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antishurtugal_rebornMG: Well, everyone, it’s time to continue our journey through Robert Newcomb’s The Fifth Sorceress as we draw ever closer to the end! Last time… you know what happened. Succiu raped Tristan and got pregnant, and Wigg gave some very vague and unhelpful advice. Today… the Reckoning is upon us at last! Joining us after a chapter-and-a-half of absence will once again be Len and Yhani!
Chapter Thirty-One
Len: Ugh. Why? But it looks like there’s only one chapter today, and we’re apparently getting close to the end, so… come on, ‘Hani. Let’s do this.
Yhani: *slips her hand into Len’s* Yes, Dear Heart. We shall. And now… it is time.
Len: So, we open with Princey still in his gibbet in the Sanctuary; he’s just regaining consciousness apparently as the sun has come overhead, since it’s now getting light inside again. It was somehow brighter than before, the scene before him more alive this time, whatever that means. Looking over at his fellow prisoners, he sees Geldon, also rubbing his eyes and adjusting to the light, and Wigg, though without his wizard’s tail he somehow didn’t look quite like Wigg. Which can only be an improvement, in my book. When Wigg sees him, he raises his eyebrow, apparently hoping Princey’s figured out what he was trying to get at last chapter, but no luck. Before either of them can speak, suddenly they hear footsteps and then the Coven file into the room, Failee in the lead, carrying a goblet and wearing the Paragon, and the rest behind her. And finally Shailiha. Shailiha, he thought. The fifth sorceress. My sister. You know, I’m starting to get a feeling the title of this thing refers to Shailiha. Just a hunch, mind. Whatever could be the reason for that? Apparently, each of the sorceresses is wearing a black gown – of course they’re wearing black – with the Pentangle embroidered on it in gold, but Princey can’t help but looking at Shailiha, with an impossible, maddening mixture of love and hate. Love for the woman she had once been; hate for the woman – the monster – she had become. Princey, friend, we’ve been over this before, but clearly, you’ve not gotten it through your thick head yet, so we’ll do it one more time. She’s been brainwashed. She’s not in her right mind. She’s not doing any of this of her own free will. So maybe, just maybe, hold off on the “monster” bit, huh? But then his attention is drawn away towards Succiu, and he's left staring in wonder at the woman who had raped him presumably only a few hours earlier. Yeah, Newcomb, “wonder’s” not the word I’d have used there. Anyway, what’s so shocking is that Succiu already looks like she’s seven or eight months (or moons) pregnant, even though it probably hasn’t even been a day yet. Pregnancy somehow made her even more impossibly beautiful, the almond eyes, long black hair, and red lips even more inviting. Such power. A true sorceress of the craft… Dear Sovereigns save me, even now, after everything she’s done to him, Princey still can’t help but ogle Succiu? Newcomb, what in the deepest pits of Khyber is wrong with you? But he can tell she’ll give birth soon, and then the product of her crime against me will be among us.
Dastardly Deeds: 171 (for the reminder of the rape)
Gender Wars: 150 (one point for eeevil Shailiha, one point for Tristan still waxing poetic about Succiu’s hotness)
Yhani: Succiu then notices Tristan watching her and pulls Shailiha into an embrace with an affectionate hand before addressing him. Your blood never ceases to amaze us, Chosen One… the child in my womb grows faster than even we had predicted. Later today, early tomorrow at the latest, you shall have a son. Imagine, the firstborn child of the Chosen One may in fact be born on the day of the Reckoning. Fitting, don’t you think? Tristan himself, for once, displays a natural reaction, nearly brought to tears by the thought of his firstborn child being born from such a monster… and then he immediately forgets about it and goes back to wondering about the meaning of Wigg’s words, which he still cannot interpret; he wonders about Wigg’s locket, and what it is for, but cannot figure that out, either. Failee then approaches Wigg’s cage; Tristan could see the madness in her eyes… three hundred years she has waited for this day. Failee then addresses Wigg as Old One…
MG: Which makes no sense for her to do; as we’ll have confirmation of before the end of this chapter, they’re about the same age, or at least from the same generation (and they were born before the discovery of time enchantments).
Yhani: …and says they have come full circle. She says that some of the other sorceresses think that they should have killed Wigg already and that leaving him alive is a danger, but Failee disagrees. She is pleased to have robbed Wigg of his power, the way I wished to see each of the males of endowed blood but for now she wishes to make certain he witnesses the moment of her ultimate triumph. *she shakes her head disapprovingly* Now, now. Has this ever worked out, for any archvillain? I think not. But once the Reckoning is done, she will follow Shailiha’s advice and turn Wigg into a blood stalker and unleash him on Eutracia. Wigg, however, takes one last chance to reach Failee, insisting that her knowledge is incomplete and will doom them all. You have known me for eons, and I have never lied to you… this is my last warning! Stop this madness, or we may all die. *she sniffs disdainfully* Come, now. Three centuries is hardly eons. And personally, I doubt both Wigg’s sincerity and, especially, his competence – then again, it is not as if Failee has demonstrated either of those, either. Failee merely dismisses this as a wizard’s warning, apparently a tradition of the Directorate – excuse me, but if Wigg is expecting you to destroy the world, surely by warning you he is trying to save his own life as well? I fail to see how that is mandated by “tradition.” But Failee says she will not be tricked, and then tells Tristan that whatever Wigg had tried to tell him will be of no use, as Wigg is wrong (so quick to assume that, are you? Then again, Wigg has been wrong about a great many things so far, so perhaps a safe assumption…) and there is no way to stop her now. But Tristan is certain that Wigg must know something and is determined to trust him. Too many times I have not trusted the old one and have paid the price for it. I shall never mistrust him again. My dear boy, trusting Wigg has gotten you into this mess; I would not be so certain it can also get you out.
