Just as a reminder: I have a Tumblr friend doing a sporking of the Tiger’s Curse series that you can find here.
I had every intention of making this update sooner, but I had to take a break from Hearne, guys. After Hearne published an actual serious fantasy novel, I saw that he had teamed up with another author (Delilah S. Dawson) to make a parody fantasy series, and I thought to myself, “Hey, maybe Hearne’s actually gotten better! Maybe he’s become an okay author! I’ll check out this parody fantasy book he co-authored.” So I picked up Kill the Farm Boy!
It’s, uh… it’s not good.
To be fair, it reads a little better than Hounded by virtue of the protagonists not being Atticus, but overall it’s still the same crude stupid humor but dialed up to eleven, the authors keep vomitting jokes until they lose any semblance of being funny, and once again the characters wandered aimlessly without a real Plot to sustain them. What retroactively made it a bizarre novel was that in the Acknowledgements at the end of the book, the authors claimed that the point of the novel was to write a book that subverted the white male power fantasy that pervades genre fiction.
Yes, the man who wrote The Iron Druid Chronicles, a series about a white man who so much more handsome, powerful and clever than anyone else because the book tells us so, who gets everything he wants handed to him on a platter, who regularly makes out with goddesses, yeah, the author who wrote that… says he has a problem with white male power fantasy in the genre fiction.
[makes muffled angry noises into a pillow]
There’s a dissertation about the hypocrisy here floating around in my brain somewhere, but it probably can’t be written because I can’t seem to finish a serious project for the life of me.
What were we talking about here again?
“Bring it, muthafuckas. Bring it.”
Oh. Right.
The previous chapter has Atticus declare he’s going to take a more active role in the Plot, in order to avoid getting sucker punched by Aenghus Og’s plans when he’s not looking. Which sounds promising, as he should have been doing this since the first chapter. But what does he do after making this declaration that he’s finally going to care about the Plot?
If you guessed ‘Not care about the Plot,’ then congratulations, you go get yourself a cookie.
I awoke in the morning remarkably refreshed but with urgent pressure on my bladder. After relieving myself on the oak tree—out of sight of the few people strolling through the park—I took a deep breath, and it felt remarkably good.
Look at that Plot picking up pace, and that protagonist who decides to take things into his hands, stepping into the action and, uh… [checks card] peeing on a tree in a public park?
Yeah, no. That whole business at the end of the last chapter about actually giving a shirt about the Plot? That’s a lie. Atticus went to sleep in the park, and this chapter he goes home, visits his neighbor and sits and catches her up on everything that’s happened, and then goes to the Irish bar in town to talk to his lawyer. And then he gets a conversation with the bartender about what her deal is. The next two chapters after this one deal with that.
That hardly sounds like the Plot is picking up, does it?
The earth was so good to me, so giving and so kind.
Ah, no Atticus. That’s not the planet being so kind to you, that’s the author.
Shouldn’t that be a capital ‘E’ on Earth? Since he’s referring to it as an entity of a sort?
Right so he wakes up at 10 AM, and deciding that it’s time enough to meet his lawyer for lunch at the Irish bar. He checks his phone’s messages, and he’s got ones from just about every other male character:
-Hal to complain about how Oberon won’t stop eating, and also killed the air freshner in his car.
-Snorri to thank Atticus for giving him tons of money for being a corrupt douchebag.
-The cops for more questioning. Atticus ignores those messages.
-Perry to let Atticus know that the shop door had been replaced (in less than a day???) and that Malina had come by and told him the contract for that impotence potion with Emilya is considered fulfilled and he doesn’t have to make more.
Malina also asked Perry to find “a letter from Radomila” in the shop, which Atticus takes to mean the blood sample of Radomila’s that he has on a piece of paper. Perry doesn’t find it, because while Atticus is stupid, he’s not so stupid that he leaves that lying around his shop. He does begin to wonder if the cops picked it up when they rifled through his house, as it’s not like the lawyer present would have known what it was. Still, instead of checking on that ASAP, Atticus decides it’s “Better to save such questions for Hal at Rula Bula,” again proving that he’s a bloody moron.
Reminder, in case you forgot: Atticus and Radomila did favors for each other (Atticus got her an amulet from a shipwreck, and she did a cloaking spell on the magic sword), and in exchange they gave each other blood samples as insurance to make sure they never turned on each other. Blood samples can be used for some dangerous blood magic and do all kinds of nasty stuff to each other. And now he thinks that Radomila turned against him, and maybe, just maybe she got that sample back so that he couldn’t use the greatest weapon against her. And instead of going to his house, making sure that the blood sample is exactly where it’s supposed to be, he’s like, “Meh, I’ll just wait until lunch to ask my lawyer, who may or may not have noticed it being taken in the first place.”
Isn’t Atticus so paranoid, guys?
What makes this worse is that not only does he not go to his own house, he goes to the Leprechaun’s house. He says it’s because he assumes that his house and shop are being watched, but somehow Atticus doesn’t think that taking a taxi to, say, his next door neighbor’s house or his favorite bar that he regularly visits would raise any flags with the cops or the forces of evil.
“Ah, Atticus, me lad!” The widow smiled a cheery greeting and raised her morning glass of whiskey at me from the porch. “What happened to yer bicycle that yer drivin’ up to me door in a taxi?”
At this point I’m quoting her dialogue in these sporkings because this book makes me spiteful of the fact I’m still breathing and I take it out on all of you.
So Atticus, the “paranoid” individual he is, suspicious that his house might be watched by his enemies, sits on the front porch of his next door neighbor and tells her about his misadventures the previous day.
This conversation—
I’ll be gettin’ meself a refill if y’wouldn’t mind sittin’ fer a spell.”
[deep breath]
Okay, sorry, the Accent just makes me mad. So Atticus—
“Ye’ll be takin’ a glass with me, won’t ye? ‘Tisn’t Sunday anymore, and I can’t imagine ye objectin’ to a cold handful of Tullamore Dew.”
[another deep breath]
Yes, right, after all of this, the Irish Accent and Atticus talk about—
“Yer a fine lad, Atticus, drinkin’ whiskey with a widow on a Monday.”
STOP IT! STOP IT THIS INSTANT, HEARNE! STOP FEEDING ME DOG**** AND TELLING ME TO LIKE IT! THIS IS JUST A STUPID CARICATURE OF A CARICATURE AND I HATE IT! I HATE THE LEPRECHAUN AND I HATE HER ACCENT AND I HATE THIS STUPID BOOK!
[ahem]
But like… you guys see this, right? I’m not exaggerating when I tell you about this stupid accent! Nobody talks like this! The Lucky Charms mascot would be offended by this accent! It’s so bafflingly stupid, I can’t imagine how this got past the first draft of this book!
I really did enjoy her company. And I knew too well the loneliness that clamps around one’s heart when loved ones have passed on before. To have that companionship, the comfort of someone being at home for you for years, and then suddenly not to have it anymore—well, every day can seem darker after that, and the vise clutches tighter in your chest every night you spend in a lonely bed. Unless you find someone to spend some time with (and that time is sunlight, golden minutes when you forget you’re alone), that vise will eventually crush your heart. My deal with the Morrigan aside, it’s other people who have kept me alive so long—and I include Oberon in that. Other people in my life right now, who help me forget all the other people I have buried or lost: They are truly magic for me.
What is this?
No, seriously, Hearne, what is this? What is this nonsense? I know that stories about immortals often have this motif of the immortal in question lamenting the people they’ve outlived. But we are eighteen chapters into this book, and only now is this being brought up. It’s not quite as bad as that time when Atticus mentions that his father was abusive, because that was wrapped up in a joke about how he cries every time he watches Field of Dreams. But this isn’t great, because it’s a monologue right the fudge out of nowhere about how sad he is about loved ones who have died in the past.
