You know, here’s something we didn’t talk about in the last few chapters that we really should have: Granuaile wants to be Atticus’s apprentice, and yet they’re both clearly attracted to each other. Apparently their relationship up ‘til this point has been checking each other out and flirting? And yet this isn’t really discussed at all in this book. From what I remember from the next book, and what I’ve read about this series, they don’t have any sort of sexual relationship while she’s his student, which, uh, thank goodness because that’d be weird and uncomfortable, but this is definitely something that should have been addressed? Pretty upfront?
Yes, they’re both adults, but when one of them is the other’s student there’s a power difference between them that should be talked about. Presumably they do, at some point, but we never see it, considering they don’t sleep together. Maybe it’s just me, but I think this is one of those things that you should talk about right out of the gate. And yeah, I guess there are other things they need to handle right now, but it’s not like that’s ever stopped Atticus from leisurely going about his day, has it?
And even then, shouldn’t Atticus thinking about this? Shouldn’t it cross his mind how weird it is that this girl, who halfway through the book was someone he saw as a potential sexual partner, is now his student? Considering that it’s implied that this book is narrated after the events happened, it’s not like there’s that much urgency, and he can definitely mention how he feels about this in hindsight. You guys maybe think I skipped over that in my attempt to get through the boredom of these chapters, but nope! Any contemplations about Atticus being sexually attracted to his student are just… not there.
Anyhow, this chapter begins with Atticus telling us about the Haunted Canyon trail that Emilya told him to go to. Which is kind of boring, I guess, but if you’re interested in what the place looks like in real life. He explains that most people don’t go to the trail in question, instead going to the Peralta trail, with easier hiking and a more stereotypical Arizona desert-type feel to it. Whereas the trail the characters are going on now has more trees and a more strenuous hike.
See, I like this kind of stuff. So much urban fantasy in the US, and speculative fiction in general, is obsessed with the country’s most famous cities. Jim Butcher even admitted that his editor made him change the setting to Chicago because no one would want to read about a wizard detective in a small town. And no, Tempe isn’t exactly a small town (it’s right by a major university), but it’s not as well known as New York or Chicago or Boston. And that doesn’t mean there’s not as much cool stuff you could do there!
There’s weird and cool stuff all over the map! Especially in the US. Authors can play around with that a lot! But nope, it’s almost always in cities that we see in every other movie anyway. This is part of why I’m trying to write a story set in a fictional counterpart to my own hometown.
Of course, to take this compliment back… this isn’t a good book. So any goodwill Hearne might have earned in writing about his hometown is instantly gone. Yeah, he’s showing off his hometown and how cool it is, but he’s also doing it in a book about a power fantasy that makes out with goddesses on a regular basis. He’s not using the setting to do anything interesting. It never causes any problems or obstacles or even helps the character through his familiarity with it. It’s just there; so it’s difficult to care.
Atticus and his buddies roll up, and the werewolves hop out of their cars and transform on the spot. And fun fact! It’s specified that these sleazy werewolf lawyers? All drive sports cars. Because of course they drive the most expensive and attention-grabbing vehicles they can to rub in people’s faces how much better they are than everyone else. Look, I know I was a bit dismissive when someone suggested the Twilight influences on Hounded but now I think you guys were on to something.
Atticus asks Laksha if he can talk to Granuaile, so she switches, and Grannie’s freaked out a bit by seeing a bunch of people turn into wolves. Atticus calms her down by explaining that it’s the Tempe pack, and most of them have been in the Irish pub a few times. Because of course everyone in the supernatural community goes to the same Irish bar. Also, apparently he’s been talking to Laksha for the past… while or so, because Grannie doesn’t know what they’re even doing there and has to be told. Isn’t that a bit creepy, having her all the way out here and not having told her what they’re doing?
Alright, how does this work, exactly? Because Laksha seems to be able to tell what’s going on when Grannie’s in control, but it apparently doesn’t work the other way around? Because when Laksha takes over, which she can do at any time, Grannie wakes up later having no clue what’s going on.
Because of the situation, Atticus tells Grannie that he is going to do a couple of “bindings” on her so she can keep up. First is that he’s going to bind her to him so that she can draw on his energy so that she won’t get tired, because Atticus can pull energy straight from the Earth. This actually sounds like binding, unlike the next thing he’ll do, which is give her night vision.
But what! Atticus receives a phonecall! Turns out it’s Malina, the witch from Chapter 13 was longtime friends with Emilya but wasn’t a skank ho (and the only other witch from the coven we’ve met)! She assures Atticus that she’s actually not evil. Turns out that not all the witches have sided with Aenghus Og, just six of them. The other seven are forming their own coven. Atticus asks for all the names, of the witches against him and those that split off with Malina, but I don’t know why. Atticus tells the audience he doesn’t recognize any of the names, that he’s just “filed them away for future reference.” Basically, it’s a setup for the sequel as if we care. And bad setup at that; they very easily could be introduced in the sequel with little fanfare, instead of being named here and Atticus straight up telling us that these names mean nothing to him.
Malina doesn’t expect Atticus to survive the night, but she does want to prove to him that she didn’t betray him like he suspected she did, because “Unlike my former sisters, I have a sense of honor.” Which is… look it’s weird that we’re treating this like a good thing, when the entire book Atticus has been drilling into our heads that “person with a sense of honor” = “suicidal moron.” You can’t do this Hearne! You can’t spend a novel telling the audience that having a sense of honor is stupid and will get you killed, and then try to portray characters as sympathetic because they have one!
So the phone conversation ends like that, and Atticus, Grannie and the werewolves run into the woods. They do their best to keep quiet; since the werewolves communicate with each other telepathically, they don’t need to make too much noise. Maybe the bad guys heard the werewolves making noise when they were transforming, and maybe not because the cabin they’re aiming for is six miles away, but for the time being they’re trying to go for a sneak attack.
Atticus wonders if he can shield his mind or dampen his telepathic connection with Oberon, because he’s worried that once he gets close enough for his dog to detect him, the bad guys will be able to tell that he’s there from Oberon’s reaction.
…if he sense me nearby, his tail would start to wag as sure as a princess waves in a parade
…what?
It’s not wrong, per se, but that’s just another weird simile.
After about a half mile of running uphill at a full sprint—across rocky, treacherous terrain on a moonless night—I heard Granuaile giggle delightedly. “This is unbelievable!” she crowed. “What a trip, running with a pack of werewolves!”
“Remember this,” I said, “when you get bogged down in your studies and wonder if it’s all worth it. This is only a taste of what you will be able to do.”
That doesn’t sound healthy at all.
