I really, deeply apologize for not getting to this sooner. A few weeks back I told myself I’d get to writing this entry, and I’d already reread the chapter a couple of times to get acquainted with it. But things came up, and now I’m woefully behind on writing this. I even had a couple of ideas and started drafting non-sporking articles, but I didn’t get that far with those, either. I couldn’t think of what to say about Rick Riordan shipping Dante x Virgil other than, “No. Shut up.”
This chapter doesn’t have too much going on in it, but it, and the following chapter, are long enough that they each deserve their own entries in the sporking. I apologize that this update isn’t more exciting, but that’s Iron Druid for you: when something exciting could be happening, Atticus is farting around, and when something exciting does happen, Atticus handles it in the least interesting way possible.
Anyways, how does Chapter 13 begin?
I confess to feeling a sense of entitlement at times.
YA THINK?!?
Okay what he’s actually talking about is that after having lived for so long, he feels like he should be able to wake up peacefully and have a relaxing morning routine. He’s not even asking for a peaceful day, just a peaceful morning. And I get that. I hate when I have to wake up suddenly to get stuff done. I have a routine I like to follow.
So he’s obviously a bit upset that he is instead opening his eyes to “a giant bloody crow that’s forever branded in my cultural memory as a harbinger of death.”
[Are you culturally Irish or American? Make up your mind, Atticus.]
The crow caws in his face, and then laughs at his alarmed reaction as he bolts upright. The crow is the Morrigan, of course, who likes messing with him. Which, to be fair, I’d do this all the time if I could because, as we established in Chapter 9, Atticus is VERY easy to mess with. He thinks being made to do something he should have already been doing is some kind of 4D chess.
Apparently the last time the Morrigan saw him (presumably after the battle at the end of the last book), Atticus was in his yard healing, so she asks if he’s been laying here this entire time. Atticus assures her that he has not, but he will need a few minutes to clean himself up and act as a decent host. She flies over to his patio to wait. She also has “a small black leather pouch closed with a drawstring of rawhide”, but Atticus doesn’t want to ask about that until he’s fully woken up.
Oberon hears part of this conversation, and Atticus informs him telepathically that it’s the Morrigan, so the dog decides to stay indoors for now. Better to avoid the goddess of war and violent death for now, amirite?
While Atticus turns on the shower, the Morrigan, now in human form instead of as a crow, slides into the shower with him. Yup, that’s right, the visiting goddess is going to have sex with our protagonist! Why not!
To be entirely fair, this isn’t played for fanservice. Or at least, not entirely–there is some skeeviness here, because what do you expect from this book? Overall though, it’s played… kind of weird, actually, because Atticus is very much not into this. Despite in the first book, Atticus is basically humping her leg when she first appears in naked human form, in this book he explains to us, quite understandably, that while physically the Morrigan looks hawt, she’s also the goddess of violent death, which is something he doesn’t find particularly attractive. But because she’s the goddess of violent death, he doesn’t feel comfortable saying no to her.
I don’t know what I’d call this. Is it rape? Atticus doesn’t characterize it as such, but he’s clearly not comfortable right now. His description lends towards ‘coerced sex’ (ie, rape) though he doesn’t outright SAY that. He does say that it’s the “politic” and “safe thing to do” to let the Morrigan do what she wants right now. I’m going to be real with you! It does not look good. But it’s not as if he treats Morrigan as his rapist in the future, and it’s treated more like, “Pressured into sex I didn’t really enjoy (for hours on end).”
So while I kind of want to nitpick through this next section (there’s a Ghostbusters shoutout, in case you needed reminding that Hearne can’t use intertextual references cleverly), my criticism boils down to this: I don’t know what to make of this. It plays it pretty light considering it’s, at best, semi-consensual, but one could argue that’s how Atticus deals with trauma. My instinct is to write it off as, “Hearne doesn’t really understand the seriousness of the things he’s writing into the story. Again.”
You know what? Because of that, let’s give it a
Make it Easy!: 11
Because this SHOULD be a massive deal, and Atticus is kind of over it pretty quickly.
