I am very, very sorry that I have not posted this earlier. I had planned to have this done by the end of April, but with my participation in Camp NaNoWriMo, and some other stuff going on, I didn’t have the time to really get this together, especially because this chapter is really long and it’s mostly combat. Still, you guys have been waiting, and I have let you down.
Anyhow, back to this sucky book.
We open this chapter with Atticus meeting up with the good witches. They hop into sports cars, and Hearne ensures that we know which ones go in which vehicles; I don’t know why he’s worried about being this specific. Does he think that we won’t know what’s going on if he doesn’t give us the make and model of the cars? Who cares! Other than car maniacs.
I vaguely remember wondering, as a kid, what the point of a mega-expensive shiny car was, and asking my dad. And he was like, “Hey, you know in those nature programs you watch1 how deer have big antlers to attract mates? A lot of guys think their cars are like that.”
I don’t know if that adds anything, just an amusing anecdote, I think.
Also! I could be wrong, but isn’t obsessing over the make and models of sports cars a thing that the Cullens do in Twilight? We’ve mentioned before the influence of Twilight on the werewolves in these books; someone more knowledgeable of the topic come tell us.
Malina explains that they need to get this done as quickly as possible; they’re protected from divination, or at least they should be, but they don’t know for sure, so they need to go kill the evil German witches before they do their ritual and/or magic blast them. Atticus assures us that no one can find him through divination, other than the Morrigan, because he’s got a magical Screw You Amulet.
Better Than You: 18
Because at every opportunity, Atticus has to remind us that his magic is soooooo much better than anyone else’s.
Enviously watching all of the witches in their sports cars, Leif the Literal Blood-Sucking Lawyer asks what it is that the witches do for a living. Atticus says they’re consultants, and Leif asks what kind of consulting they do. Our protagonist says that they don’t really do anything, they just use magic to make people pay them while doing nothing at all. Leif concedes that it’s smart, and “not all that different from real consultants.”
Even if this joke was funny, the fact is that it’s repeated from a previous chapter.
So, uh
LAUGH, DAMNIT!: 41
It’s weird, because Atticus points out that Malina made the same observation. So I know, and he knows, and Hearne knows, that the same joke was already made!
Anyhow, they keep driving, Hearne gives us specific directions? ( “…left onto Rio Salado and headed for Rural Road to catch the 202 east” ) I’m torn as to whether I think this is cool that he’s got that much detail, or too much information. Someone could fact check and see if this actually makes much sense. If it’s wrong, I wouldn’t blame Hearne, really–he doesn’t need to follow real-world directions for the story to work, unless it’s something entirely stupid, like giving directions to another state and they’re going to the wrong direction.
Malina calls Atticus, and as the text reminds us, whenever she does that, his cell phone plays “Witchy Woman”. He picks up and casually greets her, and she points out that he seems really chill about the fact that they’re about to take on a coven of demonically-empowered Nazi witches. Atticus excuses it all as “simply living in the moment” and says that Leif likes her car. She doesn’t care, and gives more specific directions, saying that the evil witches are “on the top floor of a vacant three-story building”, and that there are some minions on the first two floors so our “heroes” can go fight something for a big Final Battle, I guess.
Jokingly, because he loves being an annoying twit, Atticus suggests that Malina and the good witches go in and clear out the minions while Atticus and Leif wait outside. Malina says it’s the opposite.
“Oh, that’s too bad, because we were going to stop off at Starbucks and get a couple of lattes while you took care of this.”
LAUGH, DAMNIT: 42
Malina asks if the famous vampire Leif Helgarson likes lattes, which seems irrelevant and not really in Malina’s character, and we get this.
I looked over at Leif, who was grinning–he was hearing both sides of the conversation, of course–and said, “Malina wants to know if you like lattes, and I want to know if you’re famous.”
LAUGH, DAMNIT!: 43
The idea that Leif is actually famous in the supernatural community isn’t a bad one, actually. Normally, I would say that this is something like good writing? It’s set up for what we learn later about Leif’s backstory. The second book in a several-book-long series is a great place to start dropping hints about future storylines and important information for characters! And yet, it still doesn’t work for me because:
You Keep Using That Word: 37
Once again, it negates a character trait that Hearne keeps trying to build: that Atticus is a clever, paranoid, and well-informed individual. This book hints, and the next one confirms, that Leif Helgarson, Atticus’s vampire lawyer, is an incredibly powerful vampire, a legend in the supernatural community, and has been a major power player in his own right for centuries. The next book also indicates that other vampires stay out of the entire state of Arizona to avoid getting on his bad side.
