StarMan Sporking: Part Thirteen

[pangolin20]

epistler posting in antishurtugal_reborn Oct. 13th, 2018 09:22 am

Current Mood: pissed off

StarMan Sporking: Part Thirteen

In the next chapter, they hold the funeral for Roland and it’s a big deal. We’re also informed that the talking bridge has a good cry. Yes, really. A crying talking bridge.

Does it have tear ducts? Can it shed actual tears? Inquiring minds want to know!

Cazna holds DragonStar and croons over him, all while he apparently sends “a constant stream of malevolence towards his parents and elder brother”. Uh, how? Is he using words, or is this the same abstract “malevolence” he showed Axis in the last chapter? Either way he’s clearly still channeling me.

I still can't believe we're expected to take this seriously.

Cut to Axis having a chat with SpikeFeather. Whose last name, by the way, is TrueSong. *snicker* Azhure asks him if Talon Spike has been evacuated, because apparently they haven’t had many new Icarii arriving at Sigholt. SpikeFeather offers to lead the Strike Force over there, but changes his tune when informed that Gorge has at least seven thousand gryphons left. There’s some BS about how Azhure needs to “grow further” before she can effortlessly wipe them all out with her Sue powers. In other words, we need more padding before we can get on with that. As if this book wasn't already 95% padding.

Wendy Orr is mentioned (remember him?), and SpikeFeather mentally refers to him as “the cantankerous Charonite”. Har har, very clever. He also thinks about how the guy needs a lot of persuasion to do anything to help. Since when? Both times we’ve seen him he’s instantly rolled over. Though admittedly in both cases there was a Sue present, so that was probably a factor.

Either way SpikeFeather leaves the next morning with some of his guys, and stops by at Avarinheim (why does the Avar forest have a Norse name? They’re not a Nordic people. None of the races in this entire series is in any way Nordic). After some blah blah they move on to Talon Spike and find it very much un-evacuated and RavenCrest acting like a snot. SpikeFeather breaks the bad news about FarSight. Who was he again? Oh, and also HoverEye, SharpEye and SpreadWing are dead. Who? I wish this author would stop limiting herself to just killing off the nobodies. None of these characters are in any way important or memorable.

SpikeFeather says they gotta evacuate ASAP, and RavenCrest loses his rag and yells at him for speaking out of turn. Hey, remember how the Icarii race are really big on politeness and ettiquette and it’s “extraordinary” for one of them to raise their voice in an argument? Because that claim is still being shown up as a complete and total lie at every single opportunity.

RavenCrest eventually explains that he’s been having trouble organising the evacuation because he summoned the assembly to discuss it, which SpikeFeather thinks is idiotic because he should “take the initiative just this once”. So RavenCrest is being set up as a bad leader now. Unlike Axis and Azhure who are the best of the best.

Anyway, so RavenCrest declares that most of the Icarii don’t want to leave, with “his violent eyes snapping”. Is that a thing eyes can do? Because I don’t think it is. It sounds like he’s got a pair of snapping turtles in his skull with the heads poking out through his eyesockets.

…don’t photoshop that… don’t photoshop that…

…too late, I photoshopped it.

SpikeFeather yells at him, and RavenCrest does the whole “world weary leader” thing and asks where they’d even go. SpikeFeather lists a bunch of suggestions including the “Minaret cities”. Again, a minaret is a Muslim building. You can’t just appropriate that word in a setting with no Muslims and expect it to make any bloody sense, any more than you can throw in a Catholic Cathedral.

RavenCrest makes excuses to shoot down every single suggestion, so SpikeFeather makes a short speech about how he’s going to wind up worse than WolfStar by getting his entire race wiped out. This shocks RavenCrest and his not-relevant-to-the-scene wife, and they both think that this isn’t the SpikeFeather they remember. Having known precisely squat about him before this scene, I have no way of verifying that.

Mrs RavenCrest – actual name BrightFeather, but who cares – “flutters” her response to that. Because, you know, she’s a bird lady. Very clever. Oh, and also we now learn that RavenCrest has a second son aside from FreeFall.

Uh… if FreeFall had a younger brother all along, why did they make Axis the heir to the throne? Shouldn’t it have passed to the kid instead? Why wasn’t he even mentioned during those scenes in the previous book? Hell, where was he in this scene before now? The kid wasn’t so much as mentioned in passing, and now he just shows up right out of nowhere.

Revisions? What are they?

