the subsequent ones), but he got a movie made. And even though the movie stunk, it still translated to dollars in Paolini's pocket. I think part of that success was marketing--especially over Paolini's age when he wrote the initial draft and self-published--but there were plenty of young people who thought the writing was the most amazing thing ever. I've stumbled across a few things on the internet that suggest some people, whether for nostalgia or other reasons, still think so--even if the series has lost its popularity as a whole. I've also seen someone give a poor review to Morgan Rice's books (which are perhaps the worst thing I've ever read other than some terrible fanfiction, and even that is debatable) while simultaneously praising Eragon--even though even that person blatantly called Eragon "Star Wars with dragons." Which is, plot-wise, exactly what it is.
It is what it is. I'm increasingly seeing the merits of self-publishing anything I actually manage to finish and polish to my satisfaction, though I've still heard it's best to at least try to publish traditionally first, since traditional publishers will handle the marketing etc. If I went the self-publishing route, I am well aware I'd need oodles of help on marketing because I just don't know how to. And the expense, too, is discouraging.
[2B]
cmdrnemo
January 19 2018, 01:25:34
Oh, I'd bet hard on that being a "cat." It's probably actually 700 years old and was once the main character of a mecha anime until the bad times happened.
[3]
vorpal_tongue
January 18 2018, 20:27:42
Axe-eating earth? Never heard of that before. That said, this seems to be a world where trees have higher IQ than people, so it might be forgivable.
I swear I’m not making any of this up.
Given the general state of humanity, I can believe that.
[3A]
theepistler
January 18 2018, 20:32:12
When I'm really stressed out I've been known to have some really fucked-up dreams (some of them so vivid they're basically real, which is as terrifying as it sounds), and I've still never managed to come up with anything this insane. If only this was the "fun" kind of insane rather than the "facepalm because it's so idiotic" kind of insane.
[4]
snarkbotanya
February 10 2018, 16:24:48
They finally enter the forest, and after they’ve ridden for a while everybody’s axes suddenly start being dragged downward by some sort of invisible but powerful force, so much so that Axis is pulled right out of the saddle.
Well, of course he is... I mean, if axes are being dragged down, then of course the axis would be among them!
*facepalms at own math pun*
[4A]
theepistler
February 10 2018, 16:27:39