BattleAxe Sporking: Part Twenty-Four
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theepistler wrote in antishurtugal, 2018-03-11 22:27:00
MOOD:
cheerfulBattleAxe Sporking: Part Twenty-Four
Only a couple more instalments to go now, guys. Yay! In the meantime I've been mucking around with soap in a largely futile attempt at recreating the "dwarf party" craft activities. What the hell is it with dwarves and soap?! I don't think my hands have ever been this spotlessly clean.
Depressingly, the next chapter finds us with Jack Simple. I really hate this guy. For some reason just reading his name pisses me off. We’re informed that he has “straight blond hair” and green eyes – who cares? – and he’s listening to the Earth Tree’s song with his “Sentinel ears”, as opposed to elf ears, and apparently I’ve been misspelling “Sentinel” all this time, damn it all.
He’s left his pigs in a valley somewhere – apparently it’s very important that we know about that – and is now searching for the missing member of the group. Her name is Zeherah, which sounds awfully Biblical to me, and nobody’s seen or felt her in more than two thousand years.
Crap fantasy authors love to throw around exaggeratedly huge timespans like this, and I for one think it’s entirely unnecessary. It’s supposed to create an impression of epic scale, but it doesn’t work in part because most of the time there’s no indication of what even happened during the supposed however many thousand years it was. Do people not realise just how much happens in a mere hundred years? In two thousand years mankind went from the Bronze Age to inventing the Internet. That’s a hell of a lot of progress, during which entire civilisations rose and fell, two world wars were fought, the Atom Bomb was invented, religions were founded and fell back into obscurity… the list goes on.
But in bad fantasy worlds like this one, nothing changes in two thousand years. Technology doesn’t advance. Civilisations just kind of idle around, largely unchanged. And most of the time there’s no explanation for this. The unintended side effect of which is that, ironically, there’s no real sense of history. It’s just always been Ye Medieval Times. This means that the world just comes off like it was created yesterday out of thin air, which it pretty much was. Which does a great job of ruining the immersion.
Anyhoo, Jack is worried about the missing Sentinel. Apparently they’ve spent the last ridiculous amount of time mostly apart, just in case meeting up triggers the Prophecy. Like the Prophecy is a freaking video game cutscene. Even so they’re able to communicate telepathically, but Zeherah hasn’t been in touch and if Jack can’t find her in time, All Is Lost, etc.
Jack has a bit of a cry because he could “feel” the slaughter at the Earth Tree, but it was even worse at Gherkintown and he’s not sure if Axis and Faraday are all right, angst ansgst. Apparently he watched the dead “through the river of the night”. And that’s a godawful metaphor right there. Supposedly the dead travel along something called the River of Death to the Gate of the AfterLife, and Jack saw them, all mutilated and bewildered and such. This might have been more effective if we had actually seen it too, but as usual we just get after-the-fact narration.
Returning to the present, he’s currently at HoldHard pass, no doubt under the constant threat of Kajiit bandits and Horkers. He can see a place called Sigholt, which is one of “three ancient Keeps of Tecendor”.
Below is the dried-up remains of the lake we saw earlier, and apparently when it went, so did Zeherah. An infodump informs us that every Sentinel is tied to one of the magic lakes, which are in order, Grail Lake, Cauldron Lake, Fernbrake Lake and the now-gone Lake of Life. Why is it called that? Beats me. But apparently one of the “ghastly Dukes of Ichtar”, aka Borneheld’s ancestors, probably had it drained.
Oh, so that’s why we’re not supposed to like Borneheld. His ancestors had a lake drained.
Oh gods – we now get another infodump and Jack has another good cry because – sob! – Zeherah was “the love of his life”, and they were married in “another existence”.
And he’s waited this long to search for her because…?
Even more infodumping follows. Supposedly the Sentinels were members of a lost fourth race called the Charonites, who “plied their boats along the waterways of the UnderWorld”.
Wow, there’s another truly imaginative name. And if this land is supposed to be Medieval Europe, what’s with all the Ancient Greek?
The chapter just randomly ends there, on this very abrupt and pointless note. I have no idea why. How was that even relevant and why was it used to close off the chapter? It feels like the author fell asleep at the keyboard.
