Have you had a Merry Christmas? A great holiday season? Good, because we’re back with more Hounded.
Before we get started: my friend who did the spork of Tiger’s Curse and Tiger’s Quest has started sporking Tiger’s Voyage, the third book in that series. So go check that out!
Now on to the main event!
The opening of Chapter 24 has… this bit. And it gets to me. Irrationally so. In the grand scheme of things in this book, it means absolutely nothing. It doesn’t really change the Plot. It’s a throwaway comment. But… look, let me just show you, okay?
So demons starting popping out of Aenghus’s fiery hole and Atticus is describing how they look. The gist of it is that they tend to look more like Hieronymous Bosch paintings than stereotypical versions of demons. And so we open with this:
People in this part of the world like to envision demons as fiery red creatures with horns sprouting from their foreheads and barbed, whiplike tails. If they really want to vent their spleens about the evil of heck and sin, they add on goats’ legs and invariably point out the cloven hooves, in case you missed them. I’m not sure who came up with that—I think it was some feverish, sex-starved monk in Europe during the Crusades, and I tried to miss as much of that as I could by passing the time in Asia
It’s because they’re satyrs.
The reason that demons are classically depicted with horns and cloven hooves is because they’re meant to look like satyrs and fauns. Or specifically, like the Greek god Pan. This is basic. The Them, the group of children in Good Omens, got this one right and they’re explicitly a group of not-very-well-informed children.Yet Atticus doesn’t get this. Hearne apparently didn’t get this.
[takes a swig of apple juice]
I’m going to rant a bit here. Feel free to skip.
This isn’t… he didn’t even need to look this up! If all you know from mythology is stuff you’d seen mentioned in Chronicles of Narnia or heck, if all of it was stuff you’d heard from a guy named Jack Schitt, you would know enough to figure this out. Satyrs are nature spirits of the wild places and mountains, the locations which, in Jewish folklore, where demons were often said to hang out. It didn’t help that in Greco-Roman mythology, satyrs and fauns were always chasing after (often unwilling) maidens, were usually depicted as sexually aroused with exaggerated genitals, and having sex with animals. In a religion and culture that had very strict rules on sexuality like, say, Judaism in the ancient world, this checks off a lot of boxes for ‘Things that are Clearly Demonic.’
[It’s not until we get into the Romantic movement, and the idealization of pastoral life, where European writers and artists started thinking of fauns and satyrs as more of benevolent personifications of wild open spaces rather than weird sexual deviants. Hence all the happy benevolent fauns and satyrs you see in fantasy nowadays, like in the works of C.S. Lewis or Brandon Mull.]
And goats have a theological history of being painted as symbols of sinfulness! This isn’t just Jesus’s ‘Sheep and the Goats’ thing, a parable where he likens the faithful to sheep and the damned to goats, although that didn’t help. You also have in Hebrew Scripture the idea of a scapegoat, a goat ritually sacrificed that contains all the sins of the community.
Then you have Pan/Faunus, the satyr/faun god of the wild and of shepherds. And hey, both Christians and Jews use the analogy of a shepherd for their God. So a pagan of shepherds that engaged in what they considered sexual deviancy and violence was a hideous parody of their God. And this was a god that was worshipped by the people who conquered Israel: the Macedonians and the Romans. If you were a religious person oppressed by a powerful government that worshipped a gross and twisted joke of your deity, wouldn’t you be inclined to view that god as an image of the incarnation of evil?
And yeah, maybe you didn’t know all of this [waves hands at the above], but you probably worked out that the image of demons with hooves and horns had something to do with satyrs, and that the roots of it are probably very ancient indeed. But Atticus, an immortal Druid who interacts with mythological beings all the time, and apparently makes a lot of his money selling books on New Age topics and the occult apparently has no idea where this idea came from, but assumes that it’s from a celibate monk. Why? Because monks need to get laid, obviously. Got to tie this back to how everyone constantly wants sex somehow, don’t we? Atticus projects like that.
Like I said, this is a throwaway line that ultimately doesn’t mean anything in the story. But it betrays how stupid this character is and how stupid the writing of this book is. I am some useless loser who writes sporks for free on the Internet and chugs apple juice, and YOU, Hearne, are a former English teacher. There should not be this much FAIL in basic literary comprehension.
[makes rude hand gestures]
Oh, but we’re not done here. ‘Cause guess what? That whole, ‘I wasn’t in Europe at the time’ thing? Let’s take a look at that. He’s probably referring to the Eastern Crusades, which is what most people in the US or UK think of when they say ‘the Crusades,’ and I don’t think Hearne knows enough about… well, anything to know that there were other Crusades. That’s from the eleventh century or so to the thirteenth. And we know what Atticus was doing for at least part of that time. That’s right, in the tail end of that is around when we start with the Mongol Conquest.
So here is Atticus, an immortal man, telling us, “Yeah, the Crusades were a mess that I wanted no part of. So instead, I hung out in Asia, and while the Crusades were wrapping up, I was helping a man conquer a continent by killing enough people to lower humanity’s carbon footprint.” Can you imagine someone this dense? Can you imagine writing someone this dense? Someone who will casually dismiss the Crusades as a silly conflict he had nothing to do with, but was happily slaughtering people in another part of the world, not for God, or the gods, or for power, or for money, but because he thought it’d be fun. Religious conflict is beneath him, but helping Genghis Khan try to take over the world for kicks? Nah, that’s cool.