Blood Matters: 169
Gender Wars: 151
Plot-Induced Stupidity: 65
Len: Well, it turns out Failee did come to a compromise with the rest of the Coven who wanted Wigg dead (which ones?) and so she casts some spells on Wigg, first silencing his voice (thank the Traveler!) and then freezing him in place. Both Tristan and Geldon watch in horror, and Failee explains that The Lead Wizard is now unable to speak or to raise his hands or arms to gesture to you in any way… qualities I enjoy in wizards, as if we’d literally not just seen that happen. She then clarifies that Wigg isn’t in pain *she looks almost disappointed* and can still watch the ritual but will be powerless to stop it or to communicate anything to Tristan. Finally, she announces that it’s time and glides – literally, I assume – over to the altar while Tristan tries to figure out what Wigg was trying to tell him. He remembers how Faegan described the ritual – the sorceresses will mix their blood together in the goblet and place it directly in the shaft of sunlight, then suspend the Paragon over it so the light will be filtered through it, charging the blood, already strengthened by the purity of Shailiha’s blood, with the power of the stone. Then the sorceresses will drink from the goblet, combining their powers, and perform the Reckoning. World enslavement… the death of Geldon and Wigg. The loss forever of Shailiha and her daughter to the Coven. And the enslavement of myself to produce Failee’s super being, so that she might rule with it in perpetuity, continuing to “experiment” on the masses. The insanity never ends! And the culmination of it all is almost here. *flatly* Thanks for that recap, Princey. We knew it all already, but it’s the thought that counts. Anyway, Failee’s now gathered the other sorceresses around her and started chanting in a language Tristan doesn’t understand (what language? Hells if I know! Dunno why she’s chanting at all, either, since magic in this world doesn’t normally seem to require incantations…). Then Vona offers her wrist and Failee makes a cut in it and lets her bleed into the goblet, and Princey tells us unnecessarily that the bloodletting has begun – yeah, I think we all kinda noticed – and soon they’ll be ready to call the light. And then he goes back to trying to work out Wigg’s words, and he still doesn’t get it. But while he’s thinking this, Failee finishes bleeding the other sorceresses and adds her own blood to the mix, and then gestures for the others to take their thrones (for some reason Newcomb takes time to note how elegantly the hems of their gowns flow over their feet – got another kink you’ve not told us about there?). Failee then places the goblet reverently in the center of the table and places the Paragon directly above it; ‘cause it doesn’t have a wearer, its color immediately starts to fade, but it stays hovering in midair anyway. She then takes her seat, and all five sorceresses sit silently staring at the stone, blood dripping down their arms (hey, this whole series is the Chronicles of Blood and Stone, right? Get it?) and Tristan can only stare at his sister, the fifth sorceress. We get it, Newcomb, you don’t have to keep reminding us! And then, suddenly, a shaft of the purest, whitest light Tristan had ever seen comes shooting down from the skylight and strikes the Paragon. The blood and the stone are calling forth the light, just as Faegan said they would. Suddenly, Princey notices that the Coven have all gone into some sort of trance with their eyes rolled back in their heads, and he realizes that while they’re doing this, they must be both blind and defenseless, and if he’s going to do something, this is his chance.
Exposition Intrusion: 252 (even at the climax, Newcomb still can’t resist the urge to tell us things we already know!)
Blood Matters: 172
Dastardly Deeds: 172
Gender Wars: 152
Yhani: And so, as the light’s intensity builds, Tristan tells himself to think of something to do before the light blinds you for life (though for some reason it occurs to him that the Coven will not care if he is blinded, as they only want his seed, which is perhaps not something that is helpful in this case). Suddenly, the Paragon turns pure white and then refracts the light into thousands of separate shards of light, each one seeming to have both form and substance, as if one could literally reach out and touch them. Their beauty was dazzling. Each of the shards had its own distinct color, and they all pointed downward toward the blood in the goblet. Tristan realizes that the shards are growing, and when they touch the blood, that is when the ritual will be complete and the blood will be fully empowered, combining the powers of not only the Coven but the blood of the female Chosen One. Which means, of course, that he only has until then to act. He racks his brain for the answer to what Wigg was trying to tell him; he remembers that the Paragon is supposed to lose power if not either around the neck of a person with endowed blood or immersed in the waters of the Caves, but now it is once more a bright red and clearly returned to its full strength. How can this be? Suddenly, Tristan realizes the truth, the knowledge flowing through his consciousness, heart and endowed blood as if it had been there always, from the day of his birth. The light is sustaining the stone. Now, melodramatic descriptions aside, it occurs to me – surely Newcomb could have foreshadowed earlier that the Paragon can, under certain circumstances at least, be empowered by sunlight, since the entire climax appears to be about to hinge on that fact? And then, unsettlingly, he realizes that the knowledge did not come from his mind at all, but from the endowed blood that now so quickly coursed through his veins. He realizes that the Directorate did not know that sunlight can sustain the Paragon because that knowledge must have been contained in the Vagaries of the Tome – and yet, surely Faegan must have known, as he was the one Failee tortured knowledge of the Vagaries out of? So why did he not tell Tristan this clearly when he had the chance? But finally, he realizes what he must do – he must gather his magical abilities to force the Paragon out of the light, ruining the ritual and leaving the Coven powerless. He realizes that this might also permanently cause the Paragon to lose its powers, thereby destroying all magic (considering what I have seen of this world’s magic, I do not think that would be such a loss…) but if he does nothing, the world itself might be destroyed. And, though the Coven remain motionless, the shards of light have almost reached the goblet, and thus his window to act is rapidly closing. He recalls seeing through the illusion at Shadowood – in order to see the bridge, you first had to stop trying to see it, and let it come to you – and Wigg’s earlier advice about how he alone might be able to use some of his magic during the Blood Communion. He realizes that he must somehow shut down his mind… and join with his blood. *flatly* As you are alive, I believe that, by definition, you already are joined with your blood, in at least one sense! But he still cannot muster the strength to move the stone. He almost fancies that he can feel his blood surging in his ears, telling him to continue, and he tries and fails once more… and then, out of nowhere, he heard his blood call to him. No, Chosen One. Do not use your mind. Use me. Tristan’s blood is literally speaking to him. In clear, intelligible words. This… this is deeply concerning, and in any other book I would assume that he is now possessed. But, considering that it is Newcomb, I have a feeling he wants us to take it at face value. *beat* But, for the record, my skin is still crawling.