Here’s the thing though: we don’t care.
Look, this very easily could have been a good character moment for Atticus, but it’s all too little, too late. We’re told he’s the last Druid on the planet, and yet at no point does this fact make him feel especially lonely or sad or any emotion at all. We’ve gotten no indication that he’s particularly lonesome. Look, I don’t know if Atticus really has any friends other than the Leprechaun and Oberon. Hal and Leif, and the wolf pack, I suppose, but they’re also his lawyers, and Leif is addicted to his blood, so I don’t know if that really counts. The witches are the closest thing he has to people who have any idea what it’s like to be him, being older-than-normal magic users, but he holds them in contempt because their magic is not as cool as his, and also without their glamours they’re old and ugly and Atticus has no interest in associating with a woman who isn’t hawt.
Furthermore, it’s not like Atticus is a great guy to begin with! I made a list at the end of Chapter 11 of all the dickish things he did, remember? No? Well here it is again!
-He stands by to let humans get killed by gods.
-He will happily kill people on his own side of a battle if it gets him what he wants (like a magic sword).
-Said magic sword that he knew was being used as an unstoppable weapon that caused chaos in Ireland, and he took it for himself.
-He associates with at least one serial killer.
-Are we counting the Morrigan? If not, it’s still incredibly sketch that he’s BFFs with the Irish god of violent death and warfare that goes and kills people for insulting her.
-His worries about killing are centered around being caught rather than actually doing something immoral or hurting people.
-He fought and killed with the Golden Horde for no discernible reason.
-He can kill faeries by touching them using a type of magic that distorts the very nature of magic itself.
-Frames his neighbor for harassing the police.
-Manipulates another neighbor into helping him cover up a death.
And since then we can add ‘is stealing money from the city’ to that list if we want!
We’ve said time and again that Atticus is not, nor has he ever been a hero. But I want to hammer home this point: not only is he not a hero, he’s an absolute garbage human being. He’s done absolutely nothing to deserve sympathy. And yet here’s an entire word-vomit of Atticus telling the audience, with no prior buildup, foreshadowing or precedent, “Sometimes I get sad because I outlived loved ones hundreds of years ago.”
No, I don’t think you do, Atticus. In a competently-written novel, I’d say it might be the protagonist is trying to avoid talking about his or her pain, and it’s only surfaced at a vulnerable moment. But this isn’t a competently-written novel. This is a white male power fantasy dressed up like an urban fantasy novel, where the protagonist wanders through his daily routine while information gets handed to him, the villains don’t bother to inconvenience him by acting remotely intelligent, and he’s just so powerful and strong and sexy and well-connected that nothing ever gets him down.
So even if I believed this for an instant, that this was a legitimate character moment for Atticus, and that we’re meant to honestly believe that he feels bad about outliving loved ones, I cannot find it in myself to care. Atticus, you are filth. Go die in whatever way seems best to you.
Atticus spends the next hour or so talking to the Accent what happened yesterday. He says he’s telling her “enough of the truth to entertain her yet keep her safe” but I have no idea what that would look like. Because now I imagine she believes that the City of Tempe hires cops who might snap and go homicidal for no reason. I also have no idea how he explains healing from getting shot so fast, and it’s glossed over so we’ll never really know. This sequence is also entirely pointless because he just leaves and goes to that Irish bar shortly afterward.
Oh, and remember that the magic sword is now uncloaked? I’d forgotten, but Atticus reminds us that it’s just strapped to his back and people are giving him funny looks as he walks into the bar. Again, he didn’t go to his house or shop because he’s worried about being watched, but the attention he receives by walking around town with a sword is no big deal.
Look guys, my brother and his friends got the cops called on them for carrying paintball guns in our neighborhood. I think Atticus would get in trouble. But none of that’s important because the hawt barmaid was there. There’s a description of how hawt she is, of course, as if we need another set of sentences telling us how gorgeous this woman flirting with Atticus is.
Granuaile (hey come up with nickname for this character and I’ll use it) tells Atticus that she read in the papers that he got shot. Atticus, instead of downplaying this, or changing the topic, admits that he got shot but that he can “just heal fast.” Look, if you’re not going to tell your neighbor who witnessed you killing a god about the supernatural, why are you going to tell the bartender that you can heal like Wolverine? I know he’s probably trying to play it off as more like he just heals faster rather than something supernatural, but the man was shot through the chest and the very next day he’s walking around like nothing happened.
And then this happens:
Granuaile’s expression abruptly changed. Her eyes narrowed and she tilted her head to the side as she placed a bar napkin in front of me, and her voice became throatier as she spoke with a newfound accent: “Druids usually do.” With only three words to work with, all I could do was hazard a guess that the accent was from somewhere on the Indian subcontinent. Then, without much of a pause, the old Granuaile—the perky and beguiling barmaid—was back. “What’ll it be? A Smithwick’s?”
Yup, apparently Granuaile just gets possessed for a bit and says something in a voice that’s completely different from her own. Atticus is just like “Oh hey, that’s weird, how’d you do that?” And to be fair, he has been around the block a while, so it’s not out there that he’s not thrown by this, but still… it’s hard to take this seriously when Atticus isn’t that surprised by the bartender being possessed.
Granuaile has no memory of saying the thing, and so when Atticus asks her about it, she works out what happened and that a mysterious individual talked to him through her, and that she’s wanted to talk to him for weeks now. Atticus wants to know more, but Granuaile says it’s a long story, so Atticus agrees to wait until after he meets his lawyer.
Hal and Oberon enter the bar, and he goes to hang out with them, and especially to hang out with Oberon who missed him. If I cared about them I’d find that touching. But I don’t!
Hal advises Atticus to start wearing a bandage on his chest to at least be able to fake having been shot and with serious injury. Then it glosses over their discussion, but it’s about suing the police department and how they have “the most airtight case possible” (despite Atticus not appearing injured in the slightest) to rob the city out of millions of dollars.
Atticus instructs to Hal that after he’s paid and Snorri’s paid, the rest of the money should go to Fagles’s family in an anonymous donation. This surprises Hal, who calls it noble, but Atticus insists that it’s not nobility at all, he just doesn’t want to have any profit from Aenghus’s machinations. Which he, uh, could have done if he just didn’t try suing the police department. It feels like a tacked-on attempt to make it so that Atticus is a nice guy deep down, but again, this contradicts everything we’ve been told about him. It’s like the editors told Hearne how much of a dickbag Atticus was, so in response he hastily inserted all the moments that sounded remotely sympathetic into this chapter.
The conversation continues with Atticus saying he’s got some new information on the bartender, and Hal responds with “The redhead who smells like two people?” Atticus is surprised, because Hal never told him this before, but Hal’s reply is basically “You never asked.” Which… he did. Hal’s description of the conversation is “you asked me if she smelled like a goddess…a demon, a lycanthrope, or some other kind of therianthrope…You were too smitten at the time to ask me what she actually smelled like.” Which, okay, he didn’t specifically ask you what she smelled like, but that was clearly something he wanted to know, and an ongoing topic of discussion between you, and you’re supposedly friends, so you just didn’t tell him because… Plot, I guess.
So Atticus tells Hal to take Oberon to the Leprechaun’s house while he will go talk to the bartender. We get another reminder slew of how hawt she is before she tells him that she’s possessed by an Indian witch named Laksha Kulasekaran. And that’s where we end Chapter 18. I imagine this is meant to be a “GASP! PLOT TWIST!” moment, but considering that A) this has nothing to do with the Plot of this book, and B) witches aren’t really that big a deal other than that Atticus hates them for being women less kewl than he is.
But nope, the possessed bartender? She just inserts herself into the Plot despite not having anything to do with it. So the next two chapters are about her.
This book is so dumb.
Aikaterini on 10 October 2019, 09:36 said:
Heh, I like how you call the widow the Leprechaun because her dialogue makes her sound like Warwick Davis in “Leprechaun.”