And Atticus, who keeps railing on how paranoid he is, and everyone tells him how paranoid and clever he is, has no idea. Leif isn’t even using a fake name! It’s just him! And one of his supposed best friends apparently has no clue.
Anyhow, Leif denies liking lattes and being famous. Atticus reports over the phone that he’s not famous. Malina goes on to explain that while powerful, she and her sisters aren’t warriors (which isn’t entirely true, as we see later this chapter). This is consistent with what we’re told about witches, though at the same time, you’d think that at some point in the years since World War II, at least a couple of these witches would have picked up like, a gun, or kickboxing or something. It would be handy! Especially since they’re “outnumbered more than three to one” as there are “twenty-two” witches in the evil coven.
Also, Malina refers to using modern weapons as cheating. I don’t know why.
What will Malina and her coven be doing while Atticus and Leif storm the building? Well, they’ll be casting illusions so that ordinary people don’t know that there’s a magic battle going on. They’ll also prevent the evil witches from escaping. And then!! They plan on using the hair that Atticus provided from one of the witches to hex that witch; they didn’t do it already because they didn’t want the Nazi witches to know that they had it. Element of surprise and all of that.
The witches will be summoning demons, in a process/ritual called, uh… hang on, I need to make sure I type this correctly:
Die Einberufung de verzehrenden Flammen
I don’t know German, put this Google translate and it said “The Summoning of the Consuming Fires”. Which is exactly how Atticus translates it a couple of sentences later! Someone who knows German can tell me if that’s an accurate translation. I’m still pretty sure that Hearne got it by running it through Goggle. Whatever; it’s this hex that the Nazi witches use to make someone spontaneously combust, and apparently the magic amulet he gave Leif won’t actually work to protect him from it for Reasons. Leif declares then that their best option will be to take out their enemies as fast as possible.
There’s this side bit where Malina says she’s never seen the curse in action, just the after effects, from talking to the detective who investigated–who turns out to be the same detective investigating Atticus! Atticus finds this interesting, because people (other than Atticus) who go to Malina’s apartment have samples taken of their hair, if you remember from Chapter 5. Which means that they have magical leverage on him.
Kind of amusing that Hearne is basically waving a neon sign to say, “This will be a Plot Point later!!!1!” whenever he can.
Atticus’s plan for when they arrive is to throw grenades through the windows. Malina is understandably confused about where the licking lizards they got grenades from.
“Garage sale across the street,” I said.
Alright, to Hearne’s credit, that’s a little amusing.
There’s some weirdness here, because the way Atticus is talking, it sounds like he has no idea that the ‘grenade’ in RPG/rocket-propelled grenade is not a ‘grenade’ the way you generally think of it? The way the dialogue goes, it sounds like he’s saying, “We’ll throw the grenades from the RPGs we stole!” That’s not how an RPG works. But that’s not precisely what he says, and then again, the book does specify that they stole normal grenades from Atticus’s neighbor, so I feel as if docking points would be somewhat unwise–like I’d just get pointed to the passage where they take grenades.
They get to the building, there’s a description, I don’t care that much, though I am curious if this is based off of an actual building that Hearne saw in the area. Leif and Atticus grab their RPGs and shoot them through the windows to make things go splodey and…hey… wait…
Have either of these guys ever used RPGs before? Or any explosive weapons?
Atticus doesn’t talk about using modern weapons much. He’s happy to brag about how he knows martial arts2, and I think it’s mentioned that he knows how to use a gun. But he and Leif are apparently fine pulling out RPGs and firing them with precision here? I’m not against them knowing what they’re doing, I would only like for the narrative to clarify that they had some practice with it. Given how much Atticus doesn’t shut up about his accomplishments and how great he is, you would think a line saying something like, “I learned to use these while I was hunting down Al-Qaeda!” would be in order. Yeah, it’s over-the-top, but that’s the kind of backstory I imagine from Atticus at this point.
Now that they’ve announced their presence…wait, why did they do that? Why did they announce that they were there? Why not have Atticus cast his stealth spell on himself and Leif, find a way to the top floor (Atticus can control winds, earth, and plants, along with other abilities), sneak in, and use their magic swords to assassinate the coven of evil witches while they’re occupied and don’t give them time to react? Or heck, use the explosives to blow the top floor of the building to hell!
Guys, have you ever been so paranoid that your plan to attack a group of powerful enemies on demonic steroids that outnumber you was to loudly announce your presence with explosions before running in with swords?
You Keep Using That Word: 38
The reason for this is, of course, that Hearne wants to have the Epic Final Battle!!! play out the way he envisioned, even if it doesn’t make a lick of sense.