Exposition Intrusion: 255 (more recapping of stuff we already know)
Blood Matters: 177 (see what I mean about endowed blood acting like some sort of Venomesque parasite?)
Contrivances and Coincidences: 42 (for… everything about Tristan’s realization of what he has to do)
Len: Well, after that… deeply creepy bit of personal revelation, Tristan relaxed his mind – doubt it was that hard – stares at the Paragon, and then telekinetically shoves on it, moving it slowly at first, and then completely out of the light, where it fell to the marble floor of the Sanctuary. Huh; after all that buildup, that was sure easy! The result was overwhelming. All the shards of light shatter into smaller pieces, and then all those pieces start spinning around the room like a tornado, while the Coven mistresses are still completely unaware (didn’t they, you know, feel the Paragon get knocked out of place and their big ritual they’re all involved in go belly up?). The shards tore relentlessly into the bodies of the sorceresses, tossing them from their thrones and onto the floor… he could hear the screams of the defenseless women as the shards went round and round, stabbing and slicing through their bodies. *beat* Newcomb, you’re enjoying this far, far too much, aren’t you? Finally, all the shards get swept up together and shoot up out the skylight, and then the gibbets vanish and Wigg, Tristan and Geldon all get dropped unceremoniously to the floor. Well, Tristan landed like a cat, despite the weakness in his legs, ‘cause of course he did, and as soon as lands he draws his dreggan, which the Coven were too stupid to take away. But he quickly realizes he won’t need it; the whole room is drenched in blood, and Failee, Vona, Zabarra and Succiu all lay on the floor, dead. *beat* Seriously, that’s it? The Coven’s all dead, just like that? After all that buildup, they got cut to pieces without even realizing what was happening to them – without Tristan even really doing it on purpose? Is that really the best you’ve got, Newcomb? *beat* Don’t answer that.
MG: I will say… yes. This is indeed the end of the Coven. There are a few loose ends left to clean up, but for the most part… this is it. It’s terribly anticlimactic, but frankly… Newcomb’s got a lot worse coming in later books when it comes to sudden, out-of-left-field villain deaths.
Len: …’course he does. *facepalm* Anyway, we get a description of how the sorceresses were all maimed, ‘cause we clearly needed to know that – Zabarra’s been decapitated, Vona’s missing an arm, Failee’s missing a leg, and Succiu’s just staring blankly up at the ceiling. The prince looked sadly at her abdomen, mourning the child she carried. My firstborn, he thought. He then, finally, sees that Wigg and Geldon are unharmed too and picking themselves up, and wonders why they’re all fine when the sorceresses died (if I guess “because you’re all dudes,” do I get a medal?). Suddenly, he finds Shailiha, alive but weeping, rubbing her stomach and staring blankly, and Tristan realizes this is just what she was doing after the massacre at Tammerland. He runs over to her and picks her up, and though it’s clear she doesn’t recognize him – or anyone – he promises never to leave her again. Wait, wait. Has she just been… I dunno, reset – back to the coronation, after she was first traumatized but before all the brainwashing happened to her? Is that the copout Newcomb’s gonna use? I mean, I guess it’s better than “Princey murders his pregnant, brainwashed sister for The Greater Good” but it’s still about the next worst thing he could’ve done with this plotline, mostly ‘cause it lets him off the hook for having to do anything interesting with it. Maybe I’m wrong, but… somehow I doubt it.
MG: Well, spoilers, but… you’re not wrong. For the most part, anyway.
Len: Dammit.
Gender Wars: 153 (of course Newcomb feels the need to stress that the sorceresses are “defenseless women” as they’re dying)
Plot-Induced Stupidity: 66 (and of course, the sorceresses didn’t’ have any means of warning themselves set up in case their ritual went wrong)
Contrivances and Coincidences: 45
Yhani: Suddenly, the entire chamber begins to shake; the floor cracks, and Tristan can hear the sound of thunder from outside. He manages to shield Shailiha with his body and realizes that just like the deaths of Natasha and the harpy, the Coven’s deaths have triggered a disturbance in the atmosphere (why this disturbance politely waited until they had all been dead for several minutes, I am less sure on…). Finally, the disturbance subsides, and Tristan sees something that would remain burned into his memory forever. Wigg is holding Failee’s body in his arms and is visibly weeping. Finally, he looks up at Tristan and explains. Once, long ago, before the Sorceress’s War, Failee was my wife. I loved her dearly. And in many ways, I always have. *blankly* Which is why you had her tortured, starved, and condemned to what you thought would be a slow, lingering death at sea rather than finding some loophole in your vows to give her a quick, humane end? If that is how Wigg treats those who he loves, I can only shudder to think what he does to people he actually hates! And, well, I must say, the prospect of spending however many decades married to Wigg might explain why Failee finally snapped and decided to conquer the world. People have certainly done worse for less. This leaves Tristan to reflect on how it all makes sense after how Wigg has reacted every time Failee was mentioned, and how Failee in turn acted around him – but honestly, I have a hard time seeing it. It was certainly implied they had a history, but that they were married and still, ostensibly, on some level had feelings for each other? No, Newcomb, I do not feel you set that up properly. But Tristan even thinks this makes the wizards sparing the sorceresses make more sense, and why Wigg saw to their exile personally, no doubt an appointment made out of reverence and respect for their new Lead Wizard and for the woman he had once loved. Again, Wigg, so far as he knew, was condemning Failee and the Coven to a very grim and unpleasant end at sea; I am seeing very little mercy, much less love, in his actions there! And we know why the wizards did not kill the sorceresses – their vows prohibited it, and they, apparently did not even try to find a loophole in them. But Wigg explains further how Failee began to lose her mind during their marriage – hmm, I wonder why? – and nothing Wigg could do was able to help her, which is unsurprising, considering his record. After she left me, she began teaching other women of endowed blood the workings of the craft. But only those women who would blindly follow her insanities.
