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The Fifth Sorceress by Robert Newcomb is the worst book I have ever read. I want to get that out of the way at the start, the book is terrible. It’s bad. Almost everyone agrees it’s bad, the first paragraph on its Wikipedia says it was a “critical and commercial flop” and it deserves to be. It’s a stupid book with terrible ideas that it executes poorly. It’s a mess. So why am I doing this? Because it’s even worse than people think. I’ve read reviews of the book and, though they make the point that it’s an incredibly sexist, misogynistic, and homophobic book, they’ll go on to say something like: quote:…once the story settles after the first few chapters the author does display a generous ability to spin a well-told if conventional saga, exhibiting adept pacing and the craft required to string along and develop his various subplots. Now, I imagine the reviewer wrote this because they’d been quite negative and didn’t want to be overly harsh. However, no. Stop. This is wrong. I realise there isn’t a universally agreed metric of what constitutes good writing but, if you wanted to make one, I personally believe a good starting place would be “Not Robert Newcomb”. Because even if you took all the sexism, misogyny, homophobia, and the author’s obvious fetishes out of the book you’d still left with something terrible. And not just because it’s cliched or lazy or poorly realised but because it’s stupid. The characters are stupid, the plot is stupid, and I am stupid for having read it. And it got two sequels. Sequels I haven’t read, sequels that don’t have Wikipedia pages, but two sequels because: quote:…the manuscript quickly started a bidding war between major New York houses. The manuscript was eventually sold to Random House as a three book deal, in the largest fantasy contract awarded to a first-time author in the U.S. The interview I got this from is fascinating, and not just because one of the questions it asks Robert Newcomb is “With rising gas prices and environmental concerns, do you believe that hybrid cars are the future of the auto industry?”. Essentially, Newcomb’s wife read Sword of Truth, told him to write a book and he did. That book was the Fifth Sorceress and let me tell you, it wears its influences on its skintight dominatrix outfit. Anyways, I’m Popeston and I’m going to read the worst book I’ve ever read for a second time. Why? I don’t know. Spite? You know what, I’d rather not dwell on it. Let’s begin!
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Jul 7, 2023 20:29
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PROLOGUE Content Warning: Nothing too graphic but they do list some crimes. Sexism abounds but that'll be true for everything. Okay, so I’ve titled this prologue but it’s actually the epigraph. I’m sorry for beginning our relationship with a lie. quote:True peace of mind comes only when my heart and actions are aligned with true principles and values. I shall forsake not, to the loss of all material things, my honor and integrity. I shall protect the Paragon above all else, but take no life except in urgent defense of self and others, or without fair warning. I swear to rule always with wisdom and compassion. This quote is from “the succession oath of the first reigning monarch of Eutracia” and as much as I want to get right into the weeds with something like “IF IT’S THE FIRST MONARCH THEN WHO ARE THEY SUCCEEDING?!” I can’t because I don’t know what this means. quote:“I shall protect the Paragon above all else, but take no life except in urgent defense of self and others, or without fair warning” I know what it wants to mean, it wants to establish the rule of “Good People Never Kill (Generally)”, but... it’s not a correct sentence? What does the “without fair warning” apply to? Protecting the Paragon? The urgent defense? I’m going to assume it’s the defense but does that mean you’re supposed to give fair warning before you urgently defended yourself? So I can get a few shots in on the monarch before he’s allowed to do anything about it? Because if so, great policy. No complaints. Anyway, this quote is the second thing Robert Newcomb writes in the book and, in retrospect, it really adds weight to the dedication that comes before it. quote:For Joyce, mon raison d’être. Joyce, please hit me up. I have some questions. Now we finally move to the prologue and, to ease us in, there’s a prophecy! quote:. . . and a great war shall come to pass, in which many shall die before the easing of its flames. The dark side of the conflict, those of the Pentangle, shall come to defeat before finding their Fifth, and only after the discovery of the Stone and the Tome by their enemies. The banishment of those of the Pentangle shall occur upon the sea from which few have returned . . . In that final line, Robert Newcomb effectively summarises the entire prologue at the start of the chapter. My only complaint is he will never again be so brave. For me, the most interesting thing about extract is its on page 2,037 yet it’s still Chapter One of the Prophecies of the Tomb. From the page number, and the economy of language of the extract, I can only assume the book chronicles the history of the entire universe. Anyway, what’s important is we’re finally out of italics onto the story itself. Here’s the first line: quote:The once-proud war galleon was named the Resolve, and she listed drunkenly in the nighttime sea, her seams slowly failing while she tried to hold back the brackish ocean that pressed relentlessly against her sides. So we start on a boat floating atop the brackish water of the sea ocean. As is often the case with this book, I immediately looked up a definition of a word to make sure I hadn’t been using it wrong. I hadn’t. Brackish water is water saltier than freshwater but not as salty as water you’d find in, oh I don’t know, the sea. Or perhaps the ocean. Sure, it’s possible that Robert Newcomb has some cool worldbuilding to explain why, miles from shore, the water is brackish but if I assume that I would be giving the man credit and I will never give Robert Newcomb credit. In the spirit of the Prophecies of the Tome, I will summarize most of the prologue rather than forcing you and Dictionary.com to suffer alongside me. Wigg, the Wizard, is out at ocean sea on a ship that has been ravaged by the war. The war against who? Why the prisoners in the ship's hold; the Sorceresses of the Coven! quote:The blond, the redhead, and the two brunettes stood unsteadily but defiantly before him on the slippery, rolling deck. I do like that the introduction of these characters, the most evil and terrible villains in the world, makes special mention of their hair colour. For some of them, it’ll be the most development they’ll ever get. For others: quote:Tall and still shapely, despite the effects of near starvation, she was exquisitely beautiful. The streaks of premature gray in her black hair only gave her a more dominating demeanor. This is Failee. We aren’t actually told her name until Part 2 of the book but she is leader of the Sorceress coven. She exists to be the effective management of the Sorceresses as the others are too easily distracted by being incredibly evil to think long term. This leads us to the next Sorceress. quote:The woman to the leader’s right was also dazzling, despite her current physical condition. The jet-black hair that fell, knotted and filthy, to her waist could have been made of strands of silk, and the almond-shaped eyes dominated the exotic, delicate face This is Succiu, aka THE EXOTIC ONE. Despite being second in command, Succiu is pretty much the main villain. Did you notice her eyes? Well good news if you missed that detail, it’ll come up a lot. You know, when we’re talking about the Exotic One. Which we’ll be doing frequently. Anyways, Blond and Red don’t talk so I’m not going to burden you with their names. These four Sorceresses have lost a bloody war, defeated by the DIRECTORATE OF WIZARDS. Wigg, the Lead Wizard, has been charged with dealing with the Sorceresses. So, what exactly have these women done that’s so bad? Wigg lets us know: quote:“You have been collectively tried and found guilty of crimes against humanity,” he began, looking sternly into all four pairs of eyes in turn. “The charges include inciting civil war, revolution, murder, the rape and torture of both sexes, and systematic pogroms of military and civilian citizens alike.” Huh, weird you went out of your way to mention both sexes. Man, I hope this doesn’t feed into some kind of heteronormative worldview that suggests any sort of deviation is inherently evil. Cause man, that’d be messed up. Speaking of messed up! quote:“The physical and psychological damage you have done will take generations to repair. We can see no end to the calamities you have caused.” Each pair of eyes remained defiant and unrepentant. I have not edited this. In fact, this quote takes place immediately after the listing of crimes. It has been decided by the Directorate of Wizards that the Sorceresses’ punishment is being put on a raft with 15 days' food and left in the middle of the ocean. Everyone is taken aback by how stupid this is, Failee even makes a point that not killing them is a mistake, but Wigg pushes ahead with the plan. Once the raft has been dropped, the Captain of the ship asks Wigg why they didn’t kill the incredibly powerful Sorceresses who continued to vow terrible revenge even as they were being lowered into the ocean. quote:“And our vows forbid murder. Because of his power, it is forbidden for a wizard to take a life other than in urgent self-defense or without prior warning. Life imprisonment was considered, but posed too many ethical problems. The indefinite imprisonment of the sorceresses would have dictated continuance of their weakened state, resulting in certain death from disease, and therefore would also have constituted murder. A true wizard’s conundrum. Exile was the only choice. And the Sea of Whispers was the only answer. Here there was an outside chance, as far as we knew, for their survival.” So you see, the Succession Oath of the First Monarch apparently also applies to Wizards! I don’t know why we didn’t just say this was the oath of Wizards but I guess I’m not Joyce. Even though Wigg goes on to mention that the Wizards “gave them a chance once, long ago” apparently this didn’t count as fair warning, so their hands were tied. Even in a book full of stupid characters, Wigg is especially bad. The entire prologue is spent with him feeling bad about what he’s doing: quote:The rationing of food and water over the last fifteen days had produced the desired effect. He had hated having to give the order to restrict their nourishment, but it was the only remotely humane way to maintain control over them. While simultaneously feeling bad they’re not doing more: quote:The words made him teeter on the edge of being physically ill. Not because the punishment was so severe, but because it was so forgiving. This is all annoying but I suppose all this exists to hammer home the point that Wigg is true to the oath of First Monarch/Wizards and he will not forsake his “honor and integrity”. I suppose that’s fi- hold on. quote:“The provisions are not as they seem,” Wigg said simply. “I altered them. The number of casks that were lowered into the skiff appeared to be enough food and drink for weeks. But if you were to ask any of your men who did the work, you would be told that each of the containers was suspiciously light. Indeed, even if rationed there is only enough for five days at best. The false appearance of that much sustenance was designed to make them climb into the skiff willingly, and anxious to be off.” quote:“It is common knowledge that no ship has ever survived a journey of greater than that distance into the Sea of Whispers, even when wizards were aboard. And no one knows why. The ships just never returned. The women only have enough food, even if rationed, for five days. In their already-weakened state, an attempt to travel the extra ten days west toward home would result in death from starvation. Or rather, suicide. Their only answer will be to travel east, into the unknown despite the danger, in the hope that they strike landfall in no more than five days.” So, to summarise, Wizards cannot kill people but they can abandon them in the middle of an ocean no one has ever returned for without enough food to make it back. Wigg my man, this feels like a loophole. Apparently, Wizards can kill you if they believe you have a chance at survival and in this case that chance involves unleashing four maniacal Sorceresses on an entirely new and unsuspecting continent. This is fine, it certianly presents less ethical problems than imprisonment. I doubt there will have any long-term consequences and it’s definitely not why I didn’t start this post with the blurb of the book. Don’t worry about that, instead focus on Wigg’s impressive bowl magic; quote:Closing his eyes and balancing the bowl upside-down upon his thumb and fingertips, the old one stretched his arm to the sky. For a long silent moment the wizard waited, and something in the captain told him not to move or speak. In the rose-colored light from the trio of moons, the small skiff, with its faint yellow light, was now visible. quote:The wizard suddenly raised the bowl higher. As he did so the ocean beneath the skiff took the exact shape of the bowl, surrounding the sorceresses’ little boat perfectly in its center, lifting the small craft high over the surface of the ocean at the top of a tall column of seawater. No sooner had the captain’s mouth fallen open than the wizard dropped the leading edge of the bowl forward. The huge, distant bowl of ocean water responded immediately, spilling the skiff down the forward falling rush of water and carrying it east, away from the galleon at least one entire league. He does this twenty times, smashes the bowl and declares “The destruction of the bowl ensures that the process cannot be reversed, even by them”. He says this even though the only effect of his spell was to move the Sorcereresses further away. Surely, in order to get the bowl, they’d have to get back to the ship and in doing so they’d have already “reversed the process”? So why did Wigg smash this bowl? Why did we even have this bowl? They could have just sailed away in their larger, faster ship. Everything in this book confuses me. However, it doesn’t confuse the Captain of the ship who is utterly blown away by Wigg’s cunning! quote:Layers of thought and deed, he said to himself, shaking his head. Layers of thought and deed. So Wigg has solved the problem. Nothing to worry about here, problem over. Unless… quote:“Even if we perish, my Sister,” [Failee] said with her crooked smile, “never forget the one of us who sacrificed everything to a lifetime of seclusion in order to stay behind in our homeland." What?! Impossible! Could this be a reference to the titular Fifth Sorceress?! It’s not. It’s to another, different fifth Sorceress. This is not a joke. Additional Notes: With the plot done we need to move on to the important question: how horny was this chapter? Well, it had the Sorceresses in it, so a little bit. quote:He chose then to glance at the thirty men lined up behind the women, wondering if he would see lust in their eyes, hoping he would not have to waste any of his power trying to control them, too. However, those ladies sure do need a hairbrush!! quote:Their once-luxurious gowns were torn and scorched, and their hair was dishevelled, matted against shoulders and breasts. quote:The first to wake was the leader, her black-and-gray hair spread crazily over her face and breasts. And let us not forget, the Exotic One quote:she smirked at him as she seductively raised her manacled hands upward, coyly brushing her breasts, only to throw her hair over one shoulder. Anything else good I glossed over? Well, I feel like I didn’t explore the premise totally. I’ll let Wigg sum up the eternal struggle of Eutracia: quote:“Male against female. Light against dark.” We’ll deal with this more as the book goes on but to sum up, if you are born with “Endowed Blood” you can do magic. However, the magic women are capable of doing, the Vagaries, is inherently evil. Straight up evil. You’re a good woman and you start using magic? Bam, evil. Evil and sexy. You're a man who does magic? Oh well that’s the VIGORS and that’s good and noble. Is this an overly simplistic explanation that misses out on the nuances of it? No. This is the book. Anyway, that's the first update. Let me leave you with the words of the leader of the Sorceress Coven, Failee. quote:I will live to see you dead. Someday you will pay. You all will pay, including any of the inferior male offspring you may spawn. Hey, he has a name! It’s Tristan and we’ll meet him next update. (Spoilers: a horse spooks him and he accidently jumps off a cliff.)