“You feel bogged down by your studies in becoming a Druid? No worries, just think of the incredible adrenaline high you got this one time we were rushing into battle! Not, like, the thought of helping people with your powers, or making the world a better place. No, think about how much fun you’re having right now!”
This goes against the whole ‘Druids are better because they help the world and make things grow!’ angle that Chapter 19 was going for. Atticus’s pitch for Grannie right now is that it’ll be loads of fun down the road, rather than that it’s actually a good thing to do. Again, you can’t do this Hearne! You can’t tell us that Druids are Good because their magic is Good and True and then turn around and say the best part of being a Druid is the rush that wielding that power gives you!
Also, I have trouble believing that Grannie, who has given no indication of being athletic, is just dashing up “rocky, treacherous terrain” without any problems. Yeah, she’s been magically enhanced with extra energy and night vision, but she doesn’t trip? At all? I trip a lot when I take a walk in my neighborhood, and it’s the exact opposite of treacherous terrain. I’m not saying she’d be helpless, but I’d expect Grannie would at least trip or something, even if she wasn’t on rocky terrain, because she wouldn’t be used to the landscape or the strength she now has in her legs. The magic here is just applied as a “Make It Easy!” solution in order to avoid Grannie having any problems, without considering that she would at least have trouble sprinting up rocks without any practice.
Grannie asks Atticus if she’ll be able to turn into an owl too, and Atticus answers with a ‘maybe.’ See, when Druids graduate, they’re given four animal forms, which aren’t chosen, but “determined by ritual.” Atticus himself can turn into an owl, a wolfhound, an otter and a stag. It’s not explicitly explained here, but I think it’s that they’re four types of animals most useful in different situations: one for flying, one for swimming, one for hunting/combat, and one for running. This would have been nice to know when shapeshifting was first brought up, right? Nope, right at the end of the novel when someone asks about it rather than when someone’s transforming or something.
Also we get this bit:
“Oh, okay, um, master, or sensei, or whatever. What should I call you?”
I laughed. “Archdruid would be the correct term, I suppose,” I said. “But that doesn’t fall trippingly off the tongue, does it? And it would turn heads in public, and we don’t want that. So let’s stick with sensei.”
Alright I’m speeding through this chapter, so time for more nitpicking!
The prefix ‘arch’ is Greek, as you could probably guess from the word ‘archangel.’ So no, technically speaking, as a man who is actually from ancient Ireland, he should know a word for it that isn’t a mashup of two different languages from different parts of the world. But okay, fine, moving that aside:
The prefix ‘arch’ means ‘chief’ and so ‘archdruid’ means ‘chief druid’ or ‘chief of druids.’ In Atticus claiming the title ‘archdruid’ as being his correct title, he is naming himself as the Chief of Druids, or at least of those in his area. Problem: there is only one Druid. It’s Atticus. And yeah, he has an apprentice, but isn’t it a bit pretentious to say “I AM THE CHIEF DRUID!” when there aren’t any other Druids for you to have authority of? It’s like if I called myself King of Juracans on ImpishIdea; yeah, of course I am! I’m the only one! Being chief of a group of which you are the only member is silly and pretentious.
It’s like that bit in Kim Possible: A Sitch in Time where one of the villains declares himself “the deadliest cyborg golfer in the world!” As Ron Stoppable points out, it’s not really a crowded field, is it? Atticus is chief of one other person. And even if he wasn’t, as far as we know it’s not like he had that title before, so he’s chief by virtue of all other candidates being dead! Him claiming that title is utterly meaningless.
[Also if you’re still wondering what happened to all the other Druids, that’s cool, I guess, but Hearne still doesn’t care.]
Atticus asks Grannie to switch to Laksha because he needs the witch’s help. Laksha activates, and they mention the ‘sensei’ thing, with Laksha telling Atticus that she doesn’t know the word. And yeah, Laksha is Indian, but she’s been around for hundreds of years, travelled around Southern and Eastern Asia… and she’s never heard the word ‘sensei’? This just reads like yet another ‘old immortals don’t understand pop culture references!’ thing.
And hey, I just noticed that Laksha has this weird speech pattern/accent thing going on:
“I am not knowing this word.”
“I was not thinking so. You will have to get me the necklace, then, if you want me to be helping with them.”
I don’t know what to make of this. Is this meant to be an approximation of an Indian accent? Why would she still have it after sitting in Grannie’s head for months at a time?
So with the sample of Radomila’s blood Atticus has, Laksha tells us that she can kill her “from as far away as a mile” with it, but that to beat the rest she needs that magic necklace back. She also does this thing where her eyes roll back and all you see are the whites of her eyes while she’s using the third eye to see magic. Sort of like Lilith on Supernatural I guess?
This is supposed to be creepy. And it would be, if we didn’t follow it up with this when she switches back:
…her eyes rolled back down like slot machine tumblers to give me double pupils.
“Her eyes switched back to normal like… slot machines! Yeah, that sounds right! That makes her sound creepy, doesn’t it?”
-Kevin Hearne, apparently
Atticus shows some concern about Laksha’s statement, because by the time he’s close enough to grab the necklace from Radomila, they’ll be up to their necks in bad guys and he’ll probably be busy. Hang on—do they know for a fact that Radomila has the necklace right now? Why? I suppose it’s a powerful artifact. But why is this necklace now a part of the story? Other than adding yet another McGuffin to the Plot at the eleventh hour for a C-list villain just makes this whole thing even more muddled than it already is.
But put that on hold! Because Atticus detects someone drawing power from the Earth nearby—that’s Druid magic! He draws his sword, because maybe it’s Aenghus Og. He briefly wonders if the magic of the Tuatha de Danann would work on werewolves, which is dumb because then we see it work like five minutes later. I don’t know why it wouldn’t; Atticus explains that his doesn’t because… Reasons.
[He also says that his magic is a “somewhat weaker” version of the magic the Tuatha de Danann use, but considering he has worked out a way to make his aura poisonous to others, something no one else in history has done, and he has no problem taking down gods, I wouldn’t get that impression at all. SHOW DON’T TELL, HEARNE.]
And this:
Laksha… had coiled Granuaile’s body into a defensive stance that was probably some form of varma kalai, an Indian martial art based on attacking pressure points. She wasn’t dependent entirely on magic, then, like most witches, for her offense and defense—good to know.
He says “like most witches,” despite neither of the other witches we’ve seen displaying any inclination towards physical combat or martial arts. You would think this would have come up that one time he actually punched a witch in the face, that they apparently often have fighting skillz, but it only gets mentioned here in a non-fight scene. We don’t even get to see Laksha use awesome Indian martial arts here, we just get Atticus telling us that he assumes that’s what she’s doing here.