[screaming into a pillow]
Atticus is a parasite. He feeds on the excrement of society and dares to mock us for it. How are we supposed to see this man as heroic? He acknowledged injustices throughout history that he could have done something about, only to shrug it off as not his problem, and instead just farts off and kills people for fun. He’s a mindless, moronic bloodthirsty monster at worst, and at best he’s a mindless, moronic bloodthirsty supervillain.
So anyway yeah even though Atticus says it’s ridiculous for demons to look like satyrs, several of the demons that pop out of Aenghus’s fiery hole do anyway, “because it was nearly a contractual obligation by now that some of the appear in that form.” I don’t… get this? I thought mythological/religious beings appeared based on how people believe they look? So shouldn’t they all look like stereotypical versions of demons, rather than some looking like that and others like “a painting by Hieronymus Bosch, or maybe Pieter Brughel the Elder” ? Because most people don’t think of that when thinking of demons at all.
There’s actually a really nice bit describing all the demons. At least it would be, if it weren’t for the final bit.
Some of them flew on leathery wings into the desert night air, with fingerlike talons outstretched to rip into something soft; some of them bubbled across the ground in uneven gaits, owing to the uneven number of legs they had and differing lengths of their limbs; a few of them galloped on those infamous cloven hooves; but all of them, without exception, had lots of sharp, pointy parts, and they stank like ass.
Yeah, this is what we need in what’s meant to be a serious scene. Telling us that “they stank like ass.”
And like a well-written character (NOT), Aenghus isn’t even given any dialogue or mannerisms here; all we’re told is that he points at Atticus and “uttered the Irish equivalent of ‘Sic ‘im, boys!’” Because Hearne gave up a long time ago on writing coherent character motivations or interesting people a long time ago.
A couple of the demons don’t attack Atticus, they just take off because they don’t care about this Plot (I don’t blame them). This makes Aenghus mad (through description, because still no dialogue), but Atticus is all like, “Y u mad, bro? They’re demons mate, wut.” That’s not an actual quote mind you, but I wouldn’t have been surprised if it was.
Also the werewolves protect Hal and Oberon, so that they’re out of the way of the Boss Fight, I guess. The demons jump Atticus and he uses the Cold Fire spell that Brighid gave him, but apparently he wasn’t braced for how weak it made him and he misses, so the demons all pin him down. He drops the sword, and Hearne finally gives Aenghus Og dialogue, if only to tell Radomila that he’s closing the portal and Atticus has dropped the sword.
Atticus tries to get power from the Earth, but because Aenghus has basically blighted this area to summon demons, it don’t work. One of the demons starts biting his ear off and we get this one short instance where I actually agree with Atticus, even if this joke doesn’t belong in what’s meant to be a serious scene:
…the pain was unspeakable, worse than reading the collected works of Edith Wharton
Nah, man, I hear you. I read two of her books in graduate school. That’d be pretty bad to have to sit through. But like I said, I don’t know if that joke fits right here where you’re fighting off literal demons serving the will of your lifelong nemesis.
This could have been a horrifying scene and one where we actually see the protagonist in a helpless position (his EAR just got ripped off), but it’s all described in such a nonchalant way that’s meant to be… snarky, I guess? There are the random jokes, the flippant descriptions like “bloodsucking schnauzer-mosquito” and just lack of actual terror on Atticus’s part. He gets thrown around a bit, loses his ear, gets his blood sucked out, breaks his wrist, and it should feel important and life-threatening and it doesn’t.
Our protagonist has been beaten and maimed, and it’s all told in the same nonchalant tone. Do you get the problem with this?
It doesn’t help that one of the demons just picks him up and drops him for no apparent reason. See?
Something with blue scales and a steroid habit hauled me up by my leg high into the air, and I saw a giant mouth of gleaming teeth and assumed I would be heading in there momentarily. The bloodsucking schnauzer-mosquito assumed that as well, because it pulled out with a wet pop and flew away. But then I was dropped unceremoniously to the ground, breaking my left wrist in the fall.
Why did it drop him? A couple of paragraphs later, it’s shown that the Cold Fire spell he learned is just now starting to affect them, so maybe it’s that? Still, it’s awfully convenient. Aenghus assumes that he’s dead, for a paragraph at least, because… I don’t know. I was going to say ‘Plot Convenience’ but it’s not even that, because soon after he realizes that Atticus is still alive so it doesn’t actually affect the Plot.
When his demons start exploding from Cold Fire, Aenghus is confused, but quickly works through it.
“What’s happening?” Aenghus asked rhetorically
It’s not rhetorical if he doesn’t know what’s going on. He is asking what’s going on. Not rhetorically.
…then answered like the insufferable ass he was. “Oh, I see. Cold Fire. But that means he must be weak as a kitten. Where is the sword, Radomila?”