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Jul 7, 2023 20:29
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lol kirkus gave it a good review
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Jul 9, 2023 01:02
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Jaxyon posted:lol kirkus gave it a good review Kirkus both gave it a good review and mentions "the Cave of the Dragon" as a plot point. There is no Cave of the Dragon in the book, there aren't even non-cave dragons. Also, the plot it teases isn't really the plot of the book so I'm not actually sure if the reviewer read the book. Admittedly, this would have been the right move but there should be some kind of punishment for calling The Fifth Sorceress "An intelligent debut, possibly headed for bestsellerdom". CHAPTER 1 Content Warning: Horse crimes abound. Three hundred years have passed since the exile of the Sorceresses. What has happened since we were last in Eutracia? Well, we’re not reading any more of the Tome of Prophecy but someone else did. quote:The Tome shall be read first by a seed of the victors who, years later, shall become the sworn enemy of those same victorious ones. The sire of this seed shall, having abandoned the victor’s cause, live as an outcast. The six of the craft who remain shall select one from their midst to lead them in peace for sixteen score and seven years, choosing, in turn, many who shall wear the stone. From the seed of one of those who wear the stone shall come the Chosen One, first preceded by another. That’s a lot of seed, like near Final Fantasy VIII levels. This quote doesn’t have any bearing on the chapter or this part of the book in general. Arguably, it’ll never become relevant but we will eventually meet SEEDSIRE. Anyways, we’ve had our quote to start the chapter. What’s next? Another quote of course! quote:True peace of mind comes only when my heart and actions are aligned with true principles and values. I shall forsake not, to the loss of all material things, my honor and integrity. I shall protect the Paragon above all else, but take no life except in urgent defense of self and others, or without fair warning. I swear to rule always with wisdom and compassion. Man, I know what that’s like. This is Tristan by the way, the Prince of Eutracia and protagonist of the Fifth Sorceress. We join him in his favourite place, alone in the Hartwick woods, doing his favourite thing, throwing knives at a tree. quote:He reached behind his right shoulder for another throwing knife, gripping its handle automatically and smoothly bringing his right arm up and over in a swift circle, releasing the blade in yet another trajectory. It twirled unerringly toward the target he had carved in the huge old oak tree. And as he now stood looking at the blade that lay buried next to the others he had thrown, he knew that the fact it would accurately find its mark had been a foregone conclusion. Tristan is good at throwing knives because he’s been practicing for seven years now. Also, he invented throwing knives. Yeah, that’s right. The idea of hurling a sharp thing at someone? Tristan did that. quote:This art of the knives, at least, was his and his alone. He had designed the quiver himself, along with the throwing knives. The palace leathersmith and blacksmith had only been too happy to help the prince with their construction So, Tristan is in the woods practicing with his Throwing Knives™. For three years he’s been throwing them at an Oak tree on the edge of a cliff because: quote:That meant that whenever he missed, his knives would fly over the steep precipice and be lost forever. Proper punishment for a bad throw, he thought. And he had been throwing for over three hours now. What a stud. Unfortunately, while retrieving his knives from the perilous cliff tree, an assassin strikes! quote:Still gazing down at Tammerland, once again leaning against the outstretched tree branch and lost in his memories, he didn’t hear the thing that came up behind him before it was too late. Without warning, he was violently pushed forward from behind. I already spoiled the perpetrator at the end of the last update, but it's worth repeating. quote:It was his horse. Enter: PILGRIM. Pilgrim is a horse and everything about him suggests Robert Newcomb has never encountered a horse in his life. Pilgrim is essentially like a large dog, he plays fetch, chases butterflies and licks Tristan a lot. Anyways, he “accidently” attempts to assassinate Tristan but fails. Tristan makes it back from the cliff and then he spends most of what’s left of the chapter lying on his back, looking at the sky, and reflecting on his life. And what a life it is! quote:Sometimes the horse seemed to be the best friend he’d ever had. Next, of course, to his twin sister Shailiha, and Wigg, Lead Wizard of the Directorate. Nice crew. Anyway, Tristan’s main concern is that in thirty days he’ll become King of Eutracia and he doesn’t want to be King. Why doesn’t he want to be King? It’s not entirely clear but it seems his main problem is it represents a very marginal increase in the amount of responsibility in his life. However, the King’s primary duty is to protect Eutracia and, since nothing has threatened the Kingdom since the Sorceresses banishment, it doesn’t feel like it’ll cut too much into his knife throwing time. He also mentions that when he’s done being King he’ll have to be a Wizard but this doesn’t seem to be that much of an imposition, what with Wizards being immortal and super powerful. However, before that can happen he must have a son to replace him and to achieve that he’ll need to find a wife! quote:As Tristan continued to watch the sky, his mind turned from affairs of state to affairs of the heart. Even though he didn’t have a wife—he should soon say “queen,” he reminded himself—there had nonetheless been many women in his life. He sighed. Far too many, according to his parents. Even his twin sister Shailiha, his most staunch defender of what some would call his recent disregard for his royal duties and responsibilities, had begun to criticize him about his romantic dalliances. A true tragedy! Sure, all the ladies want Tristan, but does he want them? Well not to “the point of distraction, or hunger in her presence to the point of pain”. He is a gentleman though, which is a real achievement considering this books opinion regarding women and sex. Alas, as Tristan continues to stare at the sky, no perfect woman presents themselves (though he does spot a “particularly interesting cumulus”) and he decides to leave. It is at this point that Robert Newcomb has some kind of fit. quote:He looked at the violet and blue leaves of the bugaylea trees that framed the clearing at the edge of the woods, as did the pink trillium blossoms that grew so thickly here, virtually covering the first few paces into the forest floor. A covey of rare, three-winged triad larks suddenly took flight from their nests high in the trees, each one’s trio of blue-and-white wings beating gracefully up and away against the sky as they called out to one another. It’s like someone said “Rob, this is a Fantasy book and the only remotely fantastical thing you’ve explored so far is the idea a single man can invent throwing knives. What makes this setting fantastical?”. And then, in a frenzy, Robert Newcomb invents bugaylea trees and three-winged triad larks. By the standards of the Fifth Sorceress, this is a miracle. Like the setting is so underdeveloped that when people would normally say something along the lines of “Thank Grulik, the Lord of Hammer!” or “Praise be to Himurin, the Sea Queen!” they instead say “The Afterlife”. What is the Afterlife? It’s where you go when you die. That’s it. Earlier, when Tristan was mere moments away from plunging to his very timely death, he thanked “the Afterlife” upon saving himself. For me, this is like praising a doctor after narrowly avoiding being hit by a car. Anyways, despite this flurry of activity Robert Newcomb ain’t no Seedsire and runs out of steam just before he introduces his next concept. quote:The Fliers of the Fields. Remember earlier when I said Pilgrim chases butterflies? That’s a critical plot point. Upon seeing these amazing Big Butterflies, Pilgrim runs after them. Tristan, worried the Big Butterflies will lead his horse off a cliff, gives chase. He follows them deeper in Hartwick forest and encounters something very unexpected in the forest he’s been coming to for seven years. quote:Everything in this part of the forest was giant in size. Unfamiliar-looking trees reached endlessly toward the sky, with branches so thick that the ground below was occasionally lost in virtual darkness. Shimmering slivers of prismed sunlight randomly found their way to earth as the breeze shifted the great branches overhead. It would have taken at least five men holding hands to surround even the smallest of these enormous, ancient trees, and each of their partially exposed and snaking roots were at least three times the width of his thigh. The pink trillium blossoms, normally about the size of his palm, were now the size of dinner plates, and vines as thick around as ale kegs hung from the great heights all the way to the ground. Ale Keg Vines is the name of my new indie band. So, Tristan chases his horse to the Big Forest, takes a break to sits on a giant mushroom, and finally finds his horse. However, he also finds some Fliers of the Field have vanished into an embankment. Curious, he finds a stone embedded into the ground and he attempts to pry it loose. But, lulled into complacency by his previous victory, Tristan allows himself to underestimate his greatest foe; Gravity. quote:Bracing his legs and leaning forward at the waist, he put all his weight against the knife. And that’s it. I wish that was the end of the book entirely but unfortunately, I just mean the chapter. So the main point of this chapter was to establish the characters of Tristan, a young and carefree prince who worries about looming responsibility. I mean that’s nothing revolutionary but it’s an okay character, right? Tristan is thirty. Technically, he’ll be thirty in thirty days, but the point here is that he isn’t some eighteen year old. He’s thirty. I was thirty when I first read this book and I had accepted long ago that I was too old to spend 3 hours in the woods, throwing knives at a tree. I don’t know why Tristan is thirty, I really don’t. The book mentions when he was eighteen he asked to become a Royal Guard rather than continue as Prince but his father said no. Then, five years later, he invented throwing knives, something he spent the last seven years getting better at. What else did he do? Education…? quote:The classroom training that had come to him from the wizards had been presented in many forms. Eutracian history and civics, basic laws of the realm, reading and writing the language, and so on. Following that had come studies in the kingdom’s culture: her music, literature, and the arts. Then had come the requisite training in the negotiation and arbitration of the endless requests and bickering between the dukes who represented the seven different duchies that made up the kingdom and contributed to her welfare with their taxes. Politics was not his strong suit, and he still had much to learn, with very little time remaining in which to learn it. Tristan, you had so much time! You’ve apparently been a peerless knife thrower for at least three years, you could have devoted some time to understanding the politics of the realm you’re destined to rule. But yes, that is our hero; Tristan No Second Name. Manchild Prince, soon to be Manchild King. Unless something terrible happens. Which seems unlikely, everything has been fine for 300 years, why would that change? Additional Notes How sexy was this chapter? Not at all, Tristan is a gentleman. Encyclopaedia Eutracia Princess Shailiha: Tristan’s twin sister. She is very supportive of her brother and this seems to be her main purpose in life. She cannot be the next ruler of Eutracia because she is a woman. Luckily, she has already fulfilled her sole purpose in life and is currently pregnant. The father of the child is the head of the Royal Guard, Frederick. Apparently, he is “one of Tristan’s best friend” but based on earlier information, he must rank behind the horse, the ancient wizard and his wife. The Seasons of Eutracia: While in the depths of his Worldbuilding Frenzy, Robert Newcomb makes the brave decision to toss aside the names of Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. Instead, he comes up with: quote:The Season of New Life was in full bloom, and was his favorite. It seemed to have come early to Eutracia this year, thankfully freeing the cities and countryside from the grip of the snow and the cold. Then followed the Season of the Sun, when all of the plants and crops started to mature, followed by the Season of Harvest, when the crops were picked before the cold winds and snow set in again. And finally came the Season of Crystal that blew snow and cold down upon the land from the high surrounding mountain ranges, finally giving way to allow the cycle to repeat. They will never come up again. However, in the prologue one of the Sorceresses had a face like “a summer storm” so I guess the rebrand could be relatively recent. The Wizard Directorate: This group is made up of six wizards: Wigg, Tretiak, Egloff, Killius, Maaddar, and Slike. They will eventually show up in the book, kind of, but the most important thing about them is they’re rarely referred to as individuals, more often the entire group, Wigg, Tretiak, Egloff, Killius, Maaddar, and Slike, are mentioned. Anyways, tag yourself. I’m feeling Egloff right now. Just because it annoyed me. quote:He had been doing this all morning. His right arm was sore, his body and face were covered in a light sheen of sweat, and he was dirty from head to toe. I'll ignore the "comma of hair" (this comes up again) but why go “He didn’t care about how dirty he was!” and then, one sentence later, say “Huh, he never even realised how dirty he was!”. Did he not care, like a cool rebel, or not know, like someone who wouldn’t expect a day throwing knives to be especially filthy? I think it’s there to be like “He’s not your typical preening prince!” cause it follows up with this outfit “He was wearing what he always wore when he came up here: the black leather knee boots and trousers, with the simple black vest that laced in the front across his bare chest.” but why immediately undercut it? What is this for? Joyce?! Joyce…! Anyways, next update we’ll… uh… waste some time? I think that’s the most honest preview I can give.
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Jul 14, 2023 18:54
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"Wigg, Tretiak, Egloff, Killius, Maaddar, and Slike. " I see he threw some letters in a blender. 
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Jul 14, 2023 19:06
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I'm amazed at both how little is in this book and how little there is to have interesting or insightful commentary about. Yeah, Newcomb and the Fifth Sorceress sucks, but it's one of the traditional beating sticks of the fantasy fans so they can say that the genre has real standards and deserves to be taken seriously. Don't get me wrong, this book is not good, but it doesn't fail in a particularly interesting or novel way. This was a popular whipping boy on the Eragon hater livejournals.