MG: And I’ve mentioned this before, but this is yet another thing that Newcomb will retcon in later books, which establish that yes, Failee had male followers too, at least one of whom we’ll eventually find is still out there and will be a major villain down the line. On a related note, while Failee is indeed dead here, Tristan and Wigg are going to continue tripping over her legacy multiple times over the course of the remaining books – which just makes her look even more incompetent here, because it turns out she had a number of resources at her disposal she could have used in this book but didn’t because
Yhani: *flatly* I can hardly wait. But Wigg ends his account by repeating that it was my wife who was responsible for the Sorceresses’ War and both Geldon and Tristan admitting they did not know. Wigg then asks about Shailiha, and Tristan says that she is unhurt but hysterical and neither recognizes nor fears him; he then wonders if he will have to kill her after all. Come back to me, my sister, or I shall have to take the light from your eyes and leave you here, in a foreign land. I believe regardless of what happens, Shailiha needs healing, because the person who did this to her is dead and the threat of the Reckoning is ended, and one way or another she will have damage and trauma to recover from. What an understanding brother Tristan is! Wigg says that he’ll examine her shortly, and that though his powers have not returned, when Failee died so did most of her enchantments. First, they need to find the Paragon. After some searching, Tristan recovers it and passes it to Wigg; Tristan wonders if he means to wear the stone, even though it has not yet had time to unbond from its previous wearer, but Wigg has something else in mind. He takes out his locket, opens it, places the stone inside it and then closes it up again. Apparently, the locket contains waters from the Caves, which can also sustain the stone (and so long as it is in the waters, Wigg can wear it without ill effect even without having time to bond it)! And I must wonder – what? I am having a very hard time imagining the scale here – either the locket was much larger than I had thought, or the stone much smaller, in order for it to fit! And I am reasonably certain that it is not even a locket at all, at this point, but more of a bottle, or even a jug. Wigg then congratulates Tristan on figuring out what he had to do, and Tristan asks how Wigg knew moving the stone would stop the ritual. I do not know; it seems fairly obvious to me that if the stone is drawing power from the light, cutting it off from that power will have disastrous consequences. Tristan wonders why Failee did not simply grab the stone and put it back on (I do not think she had time? They were, apparently, killed almost immediately…) and Wigg explains that, in their trance-like state and protecting their eyes, the Coven were simply unaware of the danger until it was too late. What ultimately killed the mistresses was Failee’s incomplete knowledge of the Vagaries. And thus, she died as she lived, undone by her own ineptitude. What a stirring tale. Tristan then asks why the Coven died and they did not – because they were doing the ritual and you were not, I suppose? Though that does not explain Shailiha… - but Wigg explains that the light shards, being connected to the Paragon, needed magic to sustain them. When the light cut off, they attached themselves to the nearest other source – endowed blood. Geldon had none, and Wigg was presently powerless, but the Coven were vulnerable. And as far as you and your sister are concerned, I can only assume that, ironically, it was the vast quality of your blood that protected you from them. Simply put, your blood may have been too powerful for them to thrive upon, and so they rejected it. In the end, I doubt we will ever really know. Thank you for that stirring insight, O Wigg. That clears everything up.
Exposition Intrusion: 258
Blood Matters: 180
Gender Wars: 155
Plot-Induced Stupidity: 67 (this time, the sorceresses were done in by their own stupidity!)
Contrivances and Coincidences: 47
Len: Well, Wigg examines Shailiha a bit and concludes she’s physically fine and will soon give birth (I’ve given up on trying to work out the timeline here) but she may be experiencing some lingering effects of the Agonies and just watched the women she considered her sisters torn to shreds in front of her eyes, plus still having the memories of the deaths of her actual family still buried in there somewhere. The total damage may be more than even we had assumed. Yeah, and you’re clearly real torn up about this. Aren’t you supposed to love this woman like a daughter? Asshole. Wigg adds that he can’t be sure if she’ll ever fully recover, and they need to make a decision about what to do with her now, before they leave. And then he flat out says that if her condition doesn’t improve, they can’t take her back to Eutracia. To return one of such endowed blood, one who was actually a member of the Coven and still exhibits the effects of Failee’s Agonies, would be completely irresponsible, no matter how much we love her. There is very little I can do for her, since I am not trained in the Vagaries. Faegan, perhaps, but not me. So, uh, maybe let Faegan examine her too before making any rash decisions here? Then again, Faegan was the guy who didn’t rescue his own daughter because it was too much effort, so maybe you and he are cut from the same cloth after all. And, uh, quick question, but Shailiha’s still untrained, right? And now she doesn’t have the other sorceresses backing her up; even if she is still brainwashed, how much of a threat can she be, anyway? Anyway, Wigg also says they can’t just leave her here, either, since that would put her at the mercy of the Minions, who don’t have anyone holding their leash now that Failee and the others are dead, and you know what that would mean. *grimly* Yeah, yeah, I do. Have I mentioned lately I hate this damned book? Well, Princey thinks to himself that he’d vowed to never doubt Wigg again, but he also wants to think of everything he can to help Shailiha before doing anything rash, and okay, kid, for once you’re thinking straight. He then asks Geldon if he knows what day it is (apparently because he’s lived in the Recluse all his life – well, not quite, wasn’t he born in the Ghetto? – which I guess helps… somehow) and Geldon says it’s the sixth day since they arrived in Parthalon. Faegan’s portal will