And I know you know this, Hearne, because immediately after they blow out the windows, someone (it’s unclear; presumably Atticus?) says:
“Clock is running now. They’re going to come after us with that hex for sure.”
Yes, the idea is to distract the evil Nazi witches while Malina and her crew do stuff, but wouldn’t that work better if they didn’t realize you were there at all until it was too late?
[rubs forehead]
Atticus grabs the swords and hands one of them, Moralltach, to Leif, while he keeps Fragarach for himself.3 Atticus tells Leif that the swords will be magically camouflaged to start, but that they’ll be visible once they’ve covered in blood. Either way, stealth would have been better if you hadn’t blown in the freaking windows you idiots.
They run into the building and draw swords, and Atticus also pulls out a grenade. Atticus gives a whole spiel about battle madness, and that stereotypically, Celts ran into battle naked. This is… historically questionable, I think, and it’s worth noting that the accounts we have describing this are of Gallic Celts on the continent, not the Irish. Atticus claims that he’s fought some battles like that, but that he found it easier to wear clothes because, well… duh, having your junk out there isn’t so handy in battle. He does not mention armor coming in handy though, because he’s dumb as a rock.
Atticus uses magic to undo the lock (he can bind/unbind metal, I guess???) and he throws a grenade in, around a corner. It explodes, but they don’t hear a reaction so they don’t know if it worked to take out any hostiles. He asks Leif to sniff and if he smells anyone, but the vampire can’t sense anyone.
And then a giant column of basalt drops down from above! Atticus dodges it, and notices that the stone keeps moving because! Le gasp! It’s a golem!
And then Leif warns him that there’s another one! Le gasp!
They run a bit to give themselves some space, and Leif notes that fighting stone creatures is going to be difficult, because they don’t have flesh for him to rip, and stone is resistant to sword cuts. Luckily, Atticus points out that his magic sword can cut through anything—
[someone grabs Juracan and whispers in his ear]
What? What’s that?
[more whispering]
Oh, okay. [shuffles papers] As it turns out, Atticus does not point out that he has a magic cut-through-anything sword and so he does not decide to use it on the golems. Never mind, then. He’s so paranoid and clever that he forgot that the sword he’s holding can cut through anything.
You Keep Using That Word: 39
Atticus is so dumb it’s giving me a migraine. And I don’t get migraines.
Instead, he realizes that since he has a magic aura that undoes magic, if he touches them he can just shut them off. Given that his entire schtick is that his amulet makes his aura an anti-magic field of iron, to the point that it’s the source of the name of the series, you would think that he would keep this in mind more often.
You Keep Using That Word: 40
To Hearne’s credit, he realizes that it’s not as simple as walking up and touching the golem, as the golems are trying to kill him. There has to be a challenge here, right? So he asks Leif to distract them. Then he quickly dispatches them in a few sentences.
Make It Easy!: 30
“Hecate’s frosty tits, how did you do that?” Leif demanded.
W…why would it be Hecate’s breasts that he’s using for a swear here? Haven’t we established that Leif is old-fashioned, has trouble adapting, and Icelandic? Why would he mention Hecate? Why wouldn’t he mention a Nordic or Germanic figure instead? Maybe he doesn’t like the Norse pantheon, given his enmity with Thor, though that still opens the gates to folkloric figures who fit better? Also, given the first book establishes that Hecate is an actual person who exists in this setting, it’s just an odd thing for Leif to say.
Giving it a
Did Not Do Homework: 24
Atticus is more concerned with how the Nazi witches made golems to begin with. In the narration, he refers to the magic that animates them as Kabbalistic, and the witches aren’t Kabbalists. Now, here’s the thing: as far as I can tell, while golems are tied to Jewish folklore and mysticism, that isn’t actually Kabbalah; it’s another branch of Jewish mysticism. As I believe commenter Brooklyn pointed out in another chapter’s sporking, Kabbalah isn’t about gaining magic powers or zapping people, it’s about attaining knowledge. That doesn’t really matter to Hearne, who has Kabbalah appear as just, ‘Jewish magic.’
You are not obligated to present every detail of real-world belief systems in your novel! At the same time, I want to reiterate that Atticus/Hearne is constantly and pompously presenting the text as if Atticus knows what he’s talking about, and he just doesn’t. At all. On almost any topic in any field. So!
Did Not Do Homework: 25
Atticus realizes that the witches must be stealing spells from the victims they kill, which sounds a bit like a ‘duh’ thing that any evil mage would do. Leif doesn’t care, though, so Atticus tells him to throw one of the golem heads through the ceiling to make a way to the second floor. He thinks the stairwell is probably booby-trapped so it’d be better.
