BattleAxe Sporking: Part Sixteen
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theepistler wrote in antishurtugal, 2018-02-09 10:49:00
MOOD:
tiredBattleAxe Sporking: Part Sixteen
Chapter 38 – yes there really are just that many chapters in this stupid thing – takes us back to El Douche Axis, who’s now hanging out at a place called Sigholt, from which he can see the Alps. The author helpfully lets us know that he’s breathing. I wish he’d kick the habit; it’s very bad for my health. He also notes that he’s never been allowed further North than a place called Aldeni, which immediately made me think of the ALDI chain of German supermarkets.
Just then an old man named Rienald shows up. We get a long description of him because of course we do, and he tells Axis how his mother Rivkah loved to stand on the very balcony he’s on now. In fact she used to stay there all day, which sounds pretty damn dull to me. He also talks about how nice and sweet she was and how she used to talk about wanting to “fly away to the Alps”. Hint, hint. Axis comments that she must have been unhappy here, and Reinald says she was unhappy when her husband was around but would “laugh” when he wasn’t there. Axis notes that this must have been when his father was there, and Reinald looks at his nails and thinks about how they never grew very well after Mr Rivkah “personally pulled them out one by one with a pair of rusty kitchen tongs” while trying to make him talk.
Since when were “kitchen tongs”, rusty or otherwise, at all suitable for fingernail removal? Don’t they have proper torture devices in this dump? I guess the author is just trying to make Duke Searlas sound extra eeeevil.
Either way it didn’t work because Reinald “loved” Rivkah and took “joy” in being able to serve her. Sounds like Rivkah was a pretty impressive Sue in her own right. (Or rather, is). Also we see here the well-worn old cliché of the Servant Is His Master’s Best Pal.
Reinald talks about how Rivkah needed “love and laughter”, but Searlas couldn’t give her those things. Um, boo-hoo? But Reinhard heard the voice of Axis’ father and apparently he had the same Magic Voice ability as Galbatorix because it was one you could “listen to for hours”. And he, like, totally gave Rivkah “love and laughter”, so therefore it was totally fine that he knocked her up and then fucked off to leave her to pay the price despite being a powerful Enchanter. No remorse.
Axis thinks about how his dad must have flown here every day to meet his mother on the balcony. Another song randomly pops into his head, and he starts humming it.
This causes Reinald to stare at him in “stunned amazement” and then Axis has a weird vision. It’s summer all of a sudden and he hears a young woman calling for “StarDrifter”. Then he sees her walking toward him, pregnant and calling him “StarDrifter”, asking him what he’s wearing. Axis starts crying dramatically and calls her “mother”. She asks “who are you?”, then disappears.
Axis turns to Reinald, “face pleading”, and asks if he saw it too. Reinald says yes, and yes that was his mum. So apparently Axis has the power to travel back in time (by humming a tune) now. And I’m 99.9% sure this will never be used or referenced again, even though it would be ridiculously useful. (Note from the future: It actually is used again later in the book. Just not for anything particularly helpful or interesting).
Reinald tells him he truly is His Father’s Son™ and gives him a ring which was a gift from his father to his mother. Yes of course it’s a ring. It’s always a ring. Or a locket. The only remotely novel part is that Rivkah apparently hid it in “a bowl of uneaten trifle” for Reinald to find. So now I’m picturing it covered in jelly and cream. He blathers on about how Axis has brought “wonder and joy” back into his life – GAG – and in return he can have the ring. Apparently this guy who was raised in a society where magic is evil isn’t the least bit upset about seeing someone openly using it in front of him. But that’s pretty much par for the course by this point.
Everyone easily sheds their lifelong prejudices the instant it becomes inconvenient.
Axis accepts the ring with a melodramatic whispered – and repeated – “thankyou”. Gag.
Then Reinald leaves, most likely never to be seen again, and Axis keeps “whispering” about how his father’s name is StarDrifter. Well no shit, Sherlock. Personally if I found out my dad had a name that ridiculous, I’d be horribly embarrassed.