The werewolves try to attack the magically cloaked newcomer, but they’re easily deflected, and they just kind of roll over. Atticus is kind of freaked out, because that’s not how werewolves act. But the magic camouflage is thrown off, and surprise! It’s Flidais, the Irish goddess of the hunt (except not really she’s actually probably a cattle goddess). Y’know, from earlier?
Why is she here? Why, to tell Atticus important information, of course! Helping Atticus is what everyone does! She ends the chapter by telling him that if he confronts Aenghus Og the way they’re going, then “this magnificent pack will be destroyed.”
Pfft. Better let them go ahead and die. They’re dickbags anyway.
You know how we keep saying this book’s motto is “Make it easy!” I’m not kidding. Because we’re charging headlong into the final battle, the protagonist not sure of what dangers he’ll face, and then a goddess pops right the fudge out of nowhere, with powers to conveniently make sure she doesn’t get accidentally hurt by the “heroic” characters, in order to warn them about the upcoming traps and give an explanation as to what they’re going to face.
THIS SHOULD NOT BE HAPPENING. You should not have the narrative stop all momentum so that a character can pop in and give your characters a walkthrough on the fight they’re about to face. This drains any tension from the story if we already know what’s going to happen! It’s not like there’s a lot of tension anyway; I don’t think anyone honestly believes that something bad is going to happen to one of the main characters. But this? While this is pretty in line with the writing we’ve seen before, having it happen right now is another low of laziness that keeps popping up throughout this novel.
[sigh]
Well join us next time, as Flidais tells us what’s going to happen next, and then we see it happen.
The Smith of Lie on 10 December 2019, 16:55 said:
Hearne didn’t throw an attactive girl right into Atticus lap despite them being in a rlationship fraught with power-imalance (in Atticus favor)? Who is this impostor and what he did with real Hearne?
But since I am a petty asshat, my working head canon is that this only happened this way, cause Atticus is too much into bedding literal goddesses to bother with abusing his teacher-apprentice relation to Granny.
Yup. And I wouldn’t be against book pushing the envelope even further. Imagine a series that is more of a road-trip, with a character who for some reason prefers staying in wilderness (say he’s a werewolf or something) and books focus on some of local, native folk-lore or places he ends up. Sure, the towns would feature but only as somewhere he passes through and gets involved in whatever weird business is going on.
At risk of being accused of shallow reference pool, I have to utter dreaded words… Dresden Files did it better. There was a reason why Mac’s place was the hot-spot for local super-natural activity, since it was Accords attested neutral ground. Which meant any practitioner or creature who wanted a meeting place or just to hang out for an evening could show up and not get their teeth kicked in by a rival.
But of course Grannie’s bar is where Atticus hangs out, so every single magical being in 100 miles radius must be a patron as well because Makes it easy!
Also, hearing that some of patrons at the bar were werewolfs is not necessarily a calming idea. I’d say it is more of a paranoia-fuel (not that Atticus would recognize paranoia if it jumped out from the bushes and kicked him in the balls) than anything. I mean if there were werewolf clients who else? Witches? Vampires? Ghouls? IRS employees?
There is a Polish saying – “[someone] has Kali’s morality”. It has nothing to do with Hindu godess, it comes from and old book In Desert and Wilderness from a scene (that by today’s standards is racially insensitive, but take into account that Poles don’t have the same tension-charged history of racial relations) where main characters teach ther friend – an African native by the name of Kali, about Christian morality. And they ask him what is considered a bad deed. He answers that a bad deed is when someone steals a cow from him. They praise him and ask for example of good deed. The answer is Kali stealing a cow from someone.
I feel that Atticus has the same type of moral myopia. Someone else acting honorable towards Atticus is a good deed. Atticus himself atcing honoralby is stupidity. Because it might inconvenience him.
In a just word, where being a druid means something besides “having cool authorial fiat powers” that might be a valid point. Sadly any and all druids who actually felt like their position was one of responsibility and duty have commited ritual suicide to avoid association with Atticus.
Also, I am willing to cut a small amount of slack here. Giving apprentice a taste of power they are one day gona wield is pretty well established viallain behaviour. (And yes, I am aware that we are the only ones who consider Atticus the villain of the piece.)
I’d say the fault is on the part of chapter 19 and sudden attempt to make druids morally white, rather than these scene. It is the chapter 19 that is wildly inconsistant with everything we’ve seen before and after, not the “feel the rush of wielding power”.
I fixed that one for you.
Translation: Hearne rolls d100 four times and checks the results in the table.
Eh. It’s not like if it ever becomes inconvenienice they won’t Make it Easy! away any limitations and hand wave it with Atticus being just that awesome or something.
I don’t know why but this infuriates me beyond measure. The “Arch” affix means Chief; principal; pre-eminent of its kind. And if any of those could apply to Atticus as a druid, that’d be only due to Embarassment Suicide the rest of them commited. And none of this has anything to do with being a teacher.
Ah. I see you also had something to say about this. Good. (For context, I am commenting while reading, so I did not see that you picked a bone with “arch” as well).
I can’t help but be reminded of Dragon Ball Z and Vegeta’s claim that he’s the Prince of all Saiyans.
But at least there were up to 4 known saiyans at times when he made that boast. So he’s still doing better than Atticus!
Of course Radomila has the necklace. Why? Because Makes it Easy!
Hearne is all tell and no show.
[in a completely flat and unenthusiatic tone] Oh no. Who could have seen that coming. She seemed so trustworthy. This is such a surprise that it would even catch a true paranoiac flat footed.
Well I guess the egg is in my face. I should have known better than to expect and extremely shifty character to betray Atticus.
NONE OF THIS BOOK SHOULD BE HAPPENING.
Sorry, had to get that one out.
Here, have a song that mirrors what I’d love to do with Atticus. It might cheer you up a bit.
Juracan on 11 December 2019, 13:40 said:
Yeah, it is a bit off, isn’t it? For once, the sleaziest thing isn’t what’s happening. I don’t know if that’s because, culturally, there’s such a huge taboo in the US about teacher-student relationships, that for Hearne it didn’t even occur to him to even talk about it?
[shrugs] I dunno.
Sadly, this is probably not too far off from actual canon.
Geez, how sad is it that our main character sleeps with goddesses and it’s just treated as inconsequential??
HECK YEAH I’m all for an urban fantasy roadtrip novel! I think it’d still do what I was hoping for: focusing on the small-town, the rural, the lesser-publicized parts of the country. And heck we wouldn’t even need to set this in America. I’d be just as happy to see a werewolf road-tripping through Europe.