open again in the Ghetto this afternoon, and then once again tomorrow, but if they wait that long the Minions will figure out what happened and come after them. And so Geldon goes over to the skylight, looks up and declares that it’s still dark but dawn will break soon. *beat* What in the hells, Newcomb? If it’s still dark, then where did that light that fed the Paragon come from!? Was it starlight? Moonlight? But it was getting light in the Sanctuary before the Coven arrived and started their ritual, which implied the sun had come up and was shining through the skylight. Clearly the light had to come from outside somewhere, and it wasn’t something the Coven just summoned from nothing, because it was called down through the damned skylight! What is going on here, Newcomb!? *recovering herself slightly* Well, assuming it’s almost dawn, Geldon guesses they have about seven hours left to reach the portal and escape Parthalon. Tristan, for once both showing a spine and a conscience at the same time, flat out tells Wigg they have to take Shailiha with them, and that they owe her and her child every chance they can give them. Wigg insists that they’ll need a wagon for her to ride in, since she can’t ride horseback in her current state, and also, he doesn’t want her to give birth before they get back, though when Tristan asks why he doesn’t want to explain. Finally, after a bit of prompting, he says he’s afraid the Chimerian Agonies might pass to Shailiha’s child. And, okay, huh? How? The Agonies were designed to break Shailiha’s mind through torture, but her kid wouldn’t even have been aware of that happening! How the hells could the Agonies pass to her, anyway? I just… guh. No matter how much he tries to explain it, Newcomb’s magic just doesn’t make sense, and I hate it.
Exposition Intrusion: 260
Blood Matters: 182
Dastardly Deeds: 173 (of course the Minions would rape Shailiha as soon as they get free)
Gender Wars: 156 (after much consideration, I’m giving this a point, because honestly, do you think we’d be having this conversation about Shailiha if she was a man?)
Gratuitous Grimdark: 89 (again, for the Minion rape)
Contrivances and Coincidences: 49 (one point for the inexplicable confusion with the time, one point for the possibility that the Agonies might pass to Shailiha’s child, despite that making no sense)
Yhani: And then, of course, Wigg admits the real reason for all of this. Either way, we cannot leave living endowed blood here in Parthalon… removing endowed blood from this place, coupled with retrieving the stone, was the very reason we came. But bringing back with us endowed blood that might be tainted by the Coven is obviously impossible. *arching her eyebrow* And has the fact that this endowed blood is contained inside a person entered into your calculations at all, O Wigg? I thought not. But you lay your true priorities bare at last – you care about the blood, and about the stone, not about Shailiha or about the world. After all, it was the very reason you came, was it not? But Tristan, alas, concludes he cannot argue with Wigg’s logic; Wigg, thankfully, decides that they need to leave now before answering the, ah, Shailiha question and tells Tristan to help his sister up. Before he can, the Sanctuary is suddenly struck by an aftershock, with tosses the thrones and altar into the air (but not the people, somehow?) and rips a great gash in the floor. Wigg says that this sometimes happens following the death of a Vagaries practitioner or one of their creations, like a blood stalker, and they need to get out of here now, before the whole building collapses (could you not have warned everyone earlier?). Everyone prepares to leave, but it was then that they heard the hissing begin. Oh, dear, I have a feeling I know what is coming (and it will no doubt be annoying). Indeed, the entrance to the wiktor pit has cracked open, and now the wiktor that Tristan had thought he killed has emerged into the chamber and is now staring at the bodies of its creator and her comrades, and then turns to face Tristan, green drool *she shivers in disgust* oozing from its mouth. And so the Coven is no more… you have somehow managed to destroy them, but in doing so you have unwittingly released us for all time. Feeding upon the populace has always been our greatest pleasure, and after disposing of you we shall all be free to do so throughout eternity, protected by time enchantments as we go… I thank you for our freedom. And before we leave the Recluse, I shall take all of your hearts for the murder of our mother and her sisters… including the heart of the newest mistress. Well, well. This bodes ill. Or at least it would, if I had any faith Newcomb would handle this development with the proper weight and menace it deserves, or the monsters in question were remotely threatening. The wiktor begins to advance, as more of its kind rise out of the pit behind it; Tristan takes up a position in front of Wigg and draws his dreggan, refusing to let the wizard die protecting him (seriously, it would not be much of a loss…) and deciding that there is a score to settle here. As more wiktors emerge, Tristan realizes that there are simply too many of them to fight and they will all surely die here (oh, I would not count on that…) but he will at least take the leader down before he does. And, beg pardon, but did you not decapitate the lead wiktor once before, and it survived? How, exactly, are you planning to kill it this time? Tristan then closes his eyes, and the lead wiktor taunts him as a coward for refusing to look his death in the face, before announcing prepare to die, Chosen One. Because clearly, what else would it say? Suddenly, we are in Wigg’s perspective as he realizes Tristan is trying to call on his magic; equally suddenly, the wiktor lunges, and then in response Tristan draws and throws two of his daggers. Wigg somehow realizes that he is doing so using magic to aid him, and the daggers manage to hit the wiktor exactly, in both of its eyes. The impact of the knives was so great that they tore through the back of the thing’s head, heaving the screaming wiktor up into the air and back down over the edge of the pit, where it crashed into its brothers as it tumbled down the length of the stone steps, blood and brain matter running freely from its head. *stunned* Well. That was somehow both over-dramatic and anticlimactic. Not to mention disgusting. *she shivers again*
Blood Matters: 185 (do I really need to say why?)