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Jul 14, 2023 23:58
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StrixNebulosa posted:"Wigg, Tretiak, Egloff, Killius, Maaddar, and Slike. " The book is an equal split between straight up regular names (Frederick, Michael, Nicholas) and madeup names with double letters (Failee, Succiu, Zabarra). Whenever I read one of his original names I feel compelled to read them backwards just to see if I'm missing something. I'm not, they're just clunky. Except Slike of course, that's smooth. TheGreatEvilKing posted:I'm amazed at both how little is in this book and how little there is to have interesting or insightful commentary about. Yeah, Newcomb and the Fifth Sorceress sucks, but it's one of the traditional beating sticks of the fantasy fans so they can say that the genre has real standards and deserves to be taken seriously. Don't get me wrong, this book is not good, but it doesn't fail in a particularly interesting or novel way. The Fifth Sorceress is essentially: quote:This place is not a place of honor... no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here... nothing valued is here. It doesn’t have any intriguing ideas, characters, or prose. Robert Newcomb read a Terry Godkind book and thought that he could write something like it. The purpose of the Fifth Sorceress to be published and it succeeded, as a lot of bad books do. There's nothing to be gained from reading this book. But I already have and now it lives in my brain, occasionally resurfacing to haunt me. Did Tristan kill a lot of horses for no reason or did I imagine that? Does anything from the start of the book ever come up again? Is there really a liquid metal terminator that hunted garden gnomes? I gotta know. I gotta find out. And I'm documneting it because I assume these are all universal questions and everyone needs to know. So onwards to: Chapter 2 - Part 1 (It’s 20,000 words long) Content Warning: Actual horse crimes. Gore. This chapter begins not with a quote but with a deliberately impolite wizard. quote:“I told you not to come.” The old wizard’s tone was not particularly polite. He did not mean it to be. “A woman in your condition should not be away from the palace midwives, much less sitting on top of a horse.” quote:He characteristically raised an eyebrow. “I needn’t remind you that you are in the fifth moon of your pregnancy.” Wigg, you need not but you and everyone else will. Constantly. Also, I guess Wigg is like the Rock because he has a characteristic eyebrow raise? Shailiha lends some credence to this theory. quote:It suddenly occurred to her that when he was young—before the application of the time enchantments—he probably would have been one of the most handsome men she had ever seen Anyway, being pregnant is approximately 50% of Shailiha’s character. The other 50% is being much too into her brother. quote:Leather creaked as she turned once again in her saddle. She loved her brother more than anything on earth, except perhaps for the unborn child she was carrying. Another blow for husband Frederick! Dude can’t catch a break. But I guess there’s nothing that weird about twins feeling a strong affinity for each other. Oh sorry, I forgot something in a previous quote. quote:It suddenly occurred to her that when he was young—before the application of the time enchantments—he probably would have been one of the most handsome men she had ever seen, almost as handsome as Tristan. So, Wigg and Shailiha are in the woods looking for Tristan. His disappearance has caused quite a stir in the palace, even though he wandering off into the woods seems to be Tristan’s primary occupation. However, this time it’s vital that no one knows he’s missing. So much so that Wigg does a funny trick. quote:Shailiha grinned to herself, remembering how Wigg, when they had gone to fetch their horses, had sworn the terrified stable boy to secrecy. Flicking his finger, the Lead Wizard had turned the poor fellow upside down in midair, ankles together, suspending him headfirst above that morning’s freshly steaming pile of horse manure. Before setting him right, Wigg had promised to lower him in slowly, headfirst, should they return to learn the poor boy’s lips had slipped. Once again, she smiled. By this time, his fellow stable hands probably thought the poor fellow had somehow gone mute. Ho ho! What fun! I mean sure, it reads kind of sinister but you must remember that Wigg is a man and thus incapable of using magic for anything bad. Upon learning of Tristan’s very unmysterious and entirely predictable disappearance, Shailiha is beside herself. She tells the Directorate of Wizards that she will go find her brother alone if needs be. The wizards are concerned. quote:But after the wizards had gone so far as to threaten to throw a containment warp around her if necessary to prevent her from leaving on her own, she finally agreed to a compromise. She could go, but Wigg would accompany her. At least he had given her time to fetch a basket of food and drink. Shailiha is simultaneously terrified something has happened to her brother but grateful she has time to pack a picnic. So, we’re in the woods now and Shailiha asks Wigg if he knows why Tristan is being so weird lately. quote:Wigg changed the reins from his left hand to his right and spoke without turning to her. “Do you mean, why does he ignore his duties, prefer the war college over his academics, choose to associate with commoners instead of the court, unnecessarily harass the Directorate, and disappear into the woods with those odd knives of his all the time?” His voice was deep and resonant. “And why does he continue to bed women from all over the realm and yet take no wife?” This chapter is determined to waste time. Essentially, everything we’ve covered so far we already know from previous chapter but, as Shailiha doesn’t know it, it just gets restated. Tristan doesn’t want to be King, why? Responsibility maybe? That’s it. I gotta imagine at this point the story was just being churned out with no direction in mind. And then, a monster appears! quote:It was too large and misshapen to be a man. Yet it stood on two legs and had arms like a man. The huge, elongated head held insane, bloodshot eyes, but there was no nose, only slits in the skin where a man’s nostrils would be. On each side of the bald head were flat, elongated ears, the earlobes ending in long, ragged points of skin. Hanging from each corner of the mouthful of dark and decaying teeth was a perfect white incisor fang as long as her index finger. Lathered drool ran from the mouth to the chin, and down to its hairy chest in long white strings. Its only clothing was a leather-fringed warrior’s skirt, which did little to hide the grotesque, misshapen male genitals beneath it. Its own dried excrement clung darkly to its legs, and each of the highly elongated fingers and toes ended in long, tearing talons. Around its neck hung an odd chain of small round orbs. Gasping, Shailiha realized they were a collection of desiccated eyeballs. It held in its hands a terrible battle ax such as she had never seen. The long, black helve was randomly patterned with dried blood, and its top was crowned with a cracked human skull. From each of the skull’s temples a shiny silver ax blade extended outward at right angles. The sun streaming through the treeless clearing glinted menacingly off their highly polished edges. Enter, THE BLOOD STALKER. A fearsome beast created by the Sorceresses long ago. What does it want? Why the same thing we all want, Wigg. quote:Then, without warning, the thing raised the battle ax high above its head and charged headlong at the old wizard. Its speed was amazing. Crossing the clearing in an instant, it let forth a deranged battle scream. Terrified, Shailiha watched as Wigg stood frozen before his horse, almost as if he were willingly embracing his own death. Finally, at the last possible instant, the wizard seemed to regain his senses and rolled nimbly to the right across the field, the silver, wheeling blur of the battle ax barely missing his head. The ax blades continued their deadly swath downward, cleaving point-blank into the black gelding, slicing horsehide, bone, and muscle. The horse screamed. Blood erupted everywhere as the head and neck finally tore away from the shoulders. Its legs helplessly kicking, the gelding lost his brief struggle with death in midair and crashed sideways upon the ground. Sometimes when people talk about Newcomb’s written they’ll talk about visceral, blood curdling gore and violence. I personally don’t care for it but I can imagine someone reading this horse slaughter and being like “oh, pretty good”. What I can’t imagine is the mechanics of the following. quote:It turned once more toward Wigg and raised the ax over its head for another charge. There’s an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation where they design an impossible shape that will destroy the Borg because they will keep trying to analysis it and fail because it makes no sense. This is what reading the Fifth Sorceress is like for me. Anyway, Wigg kills it with the same kind of magic he used to threaten a stableboy. quote:Instead, though, Wigg pointed to the ax and it rose hauntingly into the air. He quickly extended his fingers, and the ax flew across the clearing, end over end, in a black-and-silver blur. Between this smell and being splattered with horse guts, Shailiha passes out. She wakes up about a minute later. quote:The sounds of his weeping awakened her. It came from somewhere off in the distance, yet it was very distinct. How odd. Opening her eyes, she saw fluffy clouds upon the bright blue canvas of an afternoon sky, floating behind the orange and green leaves of a hypernia tree. How beautiful. Cloud watching is a genetic trait of this family. Also, has Newcomb invented a second tree. Remember this, it will never come up again. When Shailiha wakes up she finds Wigg crying over the monster’s corpse. He lets her know it was no monster. quote:“Phillius,” he said softly. “That hideous thing, as you call it, that lies dead in the clearing at my own hand was my friend, and his name was Phillius.” Thus begins several pages of Blood Stalker trivia. Basically, Phillius was a wizard and the Sorceresses used evil magic to make him into a monster. The Sorceresses created Blood Stalker to either kill males with endowed blood or abduct them for nefarious, sexy reasons. That’s all the information you need but Robert Newcomb will not stop explaining the Blood Stalker. So much so that he explains why its brain was yellow. quote:“During the transformation, the brain matter always turned yellow and became acidic,” he said. “When his skull parted, the odor was released. Early on, we tried to retrieve them from their transformations to return them back to human form. But we always failed. Before the discovery of the Paragon, the sorceresses were just too strong for us. Many wizards, some more capable than myself, died in the attempts to reverse the process. It took us time, but sadly all we really learned was that the fastest way to kill one was to crush the skull. But the sorceresses knew that, too, and were able to use even that technique against us.” He picked a blade of grass and idly began to shred it between his fingers. I don’t know what purpose this explanation serves. When I read yellowish brain matter seeping out of a skull I thought “Well that’s a creepy visual there to underline how horrible the creature is” I did not think “WHAT IS THE LORE OF THE YELLOW BRAIN”. But everything about the creature from its creation to the fact that there was thunder when it died must be explained. quote:“Every time a blood stalker is killed, there is the same strange atmospheric event. Massive thunder and lightning of a highly unusual type, without dark clouds or rain. During the war, we could only surmise that it served to inform the sorceresses of the death of one of their own. Sadly, I have seen it myself too many times.” And maybe it seems like I’m being harsh here. Sure, we’re getting a lot of Blood Stalker deep lore but that’s so understand the peril when Tristan is caught in the brain fog. We need to know that Phillius was raised from the dead to hunt wizards so we understand when the Sorceresses do that later. Yes, it’s heavy handed but this is all pays off. This is the first and last Blood Stalker in the book. They get mentioned, specifically this one, but we never see another one. Phillius comes up once or twice but only when we’re recounting this encounter. This is not setting up a minion in the Sorceresses army or establishing a threat that Tristan will have to overcome, this is just a thing that happens. I guess it sets up that the Sorceresses are back but so do a dozen other things that are going to happen. Anyways, I’m stopping here because I like the next scene and it shouldn’t be associated with this one. (It's not good, it's just bad in a fascinating way.) Additional Notes How sexy was this chapter? Well, this happens. quote:Satisfied, he reached into the sleeve of his robe and produced a clean, recently picked plant root. So I’d say negative sexy. Minus sexy. Because it annoys me. Shailiha cannot fathom how Wigg was able to deduce that Tristan doesn’t want to be King. So, immediately after Wigg has listed all Tristan’s recent antics (and stretches like a cat???), she asks how he figured it out. Instead of replying with “Because it’s super obvious.” Wiggs says: quote:“Often the most complex of puzzles can be unlocked with the key of simplicity,” he mused, running his free hand down the length of his face. He dropped some powder along the path. “It’s simple. He told me.” I don’t know what I hate more about this, the idea that Tristan is “the most complex of puzzles” or the fact after saying “key of simplicity” Wigg still feels the need to say “It’s simple”. What I do know is Robert Newcomb claims this book was edited for months so he’s a liar. Anyways, next update we return to Tristan and the mysterious hole he fell into.
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Jul 23, 2023 19:10
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I love how the wizard muses about keys of simplicity in one chapter and mentions psychological damage in another. Couldn't even bother with being consistent about the fantasy gobbledygook.
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Jul 24, 2023 11:16
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So many bad fantasy books are so long. Why couldn't they at least have the decency to keep it concise. The almond eye thing is really funny. like I know exactly what they're talking about, and in animation school we once had an ex-Disney lecturer come in a talk about character design and how on Mulan they always got notes to make the eyes more almond shaped. But its especially funny to see it in prose.
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Jul 24, 2023 17:54
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This is hilarious! Well done on you for engaging with this train wreck of a book. It really raises some questions about publishing of fantasy books. There's someone in receipt of a professional salary somewhere who decides, presumably based on some sort of knowledge of the market, that this is what people want. Is it? Maybe when I was 12 I would have read anything with a cool cover and not thought to criticise the content.