I… didn’t even think about Mac’s… I should have.
But yes, you’re right—DF actually had the exact same thing? An Irish bar where everyone in the supernatural community hangs out? And there’s a reason for it??? And Hearne just threw it in because… Reasons. Like, the idea that the ancient Irish Druid likes going to an Irish bar isn’t too far out there, but it’s just insanely convenient that the werewolves and witches also love to go there, despite the werewolves being Nordic and the witches being Polish.
You’re right, there’s no reason Grannie should be calm about some of the werewolves being former customers, but people’s emotions tend to bend to whatever’s convenient for Atticus.
Also, this?
Is a perfect description of the book.
Yup-yup. His serial-killing vampire lawyer tells him that he’s got ghouls on speed dials who can eat bodies to clean up the messes he or any other predator leaves behind, and Atticus’s reaction is “My lawyer kicks ass” instead of appropriate horror.
I think I’ve already said this, but I basically consider this to be canon by this point.
Right you are, Smith! Again, weird how this book makes more sense if you assume Atticus is the villain…
I probably should have brought this up in the spork too—just because he’s teaching an apprentice, that doesn’t make him an Archdruid!
Well to your credit, she did sort of betray Atticus, but we’ll get to that bit later on. So don’t be too hard on yourself—you were kind of right.
YOU KNOW WHAT YOU’RE RIGHT BUT I’M STILL MAD ABOUT IT
You know, that does cheer me up a bit. Thanks, Smith!
The Smith of Lie on 11 December 2019, 15:15 said:
This is actually an interesting bit of perspective. Normally the fact that your character not only is on speaking terms with gods, but also sleeps around among them would be pretty monumentous for the plot and setting. It could easily be built as a part of power fantasy that is a hell of a trip.
But Hounded cheapens the concept in the record time. From “Heck yeah, the protagonist is so awesome that even godesses want to bed him!” it slips into “Oh cool, another goddess that is or will be bedded. Yawn.”
And once again it comes down to the fact how undeserved the divine attention is. Atticus did not commit legendary deeds of skill and bravery. He did not achieve some noble goal or a vile scheme, that’d make him worthy of attention. He did not defeat legendary enemies against all odds. He just stumbled into his own freking abode, where the goddess even provided her own strawberry shake before shaking his bones. Instead of shagging a goddess because he is cerifiably awesome, he is shagged by one to try and convince us that he is. Except it does not work.
!bq. HECK YEAH I’m all for an urban fantasy roadtrip novel! I think it’d still do what I was hoping for: focusing on the small-town, the rural, the lesser-publicized parts of the country. And heck we wouldn’t even need to set this in America. I’d be just as happy to see a werewolf road-tripping through Europe.
This is one of the things that I loved in Hellboy. He traveled around the world and stumbled into a re-interpretations of local, often exotic folk-lore. And for the most part it explored some less known legends and beings or at least had some unique spin on the more popular ones. (Hell, that one story where first meets Baba Yaga is one of my favourite bits in any comic book.)
Sadly it seems that large city and some detective-type job became as much of a cliche of modern-setting fantasy as Masquerade is.
And like you said, Tempe is not some podunk village that has no more bars. It is a reasonably big urban area, that probably has hang-out spots that cater to the tastes of any group.
Not to mention that I don’t really see all of the parties in question as the bar hanging type. Given that witches seem to cultivate a business-like image, I’d rather expect them to meet in some chic caffe or restaurant instead of a bar or pub.
Werewolves I am willing to cut some slack, due to their friendship with Atticus. It is concievable that they’d hang around in his favourite spot at least from time to time. This does not excuse weirdly central role of the Irish Bar in question, especially with Laksha also ending up there. Because reasons.
Lets be honest, at this point I think we should use the term “fixer” rather than “lawyer” because despite all the jokes and stereotypes lawyers are expected to have some ethics and work within the boundries of the law.
He pretty much behaves like a mobster. Has his fixers to solve the problems with law enforcment, through blatantly illegal means, he murders his enemies without a shade of remorse, he defrauds the government after indirectly killing a police officer. And that’s just the stuff he’s been getting up to in the book and ignoring all the atrocities he commited in the past.
Well, I’ll take “kind-of right” over being completely wrong. But I am still pissed. Because Flidalis appearance at the start was a giant freaking red flag. And it seemed like the chickens finally came home to roost when suddenly it turns out she’s there to help him.
So much hate.
No problem mate.
TMary on 17 November 2023, 01:29 said:
Yes, to everything you said here, and I agree that it is really weird that Atticus doesn’t think of this. I started thinking of it the moment I realised that Grannie wanted to be his apprentice. And frankly she should talk about it too; she is plenty old enough and experienced enough to know about the dangerous power dynamics that arise when you are in a sexual relationship with your friggin’ teacher. This does not speak well of either of their maturities, quite frankly.
Although I am enormously grateful that Hearne at least didn’t actually have them hook up while they are teacher and apprentice. It’s a low bar, but I was genuinely worried he wasn’t going to clear it.
The wasted potential here makes me so sad. He could have had Atticus use an intimate knowledge of the city to avoid his enemies, or he could have had multiple supernatural hotspots scattered throughout it (bonus points if it’s in a place that the locals already joke about being a bit cursed or haunted. There’s a shopping complex in my hometown that my family is half-convinced is run by the fae. We can NEVER seem to find our way in the same way we did last time, good luck finding your way OUT the same way you got IN, and shops are so difficult to find that they genuinely seem to move position, or else appear and disappear at will. And it’s called Crossroads, for goodness’s sake. If I ever write an urban fantasy, that place is going in there virtually wholesale). He could have leaned harder into the surrounding nature of Tempe, considering that Atticus is supposed to be a druid whose ultimate mission is to protect the Earth. The flora and fauna of Arizona are pretty different from those of Ireland; we could have shown how that affected his powers, or maybe it could have given him the edge in the fight against Aengus Óg, since he knows this place and how the environment works and how best to use it to his advantage, whereas Aengus is coming at it like he’s expecting it to be Ireland. He could have had it that Atticus, being a two-thousand-year-old druid, has become a little disillusioned with new places, starting to feel like everywhere is the same, and then, through spending time with Grannie, who grew up in Tempe and has never known anywhere but that city and is fiercely devoted to it, he starts to see it with new fresh eyes and appreciate it for what makes it unique. There’s so much an author can do to make setting important and a vital player in the story and plot — setting should be important and a vital player in the story and plot, especially if it’s an unusual setting! But nope, it’s just … window dressing. It’s something to make the book stick out (“Ooh, he’s an ancient Irish druid in Tempe, Arizona!”) with no real payoff.