W-why…why is this insufferable? I don’t understand this. Aenghus is confused, asks about his confusion, then realizes the answer before someone explains it to him. This is just normal human behavior dude. I get that Atticus is probably just some dick who gets angry about every little thing someone he hates does, no matter how inoffensive, but this just takes the cake. It’s like if someone told you “Have a nice day!” and your internal monologue said something along the lines of, “That presumptuous piece of crap thinks he knows what my day is like!”
Because Hearne understands that there have to be some stakes here, not all the demons are dead, because Cold Fire only works if you’re touching the ground or something. So the flying demons, including the mosquito one, are still doing okay. It’s currently sucking his blood.
Radomila can’t magically detect the sword, because Laksha did some magic BS when she removed the cloak, leading to Aenghus declaring her useless because that’s kind of the whole reason he brought her here. And Atticus is like, “And speaking of Laksha…” so, it JUST SO HAPPENS GUYZ, that while Atticus is thinking about Laksha, the Indian witch manages to finish her spell against Radomila, and Radomila’s head implodes.
No really.
I’m not… going to blockquote that passage here. I imagine most of you guys wouldn’t be too squicked by some intense violence, but still. It seems distasteful? I think it’s supposed to be this awesome moment of “The evil witch who has been bothering our hero the entire book got her just desserts!” But instead it’s “This female character who we don’t know very well and is siding with the bad guy, I guess, for no discernible motivation, has her skull implode.” It feels excessive, not rewarding.
Now that is why I am paranoid about witches getting hold of my blood.
Yeah, so paranoid that when you heard that she maybe got a hold of your sample of her blood to counter her, you didn’t bother to check to make sure.
The blood-sucking mosquito demon backs off because the Morrigan shows up, as a crow out of nowhere, and lands on Atticus’s body. Aenghus Og gets a bit apprehensive about this, understandably, especially since his co-conspirator’s head just burst like a melon. He assumes Atticus did it, too. But Aenghus decides that the Morrigan is there to declare Atticus’s death and eat his eyes or something, because he doesn’t realize how much Plot Armor Atticus is wearing.
Atticus, of course, does know how much Plot Armor he’s wearing. He decides that OF COURSE the Morrigan will side with him, because she doesn’t like Aenghus assuming that the Morrigan will help him out. Being “taken for granted” was apparently “a fatal error” on Aenghus’s part. The Morrigan confirms this telepathically, and she is also apparently offended that Aenghus has “killed this land” for his own power quest as this “betrayed his most sacred bond”. And again, this emphasis about protecting the land itself has never been mentioned before it became Plot Relevant.
But who cares! The Morrigan promises to help as long as Atticus doesn’t tell anyone about it. I mean, there are a bunch of demons here, and the werewolves are all here, but Hearne forgot about them so they don’t really exist in this scene.
Since the land’s corrupted by demonic taint, or something, he can’t draw energy from the Earth. But no worries! The Morrigan’s lending Atticus some of her power! His wounds close up, though his torn off ear doesn’t grow back. She even agrees to take down the mosquito demon while he’s doing his Boss Fight! Isn’t that convenient?
The Morrigan even drops some exposition! The sword Aenghus Og is carrying is called ‘Moralltach.’ It’s a one-hit KO sword, in that if it manages to land a hit, it kills instantly. Specifically it has to be a solid hit, not a grazing blow or something lame (because we can’t make this TOO risky, amirite?), but that means you have to avoid getting hit.
Also now is when Atticus tells us the superpowers that Fragarach, his own sword has. Yes, right before the Final Boss Fight, Atticus sits down and tells us what the McGuffin that the bad guy’s spent the entire book trying to get his hands on actually does. It can control winds, which is an incredible power, but Atticus says it’s not as useful in the desert (what???). If you put it at someone’s throat and ask them a question, they are forced to always tell the truth—
Wait.
…is this the inspiration behind the Mortal Sword in Cassandra Clare’s work? We talked about how compelling people to tell the truth is a dumb power for a sword, but is it actually based off of this thing from Irish myth? [shrugs] I dunno. Someone call Apep and ask for his input.
Also, it’s basically the Sword of Truth. Huh.
Atticus doesn’t know why Aenghus wants Fragarach when he’s already got his own magic sword, but that’s dumb, because they do different things. Fragarach cuts through anything. Moralltach can just one-hit kill. That’s… a good sword, but less useful overall. Atticus, a two-thousand year old man, cannot figure out even though it took me less than half a minute to work it out.
That being said, if we’re at the Final Battle, and the protagonist has all the information of the villain’s plans, intentions and resources, and he tells the audience, “This plan makes no sense!” maybe you should rethink your Plot.
So the Morrigan hops off of Atticus and flies at Aenghus, and poops in his face.
No really.
I recast night vision on myself and turned my head just in time to see the Morrigan let loose with what may politely be called a “white blossom,” square in the visor of Aenghus Og’s helmet. He cursed and clawed at his face and the Morrigan croaked her laughter.
This is supposed to be the final battle.
You want to know a secret? This isn’t even the stupidest thing in this scene.
Atticus takes off his shirt to clean his sword with (no really). He smirks psychotically as he does so (no really). He then decides “that amusement was not the proper frame of mind… to cultivate right now” and grimaces, I guess.
Forty yards away from me stood the man who had done me—and the earth—more wrong than any other.
