StarMan Sporking: Part Three

[pangolin20]

In the last book when Evil Pimply Gilbert disappeared rather than be righteously slaughtered by Heroic Axis, I predicted that he’d be back as a recurring villain. With pimples. And here I’m proven correct. The chapter opens with the man himself, and we learn that when the Deus Ex Machina Racist Pirates showed up in the last book’s tedious “climactic” battle, he correctly guessed that the jig was up and decided to skedaddle. We get a description of how he fled the city and travelled east, and once again the author accidentally makes this sound way too much like she’s writing about a courageous hero rather than the snivelling coward he’s supposed to be. But really, how can you not sympathise with a guy who’s literally just lost everything except his faith? And who going on the acne is very probably a teenager?

The poor guy keeps praying, not having lost faith in his god in spite of everything, which is another point in his favour. Sure Artor is (allegedly) EVIL, but Gilbert isn’t to know that, and he also happens to be one of very few human characters not to instantly abandon his beliefs, which means the author has inadvertently written him as a guy with a lot of loyalty and personal integrity… unlike any of the supposed heroes, who are a bunch of self-centered flakes to a (wo)man and don’t believe in anything more important than themselves.

We now get some backstory on Gilbert. Apparently he’s been passing himself off as a nobleman, which he is able to do easily since he actually was born into the nobility. Along the way he’s heard people “mouthe[d]” the names” of “old gods” “with increasing confidence”. Why? Because. There’s no mention of any actual evangelising going on; it’s just randomly happening. Yeah, not buying it. People don’t just convert all by themselves, y’know. In fact many people are just flat-out impossible to convert, even if they’re provably wrong. Ever try arguing with an anti vaxxer? (My advice: Don’t.)

We then learn that Gilbert is “a young man” – younger than thirty – and had had ambitions of becoming the next Fantasy Pope. And that’s just terrible. (You’re only allowed to be ambitious if the author is pretending you’re a Good Guy and therefore doing it for Good and Noble reasons).

While Gilbert sits and sulks, who should show up but none other than WolfSt- uh, Moryson. He’s all beaten up and asks to join Gilbert, who asks him why he isn’t with Jayme. Moryson is all like, eh, Jayme is a loser. No, really, he actually says this. “Jayme was ultimately a fool, Gilbert, and a loser”.

Because that’s a term that fits so well in Fantasy Land, amirite?

The author then introduces some accidental HoYay into the mix, as Gilbert thinks about how Moryson and Jayme were “inseparable” for forty years, and their friendship was “so deep and so strong – and so exclusive” that he would have expected Moryson to stay and die with his boyf- uh, buddy. Given how promiscuous the Icarii are and how little they mind about committing incest, you’d think they’d probably be just fine with the odd same-sex coupling. But again, this was published in the 90s, so there is no gay. It’s really quite interesting to see how utterly invisible gays, bisexuals and transsexuals were in mainstream fiction not that long ago. Hell, you’d be far more likely to encounter an asexual in a work of fiction from the 90s, and back then nobody really seemed to know asexuality was even a thing. But then I suppose it’s generally a lot harder to make moral judgements on someone when the only unusual thing they do is to not have sex.

Oh, and adding to the HoYay, Gilbert is stated to be jealous of the WolfSt- uh, Moryson/Jayme friendship. Ooh, a gay love triangle – how quaint!

Moving on, Moryson gives an account of how he escaped from Carlon. It goes on for two entire pages and contains painful levels of detail. It’s not even interesting – it’s just boring. Quite frankly if I told people stories like this their eyes would glaze over a few sentences in and they’d start saying things like “okay, moving along…” and “I don’t need to hear all of this, you know”.

Actually, you know what this reminds me of? It reminds me of a moment from The Simpsons where Grandpa Simpson talks about how one tactic an old guy like him can use to subdue people is “to tell long stories that don’t go anywhere.”

Watch the clip, and see just how fast Mr Burns loses patience.

Watch on YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rluhq4ioNeE

Moryson’s story is basically the fantasy equivalent of “so I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time”, except you’re not supposed to find it comically dull and pointless. And just to rub it in, he even refers to this story as “my tedious flight”. So he knows it’s boring! And he’s still talking about it! Was this supposed to be a joke? Why is Gilbert not telling him to get to the point all ready?

