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Epicurius posted:
It is the casualness that sells it. There;s no discussion, no "well, I'm grown enough to make my own choices", no drama at all.
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Mar 17, 2020 01:38
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Besides that, this is pre-Harry Potter kidlit. There was a pretty strong limit to how long a book the publishers would even consider.
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Mar 19, 2020 06:37
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Epicurius posted:
I think this is a case where it being kidlit helps a lot. An adult writer would have an easy time falling back on cliche depictions of terror, but most of those are very inappropriate in a kid's book. That means you have to be more creative. Also, this is extremely violent by 1990s kidlit standards.
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Mar 21, 2020 04:33
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Did our hero just leave an innocent homeless man to be brutally murdered as a distraction? Scholastic published this?
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Mar 22, 2020 04:45
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CidGregor posted:The 90s were a different time, man. Stuff that was ostensibly 'for kids' had some legit terrifying/disturbing parts. Even Disney poo poo. Hell, especially Disney poo poo. Looking at The Lion King through a modern lens, that kind of nazi-ish imagery and elaborate major character death scene would never fly with a G rating these days. Or the hot spicy racism of Pocahontas. Or the old man sexual predator vibes of Hunchback. I was a kid in the early 90s. I remember major moral panics over far less than we've alrready seen here.
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Mar 22, 2020 06:50
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Epicurius posted:
It makes sense to me. Everything else is horrifying, or just so out there that it is simply hard to wrap your head around. Elfangor's death, on the other hand, is tragic, but extremely noble - he sacrificed everything to give them a chance.
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Mar 23, 2020 01:42
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Okay, this took a distressing turn.
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Mar 25, 2020 03:42
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Epicurius posted:We had seen Tobias's tragedy earlier...mother dead, father missing, bounced around between aunt and uncle. Now we see Marco's. His mother's dead and his father's fallen apart. And it's interesting how these two characters tragedies lead them to completely opposite attitudes. Tobias has nobody who he cares about or cares about him. So he's gung ho about this...it gives him a reason to continue, it gives him a mission, a purpose, it gives him a family. Marco, it's the opposite, because its just his dad and him, and he feels a responsibility to his dad that takes up his life. So, he's got that sort of responsibility, which is consuming him. This is really neat. Having two characters get different outlooks from very similar traumas is something that not a lot of authors would do. quote:
Finally, something that I expect to see in a YA series!
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Mar 26, 2020 02:23
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This scene would have really ticked me off as a kid. You can turn into a lizard! Why are you paying admission?
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Apr 3, 2020 01:56
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It was ballsy as hell for a kidlit series like this to end in an unmitigated defeat. You would expect a draw or a small victory to hook the audience, then maybe have them take a L four or five books down the line.
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Apr 12, 2020 00:28
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Any other series, I'd expect this Melissa person to be Taken, or else quickly switch to the Good side and remove the moral ambiguity.
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Apr 16, 2020 00:51
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Epicurius posted:So what's your prediction for what will happen here? Going by what we've seen before, Melissa's going to get ground to paste between the two sides, and Rachel will be extremely guilty about it for the remainder of the book.
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Apr 16, 2020 01:37
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Kchama posted:This has summed up why I always liked Marco even early on. And why he's such a critical component of the team. To not only buck that "The Complainer Is Wrong" trope, but to almost announce it, has a pretty interesting degree of self-awareness. Particularly since that was still a big thing in kid's media when these were new. ((EDIT because I accidentally posted)) You could see this in the first book, even, with his pessimism about the attack on the school pool. I didn't really put my finger on it until Epicurius spelled it out, but it has quite obviously been there from the beginning. Gnoman fucked around with this message at 09:31 on Jun 5, 2020 |
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Jun 5, 2020 09:29
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Dolphins and whales as super-intelligent creatures was pretty common in 90s media, from what I remember.
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Jun 12, 2020 03:27
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QueenOfTheEvening posted:because nobody thought kids could handle a longer book This is literally the case. Most publishers tossed Rowling out the door because the first HP book was "far too long" for kids to read on their own.
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Jun 17, 2020 03:15
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Why were these never on the banned books list again? That was pure slaughter.
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Aug 6, 2020 01:32
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Epicurius posted:
Grand Admiral Thrawn form the old Star Wars EU qualifies -but like Scorpo he was a deliberate subversion.
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Aug 22, 2020 02:53
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Somehow the most striking part of that cover is Tobias just kind of there. Almost looks like some weird kid stuck a bird sticker on it.
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Aug 28, 2020 03:32
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The notion of going through all this trouble to go to a movie theater feels kind of quaint today.
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Aug 29, 2020 01:16
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| # ¿ May 10, 2024 11:50 |
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Tree Bucket posted:"And that would ruin the entire movie experience" is the best line so far. Patton was allegeldy called "Old Blood And Guts".
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Aug 29, 2020 04:24
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