Ready for more Iron Druid Chronicles? No? TOO BAD! This chapter’s sporking is shorter than I planned. I debated combining this with the following chapter for the sporking; the next couple of chapters are about the same length. But I considered the content, and realized that if I combined chapters, it would take me forever to get around to finishing it, as it’d be super long.

I hope you guys understand.

Atticus wakes up to find the Morrigan sitting on the bed next to him, naked, and he’s understandably terrified because the last time she was here in Chapter 13, she raped him. She assures him that she’s not there for sex, but that she returned with the iron amulets Atticus told her that she needed in order to make a copy of his magic one. He’s relieved and says he couldn’t “take another day like yesterday.”

The Morrigan laughed, genuinely amused, and it did not sound remotely malicious to me.

JUST SO WE’RE CLEAR, SHE RAPED HIM THE DAY BEFORE. SHE HAD ROUGH SEX WITH ATTICUS AND HE MADE IT CLEAR THAT HE FELT HE COULD NOT SAY NO. TE-HE, GENUINELY AMUSED

[Now that I’m thinking about this, I don’t know that much about Irish mythology. But. Like. Does the Morrigan having sex with Atticus to heal his ear make any sort of mythological sense? Or is it because, once again, Hearne read American Gods and thought about that one scene where Bast has sex with/heals Shadow in a dream? Just throwing that out there.]

I haven’t actually read that far into the series, but I’m pretty sure Atticus is clueless and the Morrigan is in love with him. Just sayin’.

Atticus refers to how Brighid stormed his house and lit his kitchen on fire because the Morrigan had been there, but the Morrigan says she never sensed any danger for him because he’s the protagonist and obviously hot goddesses would rather bone him than murder him, I guess.

Make It Easy!: 18

She does say that there’s danger incoming, presumably the Plot of the book (about evil German witches, remember?). It’s vague, and Atticus finds this amusing, because, reminder: characters switch moods entirely in the seconds between lines of dialogue based on what Hearne thinks is entertaining. Seriously, he wakes up terrified, is angry because her last visit almost got him killed, but now he’s “bemused.” Settle on something!

Looking back… wait a minute. The Morrigan can just… enter his house while he’s sleeping? The goddess of violent death can stroll in whenever she wants? Without waking him up or setting off a kind of alert? For a man who claims to be so clever that he’s prepared for everything, THAT seems like a massive gaping hole in his defenses, doesn’t it?

You Keep Using That Word: 24

And the Morrigan bought him extra sausage. For Oberon, I guess?

Atticus offers to make breakfast, the Morrigan agrees, and so he goes and does that. On the way to the kitchen he berates Oberon for not waking him up, but the dog says he’s scared of the Morrigan, especially because she’s seemingly in a good mood. It makes him suspicious that she’s up to something horrible, though Atticus tries to convince him not to worry about it, thinking the Morrigan is probably happy because she one-upped Brighid.

The goddess of war and violent death being happy isn’t a big deal! She’s just in a good mood. Nothing to worry about, guys! Chillax!

You Keep Using That Word: 25

The Morrigan talks to Oberon, surprising the dog, and she’s all nice to him, saying it’s an honor to be recognized by him. She pets him and Oberon’s all happy and wagging his tail, and it’s a pleasant breakfast. See? Talking to, as Oberon puts it, “the goddess of slaughter” isn’t a bad thing on a good day! It’s perfectly fine to let your beloved pet be happy and within reach of the literal deity of violent death what the fudge am I the only sane one in this equation?!

You Keep Using That Word: 26

They talk about the magic-killing amulet. Atticus tells her to wear it and cast spells to get used to it and find an iron elemental to get friendly with (by feeding it faeries for a few years) so that it does favors for you. The Morrigan asks where Atticus got the faeries to feed the elemental, and he says that he got it from the minions that Aenghus Og sent after him for years. She finds this amusing.