Also, apparently, the half-a-ton golem head is light to Leif, because vampire strength means “It appeared to strain him as much as a juggler might handle a grapefruit”. Vampiric power levels tend to be whatever is convenient for the Plot, I think.
Make It Easy!: 31
And hey, wouldn’t that giant boulder also come back through the ceiling once Leif threw it up there? The novel doesn’t seem concerned about that
Leif throws the rock through the ceiling, and Atticus throws a grenade after it. It only kills one of the demons on the second floor. That’s right! Demons are up there. Because Atticus says he doesn’t have a lot of power on him right now, he has Leif throw him up there with the demons.
Goat-headed, curly-horned, and cloven-hoofed, they had the torso and arms of the Spartans in 300, and no amount of Visine would ever get the red out of their eyes.
Hey, do you remember when everyone was talking about 300? I don’t have a point here, I just think it’s crazy when that was what Zack Snyder was most famous for. And nowadays I feel like it’s generally brought up by Internet critics as if it’s like, a white nationalist manifesto or something.
Again, I’m not suggesting that Hearne meant it that way; he didn’t, I’m willing to bet, I just… it’s a weird thing in our culture, is all.
Anyway.
The demons charge at Atticus with spears. If you remember, Atticus has an anti-demon spell, Cold Fire, but he has to be in contact with the Earth to use it. He’s not here, being on the second floor of a building, so he’s got to use the sword to kill them. He also mentions that they’re not using formations or strategy, because we’ve got to make this as easy as we can for our hero. It’d be silly if the immortal demonic beings fought with anything like intelligence, wouldn’t it!
Make It Easy!: 32
Atticus also decides that these must be the demons that have impregnated the Nazi witches with demon babies. If that matters to you guys.
He kills one of them quickly, two more try to throw fire at him, and he cuts their heads off. Leif kills two more. Then Atticus dodges a spear and gets in a wrestling match with one of them.
“You killed my father,” he snorted in a basso profundo rumble. “Prepare to die!”
“Inigo Montoya? Is that you?” For a moment I had no idea who he was talking about, then I realized he must have been referring to the large ram that escaped during the battle at Tony Cabin. “Oh, I know who you mean now,” I said as we grappled. “Hey, I didn’t kill him. That was Flidais, I swear. You can find her in Tir na nOg, or I could send her a message if you like. No?”
And then Leif kills the demon and everyone moves on.
That Princess Bride reference? Over a hundred people highlighted that on Kindle. I, on the other hand, give it a
LAUGH, DAMNIT!: 44
Once again, Hearne doesn’t know the difference between jokes and references.
The idea that demons have fathers is an interesting one, and that they care enough about family members, or family honor at least, to want to avenge family members? It could be a nice concept to explore. So of course, it’s nothing, it’s a stupid line here, the demon is another mook for Leif to kill.
Random question: do demons die, as such? Atticus describes the bodies as turning into goop shortly after being killed, and that Leif “sent the other… back to hell”, which makes me wonder if killing a demon in the physical world only sends it back to Hell or something. I don’t know, and we don’t get an answer.
Leif tells them to hurry up to interrupt the witches’ ritual; Atticus wonders if they already did enough by killing these demons, as they might have been the demons necessary for the ritual. Leif points out that it’s better to be safe and make sure there aren’t more. Yes, out of the two of them, it’s not the ‘paranoid’ Atticus that says they should keep going to be sure, it’s the other guy instead.
You Keep Using That Word: 41
There’s a bit where they work towards the third floor by throwing a golem head again, and Leif tries to use modern expressions like:
“I am chill with that,” the vampire said stiffly,
“I am the shit, home slice, straight up,”
“Fucking H!”
LAUGH, DAMNIT!: 45
Of course, Atticus corrects him because he thinks that there’s not enough contractions (and also it’s ‘A’, not ‘H’). Tell me, which of those examples really warrants a contraction? The first works either way, the second works better without it.
Also this is a dumb discussion.
The Kids These Days: 14
They hurl the rock through the ceiling, Atticus throws his remaining three grenades through the hole. The grenades explode, there are screams, and Leif throws Atticus through the hole. The first witch Atticus sees is the brunette one who he says is the one that killed Perry the Perky Goth. This witch, not being an idiot like our heroes are, is packing a gun, and starts shooting at Atticus. Atticus dodges, though she manages to blast off his left ear and get a shot through his left thigh.
If you remember, in the last book, Atticus also lost his ear, and it grew back after the Morrigan had vicious rape sex with him. He’s understandably angry about losing another ear.
“If I want to grow this back I’ll have to endure the most terrifying sex imaginable! Gaahhhhh!”
LAUGH, DAMNIT!: 46
This is meant to be the final battle, guys.