He checks out the ring, which is made of red gold and has a pattern of stars on it picked out in diamonds. Eragon-like, he studies it for ages and just keeps finding more patterns. He then decides to put the ring on. Unfortunately this doesn’t immediately summon the Witch King to cut his Sue head off. Instead the author seriously trots out the “it fitted as if it had been made for him!” cliché.
A scene change takes us to Belial, who’s waiting outside with the Axe-Wielders. He infodumps at us about how the Prophecy has quite caught on with the men, and Ogden and Veremund are going around encouraging them to ask questions about the Icarii and Avar, and as a result they’re slowly shedding their prejudices and aren’t calling them the Forbidden any more. Yes, it’s just that easy!
Naturally none of this could have actually been shown to us, and there’s a very good reason for that. And that reason is – oh, excuse me – I’m needed in the basement!
The men are also openly discussing who the StarMan might be, and Belial thinks “That meant that, when the time was right, they would more readily accept Axis in his new guise. Axis had always been different and perhaps a brilliant commander because of that”.
Wait, what? I had to read that bit three times because it didn’t make any damn sense to me. How does the one thought logically follow the other? He’ll be more readily accepted in his new “guise” as the StarMan, therefore he’s always been “different” and that makes him a “brilliant commander”?
I eventually figured out that the author was just trying to say Axis is a different sort of person, and that somehow makes him a “brilliant commander”, and the previous sentence was unrelated.
Naturally, no evidence has been shown that he’s a “brilliant commander”, or even a competent one. We’ve barely seen him doing any commanding, period. So chalk this one up as an Informed (Sue) Ability.
We now move on to some boring description of the area. Apparently the keep itself sits in a spot called HoldHard Pass, which brings back fond memories of playing Skyrim. Belial thinks the landscape looks like could have once held a now-dried lake. He sees Ogden and Veremund staring at said dried-up lake and “muttering darkly”. But he mostly ignores them, much as I’d like to do.
Hmm, once there were many magical lakes but most have been lost. You don’t think this could have been one of them, do you? The workings of this complicated series of clues are just too much for little old me.
And then – oh, for fuck’s sake. Really? We learn that “several leagues away” is a city called – wait for it – Hsingard.
Subtle.
And given the number of times the author has ripped off Lord of the Rings so far, I'm really not inclined to call it a coincidence.
After even more tedious geography related blah-blah, Belial thinks about Azhure and how her “pretty face” holds “hidden depths of determination”. My, he’s awfully good at face reading. That happens a lot in bad novels, where someone’s face is basically a diagram of their entire personality which everyone is able to instantly read. See Terry Goodkind for further examples of this quite frankly ridiculous trope.
Naturally of course he’s not at all upset with her for bashing him over the head with a rock. No hard feelings, happens all the time. This is another thing that happens a lot in bad novels, where people wronged by one of the designated heroes just shrug it off because they magically know said hero is Good and therefore doesn’t "deserve" to be resented.
As a counter-example, one of my own heroic characters is shown to be a nice, good-hearted and generally well meaning person when you’re in his POV, seeing his thoughts. But when he violently assaults another character he mistakes for an enemy, she doesn’t instantly assume he didn’t mean it, even after he relents and doesn’t kill her. Instead she’s now terrified of him and thinks he’s a thug. Which is how a real person would react, as opposed to an author puppet, which is what Belial is. He’s not a person at all – his entire purpose is to be Axis’ pal and assure us that he’s, like, an awesome guy despite all the evidence to the contrary.
Axis finally comes swanning up, late. By half an hour, as Belial pointedly lets him know. How does Belial tell the time that precisely? Does he have a watch? Must be one of his daemonic powers. Axis does the usual calling out to his guys and gets the still irritating response of “We follow your voice and we are ready, BattleAxe!” Is this really necessary? I wonder how many drills it took for them to learn how to speak in perfect unison like that?
And then they all ride off, end chapter. Man that was boring. And pointless. But I’ve been saying that about most of the rest of this book, haven’t I?
The next chapter is called “Rivkah Awakes”.
Wow, so Rivkah is Alive After All! Who would have fucking thought it?? I am shocked! Shocked, I tell you! Here is my Totally Shocked face!
And I thought Paolini’s chapter titles sucked.