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Jul 25, 2023 10:05
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anilEhilated posted:I love how the wizard muses about keys of simplicity in one chapter and mentions psychological damage in another. Couldn't even bother with being consistent about the fantasy gobbledygook. Let me assure you, it only gets worse. Like specifically in this chapter. Ccs posted:So many bad fantasy books are so long. Why couldn't they at least have the decency to keep it concise. The word "almond" appears in this book 14 times and is usually prefaced by either "exotic" or "dark". The first time I read this book I had absolutely no idea what it meant and I never even thought about it because this book constantly says weird stuff that means nothing. It was only when I discussed the book with my partner later that I realised that the leather clad Sorceress with the whip was supposed to be Asian and I was like "Of course she is. I can't believe I had to be told this." Genghis Cohen posted:This is hilarious! Well done on you for engaging with this train wreck of a book. For me, this is the most interesting thing about The Fifth Sorceress. I first heard about the book when I asked my partner what the worst book she ever read was. I think it may have been the book she read that caused her to realise books can be bad. Like she read Sword of Truth and was okay with it but she found The Fifth Sorceress to be terrible. Yet, it was a real book that was published internationally. Like I'm, guessing Wheel of Time and Sword of Truth were popular enough to justify picking up something that looked kind of similar. The Fifth Sorceress is very long, has a gendered magic system and it's even got that fun BDSM fetish content we all crave. Newcomb didn't like or read fantasy beyond reading one Terry Goodkind book, so I guess if you're looking for Sword of Truth then this is it. In my physical copy of the book (I stole it from my partner) this review is included at the start: quote:in the school of Terry Goodkind, this is American fantasy in all its glory... driven along at breakneck speed. This caught my eye because it was from the Guardian and I was like "But that's a real newspaper!". So I looked up the full review: quote:You know how it goes: in the kingdom of Made Up, in the city of Big Place, there lives a prince called Insert Name Here. Unfortunately, Hideous Dark Somethings threaten the lives of his people. In Robert Newcomb's The Fifth Sorceress, the kingdom is Eutracia, the city is Tammerland and the errant prince is Tristan. And when he turns out to be the Chosen One, he must use his powers to save the world from the HDS - in this case, a small coven of sorceresses intent on wiping out all men. The Fifth Sorceress was given a huge push by its publisher in the US, where it quickly gathered both devout fans and rabid critics. Firmly in the school of Terry Goodkind, this is American fantasy in all its glory: illogical, incoherent, full of plot holes but driven along at breakneck speed. And that kind of sums it up, this book is poo poo in the great tradition of poo poo fantasy. It's poo poo because it's supposed to be poo poo, because people like poo poo. Presumably, this was what the publishers thought too and they were right. They just went too poo poo. That being said, "break neck speed"? I'm 30,000 words in at this point and all we've done is hung around in the woods, the book is going nowhere and taking it's sweet time getting there. Also, the Sorceress's plan is not to destroy all men. Between this and the "Caves of Dragon" in the Kirkus review I'm starting to wonder if anyone actually read this book. Anyways, onto Chapter 2 - Part 2 Reminder, I don’t like the Fifth Sorceress. quote:When Tristan awoke, the first sensations that came to him were those of pain and noise. Pain throughout his entire body—and a noise he could not identify. Both crashed in upon his still-groggy mind like dual awakening explosions. He opened his eyes to find only blackness. The combination was at once both intolerable and terrifying. This is bad. Some of it is confusing bad (Dual Awakening Explosions) and some is stupid bad (“I pray,” he prayed) but it’s all bad. It’s bad writing in bad book written by a bad author. I’m saying all this now because I’m going to come perilously close to committing the crime I’ve accused others of: saying something vaguely positive about Robert Newcomb. This section of Chapter Two is An Experience™. From what I’ve learned about Robert Newcomb, he has never been interested in fantasy. This is good because it allows me to believe that none of what’s interesting about the chapter is intentional and I’m just projecting. And so, with all that being said, join me in experiencing the most powerful “The DM Has Spent a Lot of Time Making This Very Elaborate Set Piece But Things Keep Going Wrong” energy I have ever encountered. So, Tristan is in the hole. He’s not blind, turns out holes are just dark. First thing he does is look around. There’s some light coming from the hole he fell though. quote:It gave off only enough light for him to determine that there was a set of broken stone steps beneath it, leading down toward the blackness near where he sat. They looked to be about forty feet high. Tristan, unable to see much else, crawls towards the stairs. He makes it. quote:Upon reaching them there was enough light to see that the steps were indeed at least a hundred feet tall, and stopped at the top where he had fallen in. So Tristan has reached the stairs that have somehow gained sixty feet. What’s his next move? quote:Cautiously, he began crawling up the steps like a toddler. He doesn’t even stand up from prone. quote:Lifting his foot over the crumbling stones, he stepped back into the clearing, glad for the second time that day to be alive. He had no idea how long he had been unconscious, but squinting at the sun, he estimated at least two hours to have gone by. So, he gets out of the cave. Is this over…? quote:Ignoring his aching body, he returned to the hole in the wall and began to loosen more stones, allowing additional light to enter the depths below. After a good half hour, he very gingerly stepped back through the hole and onto the first of the stone steps. I propose the following explanation. Tristan fell into a cavern, failed a perception check to notice the torch he’d landed directly beside, left the cave, waited 30 minutes, repeated the perception check and barely passed. So Tristan goes back into the cave. He lights the torch with the flint from his Adventurers Pack (“Tristan never traveled into the woods without flint”) and now the DM gets to read out the stuff they’ve prepared. quote:What he saw made the breath leave his lungs in disbelief. Stairs Update: They’re 40 feet again. Anyway, the DM has made an underground waterfall cavern. It’s majestic and mysterious. quote:He looked to the top of the falls where the water fairly jumped off the precipice, falling downward, ever downward, separating itself on the way to the pool into drops that looked more like sparkling crystals than liquid. And, oddly, each drop seemed to have a pink cast. He reasoned it must be because of the torchlight and the many reflected colors of the plants. The longer he sat looking, the more intrigued he became, almost as if the pool of water was calling to him, beckoning him to join it as it cascaded into the pool. And the longer he watched, the more inviting the water became. At this point Tristan fails his Wisdom save. quote:Without thinking, he rose and began to remove his clothes. His leather knee boots, trousers, black vest, quiver, and undergarments soon all lay in a dirty pile at his feet. Serenely detached, he watched himself walk forward. It was as if in a dream that he saw his feet go to the edge of the dark, rolling water. The DM, being generous, gives Tristan a warning that maybe getting into the pool is a bad idea. quote:He was at the far end, near the steps, where the water seemed the calmest, and he stood there naked for a moment, calmly looking down at his reflection as if he were looking at someone else. He saw his longish black hair, the high cheekbones, what some would describe as the cruel mouth, and the slim, muscular body all dancing in the reflected light of the torches. Yeah, that’s right. It’s Evil Sexy Mirror Tristan. Would you like to investigate anyt- quote:Then he tilted his face toward the ceiling, closed his eyes, and calmly jumped feetfirst into the pool. Oh. Okay. Cool, fine. I’m ready for this. quote:It was really quite extraordinary. And suddenly, he became aware of a new, unmet need: a sudden powerful thirst, such as he had never known. Thinking back, he realized that it had been hours since he had drunk anything. He joined his hands together to gather up a cup of pool water, and slowly opened his eyes as he brought the liquid to his lips. Tristan fails yet another perception check but, almost entirely for setting flavour, the DM describes some things he did notice. quote:It was then that he saw the Fliers of the Field. Fine, okay. I mean it feels like you the Player know something weird is going on, have failed a load of checks and are now using noticing butterflies as a justification to get out of the mysterious pool. But sure, fine. Let’s just get this moving. Tristan leaves the pool. quote:Clothed once again, he thought to at least wash the mud from his knee boots before going back to the palace. He slowly bent over and cupped some of the water in his hands, then turned toward the wall of flickering torches. quote:What he saw made him jump back in fright, the liquid tumbling from his hands to splash on the ground at his feet. This is why I keep mentioning D&D dice rolls is because how else do you explain how, on multiple occasions, Tristan completely failed to notice this? He lights enough torches to see the colourful stalactites of the cave but he can’t tell water is blood. Arguably, it’s the act of cupping it in his hands that allows him to notice but he does this twice, why only notice the second time? This isn’t a narrative, this is waiting until an arbitrary threshold is reached. This is RNG. But that’s not the only reason it feels like a bad D&D session. quote:He had seen all he wanted to of this place for one day. Tristan, you were led to the Blood Falls by mysterious butterflies, shouldn’t you investigate further? This is the only stuff I’ve prepped for this session. I can’t just let him leave…! Right, okay. Wait. You move to leave the cavern but as you head towards the entrance: quote:He was standing before a large, squarely cut entrance to a tunnel. It was obviously man-made, at least ten feet high and fifteen feet across. A rectangular panel had been carved into the stone above it and contained the same type of writing that he had seen on the other walls of the caves. He took the torch from the wall and moved closer. Standing directly in front of the tunnel’s entrance, he raised the torch higher to try to look down the passage, but he could not see anything except an endless black void. The inside of the tunnel was silent and unyielding, and seemed to go forever. Yes, there’s a weird dark portal. Now he can roll some checks to- oh no: quote:Extending the torch, he walked forward into the tunnel, his mind full of questions. Okay, so for just straight up walking into the infinite black void door, you get your rear end kicked. Take some damage. Now, do you want to try something else? quote:Looking around, he found a hand-sized rock and picked it up. Moving near the wall of torches, he stood at an angle to the tunnel entranceway, instead of directly before it. With an underhand toss, he sent the rock flying toward the portal. Because I didn’t think you’d just walk into the dread portal! I thought you’d throw the stone first! Or do literally anything else! Look, it’s fine. What next? quote:Extinguishing the torches one by one, he made his way back to the stone steps. In the dim light of the retreating sunshine that came feebly in through the broken wall at the top, he climbed the stairs and finally exited into the warm and welcoming afternoon air. So Tristan leaves and this time the DM just lets him go. It’s done. It’s over. The entire Blood Waterfall arc was a dud, we’ll just fight a goblin or something next week. It’s over it’s done. And then this. quote:A bastard quotation from somewhere in his past suddenly came to mind: Leave only footprints. Take only memories. Is this a cute reference made by a player character or is this proof that The Fifth Sorceress takes places in a future of Earth? That’s right, the bad D&D session theory is actually less insane than a straight reading. Everything about this section is so weirdly haphazard and aimless. Even if you assume this is setting stuff up for the future (DO NOT ASSUME THIS) why is it all executed so strangely? As a framing device, I find that Bad D&D Session works surprisingly well for explaining thing but at the same time I don’t think Robert Newcomb knows what D&D is, let alone has he played it. I know in my heart that this is just bad writing in bad book written by a bad author but at the same time, Tristan landed beside a torch, didn’t notice it and left. As a DM who occasionally forgets not everyone had Darkvision, this speaks to me. Anyways, this ends the Desperately Looking For Order In A Chaotic Fifth Sorceress section of the update. There is more chapter to cover but I haven’t yet experienced the fever dream necessary to interpret it. We return to Wigg in the Woods. I wonder how his search for Tristan is progressing? quote:Wigg sat thinking, cross-legged on the soft grass of the upper forest glade, his eyes closed and the basket of food next to him. Oh. Well. I’m sure Shailiha is doing something? quote:He turned to check on Shailiha as she lay sleeping. Yes, after confronting the fearsome Blood Stalker, Wigg and Shailiha have returned to the Tristan’s Knife Throwing tree for a break. Luckily, as a powerful Wizard, Wigg can still search for Tristan. quote:When he searched his mind for Tristan’s presence—and the prince was clearly closer now—the texture of what he was sensing had been altered. Irrevocably. Which meant that something major had happened to Tristan that had changed him in a profound way. Wigg, who senses that Tristan has changed irrevocably, hopes to find Tristan unchanged. As he thinks this Tristan rides “bareback into the clearing” and, shock horror, something has changed about him. Irrevocably. quote:He has discovered the Caves of the Paragon, the old wizard thought, horrified. That’s right, Wigg has never seen such an aura (excluding when Tristan, the person who has the aura now, was born). We hear Wiggs thoughts a lot and most of the time it’s to tell us that Tristan is amazing. Often, it’s incomprehensible stuff like this, the rest of the time it’s more direct. quote:His mind is so quick, Wigg thought to himself. But we always knew that it would be. So Tristan is back and, in a rare show of restraint, he doesn’t immediately recount his adventures quote:Tristan gave Wigg his best look of nonchalance. “I was detained.” This does not stop Wigg from recounting his encounter with the fearsome Blood Stalker. quote:Wigg had begun to tell him about the encounter with the blood stalker, being careful to reveal only what he had told Shailiha. Any more was for the ears of his Directorate only, and his king. Wigg pointed to a tree at the side of the clearing, up against which he laid the stalker’s battle ax. His CALLING CARD. Even if this was a phrase that could exist in a medieval fantasy world (more evidence this is a future Earth???), it isn’t used correctly. The Blood Stalker is dead. There will be no calling. Case closed. It’s over. Understandably, all this chat wakes Shailiha. What does the Princess have to say about all this? quote:Before Tristan could respond, they both heard Shailiha begin to stir. Wigg quickly pointed his left hand toward her, and