This is just a guess of mine, but maybe that happened because of the narrative’s discomfort with too much emotion. An abusive father is wrapped up in a joke just so that Atticus doesn’t seem too sentimental or pitiable. Yeah, his father was abusive, but it’s okay, guys, Atticus can wrap it up with a joke so that we can see that he’s mostly over it and is still cool and isn’t one of those ‘emo wimps’ who cries a lot or is traumatized by anything. It also doesn’t help that an abusive father doesn’t fit with the flippant tone that this novel mostly has.
Which really lessens sympathy for his loneliness. Is he lonely because people won’t talk to him or is it because he’s really picky about the types of people he likes?
In terms of writing a story where the protagonist is familiar with the world and yet the audience can still be impressed by what’s happening, I think that “Pokémon Detective Pikachu” is a good example of doing it right, funnily enough. Because while the protagonist isn’t surprised by the existence of Pokemon since he lives in a world where they’re a part of everyday life, there are still a lot of things about his world that he doesn’t know and is allowed to be shocked by. Tim doesn’t know who Mewtwo is, so he’s allowed to be apprehensive and intimidated by him. Pokémon don’t normally attack people, so when they’re infected with the R gas, it’s genuinely frightening for him (and thus the audience). Even Ryan Reynolds as a snarky Pikachu is allowed to be scared by the attacking Pokémon.
I think the problem with Atticus, Jace, and other characters like them is that the authors are trying to adopt this casual, wisecracking attitude towards everything to make the hero look cool and what it really does is make the world seem unimpressive. If the characters don’t care about this scary monster or weird event, then why should the reader? It’d be one thing if the whole thing was a parody and the character being unimpressed or casual with a horrifying monster was the joke, but it’s not.
Juracan on 11 October 2019, 08:12 said:
And weirdly enough, I don’t think there are any actual leprechauns in the series, so it’s not like she’s going to get mixed up with another character! It’s a great nickname!
In and of itself, this wouldn’t be a bad character trait! Or rather, it would be, but it wouldn’t be bad for the protagonist to have this flaw. Plenty of works of fiction, specifically comedy types, have a protagonist that uses humor to cover up uncomfortable emotions (Shawn from Psych and Peralta from Brooklyn 99 come to mind here). But it’s not addressed, so instead it just feels as if the the author himself doesn’t want to deal with any serious or sympathetic emotions. And so the audience, the author and the main character can’t seem to care about the trauma that he supposedly has.
And “flippant” is a great descriptor for the tone of the novel.
That’s… a really good example and now I’m disappointed in myself that I didn’t think about it. That example does have the advantage though, that I think the film assumes you have a basic understanding about Pokemon. Still, any exposition you might not know for sure is laid out for you clearly enough in the movie. In this, if you’re given exposition it’s usually when Hearne stops the action entirely so Atticus can ramble about something.
Still, Detective Pikachu works because it’s throwing the protagonists against something new. The only thing that Atticus hasn’t really encountered before in this novel is the Indian witch, and she’s on his side from the get-go, so it’s not exactly that much of a challenge. If something the likes of which Atticus had never faced before showed up and attacked him, that’d be a much better story than “Druid beats all this stuff he already knows about.”
This book at times can’t seem to decide whether or not it’s parody. And it’s part of what makes this so frustrating. Atticus is constantly cracking jokes and making pop culture references as if that makes it all very funny, when in reality the actual events being shown… aren’t. He’s making light of things like his lawyer being a serial killer that hides bodies. And when something shows up to threaten Atticus he…doesn’t care. Seriously, when he’s told monsters are coming to his house, he tells us the thing he does is go to sleep. And then it tells us his breakfast routine.
Atticus doesn’t care. And as a result, neither do any of us reading it. At best maybe we find it amusing, but that’s not the same thing at all.
The Smith of Lie on 17 November 2019, 04:14 said:
I admire your capacity for giving others a second chance. Especially since I feel like writing a good parody is more difficult than a straight story. One has to first understand what maks the genre work before trying to satirize it. Also we have already established that Hearne has no recognizable sense of humor…
I guess presence of a co-author could be a mitigating factor?
Can’t say I am surprised.
Something, something, speck in genre’s fiction eye, something, something plank in Hearne’s.
Hah! Called it back in the previous chapter. Now pardon me as I go grab myself a cookie.
In a just universe (or one that runs on a particularly vindicative narrative causality) he’d get spotted by a police officer and taken in for indecent exposure.
Why can’t he leave the Leprechaun alone? What did she do to him that he’s so determined to keep her dragged into his BS? Isn’t it enough that she aided and abbeted him after the deicide he commited?
Hey, if not his many crime, maybe they can get him for obstruction of justice?
I suppose that when you have authorial fiat on your side, the standards of paranoia tend to slip. I mean he’s been at it for 2000 years and it worked without hitch. So I consider Atticus a Dodo Bird of pranoiacs – he just has no concpet of real danger or consequences that might result from his dumb decisions.
I guess you deserve a little bit of catharsis at our expense? Misery loves company after all.
WHY? WHY? WHY? Seriously, she is just his neighbour, a bystander who already got involved into stuff that’s way over her head. Why won’t Atticus leave the poor caricature of a stereotype of a woman alone?!
But don’t you get it? This makes Atticus a deep character with real issues and emotions and not just an eternal frat boy power fantasy. [Smith bursts out into a maniacal cackle.] Nope, sorry. Can’t keep that up with straight face.
This is even worse. Because the lack of any real consequences of Aatticus walking around with the sword pretty much renders the whole bit with getting it cloaked moot and pointless. He went through a lot of trouble, made deals with less than fully trustworthy parties (not that he is trustworthy party himself) to get it glamoured. And for what? To dismiss the cloaking spell and show off his magic blade for all the world to see just a few years later? Why bother in the first place then?
Excuse as I go and find a good receptacle to vomit into.
Ah but don’t you see? It is part of Atticus paranoid nature to outright ingore a suspicious and potentially dangerous events that happen in his vicinity. It… it… it lulls them into false sense of security!
Besides, investigating this would be bothersome and would require effort and ivestment from the protagonist. Can’t have that now, can we?
I heard about a literal genies, but a literal werewolf? I guess it comes with being a lawyer, getting stuff done in legal settings does indeed hinge on getting one’s wording precisely. But I have known a number of lawyers and in every day conversations they (at least most of them) were able to act like normal people… I guess Hal’s just being a dick towards Atticus here, which I can’t really disapprove of.
I guess this is supposed to set her up for future books, but two chapters for that is about as hamfisted as you can get. How about making a one book actually good, before planning sequels?
This is a good point. Compare this style of wise-cracking hero with Harry Dresden or Peter Parker. Both are known for their banter and acting as if they were unconcerned, but the audience gets enough insight into their thought process to know when they actually feel endangered or overwhelemed or shocked. And since both are established as experienced with the sort of things they deal with (at least outside origin stories) when Harry or Peter get caught off-guard or when something scares them, the readers know that it is actually something to be afraid of, because otherwise characters would take it in stride.
Meahwhile with Atticus or Jayce there is just no feeling of threats scaling. Everything is equally unintimidating.
Heh. This sounded much more dirty than it should in my (twisted) mind.
Juracan on 18 November 2019, 12:04 said:
I should have realized this right away. I thought, that since one of my problems was that Hounded felt amateur-ish and undecided if it was going to be a parody or not, that a book written years later and with a co-author and intending to be a parody would actually be, well, at least good-ish, you know? It sounded like an interesting premise!
But… it was just another bad book.
Oh, I assure you, I’d be happy to put a plank in Hearne’s eye after reading Kill the Farm Boy.
…or is that not what you’re talking about?
[I kid.]
Grab some for the rest of us while you’re at it. We’re going to need them.