The evil witch is trying to reload, and as she does so Atticus runs her through. He tells her that he’s not going to be dramatic and say a line, though he twists the blade and beheads her. At least he’s careful enough to take the head off; I wouldn’t expect that level of caution from him.
Oh, and Leif is fighting some other witch.
Atticus says there’s “an awful lot of dust and debris floating around”, and that there’s light coming from the street below (Atticus and Leif are on the top floor). One of the good witches from Malina’s coven, Bogumila, is fighting the fanatical rabbi from earlier! She’s weaving purple light around to protect herself, and the rabbi is… doing something here, I guess? Atticus helpfully tells us that in his fanaticism, he’s fighting the wrong witch! Because we couldn’t have worked that out for ourselves, I guess.
Anyhow, back on this floor, Atticus sees Leif cut a witch in half. He then turns and comments on Atticus’s ear. They go on and find some bodies that were witches he killed with the grenades. There are ten more figures ahead, doing the ritual thing by chanting. He casts his camouflage spell, and again I wonder why Atticus didn’t just start with this spell, and sneak in and stealth assassinate as many people as he could before engaging in combat?
Again, the answer is because Hearne wanted cool fight scenes.
One of the witches lifts a gun (Hearne just calls it “an automatic weapon” but that could mean pretty much anything, though I think he meant a rifle?) and opens fire. It knocks Atticus back; Leif is immune to bullets, though because he’s a vampire and “man of them pinged off his steel breastplate anyway” and–
…look, steel plate armor was more resistant to bullets than people think. But that’s in regard to bullets made at the time. Even if we accept that steel plate armor would not be penetrated by modern bullets (which I don’t accept, for the record), it would be pounded and dented and damaged. Leif would be knocked around, at the least. It would not just “ping off” him.
Did Not Do Homework: 26
Make It Easy!: 33
So while Leif deals with the shooter by lopping off her head, Atticus throws his sword at the witches doing the ritual. It hits one, and because interrupting a demon ritual often ends badly or something, the two other witches in the ritual get burninated in hellfire. Or something.
And then a giant demon ram pops up! For Reasons!
Are there rules here, or is stuff just happening? Whatever; he doesn’t care about Atticus, and thinks he can have more fun elsewhere. He runs out the window and tries to escape, but the good Polish coven is waiting for him. Malina summons a glowing red whip thing? And lashes the demon’s legs. Then she lifts it up, constricts with the whip thing, and turns it to dust, and… I’m sorry (but not), whatever’s going on there is WAY more interesting than everything Atticus does.
Also the fanatical rabbi’s beard has grown bigger. It’s moving around. That’s weird. We’ll get into that more in the next chapter, though.
One of the evil witches still alive sneaks up on Atticus and punches him in the face, doing that which we all dreamed we could. We’re even told that he loses several teeth, and when he hits the ground, he gets kicked a few times. When Atticus looks up, he can tell it’s one of the witches carrying a demon baby, because she has glowing red eyes and terrible breath. Atticus deals with this by turning off his pain receptors in his head (he can do that, remember?). He sweeps her foot out from under her. Atticus gets up and looks at what’s going on.
There are five living witches (one he knocked over, four fighting Leif), all pregnant with demon babies. Atticus tells us that they’re months away from giving birth, but they’re still super-Hell-powered, because that’s how it works, I guess? This means they’re stronger, faster, have senses that can see through his stealth magic, and can throw hellfire around.
I feel like these powers are something that should have been established before they’re actually introduced, especially since Atticus acts like this isn’t really news to him.
Anyhow, the witch Atticus knocked over gets back up and attacks him, her nails turning into claws. Our protagonist is weaponless, as he threw his sword earlier, and he tells us that her clothes are made from synthetic fibers, so his binding Druid magic won’t work on them. He decides to get his sword back from the witch he threw it into. He dodges some swipes from the evil witch, she hits him in the ear, and then he gets attacked with fire, or something? It doesn’t kill him, as he’s got the magic Screw You Amulet. He gets up, kicks her, and then runs for his sword. The evil witch goes for him, but then Malina’s magic red whip wraps around her and drags her off.
Wait, how can Malina do that? Isn’t she on the ground, and all of this is happening on the third floor? It’s not inconceivable that Malina could get up here, I just don’t think we’ve done any work to show that she had the chance to do it right now.
Make It Easy!: 34
Four witches are blasting Leif with hellfire from four different directions. He’s not doing so great! So he runs off, jumping from the third floor, hoping to find some dirt to put out the fire on him. The witches then turn to Atticus, who isn’t thrilled about fighting them. And then one of the good witches of Malina’s coven arrives.