Also hey, random thought: Atticus brings up more than once, in regards to the Morrigan, that her sensibilities are Bronze Age rather than modern. I don’t buy that, but it makes me wonder (and I’m sorry if this is a creepy question)–does the Morrigan shave her legs? Because the notion that attractive women’s bodies are completely hairless is a fairly recent development, and if the Morrigan doesn’t care about modern ideas, then theoretically she would conform to ancient Irish ideals of beauty, not modern American ones. She is, after all, explicitly out of touch with current events, to the point that she doesn’t know all the modern countries. I suspect Hearne didn’t think much about this one and just imagines her as “Super HAWT”—and that’s how the stupid potheads at the beginning of the last book thought too.
Just throwing that out there.
When it’s over, the Morrigan informs Atticus that she’s regrown his ear, much to his shock. He feels his ear and finds it whole. Apparently ‘chewed off by a demon’ is something his own powers can’t heal, so he’s very thankful about it. But when he calls her ‘nice’ the Morrigan loses it and punches him in the gut, because apparently, being called ‘nice’ is something she finds offensive. So he says *“curse your meddling” and the Morrigan is satisfied.
Also their sex takes all morning, so when they’re done, Oberon lets Atticus knows that he’s really hungry. Atticus apologizes. When he goes out of his room to feed him and grab food for the Morrigan, Oberon notes exactly how many scratches and cuts he has on him, and Atticus tells the audience that he’s trying to heal himself right now.
So he makes breakfast. It’s another fancy omelet but this time he at least lets us know that he feels as if he has to bring out his best food for the Morrigan, or she’d be insulted, and so I’ll let it slide this time. She’s also naked still, because Hearne thought that’d be fun, I guess.
Atticus says that the “Morrigan was making an extraordinary effort to be affable as [he] served her.” She expresses appreciation for the food and coffee multiple times, awkwardly smiles a lot, and while Atticus tries to pretend he doesn’t notice, he totally does and wonders what that’s about.
And she eats a lot. Oberon wonders where she’s putting all that food, and Atticus doesn’t know either. Considering she could eat an entire dead body in the last book, I don’t know why this is a surprise to the two of them. It’s just another dumb joke.
LAUGH, DAMNIT!: 18
The Morrigan brings up that she’s been gone since the ending of the last book, when she said she’d be around, and asks if Atticus wonders where she’s been. Atticus asks, and she explains that she’s been in Tir na nOg, because the Irish gods have kind of been in the middle of a civil war.
“What? Who was fighting whom?”
Earth to Atticus! THE ENTIRE PLOT of the previous book was about how one of the Irish gods was plotting to overthrow their queen and make himself king! Said queen (who you supposedly WORSHIP) sat down IN YOUR HOUSE and explained all of this to you. You KNEW that there were factions in Tir na nOg, and that there was a war brewing because of it. Did he think because Aenghus Og died that they’d just give up and go home?
Apparently everyone in-setting thought so. The Morrigan explains that Aenghus Og’s supporters decided to rise up against Brighid anyway and it’s been causing a lot of problems. The Irish gods recently purged several of the ringleaders. Because it’d be complicated to the Plot, none of the actual Tuatha De Danann have died. That would cause too many problems.
This is a massive conflict involving the gods and faeries of Irish mythology, and Atticus has absolutely no part of it. Which isn’t necessarily bad; there are different stories in which there are epic conflicts and battles going on in the background, such as Dresden Files! But in those cases, there’s also a lot of epic action happening in the main story. In Iron Druid there is… not that. One could argue that Atticus has his own problems going on, so he can’t help in this Irish mythological civil war business.
Except that doesn’t fly, because Atticus firmly does not care about the Plot in this book or the last. Very often he keeps ignoring his problems until they’re right in his face and then try to make someone else do it for him, or the gods (whether it’s his own gods or someone like Coyote) coerce him into it.
This should be something like, “Hey look, stuff is happening in the world beyond Atticus.” What it comes across as is Hearne saying, “Trust me, a lot of cool stuff is happening; I just can’t be bothered to show you because it’d be complicated/it’d inconvenience Atticus’s daily routine. I’ll have someone else recap a basic outline for you.”
Make It Easy!: 12
The Morrigan also informs us that Brighid’s new armor (that she showed off in the last book to try to counter the “cut-through-anything sword” in case Aenghus Og got his hands on it) was tested in the battle. Atticus is surprised to hear this as
The Tuatha De Danann are loath to put themselves in mortal peril when they can get someone else to die for them.