Yes, but sadly the police here exist just to be minor stumbling blocks for Atticus.
Probably because Hearne thinks we think she’s funny, and so brings her into the Plot as many times as he can in an attempt to be amusing. It doesn’t make Plot-sense for Atticus to go talk to her, but he needs to kill some time so he goes there anyway.
Also I need to make a slight correction: after looking it up, it turns out that no, the Leprechaun isn’t his NEXT DOOR neighbor, but she is his neighbor and lives around the corner. So it isn’t quite as egregious as I make it sound in this sporking, but it’s still not great that he’s hiding from the people watching his house… at the house around the corner with his neighbor who he helps with yard work all the time.
I wish.
And again, in a well-written story, here would be the part where all those dumb decisions catch up to him and he has to figure out a new way to survive.
But, y’know, “Make it easy!”
Nope! Can’t make him try to do something, that’d take WORK!
You know, that’s fair.
This! Also they’re better characters because they have, like, actual problems, and the Plot concerns them. Like, imagine if there was a Spider-Man story about the Green Goblin announcing he’s going to kill Spider-Man once and for all, and Peter Parker just spent most of the story going to school, flirting with the girls in his class and every time the Green Goblin’s minions jump him he just swats them aside with no effort.
TMary on 4 January 2021, 04:12 said:
Hooray, Chapter 18 at last! Let’s knock this one out.1
Oh, sidenote, I am now in possession of a semi-quasi-legal copy of Hounded that I downloaded online for free. So now I can follow along with what’s happening and stop shaming myself by checking it out at the library. And yes, I got it for free, but look at it this way: Atticus would do it, and Hearne would expect us to think he was a charming rogue for it.
Anyway, here we go.
So, a few things:
1. What?
2. Has Hearne ever showed any sign of trying to distance himself from The Iron Druid Chronicles, or said, maybe, that he thinks the books are a bit amateurish, and a textbook white male power fantasy?
3. Did the book succeed at all in this subversion, or was it just a power fantasy with “tee hee but it’s a parody so don’t get mad” slapped on it?
4. More an intellectual question here, I suppose, but what precisely would subverting the white male power fantasy look like, done well?
5. WHAT
On to the spork proper.
long sigh
So this is what we start with, huh?
Aight, Hearne, siddown. We’re going to have a talk about a very basic rule of writing – I mean so basic I learned about it when I was five. Are you ready? Here goes.
You never write about a character relieving themselves unless, possibly, they are in a situation where the audience could not reasonably be expected to work out for themselves how they did so. Got that? It’s a waste of everyone’s valuable time, it adds nothing to the story, and frankly, no one wants to hear about it.
I’ll grant that trying to add a layer of gritty realism – say, when a character is very sick and actually needs help using the toilet – could arguably be an exception to this rule, and possibly it can be used to make a scene more effective, whether dramatically or comedically. I’ve seen both. But those last two should only be attempted by experts. For everyone else, the rule holds true.
This paragraph accomplished none of those things and only succeeded in introducing into my mind the unwanted mental image of Atticus peeing. Please don’t ever do anything like this ever again. This has been Writing 101 with TMary.
And now, a short, silly skit about how this book was written (with apologies to Disney’s animated Alice in Wonderland):
EDITOR: So, what does Atticus do in this chapter?
HEARNE: Nothing.
PUBLISHER: Nothing whatever?
HEARNE: NOTHING WHATEVER!
PUBLISHER: THAT’S VERY IMPORTANT! Kevin, write that down!
CRITICS: Ah, unimportant, your publisher means, of course.
PUBLISHER: SIIIIIILENCE! Next chapter.
stares in irritation at that sentence until Starspirit pokes his head around the door
Starspirit: also irritated May I?
Me: Oh please do.
Starspirit: Okay. While that is a very lovely sentiment, Atty, and happens to be one I share, I am curious: What have you done for the Earth, lately?
I’m serious. You can talk a big talk all you want about how kind and giving the Earth is, but without you doing anything in return, the best I can say is that you spew a lot of carbon dioxide for the plants.
This is personal, because I, if you know me for long enough, will go on, at great length, about how good the Earth has been to me, in particular, the forest. But that’s because it’s true. The forest was a home for me in a time when I didn’t have a home, and when I felt like I didn’t fit in anywhere and had no place in the world, the forest made me feel like I belonged somewhere, like it didn’t matter that I was… up-and-down gesture at himself y’know, that. It’s given me food, and medicine, and sanctuary, and shelter, and clothing, and that sense everybody needs that we have somewhere we’re meant to be and something we’re meant to do. So, when I say I’m grateful to the forest, I mean it. I’d lay down my life for it if I had to.
But my feeling is that that gratitude is pointless if I don’t do something to show it. That’s why I patrol my forest (and other forests. And sometimes natural environments that aren’t forests, I love them, too), protecting it from outside threats, from invasive species, from destructive human beings. That’s why I never take more from it than I need, and I practice the code of the Honorable Harvest whenever I do need to take something. When I need something (or, often, more appropriately, want something) that I can’t get from the forest, I try to get it in the most eco-friendly way possible. And outside my own forest, I do things too. I rehab wildlife. I do beach clean-ups. I plant trees. I occasionally blow out all the tires of a car whose owners were entertaining themselves by running over turtles on the road. You know, you do what you can.
And this is all without it being part of my religion, per se; more just my worldview, and a deep respect for the natural world. For Atticus, this is apparently part of his religious beliefs? I mean, I don’t really know enough about ancient druidism to know whether Hearne’s representation of it is accurate at all, but I do know that druids had sacred trees and sacred groves, and I think they were fairly animistic in their beliefs. At any rate, Atticus is acting like this is a spiritual thing for him, this is part of his cosmology. It should be even more important to him.
So what does he do? Does he, say, bearing in mind his super powers, an advantage few people can boast, and that pockets of wilderness in this day and age are precious sanctuaries for all kinds of animals and plants and that they should be protected, patrol around natural reserves and similar areas without similar protection, making sure that no vandals or poachers enter and destroy things for entertainment? No, you say, he is actually one of those people who poaches in a wildlife preserve? Ah. Well, how about closer to home? Does he take care to plant only native species in his yard, so that they can have a refuge, and provide habitat and food for native animals? No? He plants a lawn, an invasive monoculture that takes pounds of toxic fertilizer and pesticides and gallons of water from a desert to maintain? I see. How about a token attempt to, I dunno, pick up litter? Install solar panels? Recycle? Sign petitions? Try to go plastic-free? Anything?
Oh, he rides his bike to work and to his favorite pub, both of which are within easy walking distance. What a hero. Truly, the Earth has never had a greater champion. Does he even say “thank you” after taking power from the earth? No, he is, as usual, an ungrateful jackass. Honestly, when you take it as him saying that the Earth, to him, is a living, at least semi-sentient being, then his attitude starts to feel like that of a grown man who talks a lot about how great his mom is, but leeches off her, refusing to do anything for himself, and only ever calls her when he needs a few hundred bucks.
What I’m saying here is that Mother Earth should cut Atticus O’Sullivan loose and make him get a real job, and if he carries on like this much longer, I might write a spitefic myself where the Earth, fed up with being taken for granted, one day decides not to give him any power when he needs it, and he gets his clock cleaned for his ingratitude. leaves
Me: Well said. And it’s really irritating, because, to be honest, it is really hard to have a sustainable lifestyle in this day and age without the money for it. I would personally love to live much more sustainably than I do, but I can’t afford to. You know who can, though? Atticus O’Sullivan. Not only can he afford to, but he must have picked up loads of information about how to live in an environmentally friendly way over two thousand years. Heck, he has the survival skills – he could go off the grid and live entirely off the land, which, incidentally, would be a lot better for a supposedly paranoid person than smack in the middle of the suburbs!