The next chapter cuts to GoldFeather, being informed that StarDrifter will be okay (damn) but won’t be able to fly for a while. Bane Barsarbe apparently spent “over four hours” stitching him up and sprinkling him with generic “herbs”. How do they know it was four hours?
In spite of all the carnage, every important named character is of course still alive and well. We now get to meet EvenSong, who is “striking” and has “violet eyes and her father’s golden hair”, and golden wings, dyed purple on the undersides so she’s “gold and violet” while in the air, kind of like a Violet Crumble bar.
I don't know if they're available outside Australia, but they're freakin' delicious.
I swear, this is like reading a thirteen-year-old girl’s Harry Potter fanfiction. Is EvenSong also the half unicorn secret Mpreg daughter of Sirius and Voldemort?
Blah blah, EvenSong is all shocked and is trying to come to terms with having a brother. The author uses her usual cheap characterisation shortcuts by telling us that EvenSong is “temperamental” and is jealous of Axis because he got the Enchanter power and she didn’t.
She then moves on to Sue worshipping Azhure, thinking about how great she is and how literally no-one else was able to do anything useful during the battle and how Azhure totally rallied everybody, etc. etc. Meanwhile RavenCrest is pissed at his troops for being completely useless, and we’re told that the Icarii and Avar have been living in peace for so long that they’ve just magically forgotten how to fight. Yeah, not buying it. At all. RavenCrest is also embarrassed that it was StarDrifter who “salvaged the House of SunSoar’s pride” by being the one to awaken the bigass tree.
As always, all of this is dictated by means of sloppy POV changes. I don’t know why I’m even bothering to point this out – by now you guys are probably taking it as read that the author can't stick to a consistent POV in any given scene.
Blah blah, “many hundreds” have been killed, most of them Avar because the Avar are “passive”. Why are they going to be of any use in fighting Gorgrael, then, if they’re pacifists who hate violence?
Azhure meanwhile, sees EvenSong looking at her and thinks she’d like to get to know her but there’s too much “sadness” around to be thinking about making friends. Fleat’s kid Hogni, who I don’t think we’ve even met by this point, is dead but Fleat is okay. And I should care about this because…?
Azhure studies her hands, as you do, and wangsts about how Pease was her “strongest tie with the Clan” and now she’s gone, wah wah. Oh no, a character we barely knew died! How terrible!
RavenCrest goes over to StarDrifter, who’s sulking because he had a bunch of feathers pulled out so his wing injuries could be stitched. Boo frickin' hoo. RavenCrest asks how much damage the Skraelings did, meaning to the “make the sun come up” rite, and StarDrifter says, well, they’ve managed to make the sun come up but it’s not very strong and winter is going to stick around.
FreeFall joins in the conversation, and we get an infodump about how the “Icarii prince” is growing into his role and a lot of people think he’ll make a great Talon one day because he doesn’t let his “innate arrogance” impair his judgement. Evidence, please.
StarDrifter says Gorgrael’s only won a partial victory, and if it had been complete he’d have StarDrifter in his clutches now. RavenCrest asks why Gorgrael would want him alive – uh, duh? – and StarDrifter explains that – duh – Gorgrael wants him to teach him more magic. FreeFall is all like “but why’s he need you when he’s already so powerful”, and StarDrifter is all “he’s getting his power from a different source”. Specifically, the Icarii Enchanters get their power from the “Star Dance”, which is the “music” stars make while they “dance through the heavens”. Since when was spinning rapidly on the spot a “dance”? But Gorgrael is getting his power from “discord”, ie. the “disharmonies that are made when the Stars miss their step” and “crash into one another” or turn into red giants.
Yeah.
Apparently this “disharmony” is referred to as “a Dance of Death”, and many have feared that one day someone would figure out how to use it.
So Gorgrael gets his magic from red giants and supernovas which are part of a Dance of Death. Everybody got that?
No, I don’t know what the author was smoking. But whatever it was I don't want to try it.
FreeFall wonders just who the hell taught him that, but StarDrifter just cuts him off and says that if Gorgrael can also learn the “Dance of Life and Harmony”, he’ll become all-powerful, conquer the world, and then use the Star Gate to conquer other worlds as well (this goes nowhere, by the way). Everyone is shocked, shocked to hear this, and StarDrifter wonders who could possibly have taught the bastard.
RavenCrest declares that StarDrifter is getting a bodyguard from the Strike Force. Because we’ve all seen how effective that lot are.