Except again, what he’s done to Atticus is pretty tame compared to what Atticus has done to others. Aenghus Og just sent people to kill Atticus. Atticus has killed countless people who were just in his way for convenience’s sake. I know that this has probably gotten old by this point, because it seems that every chapter I pull out a steadily growing list of horrible things that the protagonist did. But seriously! Atticus has the gall to act as if he’s some innocent guy who has been tormented by Aenghus Og his entire immortal life, but instead it reads like Aenghus Og is this man with legitimate beef, even if he goes about it all wrong, and Atticus is just this monster who cannot comprehend not being a dick to everyone.
He removed his helmet, wiped the crow shit from his eyes
I don’t have much to add to this, other than: this is what I have to deal with in this book.
I read this book so that you don’t have to.
Honor my sacrifice.
“Siodhachan O Suileabhain,” he sneered, drawing Moralltach out of its sheath. “You’ve led me a right merry chase, and if there were any bards left to sing of it, they’d probably write a ballad about you. A proper one where the hero dies at the end, and the moral is don’t ever fuck with Aenghus Og!”
This is our villain.
Honestly, I love villainous breakdowns. I love that bit in the story where the villain, after fully realizing how much their plans have been thwarted, just lose it and go nuts and snap and go all out. Because all those elegant plans? Screw them! Just gotta kill this guy!
Except we haven’t been seeing Aenghus Og this entire book. He has only just showed up on-page, and we’re given the bare minimum on what kind of guy he is, or what his motivations are other than that he wants power. Why? [shrugs] I dunno. So this breakdown means nothing to us. The book tells us he’s losing it because spit is flying from his mouth as he rants, but having never seen this guy before now, for all we know he was always like this. We just get this rabid angry man who talks like almost every other character.
I mock the Leprechaun because she’s a terrible caricature, but at least she sounds distinct from other characters in the book.
Aenghus demands the sword back and—
This guy is an epic douche. Kick his shiny ass, Atticus, Oberon said.
ISN’T THIS BOOK SO FUNNY?! LAUGH, DAMNIT!!
Atticus declares that Aenghus has “broken Druidic law” by blighting the Earth and “opening a gate to hell” (which still isn’t capitalized for some reason), and that the punishment is to be sentenced to death. Aenghus claims that “Druidic law doesn’t apply here” only for Atticus to shoot back that it applies wherever he goes. This would make more sense if we knew, like, anything about Druidic law or how it works.
Aenghus tells him he’s got no authority to enforce Druid law here, and Atticus responds by saying his authority is in the sword, because… Might Makes Right with Druids, I guess? He waves it to blow a gust of wind at Aenghus, which “blew him backward onto his silver-plated derriere.”
LAUGH DA— it’s not worth the effort at this point. I’m tired.
You will respect my authori-tah! Oberon said, in a passable imitation of Eric Cartman.
A South Park reference.
Hearne put a South Park reference here.
…
THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE THE FINAL BATTLE AGAINST HIS LIFELONG ENEMY, AND HEARNE SHOVED A SOUTH PARK REFERENCE IN HERE WHAT THE ACTUAL—
[gets dragged away from desk before more things get broken]
[several hours later, sipping from a gallon bottle of apple juice]
This book… I take comfort that it’s not, like, a massive critically-acclaimed novel lauded as genre-busting or having saved the genre. But it’s disheartening that I see this series on a lot of recommendation lists for people who like urban fantasy. I get that there aren’t that many high profile urban fantasy books, but this book… we’re in what should be the final battle, and what are we getting instead of them just fighting? What happens to the main antagonist instead of anything dramatic?
A goddess pooped in his face. He got knocked on his butt. And to cap it off Oberon makes a South Park reference.
This isn’t even a joke! It’s a reference! You can’t even give it the excuse of “It’s here to lighten the mood!” As if the mood wasn’t already a joke. Hearne just stopped the action so that he can turn to the reader and say, “Hey, you’ve watched South Park haven’t you? So have I! Aren’t I so clever and funny?”
No, you’re not.
[And I actually don’t watch South Park but that’s neither here nor there.]
In summary:
Moving forward, the werewolves are mentioned as sitting back and watching. For Reasons. I’d do the same thing, but we’re meant to believe they’re actually friends with Atticus or something, willing to die for him ‘cause he said so, so it’s a bit off. Atticus stands his ground, and Aenghus throws some hellfire at him. It doesn’t kill him because his amulet, or some other bulshimflarkus, look, I don’t care. If you’re wondering how much Hearne doesn’t care either, Atticus compares it to a Hot Pocket that you’ve picked up before it’s cooled down.
Because this doesn’t kill Atticus, Aenghus is flabbergasted, again, and is screaming and frothing at the mouth, again, because this is what he does instead of having a personality. Death, who is still sitting on his pale horse, in case you were wondering, starts laughing and everyone’s weirded out by that, and Atticus chooses that moment to attack.
I wanted one of those fabulous anime moments where the hero stiks the sword into the bad guy’s guts and everything quivers, even the sweat droplets, and the bad guy vomits blood and says something a tiny surprised voice, like, “That really was a Hattori Hanzo sword,” right before he dies. Alas it was not to be.