Again, I really don’t get the impression that he holds the Irish gods in anything other than contempt, or least extreme condescension. We’re meant to believe that other than a few hiccups like killing Aenghus Og and Bres, and being a little critical of the gods, he’s a faithful worshiper of the Irish pantheon. Or something adjacent to that? Instead he just talks down to them, talks smack about them, or has sex with them.
Also, I mean, yeah, they apparently don’t like risking their lives (to the point where they supposedly rarely step out of their home realms), but in the last book it’s established that Brighid is pretty darn powerful and her armor is nigh-invulnerable. When she first appears, she manifests as a ball of flame. I should think that it’s barely a risk for her to show up and fireblast some enemy troops.
The Morrigan says that the fighting’s all over now–otherwise then it might get in Atticus’s life, and can’t have that–and so now she wants the secret to the iron amulet that Atticus wears. Because if you recall (if you don’t, in text Atticus tells us again)! They made a deal in Chapter 2 of the last book. Basically, if Atticus teaches her how to make her own amulet which defends her from magic and lets her kill faeries by poking them, she will not take him to the afterlife, making him effectively unkillable. Yes, this is a thing that happens in the second chapter of the first book of the series: our protagonist becomes unkillable. No, I will not stop harping on that!
Welp the Morrigan is here to collect on that deal! At Atticus’s prompting, she brings out a piece of cold iron, and by that we mean several small chunks of meteor iron. Because apparently, in Iron Druid Chronicles, when they say that “cold iron” is what drives off/harms faeries, what they mean is “iron from a meteorite.” Which is not a thing in European folklore, as far as I can tell? Considering the idea of using a horseshoe or nail to drive off the Fair Folk? There’s debate as to what “cold iron” means, if it means a specific type of or way of forging iron, but I don’t think it’s ever been meant to refer exclusively to iron from a meteor.
According to Wikipedia (which I recognize might be BS so I put this disclaimer here), there ARE special properties ascribed to meteoric iron… but that’s in Tibet, where it was believed that being from the sky, the iron was forged/made by the gods and thus had a special effect against evil forces attached to it. Atticus and the Morrigan, in their discussion, give an explanation here that iron from the sky is better because, as metal not from the Earth, it’s better at repelling or destroying magic from the Earth. Which is cool in concept but isn’t from the mythology that Hearne is supposedly drawing from.
In short, that’s not what cold iron means, so I’m slapping you with a
Did Not Do Homework: 11
In a piece of fiction, you can do what you want with the folklore, I suppose, but Hearne claims that he’s building is based off of folklore. AND the ‘cold iron hurts faeries’ is a thing from folklore, usually illustrated with something like a horseshoe. If suddenly cold iron means something entirely different than what everyone already knows, one would think it’d be lampshaded instead of casually dropped like this. Unless horseshoes are traditionally made with meteorite iron and no one’s told me.
Also, given Atticus (and all beings using Druidic magic, like the Morrigan and other Irish gods) is a servant of the Earth, who is a sentient being in this universe, wouldn’t using sky iron to fight her magic be… I don’t know, sacreligious or something? At the very least, a bit offensive?
“Which one should I use?” she asked. I sat down carefully and picked up each one, examining them carefully.
“Well, as the wee green puppet once said, size matters not,” I replied.
I hate this man so much. We get it, Hearne, you can do Star Wars references. I don’t care.
Atticus lectures the Morrigan (and us) about how much the weight of the piece of iron matters, I don’t really care. Apparently different weights count for different things in spellcasting? As in, too much weight might prevent you from casting spells. Or something. How that works is beyond me. The Morrigan decides she’ll take the iron to Goibhniu, the smith god of the Tuatha De Dannan, and he’ll make more than one. Atticus tells her the extras might come in handy, because he wants one for his apprentice.
So the Morrigan asks what happens after the physical amulet is made, prompting Atticus to explain that she has to bind the iron to her aura. To illustrate, he asks her to look at his aura, and see where one can detect the iron. She compares it to “specks of cookies in cream.”
“What? I had no idea you liked ice cream.
The Morrigan’s eyes flashed red. “If you tell anyone, I’ll rip off your nose.”
Again, any time the Morrigan shows anything that could be construed as a positive trait she gets mad when it’s pointed out? It’s not even cartoonish, it’s just stupid. It’s ice cream! Suggesting that you like ice cream doesn’t mean anything about what kind of person you are! Get over it!