Anyway, to cut a needlessly long story short, Moryson finally says he came to find Gilbert because he thinks Gilbert might have a plan. This could have literally been gotten across in two short lines of dialogue. Efficiency, people!

Gilbert is unimpressed because apparently all this time Moryson and Jayme refused to take him into their “secret confidences”, in other words they said no to an open relationship, and no I will not apologise for making that joke. But WolfStar is still playing the “pathetic old man” role, and says the two of them should go find other dispossessed priests. Gilbert immediately decides that they should all band together, and acts like this was all his idea. Clearly this is supposed to be a case of WolfStar “cunningly” planting an idea in someone’s mind, but as there’s zero subtlety involved it just plain doesn’t work.

We then get a big chunk of painfully obvious exposition about how the “relationship between [Gilbert] and Moryson had altered dramatically” and now Gilbert is in charge, etcetera and so on. Author still needs to learn to show and not tell. Alas this does not happen, as Gilbert loudly proclaims to the reader that now he’s the Fantasy Pope, woohoo, etc. Impact on the reader: zero. Why? If I have to explain why, then clearly you haven’t been paying attention.

Anyway, so the two of them go to sleep and are then woken up by a loud thumping noise. Prepare for ridiculousness. For absolutely no reason WolfStar (why even bother to lie about who it really is?) declares that it’s Artor coming… and Gilbert instantly believes him. Why? Because.

Gilbert jumps up and starts yelling like an idiot, and then… well what d’you know, it really is Artor. He’s riding on his plough. Y’know, the one he uses to plough people to death. If you’d like to mentally substitute the plough for a giant penis, go right ahead. Because that’s what I’m doing.

Gilbert flails around like an idiot and Artor halts His giant holy penis in front of him, and we get unintentionally erotic descriptions of how his big muscles “bunch[ed] and roll[ed]”. He speaks in italics and demands to know who WolfStar is, while WolfStar is petrified and thinks about how he shouldn’t have been here. However Artor isn’t interested in him and makes a little speech about how he wants Gilbert to rebuild the Seneschal. He also refers to the Icarii gods as “frightful interstellar gods”, just to make the whole scene even more ridiculous.

Gilbert asks what he should do, and Artor tells him Faraday is headed east to plant trees and that Gilbert has to stop her or else they’re all fucked. In fact, Artor is frightened by the idea of scary scary trees, and Gilbert gives us some painfully redundant exposition about how his predecessors cut all the forests down and why. Finally he declares that he will gather the survivors together and hunt Faraday down, then kill her.

Artor promises to send him followers, and then vanishes. Once he’s gone, WolfStar stays curled up for “almost an hour” and thinks about how he’s had a “long, long life” (yeah, no kidding) and this is the closest he’s come to “personal disaster”. Yawn.

We then cut to… uh, WolfStar, except now the author’s not pretending he’s someone else. He thinks about how everything is going wrong because Gorgrael is filling the skies with gryphons and Artor is out for revenge, neither of which was mentioned in the goddamn stupid fucking prophecy. You mean, the prophecy that’s so incredibly vague it basically means nothing? What a shock.

But of course there’s a solution. What solution is that? Azhure, of course. Was that ever in doubt? She’s only Queen Sue of Sues, for fuck’s sake. What else would you expect?

I still have absolutely no sense of what’s supposed to be at stake here, by the way. Nor do I much care.

And the chapter ends here. The next one will be about Azhure doing something special and amazing and wonderful, because of course it will be.

The chapter opens with Axis, now doing some ruling. He’s started sending troops to Jervois Landing, but the river they wanted to use is completely frozen and they can’t get through, which apparently leaves the Northern part of the country completely isolated.

Axis looks around, which gives the author an excuse to describe the Privy Chamber where he’s hanging out. It’s basically the same, except now the usual crowd is gone and he’s talking to the Icarii generals plus an unnamed Ravensbund chief, and the guys he gave princehoods to in the last book – in other words Belial, Margarita and Griff. Azhure is also there, as is StarDrifter for some damn reason. What the hell is he supposed to contribute?

We now learn just how irresponsible and stupid Axis is, as we’re flat-out told that he never bothered to think beyond the point of defeating Borneheld and violently seizing control of the country. Yes, really. He has no plan for dealing with Gorgrael and hasn’t even tried to come up with one. Great leader my ass. Azhure asks how many guys are currently stranded at Jervois Landing and the answer is more than eight thousand. If Gorgrael attacks, then they’re all dead.