Atticus watches anime?
See, ‘cause this entire book, he’s been mocking nerd culture. But right now, he makes this comment, and now I think Hearne just can’t decide whether or not this character is a nerd or not. And again, from the outset he makes a point to tell us, “Real fights aren’t like they are in movies!” in a disdainful tone, as if we’re too dumb to realize that and movie fight scenes are stupid. Except here, where Atticus says, “Man, I wish this was like anime!”
Make up your mind.
So they sword fight, and Aenghus actually can fight because “unlike Bres,” Aenghus “had serious battlefield cred” and who talks like this? Seriously? I know that in Dresden Files the protagonist makes off-hand commentary about weight class and such in fights, but those actually feel as if the character’s explaining complicated magical ideas of power in terms the layperson would understand. This is not that. “Battlefield cred”?
Aenghus keeps up his defense, and Atticus summarizes his cursing with an oh-so-appropriate “blah blah blah” to indicate how seriously we should be taking this and… uh… wait a second.
Can’t Fragarach cut through anything?
So why isn’t it cutting through Aenghus Og’s sword? I know that the meta, Doylist answer is “Because Hearne wanted a cool sword fight,” but there’s no explanation given in text as to why Atticus’s sword isn’t cutting straight through Aenghus Og’s as it should. It’s a sword that can cut through anything. This scene should be going very differently.
Have you read The Dinosaur Lords by Victor Milan? It’s going to remain unfinished because the author passed away in 2018, but it’s very good, because it’s a fantasy series where the knights ride dinosaurs. There’s a scene in the climax of the second book, The Dinosaur Knights, in which one of the protagonists duels an enemy carrying a scythe that can cut through anything. Said protagonist is mentioned as being a master swordsman, but everyone expects the villain to cut through his sword easily. Except he doesn’t—because it explicitly tells us that Karyl is deflecting his enemy’s weapon by the flat of the blade, so the edge doesn’t cut his sword.
Here, there is no such explanation given. Atticus doesn’t cut through Aenghus Og’s sword for Reasons.
The two keep sword fighting, until Atticus realizes something: “were were both fighting in the old Irish patterns—which was perhaps all he knew.” Yeah, turns out that in two thousand years, Aenghus didn’t pick up a single flick of the wrist of any sort of martial art that wasn’t ancient Celtic sword fighting! And Atticus, on the other hand, has spent a lot more time killing people in different ways across different continents.
I hadn’t spent centuries in Asia and the last ten years sparring with a vampire to fall into old ruts like that.
On the one hand, this makes sense. Atticus has experience with plenty of styles of combat so of course he can come up with ways to counter a guy who only knows one. But on the other hand, this is really, really stupid. Because apparently this guy who was planning on taking over his pantheon, cutting deals with literal demons and has the ability to mind control people, didn’t bother to learn a new style of fighting in two thousand years. Furthermore, it just reeks of how a stupid person thinks martial arts works. It reminds me of the BBC Robin Hood where one character is just so badass because he learned “the deadly arts of the Far East.”
That’s basically what Atticus is saying here! “I learned martial arts in Asia, so of course I’m a badass!” What martial arts did he learn? [shrugs] Y’know, those… ones. From Asia. Hearne doesn’t tell us it’s wushu, or kendo, or karate, or taekwondo, or Muay Thai, or anything I learned from five seconds on Wikipedia. It’s just those martial arts he learned in Asia and practiced with an Icelandic vampire.
And never mind that knowing martial arts don’t make you invincible! Never mind that Europe has a lot of martial arts too! Longsword fencing, wrestling, boxing, savate… just because they don’t have Asian names and don’t get fetishized by American action movies, doesn’t mean they aren’t just as legitimate and effective as the ones you know! But nope, Atticus was in Asia, because he wasn’t one of those mindless sheep slaughtering people in the Crusades, he was busy slaughtering people for the Mongols and other would-be world conquerers.
If you’re curious, you can find a list of martial arts from around the world on Wikipedia.
Anyhow they sword fight, and Atticus cuts into Aenghus Og’s arm, and he bellows in rage because that’s the only trait Hearne gave this character. He doesn’t have enough time to heal his arm.
“You’ve hounded me for centuries,” I growled. “And you might have hounded me for many more, but your petty jealousy of Brighid has brought you to this end.”
“Your end, you mean!” Aenghus roared, completely unhinged by my reducing all his elaborate schemes to a case of sibling rivalry.
Is it? Sibling rivalry, I mean?
Because I really don’t know. Brighid only off-handedly mentions that Aenghus Og is her brother. We get absolutely nothing about Aenghus’s motivations or his relationship with any of the other gods, much less his own sister. It’s just thrown in there. I’m not saying that villains need to be sympathetic, but is it too much to ask that they have actual personalities?
Why did Aenghus Og want to rule the Tuatha de Danann? What would he get out of it? Why did he have such an antagonistic relationship with his sister, the queen? And why did he go through this convoluted scheme that required the magic sword?
[shrugs] I dunno. I bet Hearne doesn’t either. But if you’re wondering where the title of this book comes from, it’s right there.
Oh and Atticus’s response to this is “NO, U!”
“No, I meant your end,” I said.
LAUGH DAMNIT!