I think I might hate Atticus’s hypocrisy more than anything else about him.
Hold up, hold up, hold up. At 10 AM, he was lying around naked in a public park, and nobody noticed this? And yes, he says there’s only a “few people” in the park, and I guess it is a Monday morning, and he did say the oak tree was rarely visited, but still, I don’t buy it. I don’t buy that nobody would have noticed a naked man lying in a public place and called the cops on him.
Ah, so he’s stupid enough to leave it lying around his house, and yes, I count “not under a million magical locks and keys” as “lying around”. Honestly, his level of intelligence just keeps sinking; every time I think he’s hit rock bottom, he pulls out a jackhammer. He must be down to the upper mantle of the earth by now.
And while we’re on the subject of his truly abysmal stupidity, I just noticed this, when he’s saying that Malina says the contract is fulfilled:
swells like a pufferfish
OF COURSE IT MEANS SOMETHING ELSE, YOU SEMI-SENTIENT BLOB! BRIGHID JUST TOLD YOU THAT THE WITCHES ARE WORKING WITH AENGUS ÓG! HOW MANY TIMES DO YOU HAVE TO LEARN THE SAME THING BEFORE IT STICKS?! YOU MAY AS WELL JUST TAKE YOUR BRAIN OUT OF YOUR SKULL AND KEEP YOUR KEYS IN YOUR CRANIAL CAVITY, FOR ALL THE DIFFERENCE IT WOULD MAKE TO YOUR INTELLECT!
sighs This is exhausting.
You know, I’ve been thinking about the whole blood-as-insurance thing, and it…doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me? I mean, if I was Radomila, and I was going to turn on Atticus, and he gave me a sample of his blood and asked me to give him a sample of mine so I couldn’t, I’d give it to him, and then I’d go home and use the blood magic he just gave me access to and blow up his head before he knew anything about it and carry on with my turning against him. I mean, I probably wouldn’t succeed, because his freaking amulet protects him from basically everything, but if I didn’t know that, what would be stopping me from trying? For that matter, what would be stopping him from using my blood in the same way before I got a chance to stop him? Nothing, right? Like, Hearne seems to be ignoring the fact that without the blood, yeah, they might turn against each other later, but with it, one of them could actually destroy the other before the betrayal. It would make more sense if they’d set up some kind of magical pact where to betray the other would hurt them somehow, but that would be smart and we can’t have that.
I’m with Smith here. Why does he keep dragging this old lady into this dangerous mess? I mean, when he was attacked on her lawn, one could argue that that wasn’t exactly his fault, but he could have made even a token attempt to get Bres to move away from her house. And it gets even worse when, as now, her being caught up in this is entirely on him. Right now, he could choose to leave her out of it and not draw attention to her, not make her a target for a villain who (I presume) is fully willing to use his friends and allies against him, but instead, he goes and talks to her, for no other reason than he wants to!
Deep breaths, Juracan, deep breaths. Remember that little exercise we had?2
See, isn’t that nice? Much more readable than it – wait a minute, a handful of Tullamore Dew? Is he supposed to cup his palms and have her pour it into his hands like a couple of Neanderthals? What happened to her glasses?
Also, this line:
made me giggle a lot. But on to the next bit! ‘Cause I have thoughts. ‘Cause boy, is it a doozy.
…
Wow, Atticus. You know, I’ve been reading this book for the last eighteen chapters, but…
And now if you’ve quite finished shoving your insincere tripe down my throat, perhaps you’ll allow me to offer a rebuttal.
First of all, don’t you keep yourself alive and permanently young by using your special Druid Juice™? The special Druid Juice™ that, as I recall, you can brew up easily for yourself, the special Druid Juice™ that you’ve been feeding your dog? If you cared so much about “all the people you’ve lost” before, why didn’t you just brew some of that for them to drink too, huh? It’s not like you’re cursed with immortality that you can’t share; you chose to go on living without these people, you jabbering baboon, and you still haven’t given me an explanation for why you had to!
But that leads me to another point, and the point which hits a little close to home for me. He isn’t describing grief here, and it’s actually making me angry.
See, about three and a half years ago, my dog died after a long, difficult illness. And I’m aware there’s a difference between losing a dog and losing a person, but that doesn’t mean it was easy. There are still things I can’t talk about without crying, and sometimes I still think I see her out of the corner of my eye, or get these flashes where I think she’ll be waiting at home for me. I say this not because I’m asking for pity, but because I want you guys to understand why everything about this paragraph gets my hackles up, and did the second I started reading it. This isn’t grief! I know everybody grieves differently and no two experiences are the same, but this isn’t grief, it’s loneliness! And the two, while connected, aren’t the same! Loneliness can be a part of grief, especially if the person or animal you lost was your main or only source of real companionship, but loneliness is assuaged by bonding with a new person, and grief isn’t! Grief is assuaged only by time, and even then only assuaged, never completely healed, because grief is a response to a loss, and if the loss is permanent, then the grief is too. The loss of an individual living creature is permanent, and it’s not something that can be fixed by running out and replacing them with someone else! As a matter of fact, many grieving people don’t want anyone else near them for a while, especially not anyone else who is not grieving the same person they are.
But what Atticus is describing here is wanting to go out and find someone else to take the other person’s place, and I’m sorry, I don’t believe that’s grief! It’s possible to seek out distractions, and the company of other people, to make you ignore your loss for a little while, but the way he describes it makes it sound as if he thinks all you have to do is find someone who fills the hole and bada-boom, you’re not sad any more, and that’s just not how it works! If anything, if he’s lost many people in his life because he’s immortal and they’re not, you’d think he’d be afraid of getting close to someone new, afraid of the pain that will inevitably come when he loses them. There’s a part of me that’s afraid of getting another dog for that very reason; I don’t want to feel the way I did when my dog died, ever again. And Atticus has supposedly been through something a hundred times worse!
So in conclusion: Shut up, O’Sullivan, you leaking barrel of sheep diarrhea.
And Hearne, frankly, until you either learn what you’re talking about (which I sincerely hope you don’t if you don’t know, or at least not for a very long time), or until you learn how to convey what you do know, or at least until you study a little bit more about what you’re trying to pretend you know about…just don’t write about grief, OK?
deep breath Apologies for the personal story and the rant. Where were we?
WE’RE NOT WORTHY. Another round of apple juice for this man!
I note this partly because I still find calling her “the Accent” amusing, and partly because I noticed this line:
I have never met a single American who pronounced the word “you” carefully, unless they were being deliberate in their speech, or maybe lingering on the word. We mostly pronounce it like “ya” or “yuh”, in a way that is not very different from the Irish/Scottish “ye”. In fact, we’re very fond of slurring it together into other words: Constructions like “butcha”, “dontcha”, “wouldja”, and “whatcha” are very common in American vernacular, to the point where we sometimes write them out when we’re being colloquial. It never occurred to me that you should pronounce “you” separately from those words, until I was thirteen and my voice teacher (who is herself American) told me about good diction and bad diction. (We don’t always agree on where good diction should be used, but that’s another story.) And as far as I’m aware, if Irish (or Scottish) people are going to emphasize “you”, it sounds more or less like “you”, just with a different accent. I dunno, that whole line just rubbed me the wrong way.
sobbing WHYYYY. WHY DID HE UNCLOAK IT, I DON’T UNDERSTAAAAAND. It’s not like he says he’s got no other option, like he’s out of power or anything, or even like he wants to show it off – he just…walks around with an obvious sword for no reason! WHY, HEARNE, WHYYYYY.
And yes, someone should have called the cops on him.
Oh, and do we have accent nonsense again?