Klaudia chose that moment to burst through the stairwell door, armed with a silver dagger in her left hand and looking like she’d just had fabulous sex somehow on her way up.
Huh?
Look, I know he said that Klaudia looked like she’d just had sex in the chapter describing her, but I didn’t know what that meant there, and I don’t know what that means now. Hearne, can you please stop sexualizing everyone? What makes Atticus think this is an okay way to think about someone else’s appearance?
Klaudia uses some magic to block hellfire attacks, and knifes two of the witches with her dagger, though they don’t die because being demonically empowered, they can heal. Atticus attacks a witch and kills her.
There are three witches left? I lost count, but the text says that, which is handy, I guess.
Some more fighting, Atticus kills another witch, and Klaudia kills the remaining two.
“Thanks for the assist,” I said. “Where did you learn to fight like that?”
She shrugged. “Vietnam.”
“You’ve got to be shitting me.”
She grinned and her eyes sparkled mischievously. “Yeah, I am.”
If this is a joke, I don’t get it. I want to make some comment about how apparently in the Iron Druid-verse, the REAL fighting skillz come from Asia, because Hearne thinks Asian martial arts are unbeatable or something. But the way this exchange goes makes me think it’s not meant to be taken seriously? I don’t know; it’s just weird.
Then they hear a scream! So they rush out to find out what’s going on. Thus ending the chapter!
Welp… I’ll admit that this final battle is better than the one for the last book. Atticus hasn’t demanded anyone die for him, no one throws bird poop in the villain’s face, and Oberon isn’t here to make South Park references. That doesn’t mean it’s good, though: as I outlined above, it would make much more sense if Atticus and Leif had tried a sneakier approach, or brought guns with them.
I understand that Hearne wanted a cool climax, but he couldn’t think of a way to justify it that doesn’t make our protagonist look stupid? Like, that they wanted to do a stealthy attack, but the Nazi witches sensed them with demonic magic so they had to do a full-frontal assault? And again, by not actually having Atticus meet any of the witches until the final third of the novel, and introducing all the good witch allies, makes this all seem rushed. It doesn’t feel like the culmination of a story that’s been building all novel, it feels like Atticus has been farting around doing side quests until, once again, the villains force him to face them.
Also? One might think that with both the last book and this book having final battles that featured witches and summoning demons, that this would be the main thread throughout the books? And as far as I know, it’s not. It’s just there because the literal forces of Hell exist to create mooks for our heroes to knock down. Great writing, man. Way to make actual Hell into a non-problem.
Are you guys ready to wrap up this book? I sure am.
Better Than You: 18
Did Not Do Homework: 26
The Kids These Days: 14
You Keep Using That Word: 41
Make It Easy!: 34
LAUGH, DAMNIT!: 46
1 I watched a lot of Animal Planet growing up.
2 Which ones? Y’know. Those ones. From Asia. Yeah, those.
3 For reference: Fragarach cuts through anything, Moralltach can kill with a direct cut. Though, as Smith noted in the sporking for the last book, a normal sword would technically have the same effect if wielded well, making the magic on this sword… almost entirely pointless.
Comment
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Michael on 30 May 2024, 14:02 said:
Concerning “Die Einberufung de verzehrenden Flammen.” The most glaring bit is that it should be “der” and de isn’t actually a word I know. Beyond that, I’d judge the spell name somewhat stiltes but intelligible. The most questionable word choice is ‘Einberufung’ which has the conotations of something like getting drafted by the army, so they “summon” you to appear at their base through entirely mundane means. That could work with the idea of them forcing that ram demon that showed up at the end into their services, but if you’re explicitly going for summoning in the sense of ‘demon summoning’ it should be something like “Beschwörung” or “Heraufbeschwörung” if you want to be fancy about it.
That aside, this sure was a climatic battle, I suppose. I have to ask, does the book really just breeze through the various stages of the fight as much as the recap makes this sound? I don’t exactly want to say that this would have been better if the random golems and the floor full of demons all got their own chapter to flesh them out, but by the sound of it this feels like a case of “no individual challenge is allowed to stand in Atticus’s way for too long, so his big fights instead need to be a large numbers of smaller threats that aren’t much of an issue, but because they get dealt with one by one the conflict keeps going for a while.”
Faranae on 30 May 2024, 17:45 said:
Those streets do intersect in that way in downtown Tempe, although it seems excessive for “crossed the Rural Road Bridge” because that’s what it amounts to. As a way of showing he knows the area or giving it local flavor, it’s pretty meh since those are all main roads.