Having had this pointed out to him, Axis does what he always does and flies into a rage, yelling about how he can’t do anything about it because of the bad weather. Yes, that’s right. Just keep doing that. I’m sure it’ll be very helpful.

He then asks everyone for a list of resources from their new territories, and gets a snotty response from Margarita. Fuck that guy, seriously. Axis wangsts about how they’ll lose if he can’t “find the skills and the courage [snip] to use effective Songs of War”, wah wah, and then makes a melodramatic little speech full of rhetorical questions about how maybe the “darkness” has been biding its time, blah blah blah, melodrama.

Mercifully we then cut to Azhure a while later. Wait, that’s not merciful! Take me back to Axis! Please, I’ll do anything! Anything other than having to watch Azhure be Super Special for the zillionth time. Mummy!

Alas, my pleas fall on deaf ears. Azhure is attending to her “duties as Guardian of the East”, which entail making sure the humans, Avar and Icarii integrate smoothly. Typically overconfident, Azhure pats herself on the back for having spent time among all three races and thinks about how she welcomes the challenge, which she will of course be Awesome at with minimal effort. In a realistic touch this involves handling a lot of paperwork… which she is somehow able to do despite having zero training in any sort of administrative job. But really, by this point – is anyone surprised?

After work Azhure goes back to her room and thinks about how she wants to talk to Axis ASAP because something weird – and absurd – has happened. Apparently, the morning after the day Axis tried to teach her the Song for Drying Clothes, everyone in the city woke up to find all their laundry magically laundered, dried, and put away in the cupboard.

Yes, really.

Apparently Azhure made this happen in her sleep. And now everyone’s angsting about it, because of course they are.

Azhure and Axis have dinner together, and Axis looks all worried, supposedly because he’s just so concerned about the soldiers under his command, and “every time a man died Axis fretted” over whether he could have prevented it. Apparently we’re still supposed to buy it that he cares about anyone other than himself. Still ain’t happening, author. Forget it.

Cut back to the present moment, when Axis asks Azhure why she’s smiling. Or as he puts it “Why do you smile?”, because talking like a human being is for losers. Azhure answers that she’s amused because the she’s been causing irritation by not using “the correct bureaucratic procedure”.

…We are still in Fantasy Land, right?

Axis makes an unfunny joke, saying she’s doing well “if you have already annoyed the bureaucrats”. Teehee, harhar, etc. This is supposed to be an amusing moment but really just makes them both look like jerks who enjoy pissing people off.

Then Azhure says there’s something they should talk about, and Axis makes an obnoxiously high-handed remark about how from now on they need to be honest with each other, since in the last book they “wasted months of our lives because we did not talk truthfully to each other.”

Absolutely no mention of the little incident where he almost MURDERED her, naturally.

Either way Azhure reveals that Dru-Beorh, the same Nors guy who gave her her special perfect Sue Horse, has reported seeing Moryson and Gilbert, and that there’s a chance they’ll bump into Faraday.

Axis wipes his fingers on a “napkin”, because apparently they had those in Ye Medieval Times, and says he wishes he had the pair of them in a dungeon somewhere because they were responsible for a lot of the Seneschal’s “injustices” (…such as?), adding that he helped to “perpetuate” some of them, which he totally feels guilty about, or so the author claims.

The pair of them think about Jayme’s weird death, and Azhure says she’s still wondering if Faraday will be all right. Axis lies to the reader yet again about how totally guilty he feels for mistreating Faraday, and then says nah, Faraday can protect herself just fine. Indeed when Azhure says they should send some guys to protect her Axis is all like “nah, waste of time”, and then they just change the subject.

Lovely.

Azhure thinks about how great Faraday is, then mentions how some Icarii are moving into human lands and now are recovering some hidden cities of theirs in the Bracken Ranges. Axis has “whimsical” eyes at this, however the hell that works, and then starts talking about the war.

We get some exposition about how he’s got thirty thousand guys ready to march North, and says he wishes Azhure could come too. To my amazement, in this scene the two of them actually act like adults, and also as if they actually, y’know… like each other. Wow, when did that happen? Azhure thinks about how she’s being horribly weakened by the twins and just wishes they’d be born already. She declares that the moment they’re out of her she’ll ride to join him, and Axis thinks about how there’s a chance he’ll be dead by then. This bit isn’t overwritten or shoved in the reader’s face, and is actually quite effective. Improvement – hooray!