RavenCrest finally gets off his backside, and the Icarii get ready to leave. Predictably the older ones keep digging in their heels, and aren’t convinced when told to do it because the (groan) Enchantress says so. So SpikeFeather threatens them into it. Lovely.

SpikeFeather gathers up the kids who are too young to fly – all six hundred of them – and has a cutesy little conversation with them, explaining how the gryphons are going to attack, and how they have to leave with him. Oh, and one of the kids his named FairEye. Gag.

SpikeFeather takes them underground to meet up with Wendy Orr, and typical of little kiddies written by someone who clearly hasn’t spent any time with actual children, they’re all sweet and adorable and perfectly well-behaved and even start singing adorably. Not a whiner or a runaway among them.

There’s a lot of description of them going down to the water, until finally Orr shows up. SpikeFeather introduces himself and refers to “the innocent children of the Icarii race”. Aww, etc. Having spent time with actual children, I hate the whole “innocent children” cliché. Kids are just as selfish and douchey as adults. They’re just a bit less subtle about it.

Orr takes his hood off and just like Ur he has ridiculous “child-like violet eyes” in an old face. Again, creepy as fuck.

He refuses point-blank to take the kids anywhere, because… uh, he just doesn’t like children. So SpikeFeather offers to pay with his life. Orr protests that “You are young, vital… courageous”. What the hell do you care, Wendy? This feels really out of character for a guy who supposedly accepts payment in people’s lives all the time.

Either way they make an agreement, and the kids climb aboard.

Orr asks for SpikeFeather’s life, so SpikeFeather waits for him to get it over with. But instead Orr just starts laughing at him and asks if he was expecting him to “Smite you between the eyes with a hitherto well-concealed mace?” Great, more horribly forced “comedy” – just what I wanted. NOBODY TALKS LIKE THIS!

In any case – psych! – SpikeFeather doesn’t die after all. Instead, Orr wants to use his life, specifically by making him promise to come back one day and learn all about the waterways, which SpikeFeather accepts.

Then they all sail off together, and the adorable kiddies start singing adorably again like we’re watching a fucking Disney movie. Aarrrrgh.

SpikeFeather flies off back to the assembly chamber thingy, where he finds 1800 Icarii who are refusing to leave, along with RavenCrest, who’s now all dressed up in “royal violet robes”. Since when did the Icarii have that kind of thing? I thought they wore “togas” as their ceremonial costumes. Is it too much to ask for some goddamn consistency in here?

RavenCrest explains that they’ve decided to stay behind and, y’know, die. Because that’s dramatic. He hands SpikeFeather his “jeweled torc” of office and asks him to give it to FreeFall and make him the new Talon Icarii King. SpikeFeather gets all upset and tells him this doesn’t have to happen, and RavenCrest makes a dramatic speech about how he wants the survivors to come back and light the funeral pyres and clean up the blood. This causes SpikeFeather to scream dramatically, but RavenCrest just ignores him and asks him to “reconsecrate” the city in the name of his mother MorningStar (who was she again?), who was – say it with me – “beautiful”. Because that’s so very relevant, I’m sure. And not at all objectifying.

And then right out of nowhere, the scene cuts to Axis and Azhure having a nighttime bath in the lake outside Sigholt. Uh, did the author just forget to finish the previous scene? There isn’t even a freaking line break!

The two assholes see the kids arrive in their boats, still singing like a bunch of perfect little angels. Pardon me while I give myself a much-needed insulin shot. I’m not even diabetic; I just need insulin to make up for the sheer sugary sweetness of this bit.

Bet you ten bucks those kids just saw Axis and Azhure butt naked. Lucky them.

*

Cut to the next chapter, in which the Icarii kids continue to be Practically Perfect in Every Way – to the point that they “did not seem to miss their parents overmuch and never complained”. Even though they’re in a completely new place, surrounded by strangers not even of the same race/species as themselves, not knowing if their parents and other relatives are even alive. They should be traumatised as fuck, crying, unable to sleep, constantly asking where Mummy and Daddy are. But nope.

I think these kids might be a load of sociopaths. That or the author still has no idea how to write child characters who actually act like children in any way shape or form. These aren’t even Hollywood Children (you know the kind. Movie kids who are either perfect little angels, or obnoxious little shits who are inexplicably smarter than all the adults). The only explanation we get for this bizarre behaviour is a throwaway line about Orr having taught them something during the journey.