she peacefully drifted back into a deep sleep. He had no desire for her to overhear their conversation. And Robert Newcomb has no desire to write a three-way conversation. Honestly, it’s a blessing because the even with two people the conversations that follow are difficult to parse. So, as Wigg alluded too, Tristan’s encounter with the Blood Bath has changed him. How has this change manifested? Well, his pants have red stains on them (he wiped his hands on them) and now he’s very slightly interested in magic. Wigg is shocked by the Prince’s curiosity. quote:“Until this moment, my prince, you’ve never expressed anything but disdain for the throne, and rather rude requests for the teaching of the magic that may follow the king’s reign. Even your previous questions about the craft have, upon occasion, seemed ingenuine to us.” That’s right, up until this point, Tristan has not care even slightly about magic. He’s thirty, he’s received an extensive education, his best friend is a wizard and yet it took mystery blood to get him to ask a question. Anyways, despite his suspicion, Wigg just tells him. quote:“Children are born either ‘endowed,’ or ‘common,’ ” the wizard continued. “As you know, both you and your sister are of endowed blood, as are both of your parents. The union of two parents of endowed blood always produces progeny of endowed blood. Only one in a thousand births from a mixed union—common and endowed—results in an endowed offspring.” quote:“The craft is divided into two parts, or schools of thought, if you will. The first is called the Vigors. This is the beneficent side of the craft, and requires great selflessness and sacrifice. It is the school of magic to which each of the wizards of the Directorate have taken their vows. Simply put, the Vigors teach those facets of the craft that produce charity, kindness, and deeds for others. It is the only type of magic practiced by wizards.” He paused, gathering his thoughts, watching the setting sun slowly drop into the horizon before he finally spoke again. quote:“The other side of the craft is called the Vagaries. It is practiced only for power and greed, and the depravities of its execution know no bounds. It is said that complete mastery of the Vagaries always results in madness. During the war, the sorceresses practiced only the Vagaries, the wizards only the Vigors.” He picked at the hem of his robe. “The Vagaries are the most dangerous of all aspects of the craft—not more powerful than the Vigors, but far more destructive. And destruction was the tool needed most by the sorceresses to accomplish their goals.” So that’s it, that’s explained. Except Tristan is a visual learner so Wigg does some magic. quote:To Tristan’s disbelief the sky began to lighten. A gigantic glow began to coalesce. As he watched, it gently started to spin and to turn on its axis. It was becoming a brilliant golden orb, with offshoots here and there of the palest white radiating outward from its center, bathing everything in radiance. From time to time golden droplets of energy would trickle from the slowly spinning orb and fall into the valley, dissipating into nothingness. The Vigors, Tristan’s mind exclaimed. It is too beautiful to be anything but the beneficent side of the craft. Vigors are the nice orb.  quote:Now the same size and shape as the Vigors, the dark shape seemed to push the other orb aside, as if attempting to make room for itself in the night sky. Black and foreboding, it was as grotesque as the Vigors were beautiful. Droplets of dark, menacing energy dripped casually from its pitch-black, shining sides, and bright scratches of lightning shot through the ebony orb’s center, occasionally lighting up the interior of the sphere, showing the complexity of its macabre form. Instinctively the prince knew what it was, and also knew that it was to be feared. Vagaries are the bad orb  Bafflingly, Wigg hasn’t created a representation of the Vagaries, he’s actually directly called on the evil magic. This is fine because “calling forth the Vagaries to show themselves is not the same thing as attempting to use them”. I mean cool, but it feels like you could have just drawn some circles or something? Anyway, to sum up: Vagary is evil, Vigor is good, both are orb. However, is it possible that women could use the Good Magic? quote:“Oh, indeed,” Wigg answered. “Especially before the war. And just as there were women practicing the craft for the sake of the good, there were endowed men using it for evil. But once the battle had been won, it was forbidden by the Directorate for women to be trained in the craft. I now believe this policy is wrong, as do others of the Directorate, and we have decided that this issue should be formally addressed after your coronation. We feel it is a decision that the king should help us make. You are to be that king.” He raised the infamous eyebrow at the prince. “As is the case with many such issues, you will have some tall thinking to do.” It's been 300 years and though the Directorate don’t believe it’s a good policy to exclude women from learning magic, they have decided to wait for Tristan to make the decision. And it’s a good thing they didn’t ask any of the previous monarchs because Tristan has a great solution. quote:Tristan thought to himself quietly for a moment. “Perhaps if women were to be trained, and I think they should, then as a prerequisite we could ask them also to submit to the death enchantments. That would be fair, would it not?” One of the problems with reading the Fifth Sorceress (There are many) is that you eventually stop caring. Your eyes gloss over, you read without processing anything and when you snap out of it you realise you’ve missed something important. In this case, I read this section and I’m like “Oh, I skipped over the explanation of Death Enchantments”. But I hadn’t. This is the first time Death Enchantments are mentioned. The next time they come up, a page later, it’s like this: quote:“That is why, in addition to the time enchantments, we also invoked, as a group, voluntary enchantments of death.” With that, he sat back down on the grass next to the prince. Tristan, who just suggested Death Enchantments as solution, has literally no idea what they are when Wigg mentions them a moment later. This is Chapter Two of the book and in this update alone we’ve had Tristan suggesting things he doesn’t know anything about and the mysterious case of the elongating stairs. Again, Newcomb claims this book was edited. Does this mean the first draft was even worse? How is this possible. But let’s get back on track. What is a Death Enchantment? Well, according to Wigg. quote:An enchantment is an Achievement for which there is no known school of Reversal. Ah. Of course. Maybe you could summon some orbs to make this clearer…? quote:In other words, it lasts indefinitely. The death enchantments were fashioned in such a way that if any wizard who has accepted them breaks any part of his vows or practices any form of the Vagaries, either known or unknown to the others, he immediately dies. Death Enchantments, you do bad magic you die. Male magic users were asked to take a voluntary Death Enchantment, for women it would be mandatory. But also: quote:This, then, is the ultimate goal of the craft of magic, Tristan. That is, the harmonious joining of the Vigors and the Vagaries, and their control and proper use thereafter.” And the Chosen One shall come, and through the use of his sanguine, perfect blood he shall one day traverse the corridors of the craft, and bring the two sides together without the breaching of their fabrics, he thought. So, the Vagaries are evil, the Vigors are good and the ultimate goal of magic is to admit that there’s good magic on both sides and cross the aisles. Tristan’s sanguine blood (his blood blood) means he is the fated Centrist for whom we have all been waiting. Good. Luckily, Tristan is a dude so he can be taught magic and won’t be forced to take a Death Enchantment that could prevent him from fulfilling the prophecy. I remember when I first read this I thought it was the books way of suggesting things weren’t so black and white, that the Vigors weren’t inherently good and the Vagaries aren’t necessarily destructive. I thought that maybe the fact that women were drawn to the “bad magic” said something about male dominated Eutracian society, something that Tristan’s royal decree on mandatory Death Enchantments for women would only enforce. You see, I thought the Fifth Sorceress might be a book with themes and ideas. But no. It’s just bad writing in a bad book written by a bad author. However, in good news this we’re nearly done with this chapter. Just some extra confusion before we go. quote:“The Tome and the Paragon were discovered at the same time, Tristan,” he continued, “and either one is useless without the other.” Time to test him again, the Lead Wizard thought. He tilted his head slightly as he looked into the prince’s eyes. “Can you imagine where they were discovered?” The Tome is the magic book that got quoted in the prologue, the paragon is a jewel the King wears and both were found in the cave Tristan fell into. Naturally, Tristan doesn’t know this because he didn’t see the big CAVE OF THE PRAGAON sign but even though he doesn’t make the connection he… makes the connection? But he doesn’t? Because he doesn’t know? But maybe he should answer an unrelated question and mention the cave? I find all this deeply confusing. Wigg does not. quote:Wigg again pursed his lips, nodding his head. “I understand,” he said. More than you could ever know, he thought Big Joyce Energy. Anyways, Shailiha wakes up. She says nothing. The chapter ends when Tristan realises it’s dark, says they’ll never find their way home and Wigg reveals why he’s been randomly dropping dust throughout this chapter. quote:Upon touching the forest floor, the powder became luminescent in the night. A sparkling, twinkling iridescent blue streak was igniting itself and snaking all the way down the mountain, marking a clear path through the woods. But it’s not even orb shaped?! How can this be! So now it’s all done, let me take a moment to go over how much a gargantuan waste of time this chapter is. I’ve already mentioned the Blood Stalker doesn’t matter but in this chapter we had the Caves of the Pragaon, the blood pool and repeated mentions of how it has fundamentally changed Tristan. I feel like you know what I’m going to say next. It doesn’t matter. You read it and think “Okay, this weird cave is going to be a big part of the book” and it’s just not. Even the way Tristan changed doesn’t matter. Sometimes when I say something like this I think “Maybe I just forgot or missed how it becomes relevant” but I should never doubt myself for I am a faultless Titan. I present to you, a question from Robert Newcomb’s forum (only accessible through the way back machine). User SS Karsh asks. quote:I went back and read the first book for fun. I realized that I never got what the big deal was of bathing in the waters? Wigg made a big fuss about it and I never got why. So did bathing in the waters turn Tristan's blood to the azhure color? Forum Admin Da Boss, Robert Newcomb himself, replies with: quote:Tristan's change in blood color was due to using the craft without being trained, rather than bathing in the cave water. What would happen to him should he actually ingest it remains to be seen. Good fodder for another book, yes? After this, user Lirael chimes in to remind Newcomb that the water seemed to make Tristan interested in learning magic. Newcomb says it’s a good point. Then Galdar44 comes in with the real question, specifically about the red stains on Tristan’s pants. quote:I still do not understand why when he wiped his pants in the water they recived the red stains. Did I just miss it or what. To which Da Boss says: quote:As I remember, either Wigg or Tristan's father see the red stains on Tristan's pants, and understand that the stains will never wash out. This indicated the strength of the red water, rather than having any great meaning about the water's later use in the cornation cermony that was aborted by the Coven. And yes, the waters make him want to learn the craft faster, and have other effects on him and Shai, as well. See "Gates", page 79. Robert Newcomb doesn’t remember a plot point from his own book (Am I the foremost Fifth Sorceress Scholar in the world…?) but that’s less important than the fact that the sole purpose of the scene is to set up something that happens in the next book. It is 20,000 words long. Why does this chapter exist? What is it for? Is it designed to make me feel a kinship with the Sorceresses by forcing me to cross a vast tract of nothingness that no one has ever returned from? Or did we really just need to know that Tristan will need new pants? Anyways it’s over. It was long. Additional Notes: How Sexy was this chapter: A dud! Enjoy it while you can. Encyclopaedia Eutracia The Geography of Eutracia – Wigg takes a little time to think about the Kingdom: quote:And although the Sea of Whispers was bountiful in her goodness to Eutracian fisherman living in the ports that dotted the coastline, no one ever tried anymore to sail completely across it. No one even knew why it was called the Sea of Whispers. It just was. Wigg, haunted by memories of his own fateful time upon that mysterious sea, turned his thoughts inland. So Eutracia is completely isolated by the JRR Tolenka Mountains and the Sea of Whispers. Why can’t you just sail along the coast? I don’t know. You just don’t. Don’t think about it. Time Enchantments – Wigg explains another Achievement for which I assume there is no known school of Reversal. quote:We are protected by what are called time enchantments. But the public perception of this is misleading, Tristan. It is true that the enchantments keep us impervious to disease and old age, but time enchantments do not necessarily equate to immortality. If you and I both jumped off this cliff, at the bottom of it I would be just as dead as you. The time enchantments were developed to protect our land from those who practiced the Vagaries, who were also close to perfecting the same enchantments. Not for selfish reasons. Yeah, the self-appointed Wizard cabal who seem to play a large part in ruling all Eutracia have not made themselves immortal for selfish reasons. They are of the good orb after all. Just because it annoys me. I mean, basically this entire chapter falls into this category, but this really got me: quote:He turned to check on Shailiha as she lay sleeping. Her impending pregnancy did little to disturb her great beauty. Wigg my dude, as you yourself point out Shailiha is five months pregnant. The pregnancy is not impending, it is in progress. Also, don’t be a weird creep. Anyways, this was a very long update but we won't have to deal with another 20k chapter for a while. So, what lies in store for us in Chapter Three? Why, THE FIFTH SORCERESS! Not the main one. The other fifth sorceress. Again, there’s two. Popeston fucked around with this message at 13:11 on Aug 8, 2023 |
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Jul 28, 2023 20:41
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Magic eugenics, huh.
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Jul 28, 2023 21:44
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In addition to what you might call the continuity errors, it's just so physically poorly sketched out that someone falls into a dark pit (miraculously avoiding lasting injury, given falling 40 or 100 feet down, or off, stone steps while being knocked unconscious for a couple hours), recovers, crawls up the stairs again, then looks back down and sees something he should go back for. Why are the stairs described as broken if they are so easily traversable? There's too many details of insane stuff for me to go through. I admire your fortitude. I do laugh at the geographically neatly isolated kingdom though. Saves the author some trouble!