Aside from the Twilight similarities … so, the Leprechaun saw Atticus show up to her house with a bunch of strangers in tow, all of them driving sports cars, Atticus told her they were there to do the landscaping … and she had no questions about that whatsoever? Like, “Why are all these people apparently rich enough to own SPORTS CARS, and yet all totally willing to work on my yard for no particular reason?” And for that matter, none of the neighbors notice — and Atticus also somehow thinks this will be an adequate cover from the cops? The whole landscapers gambit was risky enough, considering that they don’t have any equipment or any sign that they are professionals, but now they’re all driving SPORTS CARS. The cops would be well within their rights to suspect something was going on behind the scenes here.
I know, I know, Makes It Easy. But it’s just one more illogicality to add to the count.
Huh. I didn’t think my opinion of Atticus’s suitability as a teacher could sink any lower, but there it goes, ever farther down the drain. Also, this does not make me feel better about Grannie’s safety with Laksha in her head.
Yeah, um … how in the world would he do that with “binding”? Bind her eyesight to an owl’s? Bind her rods to the moonlight? Bind her mind to a bat’s so she can echolocate?
And it’s not like these names mean anything to us, either! It’s not like we knew these people as characters and thus their betrayal has some weight to it, or we knew that they were some of the most powerful in the coven and thus the stakes are being raised. This is just Hearne proving he can Google “Slavic women’s names”! I mean, I guess he’s trying to make it feel like the coven is a real, fleshed-out faction in this world, but … the time for that is past. And throwing around a bunch of names we don’t recognize isn’t going to make us feel any more immersed in this world.
Also, if I was a paranoid immortal druid, I think, at the very least, I’d try to find out the names of people I considered my enemies, or potential enemies. But that’s just me.
…
What the heck kind of simile is that? That doesn’t even really conjure up an image for me, at least not one I’d compare to a dog excitedly wagging its tail. What a strange, strange thing to say.
And it’s like … it would be one thing if this felt like Atticus was telling her to think of the sheer joy of running like this. Because, yeah, it would be cool to be able to run like that all night without getting tired. I like it in stories when superpowered characters are doing things with their power just for the fun of being able to do them. That’s one of the things I enjoy about a good Spider-Man story — he always looks and sounds and acts like he’s having fun swinging through the streets of New York, and it looks really fun to be able to move like that. I could see this working. But coming from Atticus, and with the way he phrases it … it feels more like he’s telling her to enjoy the power that she’ll have, and like you said, that’s … at least a little concerning, if you don’t link the power to anything like “you’ll have the power to help others” or “you’ll have the power to fight for a good cause”. Especially since Grannie started off this whole bid for druid apprenticeship with “I want to have POWER”.
Based on my (not fluent but improving) knowledge of Scottish Gaelic and my (extremely rudimentary) knowledge of Irish, I think ceann-draoi would be at least an acceptable way to say “chief druid”. Mind you, that’s in Modern Irish, though (and under advisement, I could very well be wrong!). If there’s an Old Irish word for it (and if the druids’ original word for their own leaders was ever recorded), I do not know. But in any case, “archdruid” is a term made up somewhere around the 18th-19th centuries by scholars who took a fancy to druidism and made up A LOT OF STUFF wholesale, and you’d think Atticus would find it a bit annoying and presumptuous, not call it “the correct term”.
But more to the point:
Not only everything you said about how pretentious and stupid and meaningless this is, it’s the wrong thing to call your teacher! She asked him for a title to refer to him by, and he told her to call him “Chief of all Druids”. Imagine if you were in a college class, and your professor told you to refer to them as “Dean”. You’d be a bit taken aback, wouldn’t you? He should be giving her a title for a teacher; that’s what “sensei” is!
Mind you, I don’t know an appropriate form of address for a teacher in Irish; maaaaybe “oide”? (If you wanted to steer clear of more recent imports from English that are also more closely tied to school-teacher, anyway.) It’s definitely used as “teacher” or “tutor”, and it goes back a ways. Scottish Gaelic also has this word, and also uses it for “tutor”, although it also means “foster-father”, because under the old system of fosterage, your foster-father was supposed to be the one who taught you. So I don’t know that it would be the right thing to use here, but it might not be too far off the mark. It’s at least better than “archdruid”.
That being said:
OK, but I personally think it would be great if you referred to yourself as King of Juracans. XD
headdesk
muffled, from the desk Hearne. You do know “sensei” is just the Japanese honorific for a teacher (and in some cases, other professions) and it’s been around a lot longer than its presence in Western pop cultural consciousness, right? Tell me you know this.
I’ve definitely seen reference to this structure in other places, and I think it might be a stereotypical feature of native Tamil speakers speaking English? I don’t know for sure; I’ve never actually heard it in real life or from real Tamil speakers, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s some truth to it, the way there is to a lot of stereotypical accent and dialect features. That being said, I also wouldn’t be at all surprised if it gets over-exaggerated by secondhand reports, and also if people trying to approximate the speech patterns of native Tamil speakers use it in places where it would not actually naturally get used, because it is mimicking a function of Tamil that doesn’t actually map perfectly onto English.
As to why she would still have it after living in Grannie’s head for so long … I don’t know. I mean, it takes a while to learn another language, so I could understand if some features of Tamil were still kicking around her speech, but it’s kinda funny that Grannie apparently never mentioned “You can just say ‘I didn’t think so’” or something. And considering the life Laksha’s led, it’s really surprising that that’s the only peculiarity about her English. She should have a lot more languages to have to navigate through.
…I mean, it’s a better simile than “princess waving in a parade”, in that I can actually see what I’m meant to see. But not by much.
To be absolutely fair here, I think this might just be a confusingly phrased sentence, and what Hearne actually means is that most witches are entirely dependent on magic. Like, “She wasn’t dependent entirely on magic like most witches, then.” I think. I’m honestly not sure, because that sentence could be interpreted either way, but within the context of the book, and Atticus’s constant witch-bashing, that’s the only thing that makes sense to me. Either way, it’s a terribly phrased sentence that has no business in a high-schooler’s essay, let alone in a book written by a man who used to teach English.