“Ha!” the Morrigan barked. “So in a way he was helping you all along to build the defense that enabled you to stand up to him.”

Did it? ‘Cause if I remember correctly, the magic iron amulet, the thing that gives Atticus a lot of power and the series its name… doesn’t actually have much to do with the Plot of the last book. It’s not as if he uses it to strike the final blow on Aenghus Og or anything like that. It’s only another thing that makes Atticus into an overpowered Mary Sue.

Then the Morrigan leaves. It’s not really described; the paragraph after that last quote opens with “When the Morrigan left…” I suppose that the goddess of slaughter leaving the protagonist’s house after learning to make a magic superweapon is not a big enough deal to have dialogue or description.

Atticus does some divination with Ogham sticks. It’s mentioned that Druids do this back in Chapter 2 of the first book, but it’s the first time we see Atticus do it, I think. One of the sticks he throws foretells death, and others say that he needs to magically protect his friend. Whatever, this is meaningless, and I don’t care. It tells us nothing we don’t know, and the first time it’s brought up in the first book, Atticus doesn’t take it seriously and tells us all the ways it can go wrong.

“Out, out, thou strumpet Fortune!” I cried with all the venom of Charlton Heston.

This line would be fine-ish, on its own, but it leads to a conversation with Oberon that, in this order, A) explains what the word ‘strumpet’ means, B) references the Black Eyed Peas, C) where the quote is from (Hamlet), and D) what the sentence means. Because of the Black Eyed Peas reference, I’m going to give it a

The Kids These Days: 10

Also the conversation is meant to be funny, I think? So!

LAUGH, DAMNIT!: 26

And I strongly suspect that this entire tangent is meant to make Atticus sound oh-so-smart so:

Better Than You: 10

Anyhow Atticus puts a magic protective amulet on Oberon. This supposedly protects against “Fae magic, infernal hexes, several forms of old craft from Europe that the hexen might employ, and Kabbalistic spells.” It’s still vulnerable to other types of magic–Atticus lists “Obeah, Voudoun, and Wiccan craft, as well as most anything from the Indian and Asian traditions and the vast sea of shamanistic practice” but that he “had to put my money down somewhere.”

WHY? What does magical protection actually cost? As far as we know, it only costs the time to weave the spells. Why does he think that the German witches won’t employ Wiccan or shamanistic traditions? If I was an immortal evil witch, I’d certainly learn to expand my arsenal of spells in case I had to. It would certainly surprise chuckmuffins like Atticus if she immediately pulled out, Siberian shamanism. Or heck, just pull a gun. If Hearne bothered to explain the cost of these magical protections, I’d give him the benefit of the doubt. As it is, I can only guess it means that he’s betting that no one will use types of magical attacks he doesn’t want them to. Which gives it another

You Keep Using That Word: 27

[deadpan] The man’s so clever, isn’t he.

He also gives a magic protection amulet to his apprentice Granny when she swings by to pick him up. He’s incredibly distracted by the freckles near her collarbone when he puts it on her, because the man cannot think of anything but having sex with Granuaile every time he lays eyes on her. Seriously, how does this guy even function in the modern world? It reminds me of that one guy I heard about (through the Internet, so take it with a grain of salt) who claimed he found women’s ponytails distracting–get it together! If you’re an adult man and you’re so turned on by little things like a ponytail, or freckles on a collarbone, that you cannot think straight, you have a problem. Seek help.

So I am currently reading Dead Man’s Hand by James J. Butcher1 and there’s a scene in which our heroes have to go to talk to an incubus (sex demon) who runs an underground sex club. Our protagonist, Grimsby, has a similar reaction to Atticus at this kind of distraction–though it’s much better written–in that he keeps trying (and failing) to think of something else and avert his eyes. The difference, of course, is that Grimsby is a young man walking past orgies and pornographic art, bombarded with this atmosphere. Atticus is over two thousand years old, and has a comparable reaction, except all he’s doing is seeing an attractive young woman not doing or saying anything sexual.