Getting on to the chapter itself, the Avar are now out on the road with Raum in his little sleigh. And “Raum” is suddenly making me think of rum. Lovely lovely rum to soothe the pain.
*cracks open the Captain Morgan’s*
Ahhh, I needed that.
Paolini’s thesaurus must have temporarily escaped to Australia, because when Azhure asks why it’s so warm in the forest despite the season GoldFeather tells her it’s because the trees have the power to protect the Avar “even though in these times it mostly lies quiescent”.
Apparently “dormant” was too plain and boring to suffice.
More infodumping follows as Azhure learns about the uses of different made-up plants, and we then learn that the Avar keep goats and sheep for “meat, milk and skins”.
But the Avar don’t like violence. That’s why they raise cute helpless fuzzy goats and sheep and then slaughter them for food. You ever see an animal slaughtered, Ms Douglass? Because I have, and it’s not nice, and it’s not over quickly. Not even with modern day slaughterhouse practices. Trust me. Just because you get your meat all neatly packaged at the supermarket doesn’t mean there wasn’t any pain, fear or suffering involved for the donor. I'd be bitching less about this if there was any sort of explanation as to why violence against animals is okay in a violence-hating society, but there isn't.
Along the way GoldFeather tells Azhure about the Prophecy, and Azhure becomes “enthralled” by her. She wants to know more abut her, and GoldFeather talks about how she’s fascinated by both Icarii and Avar, but has begun spending more time with the Avar (probably wanted to get away from the Sues). Azhure asks who she lives with among the Icarii, and GoldFeather answers with her husband and daughter. She tells Azhure to listen to a certain bird, and says it’s an “Evensong lark”. She named her daughter EvenSong after it.
Cute.
Azhure thinks this is a “lovely name”. Um, no it isn’t. Maybe she’s just being nice. She asks if GoldFeather has any other kids, and GoldFeather says she had two sons but “lost them both”, and then turns away as if she’s upset about something.
Wait, you can’t mean that GoldFeather is really…?!
That evening Azhure is asked about Axis and whether she knows anything about his past. She says she’s been told he’s the bastard son of Rivkah, and GoldFeather immediately lets out a “low wail of distress” and goes all pale and such.
They ask her what’s wrong and she answers “I am Rivkah!”
ZOMGs.
NOWAI!
It’s the biggest plot twist since Darth Vader turned out to be Luke’s father! No-one could possibly have seen this coming! It totally wasn’t telegraphed since the freakin’ prologue!
Rivkah is understandably upset, since she was told her kid died at birth and then dumped in the middle of nowhere to die. In the hands of a better author this would be a really heartbreaking story. Imagine being married off to some jerk you don’t love, then finding happiness in the arms of a much better man (let’s pretend), and then losing the child you loved and wanted and being abandoned in a freezing wasteland to die slowly and horribly, having lost everything you hold dear. I mean, my gods. You’d have to be a truly amazing woman to survive something like that.
Instead it’s just backstory, and ultimately unimportant backstory at that. Also, please note that Rivkah isn’t the least bit bothered about the fact that she abandoned Borneheld as a toddler. Because fuck Borneheld. I’m starting a petition to rescue the poor guy and place him in the care of an author who actually likes him.
Raum asks if StarDrifter is Axis’ dad, and she says yes. Barsarbe chips in that StarDrifter is from “the oldest and strongest line of Icarii Enchanters, the SunSoars”. So if you’ve been paying attention, that means StarDrifter is from the Icarii royal family. And yet he sees nothing wrong with flying around the place fathering bastard kids.
Not even King Henry the Eighth was that much of a shameless horndog, and at least he was mostly just trying to father an heir to the throne.
Rivkah asks Azhure who raised her kid, and Azhure says it was Jayme.
…no, not that Jaime.
[smouldering intensifies]
Rivkah laments that not only did Jayme try to kill her, but he also stole her son. She angsts about how she was so close to him but didn’t realise he was her son, and says she has to tell her husband StarDrifter he's alive.
Yeah, she married StarDrifter. SO not a good idea.
Rivkah has a good cry and rhetorically asks how she could have stood that close to Axis and not realised he was her son. Trust me lady, you don’t want him as your son. I wouldn’t want him as a second cousin twice removed.