But I knew how he fought now—the same old way. I saw it coming, and I knew I was faster, and stronger too.
Hey, isn’t it great when the protagonist is smarter and stronger and faster and more powerful than the antagonist in every way? So the Final Battle isn’t about an underdog, or a small, outgunned good guy triumphing over a greater evil, but instead about one big crushing his enemies? And by ‘great’ I mean ‘terrible.’ I like when we see a hero win using his own strengths and traits in unexpected ways. Whether it’s the Power of Love, or outsmarting an overconfident villain, or relying on the villain’s character flaws… those are all good endings because they make sense. But here? Atticus gets a power boost from the Morrigan, so he’s just MOAR POWAHFUL than Aenghus Og and quite easily dispatches him. I’m tempted to say it’s like levelling up in a video game, but in video games you actually have to work to level up. Atticus doesn’t even do that.
Atticus lops off Aenghus’s head, gives his “NO, U!” line, and then Death picks up Aenghus’s head and rides into the pit to Hell. Aenghus is still kind of alive or conscious, I guess? Is it because he’s a god? Hearne doesn’t tell us. Aenghus Og is horrified, because he assumed that if he got killed, he’d be taken to Tir na nOg by the Morrigan where he was going to be reborn, or something? Look, I’m guessing because the book doesn’t tell me. But instead he’s dragged to Hell.
For Reasons.
And this ends the chapter. I think we’re supposed to be cheering now? I’m grateful this is almost over, but I can’t help but think this is a poor Final Battle for a fantasy novel. The mooks gave Atticus more trouble than the actual main villain of the piece. And again, Atticus wins not because of some cleverness on his part, nor from exploiting the villain’s weakness that he knew about beforehand, or from a character strength that Atticus has. He wins because it just so happens that the Morrigan gives him a power boost to win, and that Aenghus Og is a rabid idiot that can’t match Atticus’s skillz.
I get that this is the first book in the series, but the writing and plotting and character development here is just a mess! There’s little motivating Atticus except that Aenghus Og is kind of in his way, and despite his proclamation that he’s going to be more proactive, this Final Battle is launched because Aenghus had his lapdog and Oberon kidnapped, rather than because Atticus was seeking out his enemy. And when they meet, it’s barely a contest at all, because Atticus is just so much more powerful and smarter and faster than Aenghus anyway; turns out that Aenghus Og is a moron! Meaning that this entire millennia-long feud between them could have been ended at any time if Atticus had just gotten off of his butt and fought him centuries ago.
There’s little drama, little tension, and there’s certainly no reward to this victory. It’s just… there. It doesn’t mean anything.
But don’t worry. We’re almost finished.
The Smith of Lie on 21 January 2020, 07:51 said:
I had this long, detailed and incredibly witty… Well long and detailed… Ok, just long, comment that referenced specific bits in the text. But I forgot to hit “Sumbit” button after Preview so it is now gone down the memory hole. So, since I am lazy bastard, I will just re-create summary of my points.
First the demons thing. It is an innocuous line, that has multiple problems on many levels.
First, though possibly the least, demons in Bosch’s paintings are not all that intimidating. They are certainly weird and grotesque, some of them disturbing, but they don’t evoke that feeling of terror that you’d want in a situation like this. I would certainly go to Bosch comparison if I wanted to make them alien and strange, but not for an action scene.
Secondly, as you astutely mention, this contradicts the worldbuilding, given that it is supposed to work based on beliefs. [And time for an aside poking more holes in “faith makes it real” – does this mean the Greys and Reptilians have been made real by belief of UFO crowd? Jersey Devil? What about Illuminati and NWO? What is a determining factor of belief making certain thing real? Does it pop into existance? The whole thing makes no sense! At least American Gods considered the newly formed gods/personifications and gave them its place in the book. But Haunded of course was just looking for an excuse to have old myths to defile.]
Finally the demonization of Pan, I actually forgot about it. But of course it is old hat for Abrahamic religion, either turning the rival figures into demons or co-opting the celebrations into their own practice. For a quick and well-known example we need to look no further than Beelzebub (has a devil put aside for me), formerly known as Baal-Zebul, a Philistine god before getting demotion to the demon by rival religion.
I must admit that I didn’t pay attention to Atticus projecting his perversity on the poor monks (fun fact – in Medieval cities it was often the monks who ran the brothels!). I just took it as a general jab at Christianity. Which to be honest the book takes surprisingly few, given that it is not an unusual trope for characters connected with paganism or New Age to look down on Christianity as backwards as benighted and espouse the virtues of their owns system.
Now on to the final confrontation itself. In no particular order.
First of all it highlights an unusually juvenile streak in Hearne’s writing. The book is chock full of small moments that seem like something a not particularly bright 12 year old boy would think would be cool. The wedgie, the Morrigan shitting on Aenghus, constant “hip” language (the infamous “mothafucka” that turned a mediocre line into awful one), the demons that “stank like ass”. It is not even that the narration does not take the events seriously, it goes beyond that into childishness. And that is a problem, because at the same time the events unfold in a way that suggests they’re supposed to be a serious business. As told by a 12 year old with a bad sense of humor.Next on the plate – Moralltach. It’s power is pretty lame as far as magic swords go. You know what will kill you if someone lands a solid hit? A sword. Perfectly normal, non-magical, reasonably well made sword. That is what they are made for. You land a solid hit, the thing you hit dies. Sure, it is possible for wound not be fatal or at least not instantly so. Still if you just landed a solid hit on someone the chances are the shock and purely mechanical damage from the wound will leave them wide open for coup de grace. Having an enchantment that guarantees a one-hit kill is therefore only marginally useful compared to, for example, ability to cut through anything.