Dastardly Deeds: 174 (of course the first thing the wiktors do after being freed is announce their intent to eat people)
Gratuitous Grimdark: 90 (for the gory wiktor death)
Plot-Induced Stupidity: 68 (why didn’t Wigg mention that the Coven’s death might bring the whole Recluse down, anyway?)
Contrivances and Coincidences: 50 (and of course the earthquake just happened to crack open the wiktor pit while also sparing all the wiktors)
Len: Well, Princey realizes he did what he wanted by killing the lead wiktor (assuming it can’t regenerate its brain, but considering it survived being decapitated, who knows…), but it hasn’t saved them ‘cause they’re still so outnumbered. He asks Wigg if this is the day they die, but he says no. This is the day that they finally die. Wigg walks out in front of Princey and takes the Paragon out of his, uh, locket and pours a few drops of the cave water into his other hand. He then blows the water in the direction of the wiktors, and the air over and inside the wiktor pit immediately caught fire and began to rage, searing everything around it. Instead of being red and orange, the flames were azure blue. Yeah, that happens sometimes when fire gets really hot; it doesn’t necessarily mean magic (though in this case, we know it totally does). And I’ve gotta wonder – why didn’t Wigg do this earlier? Did he just really want to see Princey demonstrate his knife-throwing skills? But he could hear the wiktors screaming, and their bodies bursting as the gases inside them expanded in the sucking heat of the azure maelstrom. More blood spattered along the wall… Yeesh. I can’t say I feel too bad for the man-eating lizard monsters, but… damn, that’s a bad way to go. But finally, Wigg lowers his hands, and the flames subside, leaving only ash and the smell of scorched flesh. Inside the wiktor pit itself, masses of organs and bones lay amidst piles of ashes and a sea of blood. And I guess the organs didn’t burn to ash too because Newcomb really, really wanted to write something gross, I guess? But of course, this makes Princey ask the big questions – does this mean the Paragon is rejuvenated? *she facepalms* Yeah, ‘cause that’s the important thing right now. Wigg admits it’s not completely rejuvenated yet, but he hoped it had built up enough power to allow him to perform at least one spell, and he wasn’t sure if it would work or not. He also raises his eyebrow for some reason, which Newcomb still insists on calling infamous. Newcomb… I don’t think that word means what you think it means. Princey does ask if the wiktors can still regenerate, and Wigg says no, that the fire has consumed them enough to make that impossible – you know what, burning things to keep them from regenerating works where I come from too, so I’m giving him that one (but does that mean the lead wiktor wasn’t killed until Wigg burned them all, then)? He then says it’s time to go, and Princey picks up Shailiha and starts to head back up the stairs, only to look back into the Sanctuary to see something that shocks him. Succiu’s body was gone. *groans* Oh, don’t tell me – we’ve still got her to deal with, too! ‘Cause I don’t think I’m lucky enough for her to have been burned to ash along with the wiktors. And, sure enough, a trail of blood and bloody footprints leads from where her body was across the chamber and up the stairs. So, wait. Did a badly injured woman who probably wasn’t moving too fast sneak past Princey, Wigg and Geldon without any of them noting her or the blood until now? Did she do it while they were all distracted with the wiktors or what? This doesn’t make any sense, not that that’s a first for this chapter! But the bodies of the other sorceresses are still where they lay before, and Wigg says it’s his fault for not realizing that Succiu, being pregnant with Tristan’s child, carries some of his blood and was protected from the shards – not completely, like Tristan and Shailiha, but enough to keep her from being killed. He assumes she must have woken up and escaped while they were dealing with the wiktors, and I still say I don’t see how she snuck past them that easily, as injured as she apparently was. The second mistress lives, Tristan thought in shock. And so does my firstborn. Yeah, I don’t mean to be insensitive, kid, but I think Succiu being alive is a bigger deal than that she’s still pregnant. Anyway, Princey hands Shailiha to Geldon (pretty sure she’s quite a bit bigger than he is, so… that’s gotta be awkward) and runs up the stairs after Succiu, and the chapter ends there. Good riddance.
MG: Yeah, I’ve got to say, as far as climaxes go… this was a bad one, though it’s hardly the worst anticlimax Newcomb will be giving us this series. The chapter is structured weirdly, too, in a way that wrecks any buildup and narrative tension we had going on. The Coven are defeated almost exactly halfway through, and then we kill any tension dead by standing around talking for a while about various subjects, then we have a second climax when the wiktors show up, then any potential that might have is nipped in the bud as they’re killed off almost immediately, and then we find out Succiu was alive the whole time and has escaped, and it’s just… not well done, at all. But anyway, we’re now almost done with the book! I estimate we have only three more spork posts left before we can say farewell to Fifth Sorceress altogether, and one of those is the (short) epilogue and final thoughts. We’re almost there! Anyway, next time – the fate of Succiu. We’ll see you there! Our counts stand at:
Exposition Intrusion: 262
Dastardly Deeds: 174
Blood Matters: 186
Gender Wars: 155
Gratuitous Grimdark: 91(more wiktor gore)
Plot-Induced Stupidity: 68
Contrivances and Coincidences: 51 (for Succiu’s survival)
no subject
Date: 2023-04-11 07:45 am (UTC)...
......
...Y'know that one scene from Downfall? The one memed to hell and back, where Hitler tells everyone to get out except three officers?
That's how I feel about this whole chapter.
no subject
Date: 2023-04-11 02:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-04-12 06:32 pm (UTC)The one I remember the most is when he's shitting on Justin Bieber, and then he gets the news that there's someone worse: Rebecca Black.
"If you are a closet fan of Justin Bieber, get out."
nearly everyone leaves
no subject
Date: 2023-04-12 03:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-04-11 02:05 pm (UTC)IS: What the fuck does this even mean? I'd expect to see this line if the protagonist were watching something they'd already seen before. Like maybe if this was a story where Tristan were trapped in a time loop. Then it would make sense for Tristan to say "It was somehow brighter than before, the scene before him more alive this time" bc he would have legitimately seen the Sorceresses start this ritual several times already.