1 comment
torylltales
February 2018, 10:03:16
I can't help thinking this should have been written as a parody of the fantasy genre, instead of being played straight. As an off-the-wall silly/ridiculous comedy piece, it would have been brilliant.
Just then an old man named Rienald shows up. We get a long description of him because of course we do, and he tells Axis how his mother Rivkah loved to stand on the very balcony he’s on now. In fact she used to stay there all day, which sounds pretty damn dull to me. He also talks about how nice and sweet she was and how she used to talk about wanting to “fly away to the Alps”. Hint, hint. Axis comments that she must have been unhappy here, and Reinald says she was unhappy when her husband was around but would “laugh” when he wasn’t there. Axis notes that this must have been when his father was there, and Reinald looks at his nails and thinks about how they never grew very well after Mr Rivkah “personally pulled them out one by one with a pair of rusty kitchen tongs” while trying to make him talk.
Since when were “kitchen tongs”, rusty or otherwise, at all suitable for fingernail removal? Don’t they have proper torture devices in this dump? I guess the author is just trying to make Duke Searlas sound extra eeeevil.
Either way it didn’t work because Reinald “loved” Rivkah and took “joy” in being able to serve her. Sounds like Rivkah was a pretty impressive Sue in her own right. (Or rather, is). Also we see here the well-worn old cliché of the Servant Is His Master’s Best Pal.
Reinald talks about how Rivkah needed “love and laughter”, but Searlas couldn’t give her those things. Um, boo-hoo? But Reinhard heard the voice of Axis’ father and apparently he had the same Magic Voice ability as Galbatorix because it was one you could “listen to for hours”. And he, like, totally gave Rivkah “love and laughter”, so therefore it was totally fine that he knocked her up and then fucked off to leave her to pay the price despite being a powerful Enchanter. No remorse.
Axis thinks about how his dad must have flown here every day to meet his mother on the balcony. Another song randomly pops into his head, and he starts humming it.
This causes Reinald to stare at him in “stunned amazement” and then Axis has a weird vision. It’s summer all of a sudden and he hears a young woman calling for “StarDrifter”. Then he sees her walking toward him, pregnant and calling him “StarDrifter”, asking him what he’s wearing. Axis starts crying dramatically and calls her “mother”. She asks “who are you?”, then disappears.
Axis turns to Reinald, “face pleading”, and asks if he saw it too. Reinald says yes, and yes that was his mum. So apparently Axis has the power to travel back in time (by humming a tune) now. And I’m 99.9% sure this will never be used or referenced again, even though it would be ridiculously useful. (Note from the future: It actually is used again later in the book. Just not for anything particularly helpful or interesting).
Reinald tells him he truly is His Father’s Son™ and gives him a ring which was a gift from his father to his mother. Yes of course it’s a ring. It’s always a ring. Or a locket. The only remotely novel part is that Rivkah apparently hid it in “a bowl of uneaten trifle” for Reinald to find. So now I’m picturing it covered in jelly and cream. He blathers on about how Axis has brought “wonder and joy” back into his life – GAG – and in return he can have the ring. Apparently this guy who was raised in a society where magic is evil isn’t the least bit upset about seeing someone openly using it in front of him. But that’s pretty much par for the course by this point.
Everyone easily sheds their lifelong prejudices the instant it becomes inconvenient.
Axis accepts the ring with a melodramatic whispered – and repeated – “thankyou”. Gag.
Then Reinald leaves, most likely never to be seen again, and Axis keeps “whispering” about how his father’s name is StarDrifter. Well no shit, Sherlock. Personally if I found out my dad had a name that ridiculous, I’d be horribly embarrassed.
He checks out the ring, which is made of red gold and has a pattern of stars on it picked out in diamonds. Eragon-like, he studies it for ages and just keeps finding more patterns. He then decides to put the ring on. Unfortunately this doesn’t immediately summon the Witch King to cut his Sue head off. Instead the author seriously trots out the “it fitted as if it had been made for him!” cliché.