Meanwhile Axis has RavenCrest’s torc, and isn’t overly surprised to know that he decided not to play along given that he never did seem at all happy about the whole prophecy bullshit. I agree; staying behind and dying might have been a stupid decision, but it was pretty much in character. I’d have done the same if the alternative was goose-stepping in line with this insufferable jackass and his even more insufferable significant other. RavenCrest probably figured it was the only way out of this damn book with any dignity.

Azhure suggests that she go over there and talk them out of it, but is shot down, and Axis basically says there’s nothing they can do. As for Azhure, she has a feeling that it’s not time to effortlessly wipe out the gryphons, and instead she has to “hunt’ something else, connected with Faraday.

In other words, she’s going to mosey on down to Smyrton and kill Artor, and it’ll be about as difficult as swatting a fly. I just can’t wait to be bored and irritated to see it. But it looks as though I’ll have to, while even more filler happens instead.

After that comes flat exposition about how Axis reclaims Ichtar (that’s the province Sigholt is in). He has his guys scout out and destroy skraeling nests, and they eventually come across a bunch that are too big too be destroyed, back in the mines where Axis and Co. hung out previously. Axis declares that he and Azhure will have to go and deal with it themselves, except that he does it in a way that makes him sound like a complete jackass who thinks battles are just something you do when you’re bored. The two of them get all creepily excited and Azhure – well hell, I’ll just show you the last line of this scene:

“‘We hunt,’ Azhure replied, her eyes locked with Axis’, and he smiled slowly. ‘We hunt.’”

Tell me that doesn’t sound like an exchange between two serial killers. Not only are the skraelings not remotely a threat any more, but now the supposed heroes are basically just killing them for fun.

Lo and behold, we cut to the two of them riding off together, and cue loving descriptions of how handsome Axis is and how cool his clothes are with the “crimson cloak” and the tunic with the sun symbol on it- wait, shouldn’t those have been burned to a crisp along with him a few chapters ago? Continuity! Azhure thinks about how much she wubs him and how confident he looks, etc.

There’s a brief attempt at “suspense”, as Axis has “troubled” eyes and thinks about how Azhure was, like, really tired after wiping out all the skraelings in Hsingard. But that’s swiftly got rid of as Azhure breezily declares that she’s “grown” since then. Hell, she actually tosses her hair as she says it. Ugh. Azhure isn't a hero - she's every preening, self-obsessed queen bitch I had to put up with in highschool.

They meet up with Demi Moore, who asks why they’ve shown up with nothing but the murder puppies and then is suitably shocked/impressed to learn that the two Sues are going to tackle the skraelings all by themselves. Axis arrogantly asks “Do you doubt us?” while staring “flatly” at him. Because lest we forget, Axis is the jerkiest jerk who ever jerked. He can’t handle anything even vaguely resembling criticism, and is incapable of exercising the most basic of good manners, even with people he’s supposed to be friends with. Why exactly are we supposed to like this asshole again? Why does anyone else like him?

Everyone is of course suitably impressed with the combined awesomeness of King and Queen Sue, and Demi Moore gives them some information about the layout of the mines which isn’t worth recapping. Axis, again showing what a misogynistic creep he is, tells Azhure she shouldn’t go in because it’s “too dangerous”.

Uh, Axis? She single-handedly wiped out nine thousand skraelings in Hsingard. And that’s something you know full well you couldn’t have done. So why exactly do you suddenly think she can’t handle it?

It’s because she’s the woman and you’re the man, isn’t it?

Demi Moore offers his archers as backup, and Azhure rolls over and accepts the help like a good little wimmens. How is this series “feminist”, again?

Cut to them heading through the mines. They’re not using any magical light, and are instead using “their innate powers” to navigate. What innate powers? Since when did these two have magical GPS? Douglass, could you please stop handing your Sues new powers whenever it suits you? It’s gone beyond tedious and stupid by this point, and it’s not making me impressed with how “powerful” they are – it’s making me impatient with how lazy you are.

And then Axis just summons up a light ball anyway. So much for that.

Azhure gets worried that he’s going to try and use the Star Dance to kill the skraelings again. Well if he can’t use it to fight, why the hell is he even here? Isn’t Azhure basically here to protect his ass if he doesn’t have any special means of fighting skraelings other than being a Sue? And yet he wanted to leave her behind? The f...?

This is so stupid.

Azhure gets out the Wolven for the first time in 6,000,000 pages, and we’re then reminded that she’s a psychopath:

“…there, Azhure had smiled at [Demi Moore], we can all have our fill of death.”