IS: When obviously it should have meant Natasha in her morally complex journey bouncing between these two sides. Justice for my girl!
S: HISS. Newcomb writessss assss if Ssssshailiha chossse to become a Ssssorceresssss. Asssss if Failee had given her an elevator pitch, and ssshe had sssssaid "Yesssss, I want to tear the foundationsssss of the world down!" But that issssn't what happened sssso Trissstan looksss cold-blooded and heartlesss even to literally me.
IS: Wonder? Wrong word. Terror, hate, disgust. But who am I kidding?
IS: What doessss thissss mean?
S: I mean that Newcomb clearly wrote it this way because he was...excited about his portrayal of Succiu.
(Serpent and woman stare at each other for a very long, awkward moment)
IS: Right, you don't feel these things.
S: And then, of courssse, you eat the sssserpentling for lingering too long in your ssssight, and in ressssponssse to but not in ssssight of the sssstronger sssserpent.
IS: That's...really not how humans do things.
S: You invited me here, girl, and I am not big enough to eat you yet.
IS: Right, right.
S: Obviousssly, the ssserpentling isss eating her from the inssside out. Alssso, why do humansss touch conssstantly?
IS: I. Where did this question from?
S: Sssssucciu wrapped herssself around Ssshailiha.
IS: It's...complicated. Newcomb portrays villainy in women as romantic interest in other women, so this contact is signaling that they're both bad people now. However, plenty of human women touch each other in this way in reality. The fact of the touch doesn't make them good or bad, it's just a thing humans do - we love to drink in the feeling of being next to or close by other humans.
S: Oh. It mussst be sssooo hard not to be able to know when sssomeone isss about to try and eat you.
IS: "Oh this is my last warning! This is my double last warning! This is the ultimate warning!" What pathetic mewling, even from a captured man. Also to insist that he's never lied to Failee, when he lies constantly through this entire book. If Wigg and Succiu both told me the sky was blue, I'd of course check but I'd check a whole lot faster if Wigg said it.
S: That isss becaussse if you broke eye contact with Sssucciu, ssshe would eat you.
IS: God I wish. That was a joke.
S: ...You are ssstrange. I think you would upsset my ssstomach.
S: Messsy, messsy. Too much effort. Not worth it. Eat, then hide. Enjoy the sssun. Enjoy the ssshadows. Life issss good. If you want more, ssset the Wizard and the Prince at oddsss with a sssimple missunderssstanding. Watch, laugh.
IS: I actually agree with that.
S: Good. Devour your prey whole, and sssleep.
IS: The specifics may differ.
S: No. Find a rat, sssswallow whole.
IS: You should be right! This is wild.
IS: So, let's recap on the Sorceresses. Women get kind of a hard lot in many stories. We're either seductresses or objects to be saved, proteced, won, claimed, and so on and so forth.
S: Ridiculousss. You are devourersss.
IS: I...accept that in the spirit in which you meant it. So I can get behind a lot of woman villains who are legitimately scary bad people who I wouldn't ever want to meet. Princess Azula from Avatar comes immediately to mind. Part of it feels like a fair tit-for-tat kind of thing - treat us as objects in so many stories, and sometimes one comes along who tears the world asunder. But even in stories like that, we're almost always treated as "really" being fragile. Princess Azula, for example, is defeated when she has a mental health crisis. I don't mind that so much because it was a fitting conclusion to her character arc, and she at least was defeated legitimately after scoring plausible victories in the final act.
S: Ssso why bring her up?
IS: Because it's indicative of a wider pattern. Here, the sorceresses are OMG evil and have done so many bad things and are mistresses of magic who threaten the whole world and all of magic but are simultaneously "defenseless women" at the climax of the story. "The enemy is both incredibly strong and unbelievably weak".
S: You're comparing ssstupid human missogyny with human fasscism. I do love fasscists, it'sss sssso fun to ssset them ssspinning.
IS: I am. I find a significant overlap between how fascists portray the Designated Enemy of the Day and how misogynists portray women. I've wandered from my point. My point is even when a book has a powerful, scary, lady villain she's almost always undone in a way that makes her seem weak and pathetic and usually not for any reason that has anything to do with the story at hand. So here, the Sorceresses have this ritual they've set up to become all powerful goddesses. They're just that advanced in their magic. This ritual doesn't rely on Wigg or Tristan's presence, but they insist on having them anyway even though they have to know that the ritual makes them "blind and defenseless". All it takes for Tristan to win is the very first ability Jedi learn - moving small objects with their mind.
S: The defeat isss not credible. To defeat the Sssorceressesss, Newcomb had to make them foolsss. He could not envisssion a way Trissstan could win legitimately, or he did not believe Trisstan ssshould win legitimately.
IS: This book is full of violence against women, yet none toward the Sorceresses. In fact, the Sorceresses are defeated without Tristan really having to try - his oh so special blood does it for him. Which leaves us with the message that women who seek or use power are really just pretending and even the average stupid guy can just beat us without really trying. Which is why you get men saying, unironically, that the average man is better at Tennis than Serena Williams or a better fighter than Ronda Rousey. I like scary dangerous women in fiction. Reading those kinds of stories feels a bit like payback, even though I know intellectually that these women are there to be defeated, that they are the villain of the story and I don't really want them to win. Most of these stories just...peter out.
S: You're sssaying you're the kind of perssson who'd enjoy a "Gender Warssss" book?
IS: Yes, I am. Such stories are great places to discuss power dynamics between genders and the shades between genders. Lots of space for the author to make commentary on gendered things, gender roles, gender norms, so on and so forth.