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Jul 28, 2023 22:54
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anilEhilated posted:Magic eugenics, huh. It's only Magic Eugenics when the Sorceresses do it. When the Wizards do it it's just good governance. Genghis Cohen posted:In addition to what you might call the continuity errors, it's just so physically poorly sketched out that someone falls into a dark pit (miraculously avoiding lasting injury, given falling 40 or 100 feet down, or off, stone steps while being knocked unconscious for a couple hours), recovers, crawls up the stairs again, then looks back down and sees something he should go back for. Why are the stairs described as broken if they are so easily traversable? What gets me about that scene is you can see how it should work. Tristan should be seriously injured falling into the cave. As the stairs are broken, he has no choice but to crawl deeper inside and, since he's concussed, he doesn't notice the water is blood until it reinvigorates him. Instead, he falls into the cave, gets a little injured, crawls out, waits until he feels better, and then enters the cave normally. Why have the accidental fall only to immediately undo all consequences of it? The worst of all worlds. The book is filled with baffling decisions like this where Newcomb comes perilously close to constructing a coherent narrative only to deftly avoiding it. And it's a trend he continues here in: Chapter 3 This chapter starts by introducing a new character in a manner designed to make it clear that they are a Bad Person. quote:She had been traveling over winding and dusty Eutracian roads for more than six days now. She always hated traveling this way, without her chef or her maidservants. It was so common. A terrible lady who looks down on “common” things! Sure, the previous chapter talked about powerful “endowed” blood” versus useless “common” blood but that was magic science so therefore not conceited. However, what really sets her up as a bad person is the suggestion that she is more deserving of power than a hereditary monarch. She should be honoured to be offered the opportunity to bend her knee to a man who, on this very day, got spooked by a horse and nearly jumped off a cliff. So, this terrible lady is Natasha. Who is she? The second paragraph provides a subtle hint. quote:Natasha of the House of Minaar, duchess of the province of Ephyra, looked down at the blue silk gown she was wearing and carefully smoothed out two of the unruly white ruffles she found at the hem. There was no Pentangle upon her dress, nor had any of her clothes carried that beloved sign for the last three hundred years, but that would soon change. Nazi who escaped the Nuremberg trials looks down at his tuxedo and laments the loss of his swastika cufflinks. Natasha is traveling to the capital for “an audience with Queen Morganna, and to attend the inspection of the preparations for the upcoming royal abdication ceremony” which makes her irritation at the 6-day commute even more relatable. Anyways, she’s quite a mysterious character. quote:From her traveling vanity case she produced a folding mirror with which to check her appearance, but the occasionally bumping carriage made it too difficult to hold the mirror still. Lowering and tying off the carriage window shades, she casually laid the mirror upon the red velvet seat next to her. For a few pages, the book so heavily implies that Natasha is a Sorceress that I take Newcomb’s unwillingness to directly state it as proof there’s something else going on here. Then, in the middle of explaining her scheme, he proves he has masterfully outplayed me. quote:She laid her head back against the velvet upholstery, closed her eyes, and silently blessed the beloved endowed blood streaming through her veins, at the same time cursing the wizard bastard who had been her father. She then smiled to herself, proud of the part she was about to play, and proud of who she had become. Okay, so she is a Sorceress then. (I am now even more certain this is a misdirect). Anyway, let’s get into her evil scheme. quote:As planned, poor old Duke Baldric had been immediately smitten, and they had married within a year of their introduction. Owner of the largest and most profitable of all the marble quarries in the province, he had been elected duke of Ephyra over thirty years ago, winning every re-election for the position since. In Eutracia, King is essentially a hereditary position but Dukes are elected and face regular re-election. I assume this is because it needs to be made clear that Duke Baldric is a Good Man Who is Loved by All because otherwise we might think a powerful man marrying a much younger woman was a bit iffy. Instead, we can rest assured that the richest man in the entire province has truly earned 30 years of uncontested reign and certainly doesn’t deserve to suffer the terrible cruelty of his evil wife. quote:Their wedding day had been six years ago, and she longed for the day when she would soon be free of him, and free of so much else here that she had hated since her childhood. For the last six years she had simply smiled back at him innocently each time he had told her that she hadn’t aged a single day since their wedding. And although the poor fool had unsuspectingly done his best to give them children, she only tolerated his inadequate and unexciting lovemaking because it served to strengthen the disguise of her marriage. Though Natasha fulfilled her wifely duties of remaining beautiful and young (It’s only been six years, how often does Baldric say this?) she maliciously denied Baldric children. Does she not know what women are for? Someone get Shailiha to come explain it. And by that I mean, have Wigg put Shailiha into a deep magic sleep while he explains it. So Natasha is a powerful sorceress who cruelly seduced a rich old guy to gain political power. 6 years ago. What about before that? Well, as if sensing our question, Natasha initiates a flashback. quote:As she laid her head lazily against the luxurious upholstery, her mind began to drift back in time to the sequence of events that had led her to this day, and to the even more important days that lay soon enough ahead. The flashback doesn’t cover anything else Natasha had done in the previous 300 years, instead it goes back to when “at the very young age of only five years she alone had been the first one to be able to read the Tome.” quote:The Tome. The great book of all books that had accompanied the discovery of the Paragon. She had simply picked it up and begun reading it even after all of the greatest wizard minds of the realm had tried so hard to do the same thing. Tried and failed. One of the weirdest things about The Fifth Sorceress is that, on several occasions, you kind of end up on the side of the genocide witches. I recognise that on some level this is a childish “You can’t tell me how to feel, Newcomb!” reaction but, given what we’ve learned of Eutracia so far, I understand why she ended up as a Sorceress. She clearly had magic talent but, as a woman, that the Wizards would never recognise her talent. However, the Sorceresses are all about it. quote:She had also been only five years old when the pretty ladies had first come to her. The pretty ladies who never aged. They had taken her with them to live, and she was happy about it because she had already been angry with her father and the other wizards. She sneaked away with them gladly, and had never returned. The Sorceresses train her to be their equal and she comes to consider them family. It’s written to give the impression that the evil Sorceresses warped the worldview of naïve child but I think they may have just appreciated her in a way the Wizards didn’t. For 300 years, Wizards have known women were capable of doing good magic but refused to teach them in case they strayed into the bad, a thing that they don’t worry about when it comes to men. In this single scene I feel like I’ve gained a better grasp of Natasha’s character than I have in 20,000 words of Tristan. I understand she felt spurned by her father and the other Wizards, that she still feels a loyalty to the Sorceresses who recognised her potential and she’s willing to demean herself by marrying a man she despises just to help them achieve their goals. I don’t even know why Tristan doesn’t want to be King. Certainly, Natasha is bad person who does bad things but a deeply flawed character with ambitions is much more compelling than whatever the hell Tristan is supposed to be. Anyways, we’ve spent enough time with Natasha and the scene wraps up like this: quote:Smiling, Natasha of the House of Minaar slipped on her white silk elbow gloves and listened casually as her driver presented her papers of transit to the Royal Guard manning the gate just outside the moat of the royal palace at Tammerland. Her smile widened as she heard the driver finally urge the stallions ahead, over the bridge to the palace. I do not understand what impact Robert Newcomb thinks this ending has. It’s written as if it’s revealing that she’s a Sorceress of the Coven but that has been outright stated several times in this scene. I guess it could be suggesting this is some monumental thing that's never happened before but the rest of the chapter makes it clear that Natasha goes to the capital a lot, she even hangs out with the Queen. Anyways, I guess it doesn’t matter because this all must be a misdirect. Right…? We’ll find out later. For now, we join our hero, Tristan (Thirty), sitting outside the Principal's Office as his teachers tell his father how badly he’s been misbehaving. quote:The castle was coming alive with visitors and workers, he thought. There must have been two hundred people in this room alone. And here I sit in my dirty clothes, for all of them to see. As we wait with bated breath to see if the Crown Prince gets detention, Tristan turns his attention to the décor. quote:Bored, the prince slowly looked around at the plush decorations that adorned this area of the royal residence. It was customary for a new king, upon taking the throne, to redecorate the palace to suit his taste. King Nicholas had given this responsibility to Morganna, and it was the unanimous opinion of Tammerland’s citizens that the queen had done an exquisite job. Hey Nicholas, the fact your children have such powerful blood is proof that your wife, Morganna, must also have endowed blood. Maybe she is capable of more than just decorating the palace? Think about it. Back to Tristan. quote:Tristan enviously took notice, as he always did, of the soldiers’ numerous weapons and various uniforms. Regardless of his rank, each wore a shiny silver breastplate etched with the image of a Eutracian broadsword, its blade running from the upper left corner of the chest armor down to the lower opposite right corner and ending there at the sword’s highly decorated gold hilt. Above the beautiful broadsword lay the image of a roaring lion, painted in black. These two images comprised the heraldry that was of the House of Galland. A long, pleated black cape was attached to either shoulder of the breastplate and hung down each soldier’s back. Each time Tristan saw the armor he wished he could spend more time in it instead of tending to his royal duties. Duties that would only increase soon, when he was king. Tristan (Thirty) longs to play dress up in some cool armour and worried that once he is King his nebulous duties might get in the way. Before I said Tristan as a character would work better if he were something like 18, I’m now revising that down to around 10. Luckily, the book immediately begins to course correct by introducing a sexy lady. quote:“Good evening, Your Highness.” The soft, velvety voice came from above. From this we learn that: 1) Morganna is way cooler than her décor implies, 2) Tristan already doesn’t like Natasha because she cheats on her older husband. One of these will be important. Anyways, Tristan is a bit of dick to her for no good reason quote:Bowing slightly, Tristan took her left hand in his right but held it there for a time, purposely forcing her to remain uncomfortably bent at the knees just a little longer than was customary. Then we get this. quote:She smiled with her eyes over the fan as it continued its seductive path back and forth. Had this woman been anyone else the prince might have been intrigued and only too glad to join her in the beginnings of a flirtation, despite the fact that she was married. But not with her. And not tonight. As you can see, Tristan has no real issues with sleeping with married women but not this one, presumably because he finds the fact she cheats on her husband to be distasteful. Luckily, before Tristan can collapse into a super dense hypocrisy singularity, Natasha excuses herself in the sexiest manner possible. quote:Her head still tilted slightly, she slowly looked him up and down. When her eyes at last returned to his, her tongue darted out playfully to touch the beauty mark at the left corner of her mouth. Then, she was suddenly gone. Somehow, Tristan is able to resist this powerfully lizard-like seduction technique. As he stares after her, he hears “a deep, rich male voice” behind him. Shockingly, it’s not Baldric but rather Frederick, Shailiha’s husband. And boy, does he have some very normal things to say. quote:“A wink from a pretty girl at a party doesn’t always result in climax,” he heard it say, “but only a fool won’t take the opportunity to find out.” Common Eutracian phrase. Let’s not pretend we’ve all heard about the climax wink. We all know how sex works. Frederick has shown up. Does he intend to chastise Tristan because his irresponsible antics almost resulted in his wife encountering a fearsome Blood Stalker? No, there are more serious issues to address. quote:He stepped closer to Tristan, out of earshot of his troops. “I had heard you had a bad day, but I never thought I would live to see you this tired. When I finally saw her open her mouth that last time, I thought she was going to undress you with her teeth.” Maybe the next married woman, Tristan thinks. Assuming she is chaste. At this point Tristan gets tired of sitting in his naughty chair and tells Frederick to walk with him. They drink some wine, walk to the garden, Tristan punches Frederick on the arm (”hard, as was his custom”) and then, upon confirming there are no sexy women around, they revert to their true forms. quote:And so it began. In a second, they were on top of each other like a pair of schoolboys at play. Tristan jumped up and grabbed Frederick from behind, only to find himself back down on the ground again. Frederick promptly tried to jump on top of him, only to discover that the prince was gone and standing above him, grinning wickedly. Too late, Frederick saw that the bottle had reappeared in Tristan’s hand, and before he could escape the inevitable, his head had been drenched in wine. Tristan (Thirty). So the Prince and the head of the Royal Guard lay around on the grass until one of them remembers they have a job. quote:“Take care of yourself,” he said ruefully, thinking of the Directorate. “I believe there may be much more to come for you this night that you may not be pleased with. And now a good evening to you, Prince Filthy.” Frederick then smiled, bowed mockingly to the prince, and slowly walked back into the palace. I’m not sure why Prince Filthy reminds us who Frederick is, I mean I get he’s not a particularly interesting character but he’s only just left. Now, even muddier than before, Tristan goes to change his clothes. Oh, wait no. I misread that. He actually returns to the castle and the naughty chair. quote:Once more alone and lonely in a crowd of hundreds, Tristan resignedly sat down in one of the plush supplicant’s chairs and cast his eyes apprehensively to the double mahogany doors at the other side of the room. And with that thrilling cliffhanger, the chapter ends. My main takeaway from this chapter, and most chapters, is that being a woman in Eutracia sucks. The fact that Natasha is married to an older man makes her a villain but does nothing to diminish her amazing husband. The fact that she, a married woman, sleeps with other men is a mark against her character but Tristan’s willingness to sleep with married women is just Classic Tristan and is celebrated by all. None of this is new, isn’t even limited to poorly realised fantasy Kingdoms, but the blatant double standards makes it hard not feel like the genocide witches might actually have a point. They're not supposed to, they’re supposed to be heartless monsters who delight in perverse cruelty, but Natasha is an immensely powerful Sorceress yet the easiest way for her to gain power in the Kingdom of Eutracia was to marry an old rich dude. Tristan gets to be King because of the quality of his blood but Shailiha has the same quality of blood and isn’t even considered for the role. Queen Morganna’s most celebrated accomplishment seems to be the castle décor. What is Robert Newcomb trying to say here? Nothing? Oh. Additional Notes How sexy in this chapter? Lizard tongue aside, Natasha is a quite demure sorceress. quote:The floating mirror showed a countenance framed by shiny brown ringlets that reached down past her shoulders, finally curving inward at their ends upon the swell of her ample breasts. quote:An opened fan had appeared in her right hand, and it began to move the air gracefully across the cleavage that rose above the low neckline of her magnificent blue gown. Man, she could have included twelves Pentangles on that dress and Tristan wouldn’t even have noticed. Also, special mention that Tristan is a very, very dirty boy. quote:And here I sit in my dirty clothes, for all of them to see. Man, Prince Filthy really earning his name on this one. Encyclopedia Eutracia - Visage Caster - Natasha is a Visage caster, meaning she is “able to change her appearance to suit any need, or for that matter, any mood”. Presumably, she can’t change herself to look like a guy or she could have just won the free and open election to become Duke. Just because it annoyed me quote:Tristan had great admiration for Frederick, not only as his brother-in-law, but also as the commander of the Royal Guard. In truth, they owed each other much. It had been Tristan who had first introduced him to his sister. And it had been Frederick who had personally given the young prince much of his training at the war college. I just want to stress that Tristan, a royal, takes credit for introducing Frederick, a man whose job it is to guard royals, to his sister, a royal who requires near constant guarding. This feels like taking credit for introducing Neil Armstrong to the moon; I suspect he may have independently noticed it even if someone had not pointed it out. Also, this quote is in the body of the update but I need to go back to it: quote:Tristan jumped up and grabbed Frederick from behind, only to find himself back down on the ground again. Frederick promptly tried to jump on top of him, only to discover that the prince was gone and standing above him, grinning wickedly. Too late, Frederick saw that the bottle had reappeared in Tristan’s hand, and before he could escape the inevitable, his head had been drenched in wine. Can they both teleport? Is this a “nothing personal, kid” situation? It’s so strange. Next update: Wigg, Tretiak, Egloff, Slike, Killius, and Maaddar think about things as we once again recap the event of chapter two. It will never stop happening.