This isn’t relatable to anyone other than a hormonal teenage boy. This isn’t funny at all. It’s weird and gross and uncomfortable.

[And I find it incredibly strange that Hearne wrote Kill the Farm Boy with Delilah S. Dawson because they thought the fantasy genre was too much of a power fantasy for straight white males. That’s an interesting discussion to be had, but when contrasted with Iron Druid Chronicles it makes me scratch my head and wonder if Kevin Hearne has a clue how to write characters and themes.]

Atticus binds the amulet’s magic to Granny’s aura and casts a spell to make it visible to her.

“You’re going to let me watch you do some cool Druid shit?”

“Yep. But you should always remember to speak of such things with reverence and awe.”

She didn’t miss a beat. “You mean you’re going to initiate me into the sacred mysteries of Druidic craft?”

“That’s much better; well done.”

In a better book, this would get a chuckle from me. But it doesn’t work here because the way Granny talks about “cool Druid Shit” is exactly how Atticus always talks, even about Druid work. He doesn’t take anything seriously at all. The joke falls flat because of it.

So

LAUGH, DAMNIT!: 27

Because she’s seeing through Atticus’s eyes, Granny calls this her “first out-of-body experience” which is an interesting way to put it? Because seeing through another’s eyes makes one uncoordinated, Atticus advises her not to move, so she sits back and lets him do his magic. She sees him weaving magic, which amazes her, and is surprised that it looks like Celtic knotwork, as it did in the last book. Atticus explains that Celtic art originally WAS magic, because it was meant to symbolize the “bonds between all living things”. I think this is supposed to make it seem as if Druid magic is like the Force or something, but considering how often he uses it to kill, that’s a lot less warm and fuzzy than you’d expect.

Only Druid magic looks like that with the magic vision, apparently. Other types of magic look different. Which is kind of cool, actually! So points for some worldbuilding there.

Granny is impressed and says so with swearing, and Atticus reminds her to use “Reverence and awe” so she corrects herself again.

Atticus ensures that she’s protected from magical attacks, though he warns her that if someone grabs her hair or blood, they can still use it against her. It’s tied to the amulet he just gave her though, so she has to keep wearing it for it to work. He assures Granny though that if she finds herself in a magically warded zone, she should be able to take it off just fine.

Then they walk outside and IMMEDIATELY get magically attacked. Her amulet and his own make it so they only get knocked over, but it’s there! I feel as if a novel with better pacing would not have had this happen right after the magical protections are established, but Hearne has farted away too much time with nonsense side quests, so he’s obviously got to get the ball rolling right the heck now if this is going to make any semblance of sense.

But then!! Atticus realizes!!! THAT HE HAS FELT THIS BEFORE! Because as it turns out, Atticus has faced this kind of magical attack before! Meaning he’s faced this coven of evil witches before!!!! He met them during World War II! And now he’s all angry because he’s wanted vengeance for decades and–

What.

No, seriously, what?

In case you’re confused, no, I did not skip a part of the book; this isn’t fully explained until a couple of chapters from now, but the book just NOW introduces this part of the narrative. We’re over halfway through the book, and not only has (once again) the protagonist not even met the main antagonist of the story, but we’re also suddenly getting a hint of backstory telling us that, despite no previous hints, IT JUST SO HAPPENS that Atticus has encountered them before in a part of his life that hasn’t been described at all.

CRAZY COINCIDENCE!! Isn’t that wonderful?

Make It Easy!: 19

This is hack writing! When we finally get the backstory, it’s like that time in the first book when we find out that Atticus is able to manipulate the Leprechaun because her husband was killed in the Troubles in Ireland. There’s no foreshadowing to this, it’s just there, brought up only when it’s immediately relevant to the story. Hearne could have been building it up this entire time, but instead he wasted the story with a fallen angel, and maenads, and being raped by the Morrigan. Just like with Hounded, Atticus is bumping into important but sparing plot points as they come up, only THEN bothering to explain things like motivations or backstory.