I don’t see why this should happen? Her voice getting “throatier”, I mean. Or changing at all. She might be possessed, but she’s still got the same vocal cords to work with. There’s no reason why her voice should come out sounding any different. And even accepting that she would use a different accent when she spoke…well, here’s the thing. The place where my mom works sees a lot of Indian clients. I’ve heard Indian accents before (granted, I’m sure not every Indian accent, because India is big, but a fair few). I can’t say that they really sound any “throatier” to me than an American accent.
sobbing again WHY, WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS, WHYYYYY. You know good and well that Fagles didn’t shoot you on purpose – Aengus Óg told him to do it, and it was kind of your fault to begin with! You are clearly rolling in money already, so don’t act like you can’t pay Hal and Snorri without doing this – you being ostensibly friends with them, I’m sure you could work something out even if you didn’t immediately have enough to cover your bills! YOU WOULDN’T EVEN HAVE TO PAY SNORRI IN THE FIRST PLACE IF YOU HADN’T GONE TAMPERING WITH MAGIC YOU DIDN’T UNDERSTAND! There is no reason to do this other than your own sadistic amusement!
Yeah, yeah, yeah, O’Sullivan, you’re a great guy, now go sit on a Saguaro.
I have to say, looking at the conversation between Hal and Atticus here, I find it…confusing? Hal calls Atticus noble in a “dry” voice, which to me sounds like he’s being sarcastic, which I agree with, and which would make sense in context, considering what Atticus just said. But Atticus and Oberon seem to take him seriously, and the former actually splutters indignantly at being called noble, insisting that he’s not. Then Hal acts unconvinced, even though I didn’t think he was convinced in the first place. None of the lines seem to follow logically after each other, it’s just…them making sounds at each other that Hearne thought were cool.
You know one way that Atticus could have been made to seem nicer here? He could have made the anonymous donation to Fagles’s family himself. He’s willing to pay Hal back for a $10,000 suit, without even a wince. Clearly, he’s got money. Why not send some of that money to people who have just been robbed of their loved one partly because of his own stupid actions? Why make the city do it?
Oh, I’m sorry, that would require Atticus acknowledging even once that he had done something wrong and caused unjust harm to someone else. Carry on.
Oh, and there’s this when Atticus is talking to Oberon earlier. It’s not important, but:
I’ve known dogs who would happily eat oranges and ask for more. You’re talking about animals that are often just living vacuums here.
…I’m sorry, what? Do spirits have a smell in the Iron-Druid-verse? Is that what you’re trying to say, Hearne? That you can smell somebody’s soul? Why on Earth should that be possible? I could understand it if the possession had some kind of physical effect on the possessed, but that doesn’t seem to be the case here, so…why?
Oh, ye gads, I just realized that Atticus could also smell that she “smells like two people”. That’s what that nonsense about her scent being mixed with “something that reminded me of India, like saffron and poppies” was. Which, you know, great, fantastic. Not only does Laksha’s spirit wear perfume (because no human being smells like spices without wearing something), but it’s stereotypical perfume, too.
Starspirit: pops in May I again? This sort of extreme literality and withholding information because you weren’t specifically asked for it is what one usually reserves for people one does not like in the slightest – I know because I’ve used it that way on my worst enemy, numerous times. Either Hal is wise to Atticus or he’s just as much of a jerk as he is. pops out
Me: I also notice that he asks Oberon if “the werewolf” (not “Hal”, mind you) is telling the truth, and Oberon says he hasn’t noticed that she smells like two people, but Hal’s nose might be a bit better than his. And now it’s time for Canine Science with TMary!
So, the journey is out on whether a wolf’s sense of smell is better than a dog’s, or vice versa, or whether they’re both around the same. There’s been conflicting data around that in the past. And some breeds of dog have a better sense of smell than others – Irish wolfhounds, being sighthounds which hunt through sight, probably are worse than, say, a beagle, which hunts primarily through smell. But one thing they all have in common? Their sense of smell is anywhere from 10,000 to 100,000 times better than a human being’s, and that’s all down to brain and nasal structure.
See, a dog’s brain is dominated by an olfactory cortex, as opposed to humans, who use the visual cortex in kind of the same way. Their olfactory cortex is around 40 times bigger than ours, and they have 300 million olfactory receptors in their noses, as opposed to our six million. They also don’t breathe the same way we do – that is, when we breathe in, odors and air go rushing down into our lungs together without getting stopped on the way, whereas in dogs, the odor molecules actually take a different path from the air, going into an area at the back of the nose where they can be properly processed. And when we breathe out, we actually force out any new smells, but dogs let air out through the little slits at the bottom of their nostrils, which means the air kind of swirls out and helps bring in new smells. They can also move their nostrils independently of each other, which helps them tell where a scent is coming from. Then, on top of all that, their noses being wet means scent particles stick to them better (in addition to other things), and they also have a Jacobson’s organ on the roof of their mouth, which is excellent at detecting pheromones, which is important in dog communication. Humans may or may not have a Jacobson’s organ ourselves, but if we do, it’s probably vestigial. In dogs, it’s very functional, and it’s part of why they lick their noses so often – because scent particles get stuck to their nose, then get dragged into their mouth by their tongue, where they can be smell-tasted by their Jacobson’s organ.
All this adds up to a powerful sense of smell. It also adds up to: It is not physically possible for Hal to have a better sense of smell than Oberon does, at least, not as a human. I get “werewolves aren’t real” and “it’s magic” and all that, but the sense of smell is a very physical thing, ruled by very physical attributes and abilities, and I have a hard time just accepting “magic” as an explanation for a superhuman sense of smell, unless you’re going to tell me that the werewolf transformation confers on the new werewolf an enormous olfactory cortex and an ability to take in scent particles and air separately from each other.3 I’ll accept that in werewolf form he has a great sense of smell, maybe even better than a dog’s, but in human form, I don’t buy it.
Oh, yeah, and it includes one of my least favorite clichés right now:
rubs eyes
OK, I probably don’t need to warn decent men (and women) away from using this line, because we all know it’s just there so the author has an excuse to write about breasts, and if that’s not your intention, you probably won’t use it. But on the off-chance that seeing it will make it seep into your consciousness and use it innocently (after all, I as a musician once used “rose to a crescendo” simply because it’s everywhere and got told off by my mom for it), don’t use it. Because, objectifying implications aside, it’s an unnecessary detail. That’s where women naturally fold our arms. The same way when guys fold their arms, they go under the pecs. Just say, “She crossed her arms”.
Not that I’m really surprised the line ended up in this book because…this book.
Oh, and while he’s doing that, this happens.
Me: flings her hands in the air Starspirit!
Starspirit: pops in again Oh boy. Look, I get it, kind of. When you have superpowers, and a natural penchant for mischief, it is very tempting to introduce little moments where the only explanation is “something supernatural happened, I dunno what to tell you” into ordinary people’s lives. I get it. I can’t say I’m not guilty of it myself on a few occasions. However, never have I ever done anything that couldn’t eventually be explained away, at least partially, by an ordinary person, with science and rationality. And that’s what an Irish wolfhound suddenly popping into existence is! That’s not fun and mischievous, that’s stupid and dangerous and giving yourself away! Either that, or it’s completely destroying another person’s perception of reality! storms out
Me: Thank you. And one other tiny thing and then I’ll go. When Granny says she’s a vessel for Laksha, she describes it thusly:
And I have to ask…does Hearne just hate fantasy? Does he think it’s stupid and a waste of time and has no value? Is that why he has all his characters consistently go out of their way to make anything even remotely magical and mystical sound like a stupid joke? Why isn’t anything ever allowed to be serious?
OK, that’s all for now. I will see you sometime in the future. ‘Bye!
1 This, even by my standards, is a stupidly long comment and I am so sorry.
2 OK, well, I hadn’t told you about it at this point, but it is wonderfully soothing to go back over the old chapters and use it there.
3 Although come to think of it, if you go with the “humans have a vestigial Jacobson’s organ” theory, it would be kind of cool if the werewolf tranformation changed it from vestigial to functional and made the werewolf much better at reading people’s pheromones, but we’re getting off the subject.