Then they move on to talking about Axis. StarDrifter wants to go to Gherkinfort and help out, but the others don’t like it because the stoopid humans drove them out of their original homes. Yes, we already know that. What’s with the pointless rehash?
RavenCrest says they’ll have to hold a meeting about it at Talon Spike, aka the Icarii palace, though I instantly pictured Marlinspike Hall from the Tintin comics.
"Blistering barnacles - how DARE you drag me into this tomfoolery?!"
StarDrifter wants to just get on with it without the political screwing around, and RavenCrest tells him “this is not a decision to be made lightly”. StarDrifter says at the very least they should rescue Axis. FreeFall says he’s got a point because Axis needs training.
Another truly horrible bit of writing follows:
RavenCrest whipped around to his son, his violet eyes blazing. “I am not going to make a decision that overlooks a thousand years of hatred between our races, FreeFall! Axis or not, I am loath to go to the aid of those who would as willingly murder us as listen to us!”
This has to be some of the most badly written, unnatural and just plain stupid pieces of dialogue I have ever seen in my life. I’ve written better dialogue than this while drunk, half-asleep and suffering from the ‘flu. Mind you, I think just about anybody could.
Ugh.
The argument breaks up at this point, and Azhure gets some special Sue praise from Barsarbe, who tells her how awesome she is and how the Avar are totally going to reconsider letting her join them. Even though she used violence, which is Bad. Oh, I get it, Barsarbe. Violence is never okay, unless someone’s using it to save your useless hide. Then all bets are off. What a hypocrite.
Then StarDrifter comes over and invites her to come home with him and GoldFeather. GoldFeather joins in, sounding like a little kid, and Azhure says okay, sure. Have fun getting around in a city full of people who can fly, lady.
2 comments
cmdrnemo
March 17 2018, 16:50:17
Forged ten thousand years ago by the great master himself! Behold this exceptionally delicious sandwich! In a normal world ten thousand years would be enough to ruin a sandwich. But, here in fantasy land nothing ever changes. It may as well have been mere minutes ago. We did keep it under a cloth. Nothing can stop the accumulation of dust. Don't worry about the trivialities like "culture" or "religion" all are swept aside in the face of a good sandwich. Maybe a Crunchie bar, the much less interesting name for Violet Crumbles used up North.
theepistler
March 18 2018, 00:16:06
Mmm, legendary sandwich...
Depressingly, the next chapter finds us with Jack Simple. I really hate this guy. For some reason just reading his name pisses me off. We’re informed that he has “straight blond hair” and green eyes – who cares? – and he’s listening to the Earth Tree’s song with his “Sentinel ears”, as opposed to elf ears, and apparently I’ve been misspelling “Sentinel” all this time, damn it all.
He’s left his pigs in a valley somewhere – apparently it’s very important that we know about that – and is now searching for the missing member of the group. Her name is Zeherah, which sounds awfully Biblical to me, and nobody’s seen or felt her in more than two thousand years.
Crap fantasy authors love to throw around exaggeratedly huge timespans like this, and I for one think it’s entirely unnecessary. It’s supposed to create an impression of epic scale, but it doesn’t work in part because most of the time there’s no indication of what even happened during the supposed however many thousand years it was. Do people not realise just how much happens in a mere hundred years? In two thousand years mankind went from the Bronze Age to inventing the Internet. That’s a hell of a lot of progress, during which entire civilisations rose and fell, two world wars were fought, the Atom Bomb was invented, religions were founded and fell back into obscurity… the list goes on.
But in bad fantasy worlds like this one, nothing changes in two thousand years. Technology doesn’t advance. Civilisations just kind of idle around, largely unchanged. And most of the time there’s no explanation for this. The unintended side effect of which is that, ironically, there’s no real sense of history. It’s just always been Ye Medieval Times. This means that the world just comes off like it was created yesterday out of thin air, which it pretty much was. Which does a great job of ruining the immersion.
Anyhoo, Jack is worried about the missing Sentinel. Apparently they’ve spent the last ridiculous amount of time mostly apart, just in case meeting up triggers the Prophecy. Like the Prophecy is a freaking video game cutscene. Even so they’re able to communicate telepathically, but Zeherah hasn’t been in touch and if Jack can’t find her in time, All Is Lost, etc.