Did no one, in the editing process, stop and tell Hearne, “Look, you know that you should probably establish your main villains before this point? Their connection to the hero needs to be brought up at a point early on, not ‘right before he faces them’?” If they did, Hearne clearly didn’t listen! Again, this man was a high school English teacher, and yet he apparently never learned the basics of how to structure a story! Our hero fumbles around with future setup until the actual story lands on his head!

“Hearne’s first has to continue the Plot threads from the last book! He had to do that, or you’d complain about continuity!” If that was true, Atticus would have cleaned up the patch of Earth that Aenghus Og blighted; but no, he STILL hasn’t taken care of it, despite it supposedly being his sacred duty as a Druid. No, Hearne is throwing whatever he thinks is cool at you and hoping you don’t notice that he’s got no grasp of how to tell a story.

There was not a doubt in my mind that the witches who’d attacked me and my charges during World War II were the same ones attacking me now, and they called themselves die Tochter des dritten Hauses.

That’s how the chapter ends.

It’s supposed to make us think, “Wow! Another old enemy of Atticus! And he finally gets revenge on them!” Instead, it’s making me think, “Wow! Hearne is once again trying to make it so that our protagonist and antagonist have history without doing any of the necessary work to have it make sense!” You would think that if his lead was fighting Nazi witches, Hearne wouldn’t shut up about it. Atticus is far from modest–he will not shut up about how awesome he is or the awesome people he knows. The opening of the first book is him name-dropping a bunch of famous historical figures he hung out with (who are bound to be people the reader has heard of). So you’re telling me he talks on and on about riding with Genghis Khan for conquest and slaughter, but doesn’t like bringing up his time in World War II?

Let’s be real, Hearne probably made this up as he went along, and so he didn’t even think about the idea until now. I think it’s likely Hearne got this far, and then said to himself, “Crap! I need to give Atticus a reason to care about the Plot! Uh… Atticus ran into these witches in World War II!”

The next chapter is the first time Atticus fights the witches, and I don’t think you’ll be shocked to learn it ends anticlimactically. Then it’s another chapter or two before Atticus finally explains what his deal is with these witches? In a long sequence which halts the narrative, obviously.

See you next time.

Better Than You: 10
Did Not Do Homework: 14
The Kids These Days: 10
You Keep Using That Word: 27
Make It Easy!: 19
LAUGH, DAMNIT!: 27

1 Why yes, that is the son of Jim Butcher, of Dresden Files fame.

Tagged as: ,

Comment

  1. Faranae on 29 May 2023, 11:34 said:

    Does the Morrigan having sex with Atticus to heal his ear make any sort of mythological sense? Or is it because, once again, Hearne read American Gods and thought about that one scene where Bast has sex with/heals Shadow in a dream? Just throwing that out there.

    No, the Morrigan is not even particularly associated with sex (that’s a later alteration), and not with healing in the least. Cúchulainn heals her at one point, in a manner that fevered Victorians would probably interpret as sexual allegory, but Irish myth is usually not coy so it probably isn’t sexual.

    And the Morrigan is probably the deity I would most want to ward my entire house, body, soul, and everything else against. For goodness’ sake, you don’t even want her to get ahold of your clothes because she washes them in blood and then you die!

    This isn’t relatable to anyone other than a hormonal teenage boy.

    It’s something of a trope (?) in romance novels to signal that one of the romantic leads has fallen for the other one, but it usually is also accompanied by actual build up and denial and pining and at least some potential for a sexual element. Also much more frequent in historical queer romance where the protagonists might believe their interest would be unwelcome or yknow, illegal. It gets filed under such scenes as “only one bed” and “ill-advised swimming session”.

    You would think that if his lead was fighting Nazi witches, Hearne wouldn’t shut up about it.