THIS ALSO HAS NO PLACE IN A BOOK WRITTEN BY A MAN WHO USED TO TEACH ENGLISH. “Don’t warn your heroes (and thereby your audience) of upcoming plot” is WRITING 101. As is “Do not remove every obstacle from your heroes’ path”! Especially not when WE HAVEN’T EVEN SEEN THESE OBSTACLES YET! I mean, knowing what happens in Chapter 23: Imagine how much more terrifying this scene would be if Atticus and the werewolves continued on their way without interruption, and then all of a sudden, as they’re nearing the witches, there’s an animal noise of pain, and Atticus turns to see one of the werewolves shot through with silver needles. Wouldn’t that raise the stakes and tension, and convince us of the danger and ruthlessness of these villains, a lot more effectively?
sigh
Well, this comment was relatively short! For the next one … I think I’ll let Starspirit take that one, because the next chapter made him really, really mad. Not that I wasn’t mad, but his anger was more interesting. There were three spitefics. See you then!
Juracan on 19 November 2023, 11:32 said:
Right. It’s kind of amazing that Hearne didn’t have them hook up while Atticus is Granny’s mentor. I’m surprised. Then again, they still flirt, and their main cover story is that she’s his girlfriend, and as the second book shows, he’s apparently so attracted to her that he’s constantly turned on by her, so, uh, it’s all still pretty skeevy.
You’d think they’d sit down and talk about this.
Again, I hate being like, “Dresden Files did it better!” but, when Harry Dresden gets an apprentice who is a beautiful young woman who has a crush on him, Harry Dresden makes it clear (despite it not being uncommon in wizarding circles) that NOTHING is going to happen between them and she should banish any thought of it from her mind, basically one Day One.
[slams gavel down on table] Make it so!
One of my favorite things is seeing how different philosophies and ideas adapt to different environments. It’s one of the reasons I love Assassin’s Creed, because we get to see how different cultures adapt the Assassin style for themselves. The idea of a Druid in the American Southwest—there’s a lot of potential there! But instead, there’s nothing to it. He’s just there, and the only way the setting really impacts the character or story is… that Atticus makes pop culture references and talks like an idiot.
Yup! If something is too inconvenient to the Plot, it doesn’t happen! That’s why no bystanders ever notice things Atticus and his buddies do in public, and the police only think to watch Atticus’s house and not any of the places he’s known to frequent, like his elderly neighbor’s house, or his favorite restaurant!
Fudge if I know!
This is why we made a count for “paranoia” in the second book’s spork.
It’s a VERY weird thing to say. I don’t know where Hearne gets his similes.
The more I’m thinking about it, the weirder, it’s actually very weird that Grannie’s motivation amounts to, “I want magic powers and Druidry seemed the best way to do it without literally selling my soul.” It’s not, like in some fantasy stories, a matter of having magic and needing to learn how to control it, or that he needs an apprentice of the right temperament to pass on his skills to. It’s just that she wants magic, and Atticus decides, despite barely knowing her, to give her magical lessons and teach her how cool it is to have it.
Hm…
I’m going to come back to this thought at some point in these sporkings.
I don’t have much to say about this other than, having recently read Mark Williams’s Ireland’s Immortals, there is SO MUCH about Irish and Scottish folklore/mythology that was made up for the sake of nationalism and spiritualism. It’s redonkulous.
…might start signing off that way.
It really wouldn’t surprise me if he didn’t. It’s alarming to me how many things relevant to his characters that he doesn’t know.
Yeah, it reads more like a weird stereotype than something that Hearne actually knows what he’s talking about. I’m not against weird accents for characters, but this reads weird and doesn’t make sense with what we know about Laksha.
[Only slightly related: vaguely reminded of the character in the Children of the Lamp series who is an ancient Indian (I think?) djinni who speaks English with an Irish accent because he learned English watching Irish television while stuck in a bottle.]
Having gotten as far as I have in the second book’s sporking, it turns out you’re right. Atticus tells us much more clearly there that witches (or at least, European witches) are more dependent on magic and don’t have much in the way of physical training for attacks.
Yeah, but that would require our protagonist to be inconvenienced. That would involve tension. And Hearne, for reasons that aren’t clear to me, really hates for Atticus to not be in control of a situation. It’s a way of making him seem cool, that he’s always aware of almost everything going on, even if he has to be handed that information rather than figuring it out himself.
[Yes, there is something he doesn’t know about the situation, and it’s played as a twist despite being super obvious and stupid.]
The villain’s summoning demons and kidnapping a dog. That’s apparently threatening and ruthless enough for Hearne.
Welp, I’m certainly excited for that!
SIDE NOTE: before I think I mentioned that I don’t worry too much about grammatical/technical errors because I was worried about screwing up the format/web page if I fix it? Yeah, turns out that’s not an issue. So feel free to call those out so I can fix them. Sometimes I come across them while re-reading my sporkings but don’t get around to fixing them because I’m caught up on something else and I forget, but bring them up in comments and I’ll try to get them corrected.
TMary on 23 November 2023, 05:46 said:
YEAH. And honestly, the fact that the skeeviness is never even remarked upon makes it feel even worse.
You’d think they’d sit and talk about a lot of things, really, but earnest discussion of serious topics is not really The Iron Druid Chronicles’ forte.
Hey, it’s not your fault Dresden Files did all these things so much better. And, without having read the book in question, I can say that that sounds MUCH better indeed.
IT IS SO.
Yes! Him, like you said, trying to adapt and change to this strange new place and world while still hanging on to what remains of his traditions and culture, or else starting to give up and wonder what is even the point in hanging on anymore, since he’s so far away from his home both in space and time… There’s loads you could do with it. But, like you said, we get … nothing, and it feels more like the book’s set in Tempe because that’s where Hearne is from and he didn’t want to have to put in the work to put Atticus anywhere else.
The more I read these sporkings, the more I start to think that a good plot is one long string of inconveniences and then a resolution. Which is over-simplifying quite a bit, I know, but I feel like it’s good advice for authors like Hearne. At the very least, inconveniences are a reason to care, which this book is sorely lacking.
There’s a joke here somewhere about a discount simile store selling cheap knock-off similes, but it’s late and I can’t find it.
Please do, yes, I feel like there’s a lot to discuss there! If nothing else, how hideously irresponsible Atticus is for hearing “I want magical powers because … I want magical powers!” and going, “OK! Let me teach you all my super-duper druid secrets, which basically amount to being able to do whatever the fudge you want, and also make you functionally immortal while I’m at it! 8D”
It is! And, like, you can’t entirely blame people, because there’s so much about Irish/Scottish mythology and folklore that was just straight up not recorded, because they passed down those stories orally, and if the tradition was broken, that was it. But still, as you say, redonkulous.
Sadly, it wouldn’t surprise me either.