Another
LAUGH, DAMNIT!: 19
I want to go through and criticize the way he describes his aura and how it works, but honestly I don’t understand what the fudge he’s saying. It’s like he’s woven bits of iron into his aura all over? And this means that it protects his aura/self from any sort of full-body curses? Or something? And he talks about what happened at the beginning of the book when the evil witches tried to hex him, and brings up how the iron bindings in his aura are like “aliases”, and when the Morrigan asks what that means, he explains that it’s a computer term that–
Look, man, this is urban fantasy, I’m supposed to be safe from piles of computer jargon right now!From what I can understand, the aura redirects the energy of spells sent towards him into his magic amulet. So when the witches tried to hex him at the beginning of the book, it just made his amulet searing hot–which still would have been a big problem if he didn’t have a healing factor. Isn’t it cool how the magic has limitations and downsides, but the protagonist already has safeguards in place so those are meaningless?
[Not giving it a ‘Make It Easy!’ because this was kind of already established? Maybe I won’t feel so generous later on, I don’t know.]
That’s all he had to say! I didn’t need a full lecture! I get he’s trying to describe how it works to the Morrigan, but the way Hearne did it means that the action stops a third of the way into the second novel so his protagonist can explain the mechanics of a magic item that’s been here the entire time! This is not the moment this should be happening!
The Morrigan also says that when that incident at the beginning of the book happened, she didn’t have any premonition of his death, so that means the amulet works very well at blocking harm to his perseon. Which is good, I guess? It still hurts, but as Morrigan points out, it’s not fatal. And it even protects from Hellfire!
“Yes, even that which is spewed from a fallen angel.”
I’m sorry, is there somewhere else that Hellfire can come from??
The Morrigan asks how one binds the iron to the aura, as magically that’s generally a no-go. Atticus tells her that it took him years to figure it out, but that you need an iron elemental to help you out, and to do that you need to become friends with it. The Morrigan freaks out at this because she’s not a goddess of smiths, nor any good at making friends, so how is she supposed to be ones with an iron elemental.
…didn’t she say she had friends in Chapter 2 of the last book? [checks] Yeah, she does. And Atticus is surprised then too.
Atticus tells her that it isn’t hard, and that since iron elementals like to eat faeries, all she needs to do is feed it a few faeries! And they’re a dime a dozen in Tir na nOg, so just grab some, and use that as a basis for friendship!
Yes, our hero is suggesting grabbing people and feeding them to a monster. That is a thing our hero is doing. They’re faeries, so they’re not human people, but they are people. He’s advocating sacrificing people’s lives for personal gain, and let’s not kid ourselves, he’s totally done this himself. Imagine, if you would, writing a protagonist who casually sacrifices other people’s lives, and trying to write him as an approachable, everyday guy.
The Morrigan still thinks this is too hard, and that it’s not in her nature to be able to make friends, claiming that she’s “a stranger to kindness” Atticus tries convincing her otherwise, pointing out that she did heal his ear, and that means she has some kindness in her. She says that was sex, and she can’t precisely do that with an elemental. Atticus offers to help her learn the ins and outs of how to make friends with people.
You can practice all the intricacies of friendship with me. I’d be honored to be your friend.”
Do you have friends, Atticus? Other than Oberon? Because you were pretty happy to let your werewolf friends get killed for your sake in the last book.
The Morrigan abruptly stands up, thanks Atticus for the sex and food, and says she’ll take the iron to Goibhniu, promising to return when she has the finished amulets. Then she turns to a crow and flies out.
That’s it, that’s the end of the chapter.
Because I know the next chapter, it’s because Brighid is at the door, and the Morrigan doesn’t want to be caught there, especially since the queen of the Irish gods plans to proposition him. But we’ll get to that next time.
Until then, folks.
Better Than You: 5
Did Not Do Homework: 11
The Kids These Days: 7
You Keep Using That Word: 14
Make It Easy!: 12
LAUGH, DAMNIT!: 19
Aikaterini on 19 August 2022, 10:17 said:
Oh, wow, I’m so shocked. Another female character who’s there to bang the unlikable protagonist for no reason. Joy.