A scene change takes us to Belial, who’s waiting outside with the Axe-Wielders. He infodumps at us about how the Prophecy has quite caught on with the men, and Ogden and Veremund are going around encouraging them to ask questions about the Icarii and Avar, and as a result they’re slowly shedding their prejudices and aren’t calling them the Forbidden any more. Yes, it’s just that easy!
Naturally none of this could have actually been shown to us, and there’s a very good reason for that. And that reason is – oh, excuse me – I’m needed in the basement!
The men are also openly discussing who the StarMan might be, and Belial thinks “That meant that, when the time was right, they would more readily accept Axis in his new guise. Axis had always been different and perhaps a brilliant commander because of that”.
Wait, what? I had to read that bit three times because it didn’t make any damn sense to me. How does the one thought logically follow the other? He’ll be more readily accepted in his new “guise” as the StarMan, therefore he’s always been “different” and that makes him a “brilliant commander”?
I eventually figured out that the author was just trying to say Axis is a different sort of person, and that somehow makes him a “brilliant commander”, and the previous sentence was unrelated.
Naturally, no evidence has been shown that he’s a “brilliant commander”, or even a competent one. We’ve barely seen him doing any commanding, period. So chalk this one up as an Informed (Sue) Ability.
We now move on to some boring description of the area. Apparently the keep itself sits in a spot called HoldHard Pass, which brings back fond memories of playing Skyrim. Belial thinks the landscape looks like could have once held a now-dried lake. He sees Ogden and Veremund staring at said dried-up lake and “muttering darkly”. But he mostly ignores them, much as I’d like to do.
Hmm, once there were many magical lakes but most have been lost. You don’t think this could have been one of them, do you? The workings of this complicated series of clues are just too much for little old me.
And then – oh, for fuck’s sake. Really? We learn that “several leagues away” is a city called – wait for it – Hsingard.
Subtle.
And given the number of times the author has ripped off Lord of the Rings so far, I'm really not inclined to call it a coincidence.
After even more tedious geography related blah-blah, Belial thinks about Azhure and how her “pretty face” holds “hidden depths of determination”. My, he’s awfully good at face reading. That happens a lot in bad novels, where someone’s face is basically a diagram of their entire personality which everyone is able to instantly read. See Terry Goodkind for further examples of this quite frankly ridiculous trope.
Naturally of course he’s not at all upset with her for bashing him over the head with a rock. No hard feelings, happens all the time. This is another thing that happens a lot in bad novels, where people wronged by one of the designated heroes just shrug it off because they magically know said hero is Good and therefore doesn’t "deserve" to be resented.
As a counter-example, one of my own heroic characters is shown to be a nice, good-hearted and generally well meaning person when you’re in his POV, seeing his thoughts. But when he violently assaults another character he mistakes for an enemy, she doesn’t instantly assume he didn’t mean it, even after he relents and doesn’t kill her. Instead she’s now terrified of him and thinks he’s a thug. Which is how a real person would react, as opposed to an author puppet, which is what Belial is. He’s not a person at all – his entire purpose is to be Axis’ pal and assure us that he’s, like, an awesome guy despite all the evidence to the contrary.
Axis finally comes swanning up, late. By half an hour, as Belial pointedly lets him know. How does Belial tell the time that precisely? Does he have a watch? Must be one of his daemonic powers. Axis does the usual calling out to his guys and gets the still irritating response of “We follow your voice and we are ready, BattleAxe!” Is this really necessary? I wonder how many drills it took for them to learn how to speak in perfect unison like that?
And then they all ride off, end chapter. Man that was boring. And pointless. But I’ve been saying that about most of the rest of this book, haven’t I?
The next chapter is called “Rivkah Awakes”.
Wow, so Rivkah is Alive After All! Who would have fucking thought it?? I am shocked! Shocked, I tell you! Here is my Totally Shocked face!
And I thought Paolini’s chapter titles sucked.
Getting on to the chapter itself, the Avar are now out on the road with Raum in his little sleigh. And “Raum” is suddenly making me think of rum. Lovely lovely rum to soothe the pain.
*cracks open the Captain Morgan’s*
Ahhh, I needed that.