She “overflows with compassion and love”, remember? Why you always lying to me, author?

Author then pulls a Paolini with an omniscient proclamation of “And so it was”.

And so what was? And so they corner the skraelings in a central cavern and slaughter the shit out of them. The murder puppies drive them toward Azhure, while biting the heads off the babies, and now Azhure’s arrows can magically turn corners like the bullets in that Wanted movie I never got around to watching. And when her first arrow hits the skraelings, it… explodes. In a big fireball. For no reason.

Oh, but it gets better. The skraelings all turn into ash like they got caught on a bad day in Hiroshima… and the ashes turn into Pointlessly Capitalised Moonwildflowers, and also the air is glowing blue. What. The. Actual. Fuck.

She has magic exploding arrows now?! Since fuckin’ when? This is right out of nowhere! And what the hell is the point of the stupid flowers?! This whole scene is a complete asspull!

Oh, and naturally Azhure reacts to all this by laughing. Because of course she does. Goddamn psycho. The attempted glorification continues, as she then proceeds to wipe the rest of the skraelings out – youngsters and babies included, naturally – and everyone watches in awe and the skraelings are completely helpless and it’s all just so amazing and wonderful.

Instead of which it just makes Azhure look like a heartless psychopath and engenders sympathy for the skraelings. This is why I’m very glad that the trope of the “Always 100% Evil Race/Species” has more or less fallen out of favour these days. It’s a very regressive, borderline racism-apologist attitude, and it almost always makes the heroes look cruel when they show off their heroism by slaughtering them en masse once it’s been established that it’s okay to wipe out an entire race/species because their lives aren’t worth anything. It’s just not a healthy world-view to promote, and considering the consequences we’ve had of just such an attitude being applied to the real world, I really think fiction has a responsibility to stop supporting it.

Naturally the only price Azhure pays for this latest act of mass slaughter of helpless opponents while laughing and smiling is being tired afterwards. (Seriously, laughing and smiling while mowing down a heap of sentient beings who stand no chance against you isn’t badass or heroic – it’s evil).

Axis is also very tired, even though he’s done precisely squat other than stand around and watch. I think he’s now officially become a superfluous character in his own freaking trilogy. Douglass might as well have killed him off and given Azhure the Chosen One role instead for all the difference his presence is currently making.

The two of them wander off into the tunnels together, Axis carrying Azhure lest we forget who the poor feeble little woman is here (no matter how overpowered Azhure gets, this will never stop being an issue in some form or other), and eventually stumble across an old guy dressed as a miner, who invites them to join him and his friends because “your lady wife needs sustenance”. Maybe it's just that I've been binge-watching Gravity Falls, but I instantly pictured this guy.

"This book is a load of cliches and stereotypes... ah reckon!" *spits*

Like a pair of idiots Axis and Azhure sit down with a bunch of total strangers who have absolutely no business being here and accept food and drink from them. Which rather than being poisoned just magically gives them their strength back.

I see we have yet another case of something being pulled right the fuck out of nowhere, purely in order to convenience the supposed heroes before they have to put up with anything mildly unpleasant.

It’s then revealed that these guys are actually the Star Gods in disguise. The disguises are immediately discarded (we can’t have them continue to look old and ugly now we’ve had the completely pointless reveal after all). The gods all start kissing Axis – again, on the mouth. What the hell is with all this smooching? The guy has probably made out with more dudes than Amber Rose, for heaven’s sake. Has the author also decided to retcon the “no homo” thing from the first two books?

Adamon welcomes Axis into the God Club, and they have a little party with a bunch of talking and “sharing” in which they get to know each other… which we don’t get to see. Because it’s not as if that might have been important or anything.

Finally Adamon tells Axis that they can’t help him kill Gorgrael (…because?), and that if he doesn’t win he doesn’t get to join the gods. Just why joining these guys is so desirable I have absolutely no idea. None of the gods are interesting or likeable, and apparently they do nothing. So what’s the appeal? Getting to be immortal? Axis and Azhure are already functionally immortal – isn’t 500 odd years of remaining beautiful with none of the inconveniences of old age enough? These characters are such spoiled brats.

After this meaningless self-indulgent scene the two assholes head back to join their supposed friends, and the gryphon who’s been secretly spying on them flies off. Oh no, Gorge might do something. As in have another POV scene in which he does squat and acts like an idiot, which is all he ever does.

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