Yeah, if you know what you’re doing with the accent/dialect/what-have-you that you’re trying to represent, I’m not against it either — more of that in fiction, I say — but otherwise … probably just leave it alone. We’ve seen what dark places you can go otherwise. coughtheLeprechauncoughcough
See, now this actually makes sense (that is how learning languages works) and is kinda fun and distinctive. I never got that far with Children of the Lamp, but I do have fond memories of it — it was always one I regretted not sticking with. I could pick it up again, I suppose…
Aha! Still a confusingly written sentence, but I’m glad we understand it now.
Honestly, witches being much more dependent on magic would make sense to me, especially since most of the ones we see are actually really old (and not, like Atticus, literally physically twenty-one, but glamouring themselves to look young
because they’re not as speshul). Of course they don’t want to use martial arts, Asian or otherwise, they’re all in their hundreds. But Laksha, body-hopping as she does from young person to young person, naturally picks up a little bit of physical self-defense because she can use it and it doesn’t hurt to be well-rounded. I could see it making sense, but that’s not Hearne’s reasoning for it, it’s just that the witches aren’t kewl enoughand Europeans don’t have martial arts.I think it’s the usual Suethor/Stuthor issue of being really fond of a character and, like you said, wanting them to be the coolest ever, so they develop an antipathy to ever letting them be caught off-guard or in an uncomfortable situation, because they think that will make the character lose their mystique somehow, not realizing that actually it just makes them really boring.
Yay! :D
Yes, Your Majesty!
TMary on 23 November 2023, 05:48 said:
Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving, if you’re celebrating! If not, a very happy Thursday. :)
Juracan on 23 November 2023, 11:58 said:
It really does, doesn’t it? Not to read too much into it, but you’d think it cross Hearne’s mind, considering he was a teacher.
This is not me accusing Hearne of inappropriate conduct as a teacher—I’m doing nothing of the sort, and there’s no reason to think he did anything like that. But it is weird that it apparently didn’t cross his mind when writing this relationship and these characters.
Atticus would probably call me a nerd for even suggesting it.
Hm. I don’t know, but you might be onto something. Because good storylines often put the protagonist through the wringer, becoming more impactful as time goes on, before getting to a conclusion. Instead, Hearne elects to have things happen and Atticus breeze through them.
I’ll see if I can come up with something next time it comes up in a spork.
Right! It’s especially egregious because Atticus tells us the last guy to ask to be his apprentice was a Victorian Era guy with very silly ideas of what druids even are (as opposed to this book, which draws more off of RPGs than history…). Instead of a guy with genuine, if misguided interest, and teaching him the proper way of things, Atticus picks up… the hawt bartender who explicitly is doing it because she wants magic but not the price that comes with witchcraft. And she’ll be made powerful and immortal.
Yeah, that adds up.
She’s done absolutely nothing to prove she’s worthy of this power, or even a good fit, and Atticus does nothing to test her. It’s interesting to me that I’ve noticed a lot of readers really don’t like her personality in later books, thinking she’s terrible with her powers. I haven’t gotten there yet, but if she really is that irresponsible and reckless, that’s on Atticus, who had no reason to think she’d be good to give magic powers to in the first place.
That character’s actually introduced in the first book, I think!
Children of the Lamp is a bit of a mixed bag, for me. I reread the first two books, and read the rest of the books, for the first time recently, and while I was mostly impressed with them, the last two books were quite sour for me. The last one in particular I considered quite bad, as the author didn’t originally plan to end the series then, he just decided he didn’t want to do it anymore, leading to a conclusion which felt very sloppy to me and didn’t make sense with the characters he’d been building.
See, that last sentence is what gets me. This comes up a lot in the first two books, this idea that Asian cultures are so much more enlightened and advanced and have cool martial arts, whereas the Europeans were all playing with sticks in the mud or something. It reads like a teenager trying to sound progressive, but instead fetishizing the idea of “Asian culture” without knowing anything about them. As I point out in the chapter with the final battle, Atticus talks about “learning martial arts in Asia” but doesn’t tell us what martial arts they are and where in particular he learned them.
…I could get used to this.
And a very merry Thanksgiving to you as well! Gobble ‘til you wobble!
TMary on 24 November 2023, 16:14 said:
Yeah, no, I don’t think he did, it’s more he just didn’t think about the implications of what he was writing. I wonder if it didn’t also seem as important to him because Grannie is a legal adult and they’re not in a classroom setting, exactly, but, like … Atticus is two thousand? And there’s still power dynamics at play?? It’s still definitely a discussion they should have??? Maybe????
Yeah, I think “inconveniences” is a little over-simplified — some authors go way too far in the other direction and have nothing good happen to their characters to the point where it just gets depressing — but, you know, which makes a better story? “I went to the store and bought milk and took it home and everything went smoothly” or “I tried to go to the store and buy milk, but it turned out the usual road was closed, and when I doubled around and took the detour there was a family of geese trying to cross the road in front of my car, and when I tried to get out and shoo them along, they chased me, which is why my pants have these interesting holes in them and we have no milk”?
Please do!
It does if you do Atticus math, where T + A = worthy of his attention.
…I’m very sorry. But, considering his reasoning for serving Brigid and not Aengus Óg which he outlined in Chapter 14 … do we really doubt that a large part of the reason he chose Grannie over a dude was that the dude was, well … a dude?
…Can we give this a retroactive “You Keep Using That Word” point? Out of spite? Because hot dang, the more I think about it, the more foolhardy and dangerous that choice becomes.
OK, it has been a while since I read them XD
Aww, that’s a shame! I’ve come across a few series that had disappointing endings recently, and actually I’ve wondered if it was that the author didn’t want to keep going. I’m still tempted to give them a retry, but if I do I might check out earlier than the actual end.
Yeah, the whole thing feels very … fetishistic, as you said. Not least because that’s how he defeats Aengus Óg in battle, and … honestly, any practitioner of martial arts will tell you, if you as a jujitsu master go up against a guy with a knife … the guy with a knife has a real good chance. I know Atticus also has a sword, in that fight, so it’s a little more even, but it’s just … martial arts not the magic win-everything button that pop culture portrays it as, is what my point is.
I did! Hope you did too!
Juracan on 24 November 2023, 21:24 said:
It’s a discussion they should definitely have. Both of them know that they’re attracted to each other, so entering into a teacher-student/master-apprentice relationship means that this is going to come up sooner or later in their interactions, especially when they pretend to be dating throughout their adventures as a cover story.
I agree. The “inconveniences” are what make the story!
Also, I realize this was probably not your point, but I immediately thought of the Neil Gaiman children’s book, Fortunately, the Milk, which is about a dad going on crazy adventures on his way to buy milk for his kids’ breakfast cereal.