Jack has a bit of a cry because he could “feel” the slaughter at the Earth Tree, but it was even worse at Gherkintown and he’s not sure if Axis and Faraday are all right, angst ansgst. Apparently he watched the dead “through the river of the night”. And that’s a godawful metaphor right there. Supposedly the dead travel along something called the River of Death to the Gate of the AfterLife, and Jack saw them, all mutilated and bewildered and such. This might have been more effective if we had actually seen it too, but as usual we just get after-the-fact narration.
Returning to the present, he’s currently at HoldHard pass, no doubt under the constant threat of Kajiit bandits and Horkers. He can see a place called Sigholt, which is one of “three ancient Keeps of Tecendor”.
Below is the dried-up remains of the lake we saw earlier, and apparently when it went, so did Zeherah. An infodump informs us that every Sentinel is tied to one of the magic lakes, which are in order, Grail Lake, Cauldron Lake, Fernbrake Lake and the now-gone Lake of Life. Why is it called that? Beats me. But apparently one of the “ghastly Dukes of Ichtar”, aka Borneheld’s ancestors, probably had it drained.
Oh, so that’s why we’re not supposed to like Borneheld. His ancestors had a lake drained.
Oh gods – we now get another infodump and Jack has another good cry because – sob! – Zeherah was “the love of his life”, and they were married in “another existence”.
And he’s waited this long to search for her because…?
Even more infodumping follows. Supposedly the Sentinels were members of a lost fourth race called the Charonites, who “plied their boats along the waterways of the UnderWorld”.
Wow, there’s another truly imaginative name. And if this land is supposed to be Medieval Europe, what’s with all the Ancient Greek?
The chapter just randomly ends there, on this very abrupt and pointless note. I have no idea why. How was that even relevant and why was it used to close off the chapter? It feels like the author fell asleep at the keyboard.
The next chapter cuts to GoldFeather, being informed that StarDrifter will be okay (damn) but won’t be able to fly for a while. Bane Barsarbe apparently spent “over four hours” stitching him up and sprinkling him with generic “herbs”. How do they know it was four hours?
In spite of all the carnage, every important named character is of course still alive and well. We now get to meet EvenSong, who is “striking” and has “violet eyes and her father’s golden hair”, and golden wings, dyed purple on the undersides so she’s “gold and violet” while in the air, kind of like a Violet Crumble bar.
I don't know if they're available outside Australia, but they're freakin' delicious.I swear, this is like reading a thirteen-year-old girl’s Harry Potter fanfiction. Is EvenSong also the half unicorn secret Mpreg daughter of Sirius and Voldemort?
Blah blah, EvenSong is all shocked and is trying to come to terms with having a brother. The author uses her usual cheap characterisation shortcuts by telling us that EvenSong is “temperamental” and is jealous of Axis because he got the Enchanter power and she didn’t.
She then moves on to Sue worshipping Azhure, thinking about how great she is and how literally no-one else was able to do anything useful during the battle and how Azhure totally rallied everybody, etc. etc. Meanwhile RavenCrest is pissed at his troops for being completely useless, and we’re told that the Icarii and Avar have been living in peace for so long that they’ve just magically forgotten how to fight. Yeah, not buying it. At all. RavenCrest is also embarrassed that it was StarDrifter who “salvaged the House of SunSoar’s pride” by being the one to awaken the bigass tree.
As always, all of this is dictated by means of sloppy POV changes. I don’t know why I’m even bothering to point this out – by now you guys are probably taking it as read that the author can't stick to a consistent POV in any given scene.
Blah blah, “many hundreds” have been killed, most of them Avar because the Avar are “passive”. Why are they going to be of any use in fighting Gorgrael, then, if they’re pacifists who hate violence?
Azhure meanwhile, sees EvenSong looking at her and thinks she’d like to get to know her but there’s too much “sadness” around to be thinking about making friends. Fleat’s kid Hogni, who I don’t think we’ve even met by this point, is dead but Fleat is okay. And I should care about this because…?
Azhure studies her hands, as you do, and wangsts about how Pease was her “strongest tie with the Clan” and now she’s gone, wah wah. Oh no, a character we barely knew died! How terrible!