Paolini’s thesaurus must have temporarily escaped to Australia, because when Azhure asks why it’s so warm in the forest despite the season GoldFeather tells her it’s because the trees have the power to protect the Avar “even though in these times it mostly lies quiescent”.
Apparently “dormant” was too plain and boring to suffice.
More infodumping follows as Azhure learns about the uses of different made-up plants, and we then learn that the Avar keep goats and sheep for “meat, milk and skins”.
But the Avar don’t like violence. That’s why they raise cute helpless fuzzy goats and sheep and then slaughter them for food. You ever see an animal slaughtered, Ms Douglass? Because I have, and it’s not nice, and it’s not over quickly. Not even with modern day slaughterhouse practices. Trust me. Just because you get your meat all neatly packaged at the supermarket doesn’t mean there wasn’t any pain, fear or suffering involved for the donor. I'd be bitching less about this if there was any sort of explanation as to why violence against animals is okay in a violence-hating society, but there isn't.
Along the way GoldFeather tells Azhure about the Prophecy, and Azhure becomes “enthralled” by her. She wants to know more abut her, and GoldFeather talks about how she’s fascinated by both Icarii and Avar, but has begun spending more time with the Avar (probably wanted to get away from the Sues). Azhure asks who she lives with among the Icarii, and GoldFeather answers with her husband and daughter. She tells Azhure to listen to a certain bird, and says it’s an “Evensong lark”. She named her daughter EvenSong after it.
Cute.
Azhure thinks this is a “lovely name”. Um, no it isn’t. Maybe she’s just being nice. She asks if GoldFeather has any other kids, and GoldFeather says she had two sons but “lost them both”, and then turns away as if she’s upset about something.
Wait, you can’t mean that GoldFeather is really…?!
That evening Azhure is asked about Axis and whether she knows anything about his past. She says she’s been told he’s the bastard son of Rivkah, and GoldFeather immediately lets out a “low wail of distress” and goes all pale and such.
They ask her what’s wrong and she answers “I am Rivkah!”
ZOMGs.
NOWAI!
It’s the biggest plot twist since Darth Vader turned out to be Luke’s father! No-one could possibly have seen this coming! It totally wasn’t telegraphed since the freakin’ prologue!
Rivkah is understandably upset, since she was told her kid died at birth and then dumped in the middle of nowhere to die. In the hands of a better author this would be a really heartbreaking story. Imagine being married off to some jerk you don’t love, then finding happiness in the arms of a much better man (let’s pretend), and then losing the child you loved and wanted and being abandoned in a freezing wasteland to die slowly and horribly, having lost everything you hold dear. I mean, my gods. You’d have to be a truly amazing woman to survive something like that.
Instead it’s just backstory, and ultimately unimportant backstory at that. Also, please note that Rivkah isn’t the least bit bothered about the fact that she abandoned Borneheld as a toddler. Because fuck Borneheld. I’m starting a petition to rescue the poor guy and place him in the care of an author who actually likes him.
Raum asks if StarDrifter is Axis’ dad, and she says yes. Barsarbe chips in that StarDrifter is from “the oldest and strongest line of Icarii Enchanters, the SunSoars”. So if you’ve been paying attention, that means StarDrifter is from the Icarii royal family. And yet he sees nothing wrong with flying around the place fathering bastard kids.
Not even King Henry the Eighth was that much of a shameless horndog, and at least he was mostly just trying to father an heir to the throne.
Rivkah asks Azhure who raised her kid, and Azhure says it was Jayme.
…no, not that Jaime.
[smouldering intensifies]
Rivkah laments that not only did Jayme try to kill her, but he also stole her son. She angsts about how she was so close to him but didn’t realise he was her son, and says she has to tell her husband StarDrifter he's alive.
Yeah, she married StarDrifter. SO not a good idea.
Rivkah has a good cry and rhetorically asks how she could have stood that close to Axis and not realised he was her son. Trust me lady, you don’t want him as your son. I wouldn’t want him as a second cousin twice removed.
1 comment
torylltales
February 2018, 10:03:16
I can't help thinking this should have been written as a parody of the fantasy genre, instead of being played straight. As an off-the-wall silly/ridiculous comedy piece, it would have been brilliant.