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Aug 9, 2023 23:05
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page 2,800 of chapter 1 of a book of prophecies would be a really good joke in a parody novel. I could imagine pratchett writing that
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Aug 13, 2023 23:30
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So there’s been a bit of a delay for which I offer the following excuses: - Baldur’s Gate 3 is very good. - Chapter 4 of the Fifth Sorceress is somehow worse than every other proceeding chapter. It’s not the first time I’ve tried to return to this project only to realise I could be doing literally anything else with my life but this time I soldiered on (Because Patch 5 of Baldur’s Gate 3 made assets stop loading in my second playthrough). Anyways, on we go. VostokProgram posted:page 2,800 of chapter 1 of a book of prophecies would be a really good joke in a parody novel. I could imagine pratchett writing that Accidentally stumbling into incredibly astute fantasy parody is a real hallmark of this book. It’s impressive because Robert Newcomb didn’t read fantasy yet somehow he managed to tap into some primordial hacky fantasy energy. There’s a line in this book that has stayed with me for years and it’s so incredibly powerful that me and my partner still reference it to this day. Unfortunately, it’s not good enough to excuse the hundreds upon hundreds of other lines that exist on the book. It's surprisingly close though. Chapter Four This chapter begins with Wigg being a very reasonable man. quote:Tristan had indeed been correct in guessing that Wigg was in a foul mood. In truth the wizard realized he had no right to be angry with Tristan, or Shailiha either, for that matter. Very big of him not to be angry with Shailiha, a character whose major crime was convincing people to search for Tristan (A thing Wigg already intended to do). But if Wigg isn’t being irrationally angry with a woman, what is he angry about? quote:Instinctively he knew that the prince must have found the Caves by accident, except how he had found them the old one could not imagine. No one had visited the Caves for centuries. Until today. Of all of the people to have gone there, Tristan was the worst possible choice for so many reasons. Would you believe it, it’s more Chapter 2 fallout. You know, the chapter the author himself admits doesn’t become relevant until the second book. Anyway, that extract really sets the tone for this chapter because it constantly hints that something monumentally terrible is going to happen while steadfastly refusing to explain what it might be. quote:How do I begin this? the old wizard thought. What I tell them here today will forever change all of our lives. He took a breath to speak, but the king, no longer able to contain his worry, spoke first. Wigg has assembled the Directorate (the ruling council of wizards that includes Wigg, Tretiak, Egloff, Killius, Maaddar, and Slike) and King Nicholas to tell them the terrible news of great import that will forever change the destiny of everyone for all time. However, before we get to that the King asks if his son is alive because no one will tell him. quote:“I have asked the other wizards of the Directorate seated here about my son’s whereabouts today, but all I get in return are concerned, polite stares.” He slowly laced his fingers before continuing. “Tell me, Lead Wizard, is my son safe?” How mysterious! Can you elaborate on tha- wait, Wigg. quote:Before any of the others could ask him what he meant, Wigg turned and left the room. Seems like a weird place to end the meeting but- oh, he’s back. quote:In a moment he returned holding the blood stalker’s battle ax and tossed it unceremoniously upon the conference table. It screeched and scratched its way along the varnished wood for a few feet before stopping in the center, some of its various brain-matter stains still visible. Wigg, this all seems needlessly theatrical? Considering you called this meeting; I don’t know why you didn’t have the axe on the table to begin with. Before anyone can question it, he continues. quote:Before any of the other six men could speak he dryly added, “For any of you who do not remember, I don’t recommend touching any of the places stained in yellow.” He sat down heavily in his high-backed wizard’s chair and let out a long sigh. The Lore of Yellow Brain returns and, once more, I check the rest of the novel to see if it is ever relevant. It’s not. I don’t know why it keeps getting brought up. To be fair, this entire chapter is essentially “I don’t know why this is being brought up” because this is no mere “Tristan fell in a hole” recap, instead it covers all the inconsequential events of Chapter Two. quote:“Yes,” Wigg said sadly. “But there is more that you must know. The stalker carried a red birthmark upon the inside of his left forearm.” He paused. “It was Phillius.” What a shock! The Blood Stalker was actually Wigg’s old friend, Phillius! This is quite the reveal, a shame it’s undercut by the fact we already know. Maybe if Wigg hadn’t immediately explained what the Blood Stalker was seconds after killing it then this revelation might have some weight. Instead, we are recapping things we’ve already been told because Robert Newcomb has an obsession with having characters repeat things to characters who weren’t in the scene. You know, the kind of thing you could replace with “Wigg told them about the Blood Stalker and Phillius’ gruesome fate” and lose absolutely nothing. Finally, when the Blood Stalker incident has been recounted, someone gets the chance to ask a question. quote:Slike looked up at Wigg, his green eyes full of questions. “Blood stalkers were maintained by time enchantments,” he said incredulously. A look very close to horror began to creep into his eyes. “Do you suppose it possible that—” Sit down, Slike! Wigg isn’t even halfway through Chapter 2. I’m sure we’ll swing back to this discussion later, it is inevitable after all. (We don’t, I don't even know what it is. I guess it’s “The Sorceresses are back!” but it could easily be about something like Schools of Reversal or Achievements.) We quickly move on to matters of true import. quote:“Besides,” he continued, “it is my unpleasant duty to inform you of an even more threatening occurrence this day.” Clearly this is important. Unfortunately, everyone immediately skips over explaining why it might be important so they can be distraught about it. quote:First came a deathly silence. But soon after it was replaced by the highly uncustomary sound of disorganization as the five wizards urgently began to talk to each other in a loud confusion of various conversations. It’s terrible that Tristan found the Caves of the Paragon. Why? Don’t know. Initially I assumed it had something to do with the whole blood bath but instead that’s the “It gets even worse!” aspect of this story. quote:“I am sorry to have to inform everyone here that there is still more to tell you.” Anyone looking hard enough would have been able to see the muscles in his jaw clenching. “The prince’s clothes are stained in red. The red. Again, I am sad to say that there can be no mistake. I believe he has either bathed in or at the very least washed some parts of himself in the water of the stone pool. I need tell no one in this room that these actions are without precedent. We are truly walking into the unknown, and we have been innocently led there by one of endowed blood whom we all love very much.” This would be excessive even if this scene explained what any of this meant but the fact that none of this is relevant until the second book makes it feel like literary edging. Newcomb is desperate to impress upon us that there are significant consequences to what Tristan has done (i.e. accidentally fall into a hole) but the only ones mentioned are: 1. Tristan has a magic glow 2. He’s interested in magic Again, we already knew both things, but we do get some new information. quote:“Wigg,” Nicholas began again, “will the azure glow be about him always?” There was both concern and a bit of uncharacteristic timidity in the usually commanding voice. The prime consequence of Tristan finding the cave is temporary. Still, I guess if someone notices it before it fades then something terrible could happen. Right…? quote:Wigg laced his long, ancient fingers together upon the back of the chair. “It is also a good thing that no one other than myself will be able to discern the glow. Even the prince himself cannot see it. We should, therefore, be able to contain the secret among the men in this room. The unenlightened populace and even the rural wizards would never understand its meaning. And any explanation might cause only misunderstanding, perhaps even alarm and riot.” It’s a temporary glow that hardly anyone can see that will eventually fade. Which is good because if it didn’t something terrible might happen. For some reason. That no one will explain. So, the first consequence seems incredibly mild. What about the second? quote:Egloff had a question. “Does Tristan now illustrate an even greater interest in the craft?” he asked Wigg actually answers this question, presumably because we already know the answer. quote:“This, my friends, was the last thing that it was my unfortunate duty to tell you,” Wigg said slowly. “Yes, his eyes are alive with it. Just as his mind is alive with forming questions and his tongue is equally alive with asking them. And given the nature of his birth, I fear that this, unlike the aura, will not go away anytime soon. He may become completely unmanageable. Perhaps he has even done irreparable harm to himself. Only time will tell.” So the only potentially long term consequence of this life changing event that will forever change the course of history is Tristan is interested in magic. This is bad because, even though all the other Wizards seemed irritated by Tristan’s previous disinterest in magic, he may want to know too much. Considering Tristan lives in a magical fantasy kingdom and he is fated to become a wizard himself, this feels like it’d be an improvement. At this point, Wigg leaves to find Tristan. When he does he beckons him, testily. quote:After testily beckoning Tristan forward, Wigg reached to his right and pulled a tasseled velvet cord that hung through a hole in the corner of the ceiling. The revolving door dutifully swung shut. Maaddar clearly inherited his parent’s tendency to give things terrible names. So they get into the chamber and head down. But down to where…? quote:“But there is nothing below the first floor in this section of the palace,” Tristan said. “All of the subterranean floors such as the kitchen, the sculleries, and the servants’ quarters are elsewhere, far from here.” He was sure of it. He had, after all, lived here all of his life. Turns out there’s a Magic School under the castle! quote:They were standing in some sort of circular underground courtyard. It was constructed of the most beautiful light-blue Ilendium marble he had ever seen. It appeared to be some sort of central crossroads for at least a dozen or more seemingly endless hallways that led off it at regular intervals like spokes from the hub of a wagon wheel. It was amazing. And the place was full of wizards. Essentially, anyone (who is a man) with magic blood comes here to learn magic under the tutelage of the Directorate. quote:“Once they have accepted the vows and the death enchantments, they are trained in the craft. Anyone refusing to take the vows is summarily rejected. Those who do go through training are sent back into the countryside dressed as peasants. They are empowered to perform as many good deeds as they deem appropriate for the benefit of the populace at large—all within reason, of course. They must go about the rest of their lives without alerting the citizens to the fact that they are wizards. A benevolent secret society, if you will. So the Directorate have set up a secret wizard army. I mean, that feels like it could cause problems but don’t worry, it’s members will never be as powerful as the Directorate. quote:"They have nowhere near the power of a wizard of the Directorate, and it is purposely planned to be this way.” The war was 327 years ago, meaning the people in charge of making the decision on who lives forever are the people who disqualify anyone who is not already living forever. It’s notable that in those 300+ years not a single wizard gained the trust of the Directorate enough to be invited to join their ranks and live forever. Ah well, I guess it’s fine that six immortal wizards have been the supreme authority on wizard matters for three hundred years. Let’s move onto the indoctrination phase of Magic School. quote:The large, bright chamber was filled with young boys of varying ages, from toddler up to what looked to be as old as ten. There had to be at least forty of them in the attractively painted room. They were not being tended to by nurses or maidservants as one might have expected, but rather by yet more wizards, who watched and cared for the children as attentively as if they were their own. Perhaps they indeed are their own, Tristan thought. Tristan never said they must be the wizard’s children out loud so I guess Wigg can read minds now. After this, it is explained that wizard children have strong bonds with their wizard father and they would be unhappy remaining at home with their mothers. So naturally they come to Redoubt of the Directorate to hang out. And by that I mean immediately begin learning magic. quote:Even these young boys before you, happily at play, have taken the Vows of the Consuls and are taught only the Vigors. I read this and I thought “Hold up, what are the Vows of the Consul again?”. I don’t know, the book doesn’t say, it just mentions that Consuls (Wizards trained at magic university) agree to take the Death Enchantments, the magic that kills you if you ever practice the Vagaries. So I guess this means that young children must take Death Enchantments if they want to hang out with their dad. Surely, it would be better to enrol them in regular school until they understand how a war three hundred years ago necessitates them taking a weird magical death curse? You know, I’m starting to get real weird vibes from this secret wizard society. It’s not helped when Wigg says; quote:“This process is the closest thing to an organized religion that Eutracia has, and as such must be monitored carefully.” I mean, that does explain why people just talk about a generic “afterlife” but it’s still kind of weird. Anyway, enough of that. Tristan finally gets to the conference room. And man, what a room! quote:The conference room was not particularly large, but what it lacked in size it more than made up for in elegance. From the center of the high ceiling hung a single gold chandelier of oil lamps that gave a subdued beauty to the room. Paintings and tapestries covered much of the four mahogany-paneled walls. It struck him that since no women were allowed here, the decor could not have been suggested by his mother and therefore, presumably, reflected his father’s taste. This paragraph makes special mention that Queen Morganna didn’t decorate this room from which Tristan assumes his dad is super into paintings and tapestries. However, as we know from Chapter 3; quote:The palace contained over six hundred rooms, some of which Tristan had never even visited. Amazingly, the queen had personally overseen the decoration of each of them. Marble of every possible color from the quarries at Ilendium could be seen everywhere. At first I thought least there’s no Ilendium marble in the room but Ilendium marble is described as light blue and: quote:A warm fire danced softly in a light-blue marble fireplace that ran along the length of the right-hand wall. Honesty, the only notable difference is that this room has mahogany panelling while the places Morganna decorated have oak panelling. So the king prefers a marginally softer wood I guess…? Anyways, after admiring décor almost identical to that in the 600 other rooms in the castle, Tristan “walked to the fire and blatantly turned his back to the seven men in the room” and his father stares at Tristan’s “dirty back”. That’s right, Tristan still hasn’t changed his clothes and bizarrely, it’s relevant. For you see, when Tristan attempts to “hide his emotion”, by looking “down at his trousers” and trying “to brush away some of the red stains” (a classic move, we’ve all done it) his father says: quote:“Don’t bother with the stains,” the king began, his eyes boring into those of his son. “They will never come out.” Tristan’s pants are ruined! Even if Maaddar invents some kind of Cyclonic Water Box/washing machine the stains will never go away. Much in the same way Lady Macbeth was haunted by the sight of own blood-stained hands, Tristan actions have left him forever marked. Specifically on his pants. Which I guess he’ll just throw away. When you think about it, Lady Macbeth should have just worn gloves. Anyway, Tristan is so sick of being bossed around by the supreme monarch that he becomes sassy. quote:“Thanks to the wizards in this room, you are a very well-educated young man,” his father said. “Therefore, let us pay you the compliment of being blunt. You’ve made a lot of mistakes lately.” It’s not even good sass. Like at least say they weren’t mistakes, don’t be like “Jokes on you, I love loving up!”