That’d be because Frank Miller is a white supremacist (and general bigot), 300 itself is pretty in keeping with a whole bunch of white supremacist nonsense about Sparta and masculinity, the film version amps all the problematic elements to 11, the National Review even provided an introduction to the re-issue of the comic, and Zack Synder is either a crypto-fascist or simply too stupid to recognize fascism when it’s right there in front of him.
She’s my hero!
Why does it work on IRON?!
The Vietnam War, maybe? That’s my best shot.
Also, I am very pleased to say I finally remembered how to do block quotes on the first try
Brooklyn on 31 May 2024, 07:54 said:
So just to be clear, the Nazis (depending on your source) have a vast knowledge of Judaism, including knowing God’s real name; know how to write the Hebrew for “truth” (emet); or possibly knowing elemental stuff, which shows up in Nathan Ausubel’s 1948 retelling of the golem of Prague in A Treasury of Jewish Folklore. Or some combination thereof.
Now, last I checked, Nazis didn’t know that much about Judaism. Seems unlikely.
Also, the visibly Jewish, Orthodox rabbi is fighting with the Nazis? Does he not realize that they’re Nazis?
Juracan on 31 May 2024, 09:31 said:
Alright, so I’m double-checking to make sure I copied it right, and it turns out that I left out the ‘r’, so yes, in the book, it is: Die Einberufung der verzehrenden Flammen. That’s a typo on my part.
Either way, I’m glad you came along to analyze the German. The Acknowledgements has a bit where he says he consulted someone for the German, though he admits there may be issues in it… which makes me wonder how this consultation actually went.
In the sake of fairness: I am going through this maybe too quickly, because it is a long chapter and I don’t want to get too bogged down. All of this IS in one chapter, though, and none of the threats, as you say, are really fleshed out other than as another wave of mooks to clear through. I also think this is a matter of ‘Atticus is too powerful for one single boss fight, so throw hordes of mooks at him.’
Good to know!
Frank Miller’s such a weird case, but that’s been chronicled enough elsewhere. I recently read Ronin by Miller, and I found it an absolutely baffling piece of fiction that I wondered how it even happened. For what it’s worth, he regrets writing Holy Terror, though as far as I know he hasn’t elaborated why—so for all we know it isn’t because he realizes how bad it is, as much as he regrets people knowing he felt that way??
I don’t know! But there’s this one comic) that’s written as a response to 300 from the point of view of helots.
As to Zack Snyder; I do not think it’s fair to call him fascist. Publicly, he has fairly liberal views, though as you said, it’s possible that he just doesn’t recognize what he’s doing. Reviews of Rebel Moon (I haven’t seen it myself and don’t have much incentive to) seem to indicate that, “Snyder has no idea what he’s doing” might be a running theme with the man.
Uh… sorry, Chief, I got no answer for you.
That was my thought, too, but this is all we get on it.
Great job!
For the record, according to Chapter 21 the evil witches aren’t technically Nazis, only using the Nazis as pawns during World War II. I think that’s splitting hairs, though, because they’re a coven of German witches who apparently fanatically hated Jewish people and had influence of Hitler. So I refer to them as ‘Nazi witches’ throughout the sporking. YMMV on whether that’s fair, but I think it fits.
You’re not wrong, though.
Said rabbi isn’t actually with the Nazi witches—presumably, after the fight started, he showed up and started fighting with the first witch he found, because of his fanatical hatred of witchcraft.
We’ll get more on him in the next chapter, though, don’t worry.
Brooklyn on 1 June 2024, 08:04 said:
Ok, the witches are Henry Ford and/or Tsar Nicholas the second. (Depends if the hate is racial or religious.) Neither of which knew much about Jews, as far as I know.
Also, thank goodness the rabbi isn’t with the Fords/Tsars.
“More on him in the next chapter, don’t worry.” Judging by his past portrayal of the rabbi and Judaism, I’m worrying.
Juracan on 1 June 2024, 08:51 said:
…yeah, that’s fair.
The least I can say is that it’s not as bad as the following book, where Atticus is cornered by a bunch of angry fanatical magic rabbi in a bar.
Brooklyn on 2 June 2024, 08:29 said:
I kind of want Hearne to learn more about Judaism but I’m also afraid that it’ll get worse. Somehow. It’s not an easy feat.
Also, regarding the drunk rabbis: WHAT. Does it make any sense at all, or was Hearne just like “Yeah Jews aren’t gonna mind being portrayed as fanatics. It’s not like that skirts really close to antisemitic stereotypes often used to justify killing them!” again?