Yeah. It makes rooting for Atticus difficult, considering how often he’s motivated by ogling hawt women. I think Chapter 2’s supposed to establish that this is a character failing of his, but considering he’s over two thousand years old, it’s really stupid that he’s still obsessed with women (who are conventionally attractive women by modern standards instead of…anything in history that is more likely given changing beauty standards and how old he is).
Consider it done, I guess.
Yeah, I don’t know that Hearne knows that. O-kay, admittedly he talks about how fights aren’t like in the movies, which is why he always sneaks up and stabs people in the back. But he also keeps referring vaguely to “martial arts from Asia” which makes me more convinced that he doesn’t know anything about them, and didn’t bother to even do a Google search on martial arts.
[rubs forehead] My gosh. The druids, the martial arts, his takes on history… I think Hearne takes every trope from pop culture at face value and inserts them into the novels. There are some decent authors who do this too, but they at least have good plots or characters.
Oi.
I did, indeed! And there’s plenty of leftovers for the next week. But sadly, the chocolate pie is not one of them. :(
TMary on 25 November 2023, 02:26 said:
YEAH THIS. Honestly, this set-up wouldn’t be out of place in a lower-grade erotic novel. “Oh, they’re teacher and apprentice and they can’t be together, but they’ve got to pretend to be boyfriend and girlfriend, for
reasons that nobody can explain properly they could just say they’re friendsthe sake of plota cover story! What WILL they do?”This was not exactly my point, no, but I kinda want to read that now.
Yeah, this. And also … I think we are supposed to see it as a flaw, but … maybe as kind of an endearing flaw? It feels a little like Hearne trying to eat his cake and have it too — Atticus gets to be a stud and ogle hawt women all he wants, but don’t worry, it’s a character flaw, so it’s okay that he’s doing it. Or maybe it reminds me most of the Mary Sue craze of Fanfiction.net circa 2006 or so, when you got eighty-bajillion self-inserts who were supposed to be super hot-tempered or clumsy or something, but it never came up in any context other than making them look cool or cute, and it never got them into any trouble or caused them any problems. It’s that type of thing. We’re told it’s a character flaw, but the narrative doesn’t really treat it like one.
Yeah, that’s very much what it feels like, isn’t it? And if Atticus was a more tolerable character and the plot was at least fun, I could accept it — I don’t mind a little leaning into tropes if it’s all in good fun. But the whole book’s a mess, so.
You said it.
WOE 8( The tragedies of Thanksgiving.
Juracan on 25 November 2023, 19:32 said:
I mean, if they did start hanging out a lot all the time, I think a lot of people are going to assume they’re dating anyway, being a man and woman who appear to be the same age; that, and I think this book establishes that they’ve been flirting at this one bar for a while. You’re right, though, that it definitely feels like a typical romance plot.
It’s also weird because in this book, right when they start Grannie’s apprenticeship, that’s the cover they go with at the end: that he’s not in public because he’s staying at his girlfriend’s house. One would think that the other regulars at the Irish pub would notice that it’s a little strange that these two are apparently now, out of nowhere, in a serious enough relationship that he stays at her place for days at a time.
Do read it! It’s quite exciting! It’s got a dinosaur, pirates, and wampires (no, that’s not a typo)!
You’re absolutely right here. And if I may put on a little analysis tinfoil hat, I think with a lot of the Mary Sue craze, too (and it wasn’t limited to fanfiction—wasn’t Bella’s schtick in Twilight that she was incredibly clumsy?), these are characters being written by and for teenagers. Being called out for being clumsy or bad-tempered are things that the people in the audience are probably used to feeling like, whether or not they are particularly clumsy or temperamental for their age. In a sense, it’s a way of saying, “Hey, you have this problem? So does this hero! And they turned out okay, they get to make out with the hot love interest!”
It’s not great in those cases. It’s often very, very bad. But I do see where that’s coming from.
Which means that this “character flaw” for Atticus, if it has similar roots, is even worse. It’s like,
“Hey, you’re a nerd guy who thinks he’s smarter than everyone else in the room, and your character flaw is being too turned on by hawt women? While you can relate to my protagonist, who also has the character flaw of getting turned on by hawt women! And he gets to have sex with them!” [thumbs up]
…Maybe I’m reading too much into this, and Hearne only wanted to have attractive women in his books, and a reason for the viewpoint character to describe them. Which isn’t great, either! We have a lead character who is always checking out and objectifying women around him, and the narrative is like, “Yeah, isn’t this cool?”
This morning, I learned that the parents managed to hide away some of the chocolate pie, so I got to have some of those leftovers today.
Less woe than I expected.
TMary on 2 December 2023, 13:50 said:
One would think! But again, it Makes It Easy. No one has any questions about this alibi and the cops don’t find it suspicious at all. Hooray.
Dinosaur, pirates, and wampires promises to be a good time!
That is very true; it was definitely not a characterization limited to fanfiction at all.
Yeah, that does make a lot of sense! And I don’t even necessarily mind a situation where a character trait that’s usually negative turns out to be a positive; that does happen in real life, and especially when it’s aimed at teenagers, like you said, it’s kinda nice to hear that a problem you have might actually turn out to be a blessing in disguise. I think the execution is a lot more of a problem than the concept itself — because the execution often ends with it seeming like the problem was never a problem to begin with.
Building off of that:
Yeah, that is … either reeeally bad execution, or the concept was bad to begin with. Like, at least, “Oh, well, sure, you might have a hot temper, but look at it this way, maybe it helps you stand up to bullies!” is trying to make a positive out of a negative, even if the execution is way off. But this is like … “Hey, maybe there IS no negative! Maybe you have this flaw, and that’s just fine and dandy, and the whole world should indulge it, and it will never cause you any problems whatsoever! 8D” The messaging is … a little confused, is what I’m trying to say.
You know how there’s this trope, very common in anime and manga, of this guy who hits on every woman he sees? Like Brock from Pokémon (except Brock is a very kid-friendly example)? I’m not a fan of that trope, either, exactly, but at least the guy gets shot down regularly and emphatically, or else dragged off by one of his friends. It’s played for laughs, but it’s at least, “Haha, look at this idiot! He has no idea how to approach women!” Atticus reminds me of that trope, but instead it’s “Haha, look at this idiot! Isn’t he cool?” shrugs in frustration
Yeah, even the Occam’s Razor explanation is … Not Great. And maybe he felt like the genre conventions meant that of course Atticus would be constantly objectifying the women around him, that’s the kind of guy he is, he’s a Cool Action Hero and that’s part of the package, but it’s like … you could also not, you know? You could not obey genre conventions.
That is indeed much less woeful! :D