On to the lack of tension and stakes. Lets be honest, even if Atticus was not flippant about the whole proceedings, it would still fall flat. Because by this point the book has taught us that the universe will bent itself backwards just to Make it Easy! for Atticus. So whatever semblance of peril we experience is an obvious sham. Of course Atticus running a color commentary with no trace of care in the world (which is consistant with his behaviour through the book, so hey, credit for that) only reinforces the fact that we as an audience stopped giving a fuck about 23 chapters ago.
There’s one point regarding Aenghus’ actions that irked me. He assumed that Morrigan showed up to announce Atticus being dead. Which makes no sense even in the context of his own actions. He went out of his way to summon Death, A FUCKING HORSEMAN OF APOCALYPSE (no I am not letting this one go), because Atticus won’t stay dead otherwise. Because of deal with Morrigan. So why would Aenghus forget about it all of sudden?! (Because he is a moron, like everyone. Obviously.)
I will return with some more thoughts when I get time (and maybe as other comments prompt me to new reflections).
Juracan on 21 January 2020, 13:52 said:
It happens. No worries, mate.
I think the horror of those paintings isn’t the demons themselves, but what they’re doing. We’re seeing Hell in that painting, and we’re not seeing that here at all—we’re just seeing demons attack people. Like any other monster. It’s not quite a terrifying image.
I don’t know if aside from mythological figures this rule applies, but we’ve been given no word one way or the other. So at the very least, I’d say cryptids like the Jersey Devil and things like UFOs and Illuminati are probably real in this universe, because enough people believe in them.
Indeed! It’s actually not that uncommon in world religions, if we go back through history either; look at the usage of the term ‘daeva’ in Hinduism versus Zoroastrianism, for instance. Or go back to ancient Greece and see how Athenians view Ares versus how Spartans or other people who fetishized war saw him.
I don’t have a lot of into on medieval brothels, BUT—you’re right, you’d kind of expect there to be more jabs at Christianity? There’s… not really, which is odd considering the kind of person Atticus is, the kind of story he’s in, and his backstory. But for the most part he’s remarkably chill on the matter. Which on the one hand I don’t mind being Christian myself, but it doesn’t feel honest, you know?
Like, Bishop Barron has a review of the TV show Vikings and he comments that while the main characters, being mostly pagan Norsemen, don’t have a high view of Christianity, it does feel at least like a legitimate point of view because they have a point of view about religion that makes sense for their backstories, their setting, and those characters. Atticus, as a guy who grew up as a pagan, apparently still worships some of the Irish gods, uses magic, and knows that the world runs on belief, shouldn’t really have a high opinion of Christianity at all. Instead he’s mostly ambivalent until Hearne decides to throw in a well-known historical reference he knows most of his audience is going to agree with.
This. So much this! It’s really immersion-breaking if the narrator breaks up the action scenes or the supposed dramatic moments by talking like what a preteen thinks sounds cool, or by using a sense of humor that’s juvenile at best. Aenghus Og is performing some hellish ritual that is blighting the land, something Atticus is meant to find sacrilegious, but he’s telling us “They stank like ass.” How are we supposed to read this seriously?
That’s… actually a really good point, and I didn’t think of that.
Side note: I tried Googling Moralltach, to see if this is an accurate depiction to the mythology. I couldn’t find much, really. Wikipedia says it is a sword that Aenghus Og had, but that he gave it to his son; the statement isn’t cited either, so I don’t even know if that’s accurate. The local university’s library has a book titled something like “The Dictionary of Celtic Mythology” and that might be worth looking at when I next swing by, but other than that I don’t know. So it’s entirely possible Hearne made up this superpower. Which, as you point out, is a really dumb power.
Also? Considering that he has to avoid getting hit by this sword, it’s really dumb that Atticus isn’t wearing armor, and actually takes off his shirt to clean his own sword before this duel begins.
See, I wondered, for like a minute, whether or not I should give this book some slack for the lack of stakes. It is, after all, the first book in the series, and it’s the author’s first published novel, I think. But I decided ‘no’ because it’s still a really dull book with a terrible protagonist and no stakes. Yeah, this is the first book in the series, but that doesn’t excuse the fact that the protagonist breezes through it with little to no effort. Even if I liked this book (which I am compelled to tell you that I don’t), I wouldn’t be reading this for the drama or the action, because the narrative style dissuades you from being invested in either.
Whether or not Aenghus Og knows about the Morrigan’s deal with Atticus, I don’t know. Brighid didn’t seem to know, and the Morrigan tells him to play dead if she tries to kill him. THAT BEING SAID, Aenghus knows that the Morrigan has taken Atticus’s side before—she’s the one that told Atticus to steal the sword in the first place, and he knows that they’re friends, prompting her to go warn Atticus in the second chapter. In short: he knows that the Morrigan favors Atticus over himself, so why would he assume she’s taking his side?