The Smith of Lies on 4 January 2021, 06:16 said:
But consider the following. By constantly checking it out at the library, you are perhaps preventing some poor, unfortunate soul from checking it out instead, thus damning themself to read it! You were doing good deed there.
Let he who has never obtained “perfectly legal” free copy of a book from the web cast the first stone. [Crickets]
Shame on you for having to actually ask.
It only now occured to me, but Atticus (and by proxy Hearne as well) is literally taking the piss here.
Hey, take whatever small blessings we can. At least he did not use it to brag about the size of his appendage. I wouldn’t put it past Atticus to throw in a quip about how he had to use both hands to hold onto it or some such.
Yes, I know that what I just said was terrible.
But what about his smugness? And his complete lack of agency? And his misuse of “paranoia”? What about the way he treats his (alleged) friends? What about his casual psychopathy?
Can you really choose just one thing about him to hate the most?
This is completely off-topic, but seeing the name made me think about much more pleasant bit of media – The Helltaker, that also features character named Malina.
You guys should give Helltaker a try, it is free on Steam, takes about an hour or two to beat and despite what premise would suggest (Man goes to hell to gather a harem of sharply dressed demon girls) it is pretty wholesome and hilarious.
Ok, enough shilling for now.
Nice catch. I think it is meant as a MAD type scenario, where neither of them can use the blood on the other, without getting wiped out themself… Except what we know about magic in the universe, suggests that there would be no chance of retaliatory strike. Then again, Atticus likes to claim his magic can’t be used to kill (but he is a big, fat liar). The whole thing makes less and less sense the more you think about it.
Well said.
On one hand, yes. On the other, I have sat in amazement about what voice actors do and how you can have one person have a dialogue with themselves and never even notice that the two characters share the same voice… I have no idea about technical aspect of, but I can imagine this working.
Then again I don’t think Hearne actually gave it any thought and it is an instance of voices are mental trope. Because at this point, Hearne lost so much of my trust, that I am considering him guilty [of being incompetent] untill proven otherwise.
Well then, those dogs obviously had no self-respect!
TMary on 4 January 2021, 18:07 said:
That is true. Also, if I kept it for long enough, they would report that copy as lost and couldn’t loan it out to anybody any more, and I could…remove it to other climes, shall we say.
(In this vein, I was wandering around the used bookstore in my neighborhood a few weeks back, doing some Christmas shopping, and I started thinking that books in here fell into three categories: Ones so popular or so classic or so numerous that there was no way you weren’t going to find them here, completely obscure ones that hadn’t been in print since the ’70s at least, and terrible ones. And just as I was thinking this, I ran into all eight of The Iron Druid Chronicles on the shelf in front of me.)
Welp, there goes any chance of me eating lunch today. Or dinner. Or breakfast tomorrow. Or food of any kind for probably the next week.
It is true, all of that is a close second, but the hypocrisy is just the cherry on top of the garbage sundae. If he was a terrible person who knew and admitted he was a terrible person, he’d still be a terrible person, but he’d be less infuriating than a terrible person who likes to act Better Than You.
If nothing else, I am curious to know how that last sentence works.
Yeah, the thing about mutually assured destruction is that there has to be someone on the other end to fire back. Not quite as effective when there’s only one of you.
You know, there’s another thing to point out, when he rattles on about how druids are so superior to witches because they use their magic to Help and Heal, while witches fool around with destructive Eeeevil magic: That does not sound quite as impressive coming from a guy who clearly knows how to do the destructive Evil blood magic and has no qualms about using it.
That is true. Some of the great voice actors are capable of voices so distinct that if you didn’t know better, you’d really think they were two (or more) different people. It does take a certain talent for voices, and a lot of practice, but it could work. I think it would be kind of fun if Granny had a talent for voice acting and she and Laksha had spent a lot of time practicing their respective voices so that other people could tell which of them was talking at any given time. But that would be fun and smart and original, and this is Hounded, so we can’t have that.
The Smith of Lies on 5 January 2021, 06:01 said:
Hell, a terrible person who is aware of their shortcomings can be quite likeable (at least from the distance). Yes, that is me shilling for Flashman again. Flashman is a piece of shit, but he is very entertaining to read about. It also helps that gets beaten, captured and scared out of his wits at least once per book and generally suffers quite a lot for his misdeeds (which is something that never could happen to Atticus “Makes It Easy” O’sullivan.
This is even more one-sided in Radomila’s favour. Because she has a first strike capability agaisnt Atticus, without fear of counter-strike. But if he ever choses to boil her blood remotely or whatever it is he does to amuse himself, there is the rest of the coven still standing and ready to wreak vengance on him with the use of his blood.
Of course that either never occurs to anyone or is rendered moot by the use of the
authorial fiatIron Amulet. But it is still a strike against the book, that no one notices the discrepancy.bq.I think it would be kind of fun if Granny had a talent for voice acting and she and Laksha had spent a lot of time practicing their respective voices so that other people could tell which of them was talking at any given time. But that would be fun and smart and original, and this is Hounded, so we can’t have that.
Silly, TMary. Such developements are reserved for actual characters, not for walking plot devices.
TMary on 5 January 2021, 15:40 said:
I mean, I first thought of (pre-character development) Belkar Bitterleaf. But I suspected you might go with Flashman. ;)
That’s the other thing. If you make even a terrible character suffer, the audience starts to sympathize with them, or at least think that they’re getting what they deserve for what they’ve done.
That is an excellent point.
Ah, of course, I was forgetting.
Juracan on 6 January 2021, 22:10 said:
Hm. Well I did get the Kindle book because I thought constantly checking out the library copy would be a hassle, so I can’t blame you.
I know, right?
Considering he has recently started writing a spinoff series, in which Atticus has a cameo appearance (so I’ve heard), I highly doubt it.
I mean…. sort of? The book is Kill the Farm Boy if you’re interested. It starts with a farm boy being told he needs to go on a quest because he’s called to a great destiny, so he goes with his magic goat and then gets killed early on, and the rest of the characters sort of… wander around, originally to try to resurrect him, but then they just forget and let his body rot as they do things and the magic goat fulfills the boy’s destiny?
Or something?
And there’s a bunch of stupid crude humor.
I was just bored with most of it, until I got to the author’s note where they claimed they met up and had a discussion about white male power fantasy. Which is weird because there’s a way to do that, and this isn’t it? The farm boy in question was entitled or anything, from what I recall, he was just some schmuck who got killed and then everyone didn’t care.
…something closer to Runemarks or Mogworld I imagine.
Or like one of the tourists in Dark Lord of Derkholm maybe?
For starters, the hero would be not a white male. And the villain would be something like a character who, when the reader discovers his backstory, was some sort of entitled douchebag who sees himself as the main character of his own story, and goes about ruining everyone’s lives because he’s the Hero, doncha know? He can do whatever he wants.
I KNOW, RIGHT?!
I hadn’t thought about this that much, at least lately. I don’t mind people putting going to the bathroom in fiction, but reason I brought it up here was because:
A. Atticus keeps insisting he’s paranoid and tries to fit in with society and
B. this is just after he promised us he’d take the Plot seriously.
Neither of these gels very well with the chapter opening by telling us he went and peed in a public park.
This is one of the things that bothers me about the later chapters of this book so much: Atticus starts waxing on about how much Druids care about Earth, how their sacred duty is to take care of it, and he does absolutely nothing! It’s not surprising given his character thus far, but it’s infuriating because he doesn’t do anything at all while lecturing you about how important it is! Not even a highlighted attempt at acting in a way that’s environmentally friendly!
Heck, at the end when there are demons and the land gets actually blighted by hellfire, he says he has to fix it. But that he’ll get to it later, of course—we’ve got to read some comedy first, natch!