Juracan on 2 June 2024, 20:16 said:
Oh no, the rabbis aren’t drunk, they just corner Atticus while he’s in a bar with his drinking buddy… [check notes] …Jesus. Right, yes, Atticus is in a bar drinking with Jesus, who is whining that Atticus is the only one who never asks him for things, and then the rabbis come in and attack Atticus.
Brooklyn on 4 June 2024, 13:27 said:
So, the only Jew in that scene, possibly the whole series (I don’t remember any explicitly Jewish characters who are portrayed positively, or even neutrally), who isn’t portrayed negatively is Jesus? And I’m not super familiar with Christian theology but my impression was that Jesus didn’t like drinking? Also, would it kill Hearne to find one non-jerky, actually sympathetic character who happens to be Jewish? Like the witch from the last book, except Hearne realizes she’s actually sympathetic and a decent human being and decides not to kill her? (What was her name? Emilia?)
Also, I was considering a brief comment about how most Jews aren’t Orthodox rabbis and are a lot less visibly Jewish and stereotypical, but one, these aren’t a random sample of Jews, these are Jews who know about magic, and those Jews may very well skew towards Orthodox rabbis, and two, asking questions is a kind of stereotypical Jewish thing—it goes with arguing—and the first paragraph was all questions.
The arguing stereotype isn’t too far off, either. There’s a bit in the Talmud—a bunch of legal cases/stories, disorganized, not speaking in complete sentences and with strange logic, as written down by several distractible rabbis, at least one of which was supposedly a criminal, over several generations—regarding one Rabbi Yirmeya. They were discussing chicks found and if you should return them to the person living nearby. The line where you can take them is fifty cubits. R. Yirmeya raised the question: what if one leg was on one side of the fifty cubit line, and one on the other? The talmudic response? “And for this, they kicked R. Yirmeya out of the House of Study.” Or something like that, I forget the exact wording. Or, as an even better example, the Oven of Akhnai, where God is overruled, despite stating the correct answer clearly, but this digression is long. It’s a good story though, and it gets even better if you read the full thing (when told well).
Sorry for the digression.
Juracan on 4 June 2024, 19:18 said:
I don’t know if he’s the only sympathetic Jewish character in the series—I’ve only read three books. I suppose there’s also Mary in an earlier chapter. But for two books, yeah, the only Jewish characters who show up and aren’t fanatical douchebags are Mary and Jesus.
For the record, Jesus doesn’t seem to have anything against alcohol—what most mainline denominations consider His first public miracle is transforming water into wine at a wedding. But drinking wine at a party or at a feast is a bit different than drinking beer at a bar with a friend.
There’s also not really any indication that Emilia (yes, you got her name correct—though in-text, she says she goes by ‘Emily’ because she and Hearne think Americans would find ‘Emilia’ weird and foreign) is Jewish. All we know is that the Nazis apparently tried to rape her when Malina intervened and saved her, and then Emilia joined the coven.
No problem! It’s always good to learn something new.
Brooklyn on 5 June 2024, 07:42 said:
Honestly Emilia would be a way better protagonist than Atticus, not least because she’s actually killable.
Also, minor question: when Jesus says Atticus doesn’t ask him for anything, is that even true?
Juracan on 5 June 2024, 18:50 said:
I mean, he doesn’t usually, though during that sequence in the next book, he definitely asks for help against the zealous rabbi demon hunters.
Hearne’s depiction of Jesus is also abysmal, for the record, but we’ll get to that when we reach the next book.
Brooklyn on 6 June 2024, 07:43 said:
What, were you expecting him to treat people with respect? Or non-fanatical Jews? Or women who aren’t sexualized? Sane heroes who are invested in the story? Read a different book… it’s not like this one is popular. (If only.)
Also, Atticus wasn’t born immortal, right? So how in the world did he make it to adulthood?
Juracan on 8 June 2024, 15:11 said:
Well, no, I suppose I didn’t expect it to go well, but it’s somewhat alarming because Jesus is one of the few cases where Hearne is actually trying to show a religious/mythological figure in a way that’s… well, not ‘respectful’, but he is trying to get him right. It’s just that for Hearne, that means making Jesus into a dudebro like his lead character. But at least he makes a point to say that he knows Jesus isn’t white, and that makes it all okay! [/end saracasm]
He was not born immortal, so this is a great question! The way he achieves everything else I imagine: with contrivance and everyone else around him inexplicably bailing him out when they have no reason to.
Brooklyn on 10 June 2024, 07:42 said:
I mean, I guess it’s good that he knows Jesus isn’t white, but if he’s trying to portray him accurately that’s like a cookie for clicking the second, reliable, result on Google instead of the first, unreliable, one.
Also, I have an idea for how he survived: he was paranoid for real. But once the threat of death was taken away, he figured he could just do whatever.