In this scene the characterisation in general is actually quite good. The author has definitely learned from experience, which is great. Now let’s see if it lasts.

(It won’t).

The next chapter goes to Gorgrael. Apparently WolfStar has disappeared, but Gorgrael doesn’t mind because now he has Timmy to talk to. Timmy has taken command of the Skraelings and is supposedly doing quite well at it, and the two of them have a chat over a “crazily canted table”, whatever the hell that means. Timmy gives him a report, suggests attacking Jervois Landing, and then outlines some other plan which the reader isn’t informed about. Henceforth the plan will probably succeed.

And the chapter ends there, after just two pages.

The next one returns to Azhure. She’s gone back to Spiredore and is hoping WolfStar will show up again so she can have a talk with him. We learn that Axis and the other Enchanters can’t see Spiredore’s “crazy assemblage of balconies” and such, but she and Caelum can because reasons. When she re-enters the tower now it’s the same as before, and supposedly it’s full of “secrets and mysteries”, which I’m immediately assuming we will never learn anything further about.

Azhure wanders around for a while, but finds nothing. She tries asking one of her murder puppies about WolfStar, and gets no reply, which is apparently surprising. Finally she remembers what WolfStar told her about how the stairs will take you where you want to go, so she steps onto a flight and pictures his “beautiful and powerful face”, and orders the stairs to take her to him. WolfStar senses her but thinks it would be a “disaster if she came to him in his present location”, so he goes somewhere else. Wait, the tower can teleport people now?

Cut back to Azhure. WolfStar shows up and invites her into a nice comfy room. Azhure checks him out and wonders why she doesn’t look like him at all. She also remembers kissing him, but “[feels] no shame”. Oookay. WolfStar asks if she knows he’s her father, and she says yes and then launches into a tirade about how he impregnated her mum and then left her to die, and also left Azhure to be abused by Hagen. She adds that she knows he murdered MorningStar. WolfStar is pissed off, but Azhure just spits that he’s totally the Pointlessly Capitalised Traitor from the stupid prophecy.

WolfStar snaps back that “you know nothing Jon Snow!” and that she’s wrong about the lot of it. Azhure demands answers, and – ugh – WolfStar answers that there are “things I cannot yet speak of”. Oh hay, it’s the “You Are Not Yet Ready” cliché again. I so didn’t miss it. He then claims that he loves her and didn’t want to abandon her… then notices the One Ring she’s wearing and freaks out. He asks where the hell she got it from, and Azhure fills him in on the details.

Cut to WolfStar’s POV, and we learn that he supposedly felt “a powerful but little understood need to conceive Azhure with Niah” (why? Because), but never realised the kid was going to be that much of a Sue- uh, I mean special. He tells her the ring represents “great and unimaginable power”, which will be used for child abuse later on, and it’s a great honour for her to wear it, so on and so forth.

Yet again I’m driven to wonder about the author’s creepy obsession with incest, as well as her confusion over what constitutes fatherly behaviour, because WolfStar keeps stroking Azhure’s cheek and “[smiles] into her eyes”, and Azhure succumbs to his supposed charms and thinks – for the second time – how it’s no wonder her mother fell for him.

Um.

This is not how you’re supposed to think or feel around your own father. It’s just not. And this is the second creepily sexual interaction we’ve had between these two.

Thinking about this, I had a further realisation – namely that there are no healthy parent/child relationships in this entire trilogy. Borneheld grew up with a neglectful father who died young. Axis was raised by Jayme… off-screen, and you never once see them act like they’re close. Neither had a mother figure in their lives. Azhure grew up with a dead mum and an abusive stepdad. Faraday’s dad clearly didn’t give a fig about her, and her mother is barely present. After Azhure’s twins are born, she doesn’t even bother to raise them herself and neither does Axis, instead handing them over to some random noblewoman to raise.

And now we’re seeing multiple interactions between a father and his adult daughter which are very unsubtly romantic/sexual in nature.

There’s subtext, and then there’s subtext, and this is very much the latter. And it’s making me really uncomfortable. It’s also making me wonder just what the hell the author went through if she thought this was at all appropriate to put into her novels. Maybe I’m just being overly dramatic, but in my mind there are some things you just don’t write – and especially not unintentionally, as was clearly the case here – unless you are seriously fucked up in the head. You write what you know even if you don’t intend to.