RavenCrest goes over to StarDrifter, who’s sulking because he had a bunch of feathers pulled out so his wing injuries could be stitched. Boo frickin' hoo. RavenCrest asks how much damage the Skraelings did, meaning to the “make the sun come up” rite, and StarDrifter says, well, they’ve managed to make the sun come up but it’s not very strong and winter is going to stick around.
FreeFall joins in the conversation, and we get an infodump about how the “Icarii prince” is growing into his role and a lot of people think he’ll make a great Talon one day because he doesn’t let his “innate arrogance” impair his judgement. Evidence, please.
StarDrifter says Gorgrael’s only won a partial victory, and if it had been complete he’d have StarDrifter in his clutches now. RavenCrest asks why Gorgrael would want him alive – uh, duh? – and StarDrifter explains that – duh – Gorgrael wants him to teach him more magic. FreeFall is all like “but why’s he need you when he’s already so powerful”, and StarDrifter is all “he’s getting his power from a different source”. Specifically, the Icarii Enchanters get their power from the “Star Dance”, which is the “music” stars make while they “dance through the heavens”. Since when was spinning rapidly on the spot a “dance”? But Gorgrael is getting his power from “discord”, ie. the “disharmonies that are made when the Stars miss their step” and “crash into one another” or turn into red giants.
Yeah.
Apparently this “disharmony” is referred to as “a Dance of Death”, and many have feared that one day someone would figure out how to use it.
So Gorgrael gets his magic from red giants and supernovas which are part of a Dance of Death. Everybody got that?
No, I don’t know what the author was smoking. But whatever it was I don't want to try it.
FreeFall wonders just who the hell taught him that, but StarDrifter just cuts him off and says that if Gorgrael can also learn the “Dance of Life and Harmony”, he’ll become all-powerful, conquer the world, and then use the Star Gate to conquer other worlds as well (this goes nowhere, by the way). Everyone is shocked, shocked to hear this, and StarDrifter wonders who could possibly have taught the bastard.
RavenCrest declares that StarDrifter is getting a bodyguard from the Strike Force. Because we’ve all seen how effective that lot are.
Then they move on to talking about Axis. StarDrifter wants to go to Gherkinfort and help out, but the others don’t like it because the stoopid humans drove them out of their original homes. Yes, we already know that. What’s with the pointless rehash?
RavenCrest says they’ll have to hold a meeting about it at Talon Spike, aka the Icarii palace, though I instantly pictured Marlinspike Hall from the Tintin comics.
"Blistering barnacles - how DARE you drag me into this tomfoolery?!"
StarDrifter wants to just get on with it without the political screwing around, and RavenCrest tells him “this is not a decision to be made lightly”. StarDrifter says at the very least they should rescue Axis. FreeFall says he’s got a point because Axis needs training.
Another truly horrible bit of writing follows:
RavenCrest whipped around to his son, his violet eyes blazing. “I am not going to make a decision that overlooks a thousand years of hatred between our races, FreeFall! Axis or not, I am loath to go to the aid of those who would as willingly murder us as listen to us!”
This has to be some of the most badly written, unnatural and just plain stupid pieces of dialogue I have ever seen in my life. I’ve written better dialogue than this while drunk, half-asleep and suffering from the ‘flu. Mind you, I think just about anybody could.
Ugh.
The argument breaks up at this point, and Azhure gets some special Sue praise from Barsarbe, who tells her how awesome she is and how the Avar are totally going to reconsider letting her join them. Even though she used violence, which is Bad. Oh, I get it, Barsarbe. Violence is never okay, unless someone’s using it to save your useless hide. Then all bets are off. What a hypocrite.
Then StarDrifter comes over and invites her to come home with him and GoldFeather. GoldFeather joins in, sounding like a little kid, and Azhure says okay, sure. Have fun getting around in a city full of people who can fly, lady.
2 comments
cmdrnemo
March 17 2018, 16:50:17
Forged ten thousand years ago by the great master himself! Behold this exceptionally delicious sandwich! In a normal world ten thousand years would be enough to ruin a sandwich. But, here in fantasy land nothing ever changes. It may as well have been mere minutes ago. We did keep it under a cloth. Nothing can stop the accumulation of dust. Don't worry about the trivialities like "culture" or "religion" all are swept aside in the face of a good sandwich. Maybe a Crunchie bar, the much less interesting name for Violet Crumbles used up North.
theepistler
March 18 2018, 00:16:06
Mmm, legendary sandwich...