S: "Ssshadesss between". Humanss are ssso ssstupid. How a ssserpent sssees onesself iss jussst that. When ssseeking propagation, each hasss a role, but outssside of that all are devourersss.
IS: Humans indeed are stupid. Newcomb doesn't discuss anything interesting, though. He just repackages bargain bin misogyny. This isn't even a dark book, where the author may have been brave to put such things on paper. This is an immature book, slavishly reproducing the background radiation of our society without bothering to comment on it at all.
S: Wow. When I'm big enough, I want to eat you. Maybe I'll learn sssomething.
IS: Thanks. I think.
IS: This 100%. Go off.
S: Even one who exhibitsss sssuch effectsss ssshould be sssensible enough not to ssstart fightsss ssshe won't win, asss ssshe isss not trained and needsss healing and help. Perhapsss not my friend the ssscorpion, but you knew hisss nature before you let him on your back.
IS: Also, I'm not quoting anything more, but the wiktors should have been dealt with BEFROE the coven or not at all. Scale of escalating threats, people.
no subject
Date: 2023-04-12 04:13 pm (UTC)It's really remarkable how much Newcomb squandered Natasha as a character, isn't it? And she won't be the last case of that in these books, sadly. It really does seem like every time Newcomb realizes he's written a potentially interesting character, he immediately decides we can't have that and kills them off in some anticlimactic way.
S: I mean that Newcomb clearly wrote it this way because he was...excited about his portrayal of Succiu.
Yep. Succiu is pretty clearly all of Newcomb's fetishes wrapped up in one deeply uncomfortable package.
"The enemy is both incredibly strong and unbelievably weak".
This honestly makes me think of my other sporking projecting I'm doing on Das_Sporking right now, The Last Ringbearer, and how it presents the elves (Tolkien's version, allegedly) as both entirely ineffective and irrelevant and as a terrible threat that's supposedly in imminent danger of enslaving all humanity. And I've seen similar things in bad fiction of sporked, read, or read sporkings of before. It makes me wonder about the overlap between bad fiction (in particular, bad fiction with an ideological axe to grind) and an authoritarian mindset.
: This book is full of violence against women, yet none toward the Sorceresses. In fact, the Sorceresses are defeated without Tristan really having to try - his oh so special blood does it for him. Which leaves us with the message that women who seek or use power are really just pretending and even the average stupid guy can just beat us without really trying.
I do think this is an excellent point, but on the other hand I wonder if you're giving Newcomb too much credit for thinking things through; defeating his villains in incredibly anticlimactic ways without the "heroes" having to exert any real effort (including male villains, too) is a recurring problem of his across the series, and this is not the worst example of it.
On the other hand, Kluge is still out there and will be dealt with by the end of the book, and the way he's handled vs. the way the sorceresses are handled... yeah, keeping this observation in mind would definitely explain some things.
IS: Humans indeed are stupid. Newcomb doesn't discuss anything interesting, though. He just repackages bargain bin misogyny. This isn't even a dark book, where the author may have been brave to put such things on paper. This is an immature book, slavishly reproducing the background radiation of our society without bothering to comment on it at all.
Agreed on this 100%. Newcomb is just vomiting up tropes with a coating of immature *Edge* without ever pausing to think about what he's doing or why, and it says absolutely nothing worthwhile about anything, except possibly revealing too much about his own kinks.
IS: Also, I'm not quoting anything more, but the wiktors should have been dealt with BEFROE the coven or not at all. Scale of escalating threats, people.
Alas, I think it's pretty obvious by this point that dramatic tension is yet another thing Newcomb doesn't understand and can't do.
no subject
Date: 2023-04-12 05:25 pm (UTC)I would contend that there is a significant overlap, and part of that is a lot of bad fiction writers are American. America as a country is pretty goddamn authoritarian, and we export our culture across the world. We sanitize the worship of rulers, and what benefits rulers is portraying an identifiable group as "Your enemy" who is both "Terribly dangerous" and "Extremely weak". Part of this is baked into the bedrock assumption of American society - misogyny. Women are "an enemy" who you nevertheless must be close to, and we are both "very dangerous" and "quite weak and need protection".
Authoritarian societies can only last by dividing the population into in-groups and out-groups, and gender is a great way to split the population in half. Divide and conquer. Let half the population think they can gain by being able to look down on someone and treat that person like a servant or a slave or an accessory and it's much easier to secure your rule where you treat the entire population as subjects.
Part of why this is the case is historical pressures - Global popular sentiment is steadily becoming more aware of authoritarian BS, so stuff written more recently is unlikely to have this crap going on in it. But a lot of the fanfic and books we spork are from the late 80s, early 2000s, etc.
But yes. The Eldritch Heart, Inheritance, PKH, Mists of Avalon, The Fifth Sorceress - all works that leave me saying "The writer seems sympathetic to authoritarian viewpoints in a way that makes me question their intellectual honesty". Aside from, you know, all the other reasons to question the authors of these things.
In a wider sense, bad writing and authoritarian sympathies are kind of...co-morbid, I think is the word I want to use. Someone who is good at writing is good at thinking from multiple perspectives and coming up with creative ideas which sidestep tradition - both of which are necessary life skills authoritarian sympathizers portray as evil and bad. So someone who sympathizes with authoritarians is likely to self-select out of learning to write well, and someone who learns to write well is likely to in short order stop being a bootlicker.
This is why fascists in the US try to keep schools from teaching critical thinking. Someone who thinks critically does not grow up to become a good little slave.
Fair. I think my counterpoint would be that Newcomb as a writer doesn't consider the sorceresses a threat, so there's no thought to any counterplay they could have set to try and stop this exact thing from happening. No need for a final battle with the Sorceresses, they're not really a threat. Combined with his lascivious descriptions of some of them it really comes across as "The pretty little things aren't a concern".
Especially if Kluge is treated as more of a threat, but hell the wiktors were treated as a greater threat.