I’ve written some nasty shit, but at least I never wrote about a woman being flirted with by her own father and not taking the slightest issue with it. I’m a fuckup, but I’m not that fucked up. I also happen to know that there are some things people don’t want to read about.

Or if they do want to read about it, they really shouldn’t. *mutter mutter*

Anyway… sigh… Azhure stops being angry because WolfStar is just so sexy (GAH), and asks who the Enchantress was. Again with the bouncing POVs, WolfStar thinks about how this is the worst question she could’ve asked, bawww. Azhure exposits that what she knows so far is that the Enchantress was the mother of the Charonite and Icarii races, which is just a wee bit biologically impossible, but let it pass. WolfStar says yeah, she was the “Mother of Nations”. He exposits that in fact she had three sons. The eldest, unfavoured for no reason son “fathered the [human] race”. On who? His own mother? Who gave birth to the wives of these guys? It’s the Biblical problem of everyone being descended from two people all over again, except worse.

Anyway, so it’s the old story. The loser son fathered the loser humans, because humans in fantasy are always the loser race. The other two fathered the Icarii and Charonites. Azhure asks about the Avar, and is told nope – they “come from different stock altogether”, after which it’s dropped entirely.

WolfStar then tells her the ring is, like, mysterious and stuff, and represents “unimaginable power”, which he already said on the last page. Then, in a case of a joke being uncannily dead-on, it turns out the ring actually is just a ripoff of Tolkien's One Ring, because it apparently manipulates people. You know, just like the One Ring does. Indeed, WolfStar says the ring manipulated him too.

He then uses the thing to get himself off the hook for throwing all those kids through the Star Gate, claiming that it “haunted my dreams from childhood” and “drove me to maniacal deeds”. Or maybe you’re just a piece of shit, WolfStar.

And then – oh, this is just wonderful – Azhure’s “mind” tells her WolfStar is lying… but in her heart she knows he’s telling the truth. Oh, the lovely sweet cliché of the Heart Knows Best. Somehow. It just does, shut up. Or to phrase it less charitably, the author couldn’t be bothered to come up for a reason for the character to reach a conclusion, so she took a cheap shortcut of having her just “know” because of intuition or some bullshit like that.

Azhure then decides the ring is going to “force me to its will!” and tries to take it off, but WolfStar stops her taking it off and goes on about how it won’t use her because it’s been seeking its true master for “tens of thousands of years”, and only Azhure can use it. (Spoilers: She will never do anything with it).

Yup. There is only one Lady of the Rings, only she can bend it to her will. And she does not share power.

So not only is the author ripping off Tolkien again, but she’s doing it in such a way that she’s casting her supposed heroine as the stand-in for fucking Sauron. You know, the original Ultimate Lord of Darkness.

Irony alert.

(This never comes up again, by the way).

Azhure stares at WolfStar with “great smoky eyes” and says she has no idea how to use the ring, or her power. WolfStar says he can’t teach her right now, big surprise, but for once we get the “You Are Not Yet Ready” cliché with an actual explanation: she can’t learn from him while she’s pregnant, because then the twins will also learn whatever it is, which they shouldn’t.

Instead, WolfStar tells her to go to the Temple Mount. I finally looked that up, and yup – it’s a rip from the real world. Temple Mount is a place in Jerusalem which is considered sacred to Jews, Christians and Muslims (no wonder they keep fighting each other over the bloody thing. Because if it’s sacred to my religion only I should get to own and use it).

Azhure asks again why he abandoned her and Niah, and again is told she has to wait until the twins are born. WolfStar insists that everything he’s done has been for a reason, adding that he’s not the Capitalised Traitor, and that the actual traitor is with Gorgrael. Azhure is all like “duurrr, then who is it, durrr?”, because apparently she has no long term memory and has therefore forgotten about, y’know, the guy who was banished for attacking Axis. Because Azhure is a moron. When it suits the plot, anyway. Which is most of the time.

WolfStar tells her she needs to spend some time alone to develop her Sue powers. Adding even more incesty overtones, he tells Azhure she looks like her mother and that said mother was “very, very desirable”. But again, we’re not supposed to think he’s being a creep.

Cut to WolfStar sitting by himself some time later. He thinks about how things might be moving “beyond his control”, but that’s okay because now Azhure has the One Ring everything will be fine. Because Azhure will just use her Sue Powers to fix everything. Naturally.