To be fair, he had a sword fight outside his shop in the first chapter that apparently no one saw.
Surely. But he’s very clever, trust Hearne.
Might start using this.
Because Hearne thinks she’s funny.
That’s it.
That… is better, actually. Thank you.
[laughs nervously] Hey, remember that time he mentioned that he has a kid? That’d be someone to share magic Druid Juice with, huh?
This could very easily be something like Highlander with where Connor McLeod is as a character. Instead Hearne wanted to make Atticus cool and so he’s a complete chuckmuffin who only cares about other people when he monologues ‘cause it makes him sound remotely sympathetic.
This is another one I might use, in large part because ‘Saguaro’ is such a fun word to say.
Werewolves are so powerful they can smell SOULS of course.
…you’d have fun with Wheel of Time (and by that I mean you’d hate it).
It’s SUBVERSIVE! That makes it clever parody, right???
He’s got ya there.
Yeah, this. I mean, Atticus would get out of it because he’s a Sue, but theoretically it’s VERY lopsided in Radomila’s favor. So of course it’s not brought up.
TMary on 9 January 2021, 04:30 said:
That sounds honestly more like a basic deconstruction (albeit a clumsy and not terribly intelligent one) of the “Chosen One” story, not a white male power fantasy. And yes, while there’s a lot of overlap between the two kinds of stories, they can also be mutually exclusive. Though I’m not entirely surprised to learn that Hearne has mixed the two up.
adds titles to a list
So…kind of like the Elan/Tarquin arc from Order of the Stick? Except Tarquin did see himself as the villain of the story, because it’s OotS, but everything else lines up pretty well.
That is definitely true, and I think it’s way more egregious here and I am coming down on it a lot harder than I would in a story where the protagonist was proactive and heroic. But I do tend to dislike it because, ultimately, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, it’s an unnecessary detail. So your character is peeing, like every other human being on the planet. So who cares?
Yeah, those final chapters are what made me feel that his hypocrisy was more galling than anything else to me. Fine, you don’t care about the planet. I, personally, do, very much. But if you don’t care, then don’t start lecturing me about how important it is to take care of the planet, and how terrible your enemy is for destroying it! I know! I think I know better than you do!
Starspirit: in the distance aaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGHHH!!!!!
TIME AND A PLACE, O’SULLIVAN, YOU BACTERIAL INFECTION, TIME AND A PLACE
Me: True, but I’m not sure that’s a rousing defense of the book so much as it is pointing out that the problems have been here the entire time…
Feel free. Flattery is the sincerest form of imitation, after all.
…Or something like that.
grinding her teeth Most probably, yes. Also, the mother of his child? Maybe?? Yes???
My pleasure. :)
I have never actually seen Highlander, but my impression has been that at least Connor McLeod isn’t a complete jackass like Atticus over here, and that there’s some attempt at an imitation of actual human emotion in the film. Atticus…like you said, his schpiels are just to make him sound sympathetic. Notice it happens right when he’s spent a couple of chapters being very *un*sympathetic. It’s like he saw we weren’t impressed by his treatment of Fagles or his suing the police department for no reason and he leaned out of the book to go, “But seeeee, I’m loooooonely, feel sooooory for me!”
Isn’t it just?
…Of course.
I…have heard things…about Wheel of Time and misogyny?? I haven’t read any of the books, or even a really detailed walk-through, so I can’t really judge, but what I’ve heard has made me suspicious.
Does anyone else feel like maybe there was a little too much praise of “subversive” works of fantasy, and now some people have taken it in their heads that subversive=good and playing it straight=bad? Or is the issue more just authors not understanding what makes subversion work when it does work?
The Smith of Lies on 9 January 2021, 08:00 said:
Hmm. I am not sure if I’d say it is a deconstruction or parody, but Goblin Quest would also be a good example of fantasy done differently.
True. But one can’t say that the correct expectations were not set from the get go. That sword fight (that is ended by an appearance of a presumably large, magical creature – the Elemental) going completely unnoticed tells us that neither Hearne nor people in his world give an ounce of shit about discretion or pay any amount of attention to weird things that happen and probably would make it into local news (and national ones on slow day).
In that context one has to applaud the surprising amount of consistency on dispaly.
Hmm. I have only read the prequel/book 0. I thought it was kinda ok (but not great) and didn’t notice any overtly misogynistic bits. But there are 15 other books that could have picked up the slack.
There is a third explanation. They’ve written something that met with lots of backlash and claiming it was subversive is a way to turn the onus back on the readers, who failed to notice the “clever” subversion of expectations and are just to stupid to appreciate how good the
Last Jedipiece of medium is.Though I don’t think this is Hearne, cause Iron Druid seems to have been decently well received and he doesn’t seem to be embarassed by it.
Juracan on 10 January 2021, 09:19 said:
I mean… basically. I was completely thrown by the author’s note at the end about what the story was supposed to be. I thought it was just a dumb story trying to be a deconstruction. I didn’t even really get mad at the book until I read that bit. Because this stupid book was supposed to be something clever and subversive? Screw that!
I haven’t actually read Mogworld I just know the premise, so if you hate it don’t blame me.
But Runemarks and Dark Lord of Derkholm aren’t, I think, “subversions of white male power fantasy,” but they’re much closer than Kill the Farm Boy ever got, I think.
Yeah, this did cross my mind, but I wasn’t sure how to put it into words exactly. But yeah, imagine Tarquin thought he was the Hero, and you’re on the right track—going around acting as if he’s the star of his story when he’s ruining people’s lives.
Oh, I know.
[sigh] Yes, you would think. But Atticus cares about neither of them.
Look, Wheel of Time in its characterizations runs very much on stereotypes of women, but to be clear, it runs on stereotypes of men too. I was more referring to the fact that I believe “Arms crossed under her breasts” comes up…a lot, as does a necklace/amulet “dangling between her breasts,” and a woman “playing with her braid.”
The main issue with WoT is mainly that the Plot just kind of… slows to a halt around Book 8 or 9. It’s what made me quit the series the first time. That and a butt ton of characters/plots I couldn’t keep up with. I’m trying again now and am currently on Book 8.
Oh no, it’s a thing. You’re right.
This is completely weird, isn’t it? It’s not like no one lives in Tempe! The only excuse I think he gives is “Well it’s lunch time so most people are out to lunch!” And that’s not a remotely reasonable assumption, that everybody’s out to lunch.
TMary on 10 February 2021, 02:48 said:
… adds new title to list
Well, from looking at it, the prequel came out in 2004, while the first book came out in 1990. So if anything, the series probably got better by the prequel.
That’s one I didn’t think of, good point.
That is always something that gets me. I don’t mind something being stupid as long as it knows it’s being stupid. Case in point, just off the top of my head: This ridiculous book my sister got from the library a little while back, Popular Clone, in which a super-nerdy middle school kid decides to create a clone of himself to…I think be much cooler than he is and masquerade as him? It didn’t stick in my head all that well, but I think that was the idea. Predictably, this works a little too well, and wacky hijinks ensure. Was it one of the silliest things I’ve ever read in my life? Yes. Was it deeply aware of its silliness? Yes.
But now imagine that a book like that, at the end, declares that it was trying to be a deeply gripping, poignant, serious look at the mindset of someone who was created purely as a “cooler” facsimile of someone else. A book that wrestled with the complicated ethical problems surrounding human cloning. The two things don’t go together! If you’re being stupid, just be stupid! If you’re being serious, then be serious!
To be honest, the praise of “SUBVERSION” kind of gets under my skin. Like there are some things glances upwards at the last topic that I wish would just die already, but most tropes I really don’t care if you play them straight or not, as long as you play them well. Like, there are some things that are getting kind of tired, but you can still do something interesting with them. But that’s a much more difficult-to-define (at best; it might very well be impossible to define) standard to hold things to.