[shrugs] Plot.
Any time, friend! Thanks for commenting!
The Smith of Lie on 21 January 2020, 15:09 said:
Oh definitely. I am not an art fan, but Bosch always seemed to me about the large picture, a big scene with lots of detail, that become more surreal and disturbing the longer you look at them. Not about a particular, single images.
My gripe is that name dropping him does not enhance the demons as a part of action scene. To be honest I have a bit of suspicion that it is a bit of pretentiousness on Hearne’s part. Like he is trying to say “see, those are not your average dmons, they are an art reference!”.
Which just like the South Park reference mistaking a reference for humor, mistakes reference for… deapth? Artistic credibility? Something.
I don’t think they do, but neither do I care. My point is that, at least as far as I can gleam, Hearne’s approach to “Gods Need Prayer Badly” is shallow enough to leave the window for that happening. The way he goes about describing belief shaping reality makes one wonder, why the world of the novel is not a full blown fantasy instead of just another Masquerade.
This happens all the time in universes where world building was not taken to the logical extreme by the author and the proofed for unexpected results.
I have a hypothesis why this is the case, but it is just a guesswork. Most of Christianity bashing I’ve seen came from female authors who were either into some of New Age stuff or feminist. Which sort of makes sense, given how Christianity has some ideas that are pretty repressive towards women and how Wicca and similar movements (especially those harnening to the Mother Goddess figure) are sometimes outlet for expressing feminist ideas.
Hearne probably has none of the baggage and quite probably is a Christian himself. So it makes sense that Atticus is not a way for him to express critique of the religion, even if would make sense for the character due to his background. I mean, have we seen a proof of Hearne thinking those things through for any of his cut-outs?
This book does not deserve any slack being cut. There are problems with first books, both as series openings and as authorial debuts, but Hounded passed those so fast that no one even manged to catch the plate number.
I know that invoking Dresden Files has been done to death, but it makes for a good contrast. Storm Front has the same shoes to fill. And despite some clinky elements (the romance for example) it manages to express that the antagonist is actually dangerous and by the time final battle arrives Harry is actually beaten up and taking a risk. Stakes are small but personal enough to make them work. No need for theomachy, just good old murderer with a grudge.
And Harry, despite all his banter shows enough of emotions other than “inflappable boredom” as well as a drive to solve the case.
For all its faults it is a functional novel, that tells a story with characters.
So I say damn Hounded, damn it to the lowest circle of hell.
Juracan on 22 January 2020, 15:57 said:
Fair. With the South Park thing, I was reminded of Film Brain’s motto of “References are not jokes!” but he does pull references for other things too? In substitute for, like, actual meaning in the work.
Maybe I should do another intertextuality article on that…
It should be? Apparently anything can just pop into existence anywhere because “Belief!” so there’s not really much of a Masquerade. In the second book there’s a scene of the Virgin Mary feeding homeless people. There’s also a demon attacking a school in broad daylight.
It’s… weird.
Reminds me of the Mists of Avalon spork that just wrapped up at Das_Sporking. And I know Limyaael harped about it sometimes: how a lot of feminist/New Age authors wrote about Christianity or a substitute for it just to tear it down, and that it’s usually as subtle as a sledgehammer to the face.
Honestly? I have no idea on Hearne’s religious beliefs, but I suspect this is another trait he copied and pasted from Neil Gaiman’s work: neither Sandman nor American Gods has that much to say on Christianity, other than using its elements and occasionally making reference. Mind you, those works are good and this one isn’t, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he used that as an idea template, especially considering he has Atticus stop in the middle of the third book and praise the guy.
Agreed! Like I said, I came to that conclusion myself.
Hey if that was in my power, I’d have done it already, Smith.
The Smith of Lie on 23 January 2020, 02:06 said:
I could see the Virgin Mary scene work as suggestion that she went unrecognized. Like that passing mention of Jesus backpacking through Afghanistan in American Gods.
Hell, in a good hands that could be a commentary about how shallow and superificial faith of many people is these days (which I personally do not consider a bad thing – when people are fundamentalists we get things like Westboro Baptists or ISIS, but that is just my take as an aside).But demon attackin a school in broad daylight exposes how incredibly lazy Hearne’s writing is. At this point the Masquerade is only here because that is the usual trope for Urban Fantasy and the only force in the universe that can keep it from breaking is industrial strenght Authorial Fiat.
Oh, could you point me towards it? I still have a hard-cover copy of translated Mists of Avalon which I bought and was never able to finish. I think sporking of that brick might be therapeutic.
Juracan on 23 January 2020, 19:39 said:
Yuuuuuup.
It’s this really weird bit that takes way too long to resolve itself, and doesn’t really have an effect on the Plot, if I recall correctly. So it’s just… there, this bit of Masquerade-breaking subplot, that doesn’t do anything other than introduce Coyote properly to the story.
I can, but just as a head’s up to you, the sporkers involved go into like every single detail so it’s a very long and in-depth sporking and it’ll take quite some time to get through.
Here it is.