Yeah, that’s a big fat NO from me. After throwing this fanservice scene in for no reason, Hearne then renders it completely non-appealing by basically making his protagonist lie back and think of England? Because if Atticus doesn’t have the option of saying no…that’s not a choice. If he doesn’t feel comfortable turning her down because he’s afraid of what might happen to him if he does, that’s coercion. I’m completely boggled by why Hearne would write it this way. After making Atticus ogle every hot woman he comes across, why is Atticus all of a sudden put into a situation like this? I don’t know where on earth the author was going with this. I mean, what are the readers supposed to think of this? “Oh, yay, super-cool Atticus is boinking another super-hot goddess! But he’s not really into it…and is treating it like it’s a chore…and doesn’t really have a choice in the matter…umm…”
Oh, yes, because his daily routine is so fascinating that clearly it’s more important than the actual plot.
I wonder if it would make more sense if Atticus was a demigod, as in the son of one of the Irish gods. If he’s estranged from his parent, that would explain why he believes in the Irish pantheon but doesn’t have regard for them.
And now I find myself missing Kevin Sorbo’s Hercules in “Hercules the Legendary Journeys,” who did have human friends and loved ones, tried to protect humanity, and did snark at the gods whenever they did something stupid, but was there to help them out when they needed it.
Oh, no…
Juracan on 21 August 2022, 17:58 said:
To be fair, there is a reason! It fixes Atticus’s ear. Does that justify a sex scene?
…methinks not.
It’s all a very strange way to handle it, I agree. It SEEMS like we should be viewing this as a rape, or akin to that, but also that we’re meant to view this as fanservice? It’s weird, it’s uncomfortable, and I struggle to see what Hearne is trying to do.
That… would actually be a much better story. Although I think it’s too much angst for what Hearne’s going for. Again, he has to have Atticus acting as the most laidback frat bro type, and an estranged relationship with a still-living parent would be too much work.
Then again, the first book says he’s been hunted for centuries by his enemy, and that he had an abusive father, but neither the protagonist nor the author really CARE about either of those enough to dwell on them.
I know, right? This is what we’re dealing with here.
Faranae on 22 August 2022, 10:27 said:
Hearne also has a weird failure to understand divine domains. Why is the Morrigan able to heal anything in the first place?! And yes, Badb is associated with the hooded crow, a specific species of corvid native to Ireland so if you saw a hooded crow in Arizona you might be worried, but it’s also not a generic “harbinger of death”. The hooded crow is a warning, not an omen, and only in relation to important figures or major war. For that matter, in any tradition of the Morrigan, sex with her confers kingship, so it’s extra weird that she’s just randomly banging Atticus! Hearne seems to think all ancient gods are basically the Greek gods – just horny superpowered humans or something (this isn’t actually accurate to even the Greek gods, but is certainly the popular idea of them).
“Cold iron” typically refers to what we now call wrought iron, by the by. Cast iron wasn’t widespread in Europe until the 1400s, nor was steel. Meteorite iron was even rarer, and the practice of using cold iron to protect against the more minor fairies and ghosts was very, very common. The “cold” part is relative – wrought iron requires a significantly lower forging heat than other forms of iron (especially compared to steel), which is why the “cold” part is a modern addition to the concept.
I’m glad you couldn’t parse the techno-babble section, because I do know tech and I have a feeling I’d just be shouting “that’s not how this works! that’s not how any of this works!”. Just the word “alias” alone tells me he’s probably gone far wrong…
Juracan on 30 August 2022, 21:05 said:
Because… Plot. Which doesn’t really matter because (spoiler alert, as if we care) this healing is undone by the end of the book. Look, divine domains only matter when Hearne says they matter.
Look, it’s not as if Hearne has that great a grasp of either Irish or Greek mythology. Or rather he does—he makes references to somewhat obscure figures or stories sometimes. He just doesn’t care.
I wondered what the “cold” bit was about. I’ve noticed that other fantasy serieses tended to have their own ideas on what worked. Usually ANY kind of iron works, and in some serieses, like Dresden Files, anything that has iron in it will also do the trick, like steel (although pure iron seems to work best). In any case, I have never seen it refer to meteorite iron other than in this book, and it’s a BIZARRE choice to make. How would the average person (because this folklore probably developed from common folk) get his or her hands on meteorite iron? Or even know about it?