. Still, Tristan is mad but, bizarrely, he’s mad in the way that anyone forced to read this chapter would be. You see, Tristan has questions. quote:“What is it you would choose to know?” Wigg asked gently, raising an eyebrow. Now, these are not the questions I would have asked but as he’s probably asked them a hundred times before I can understand his frustration. Doubly so, because, once again, no one answers any questions. Instead, the King waits for Tristan to calm down and then we return to the real important issues. quote:“Tristan,” the king asked, gazing into his son’s eyes, “how is it that your trousers are stained in red?” Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful for this succinct summary, but Robert Newcomb knew he could do this and still told me about Phillius? Why? Why…!? But now we’ve gotten a firsthand account of the events that will forever change the course of history, maybe we can get some specifics on how they might actually change the course of history. quote:Wigg turned his attention back to the men seated before him. “The first imperative is to reestablish the wizard’s warp that once protected the wall that the prince inadvertently fell through.”[quote] I hate you Wigg. quote:He turned his gaze once more to the prince. “I am sorry to have to say this Tristan, but we must forbid you to ever go near the Caves again. The stakes for all of us are much too high.” The most immediate consequences of Tristan’s discovery of the legendary Caves of the Paragon is hat butterflies might have to go somewhere else. Oh and: quote:He looked with disdain at Tristan’s dirty red-stained black breeches and leather vest. “And,” he added sadly, “it also appears that you will have to attend the ceremony dressed as you are.” Yes, Tristan will also continue to be Prince Filthy. And that’s it. The Wizards leave and to learn the terrible consequences of Tristan’s actions you’ll have to read another book. Seriously. That’s it. This book will never tell us what any of this meant. I think at this point Newcomb was just writing with no concrete plot in mind but good god man, do a second draft. The only new thing that gets established is the magic school and that’s not even all that important, it just gets mentioned a few more times. But we’re not even done yet. Because now the wizards are gone Tristan has to talk to his family. Queen Morganna, sister Shailiha and brother-in-law Frederick all arrive. Special note about Frederick. quote:Only Shailiha and the recently bathed Frederick managed slightly encouraging smiles in his direction Frederick got to wash but Tristan isn’t even allowed to change his clothes. Why is this book so dead set on Tristan being filthy? Is this going to be relevant again…? Anyways, upon seeing his family Tristan thinks; quote:The wizards are powerful, he heard his heart whisper to him, but it is my family that I hold most dear. And that seems like an incredibly weird thing to think until: quote:“Tristan,” the king began as if reading his son’s mind, “do you love us?” At this point I realise that Robert Newcomb felt the need to establish Tristan loves his family because otherwise people could think he’s lying when he answers his father’s question. Once Tristan confirms he loves his family, his father asks another question. quote:“And this stone?” the king asked, no small measure of regal command in his voice. “How is it that you feel about this?” As Tristan didn’t previously think “I love rock” I feel I can accept this answer at face value. Anyway, though it feels like this is going somewhere, it soon becomes clear that King Nicholas has spent too much time around Wigg and can't explain anything. quote:Nicholas looked down at the jewel that he had worn for so long—the same stone he longed to see around the neck of his only son, where for so many years the wizards had said it rightfully belonged. How do I tell him these things? the king asked himself. How do I this day tell him how concerned his parents are for him, when all that he hungers to know cannot, will not, be told to him until the day of his coronation? Whereas in every previous chapter information was volunteered at every possible opportunity, this chapter is all about Newcomb convincing you that important things are happening but he can’t tell you about them yet. So, even though Nicolas has nothing to say he keeps talking. quote:Nicholas let go of the Paragon and leaned back in his chair, sighing slightly. “It is no secret to the people here in this room, or to the directorate of Wizards, that you do not wish to be king. But you shall be the king, and in a very short time. And what I must tell you now is that if you do not change and show your willingness to take on the responsibility that is about to be thrust upon you, you will rule poorly, and neither the nation nor your family can survive that. Trust me when I say that, for reasons I cannot this day explain, your reign will be unique to all of Eutracian history.” Nicholas’ face seemed to soften a bit as he considered his next words. “Too many good people have died trying to protect the Paragon to let it be worn by one who will not fulfill his duties. Tristan will be king, the only choice he has is if he’ll be a good king. There. I’ve summed it up. In a sentence you can easily call back to when Tristan is forced to dig deep to find his resolve. At this point, King Nicholas seemed to realise he’s just rambling and looks at his wife. quote:My queen. Tristan and Shailiha’s mother, he thought to himself. The love of my life. You are half of all that he is, and all that he can become. Help me make him understand, in that way in which only you can. quote:Morganna gazed knowingly into the eyes of her husband. Then her face purposely hardened, and she looked at the prince. Oh dang! Immediately, Queen Morganna becomes my favourite character in this book. After hours of people smiling compassionately at Tristan and reflecting on how smart and special he is, Morganna comes in and sums it up. Tristan is a child. And she’s not done. quote:“I will repeat your father’s question. ‘Do you love us?’ Do you love the people in this room enough to give of yourself and become the king of Eutracia, the king that this nation deserves?” She paused, deciding to risk the gamble. “Or need we ask the wizards to find another man of endowed blood to wear the stone?” Queen Morganna just furnished the 600 rooms of Tristan’s mind with some guilt! As tough as oak panelling, I love it. Unlike very other loser in this book, Morganna knows exactly what will work on Tristan and boy does it work. quote:Or need we ask the wizards to find another man of endowed blood to wear the stone . . . His mother’s seemingly impossible words echoed in his mind for what felt like an eternity, their sheer, startling simplicity rattling him to his core. Finally overcome by the strength of his emotions, the prince suddenly realized how he must have always appeared not only to his family but to his subjects, as well. Even though Tristan doesn’t want to be king, it’s his only defining character trait beyond an inability to put on clean clothes, the second it’s suggested someone else might be king he’s like “Oh no! I’ll do it for my family!”. Sure Tristan, sure. You child. You absolute baby. Anyways, now that Tristan has crumbled, the chapter ends. quote:His head still bowed, the next words came out in a whisper. “But please, Mother, also understand that I know I have much to learn.” Yeah, Morganna just wants her son to recognise he’s an idiot. And to be fair, it’s more than anyone else managed to achieve. Anyways, we’re done now and as eager as I am to put this miserable chapter behind me, I gotta ask. Are wizards supposed to be bad? Like the only reason I can think of the first scene to exist is to show how the Directorate exert control over the King. Wigg’s refusal to offer any concrete details on what might happen, dramatically throwing a terrifying skull ax on the table, and the other wizards refuse to tell the King if his son is alive until they’ve had this meeting; is this all a carefully constructed ruse to scare the king and allow the Directorate to set the political agenda? I admit that’s probably me desperately trying to assign meaning to Robert Newcomb mugging me of my time but the more I think of it the more it seems to fit in with everything else we know. In Chapter 2 (The most important chapter in the book?) Tristan suggests women could learn magic if they accepted Death Enchantments that would kill them if they tried to practice the Vagaries. Wigg agrees and thinks this is a good idea. Wigg my man, you’ve been foisting Death Enchantments on literal children this entire time, if you’d wanted to allow women to learn magic you could have started centuries ago. The only reason I can think why they wouldn’t is their horrible war trauma has convinced them that there will be terrible consequences if women gain power. And considering they are effectively part of the government, is it any wonder that the highest position a woman can achieve in Eutracian society is being married to a powerful man? The role of women is so ingrained in society that when Tristan sees young children studying in Magic School he’s baffled that there are no women there to attend them, this being the primary purpose of women. Sure, Queen Morganna has powerful endowed blood that would allow her to become a powerful magic user but instead society has decided that her talents are better suited to decorating the palace. In Eutracia, women don’t get power because they will abuse it. Instead, it is better that all power is held by six immortal men because they have decided they can be trusted with it. They have even created a secret organisation of wizards and spread them around Eutracia. Wigg tells us they are tasked with doing “good deeds” but in this society, who decides what is good? A group of wizards who believe death should be the consequence of trying to learn the magic they don’t teach. The Directorate have no interest in passing the torch, so much so they have ensured no one else ever becomes powerful enough to challenge them. Wigg was wrong; Eutracia does have an organised religion and the Directorate are its pantheon. Alternatively, the Fifth Sorceress is a bad book and I’ve thought far more about it than anyone else should. Additional Notes: The Hallmarks of a Wizard – When we see the Wizard School, Tristan notices: quote:There were young ones, old ones, thin ones, and fat ones, but he noticed that although they were all dressed in the customary plain gray wizard’s robes, none of them had the wizard’s tail of braided hair that usually fell down the back of the neck. The sign of a Wizard is a rat tail. Or at least it is among the powerful Wizard Directorate. Which makes sense because you’d need to have supreme magical power to pull that look off. Egloff – When the wizard Eglof wonders about the consequence of Tristan having a blood bath, he says the following. quote:“For as long as I can remember, we in this room have been of the opinion that touching the water in an uncontrolled manner may unleash a desire to learn such as we have never seen. If I am not mistaken, I believe the Tome itself makes mention of it.” A smallish man who was always concerned with details, Egloff placed the ends of his thumb and middle finger of one hand against either side of his long nose and closed his eyes, his mind already deep into his unparalleled memory of the Tome. It feels like an incredible power move to be like “Doesn’t the 3,000+ page book mention this?” before pausing and saying “Yeah, sure does”. Is theatricality just inherent to wizardry? Ilendium Marble – It’s light blue and it just so happens to come from the province that Natasha, the non-titular Fifth Sorceresses, rules over. Secret Admission – When Morganna says the stone must be worn by a man she had more to say. quote:“One who is, indeed, man enough to honour it with his courage, and his resolve” . I felt this undercut the absolute brutality of her speech so I cut it out. I’m just doing the work some editor should have done! Just because it annoys me. Upon reflecting on his son’s rebellious spirit, King Nicholas remembers the following, very relevant saying. quote:Long-since dusty hopes are about to float away upon the invisible ink of time, he thought Is time like... a rising sea of invisble ink that... hopes float on? If they're dusty...? I think it's saying that Tristan is a gently caress up and I want to be on board with that but I can't get behind such a tortured sentence. Also, just because I’ll never get over it. quote:I pray to the Afterlife, please let us survive the events of today, he thought sadly. Please Afterlife, let me continue avoiding you! Someone should really organise this religion. Anyways, this chapter has been much too long but though I originally intended to cut it in two I couldn’t face returning to that conference room. It needed to be done. It needed to be over. And so, next chapter we get to hang out with Sorceresses 1-4! Depending on your tastes, it’ll be a bad time or a great time.
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Dec 15, 2023 21:23
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Tristan is written like he's 12, not 30. The incident in the caves seems to mark the beginning of his maturity, with him afterward gaining an appreciation for scholasticism and an acceptance of his adult duties. And while he is a man, he is destined to unite the male and female magicks and disrupt the kingdom's magical gender binary or something. Putting all of this together, I gotta ask: is the bloodstained pants thing meant to represent Tristan getting his first period? the answer is no, it represents nothing whatsoever, nothing in this book means anything
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Dec 16, 2023 07:32
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I'm guessing the "embarrassing yourself in public by wearing dirty clothes" thing is one of the author's fetishes? I was laughing outloud at the part where 30 year old Tristan and his adult friend suddenly burst into wacky mud wrestling hijinks
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Dec 21, 2023 01:54
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