    This is the “new writer on a Wolverine title” school of plot design, isn’t it?

  2. Juracan on 30 May 2023, 06:34 said:

    No, the Morrigan is not even particularly associated with sex (that’s a later alteration), and not with healing in the least. Cúchulainn heals her at one point, in a manner that fevered Victorians would probably interpret as sexual allegory, but Irish myth is usually not coy so it probably isn’t sexual.

    I think I knew that the Morrigan wasn’t particularly associated with healing, but for whatever reason I thought Hearne was pulling this from somewhere. And on reflection, I realized (as stated above) it was probably a scene from American Gods with a completely different goddess from a completely different pantheon.

    Then again, I don’t know anything about Bast being connected to healing or sex either, so who knows.

    And the Morrigan is probably the deity I would most want to ward my entire house, body, soul, and everything else against. For goodness’ sake, you don’t even want her to get ahold of your clothes because she washes them in blood and then you die!

    Yeah, but she’s inexplicably friends with our protagonist, so everything she does is okay!

    It’s something of a trope (?) in romance novels to signal that one of the romantic leads has fallen for the other one, but it usually is also accompanied by actual build up and denial and pining and at least some potential for a sexual element. Also much more frequent in historical queer romance where the protagonists might believe their interest would be unwelcome or yknow, illegal. It gets filed under such scenes as “only one bed” and “ill-advised swimming session”.

    Uh, yeah, maybe we’re meant to find this endearing, as Atticus and Granny do end up together? But considering how little we get from her point of view, and how in this book he keeps getting incredibly turned on during completely normal interactions, it’s just uncomfortable to read.

    This is the “new writer on a Wolverine title” school of plot design, isn’t it?

    Well…

  3. Michael on 31 May 2023, 14:05 said:

    It’s just outright embarassing how sloppy that nazi witch backstory reveal is and how blatantly it’s a case of the author being too lazy to go back and edit his book. Like, I’m not just hallucinating the fact we and by extension Atticus already knew the coven’s name, right? There’s so much more wrong with how this scene is executed by the sound of it, but if they hadn’t known the name of the coven so far you could at least say that Atticus—paranoid immortal that he is—just assumed that they’re some weak no name coven that he can easily handle due to being the awesomest druid ever, even if he splits his attention with side-quests. Then comes the reveal that no, actually these are super witches juiced up on [insert occult Nazi stuff here] that are here for him specifically after his adress got out rather than your run of the mill witch territory war and they were just unkown due to not being anywhere near local so Atticus is the only one that could have reasonably recognized them.

    Don’t get me wrong, the above is still bad, because this story needs way more than a single fix, but at least that’s one glaring yet easily fixed problem less. Did he really fail to recognize the name of this coven he apparently has some giant feud with? That’s a whole new level of incompetency.

  4. Juracan on 31 May 2023, 20:59 said:

    Don’t get me wrong, the above is still bad, because this story needs way more than a single fix, but at least that’s one glaring yet easily fixed problem less. Did he really fail to recognize the name of this coven he apparently has some giant feud with? That’s a whole new level of incompetency.

    We’ll get into this more on when the full backstory’s explained, but for now I’ll say this.

    Fairness on Hearne’s part (though not much): the reveal is that though he’s faced off against this coven before, in World War II, he didn’t actually know what they were called, and the two have apparently never encountered each other since. This reveal is still pretty lame, though, as apparently it means that Atticus ran against this hostile group and then just… forgot about it until they came back and attacked him again.

    But Atticus is “So Paranoid!”, amirite? You would think that if he was actually as paranoid as he claimed, he would have figured out who it was who attacked him years before this point and have already built up a defense against them, or a set of notes, or something for whenever he might run up against them again, but he’s apparently done none of that. He only figured he’d be fine and they’d leave him alone, I guess.

    So you’re right, it’s still a new level of incompetency, though not quite to that level.