Well, I've finished sporking BattleAxe. And it's... long. As in REALLY long. We're talking weeks worth of spork entries long. So I'd better get on and post the next installment, or we'll be here until the next Ice Age.
Axis avoids Faraday after the little make out incident, which is just as well, though Faraday keeps mooning about it. Yr stays with her, and “amusingly” acts like an actual cat, imperiously demanding food. Har har, it is to laugh. She also addresses Faraday as “sweet one”, because of course she does. Even if Faraday were a little girl I’d find this demeaning.
Meanwhile the weather is looking rather ugly, and Veremund and Ogden worry that the Destroyer is going to attack them, presumably with bad weather. Yes, Gorgrael’s arm must have grown long indeed if he can fling snow at them from all the way over here. Sigh.
They go and warn Axis about the encroaching bad weather, and turns out he’s been too distracted by thoughts of Faraday to consider it. Why is he so besotted with her? He just is, okay? Next!
He draws up a pentagram and lights a few black candles to summon Belial, who tells him the storm is about an hour away. Axis orders everyone to spread out, and then the wind hits. Ogden yells that Gorgrael sent the storm, and Axis asks then how is he supposed to fight it. Ogden doesn’t know, so Axis tells everyone to just make a break for it. How the entire army is able to hear him when they’re stuck in a howling gale I have no idea.
Up the back Faraday struggles along, and one of her mother’s maids comes off her horse and gets trampled to death. Since we didn’t know her or anything about her, this moment is rather meaningless. Faraday starts crying like the good Damsel in Distress she is. I swear, this woman cries about as often as I go to the bathroom.
Back with Axis, he sees a face forming in the clouds. It’s ugly and has a beak, tusks, silver eyes, lizard skin, fangs and a big tongue. The narrator blandly informs us that it’s “the most terrifying thing Axis could imagine encountering”. And that’s all we get from him.
The face starts talking, addressing Axis as “my son”. Ogden yells that it’s not true; the face is a likeness of Gorgrael and he’s a liar. Axis freezes up anyway, so Ogden jumps on the back of his horse and starts singing in his ear. Axis responds to this, and Veremund, via yet another POV switch, exposits that the song is a – GAH! – “ward for protection”of the sort Icarii enchanters sing to their unborn children in the womb, and if Axis is one of the line of Icarii Enchanters it should work very well on him.
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Ahem – excuse me.
Axis starts to sing along and of course he’s Awesome at it as we’re blandly informed that “his voice was very beautiful and very moving”. Really, author? That’s seriously the best you could do? Argh.
Veremund taunts Gorgrael, asking if anyone ever sang to him and calling him “unloved one”. Wow, that’s cheap. That’s really fucking cheap. He keeps on with the taunting, asking if Gorgrael’s father loved him enough to sing to him.
Of course the answer is no, but again, Gorgrael’s dad was StarDrifter. So StarDrifter knocked up the guy’s mum and didn’t bother to stick around. How is this Gorgrael’s fault, exactly? Also, mocking someone for having an unloving, absent father is just about the lowest of the low blows. By all means have a go at him for the evil stuff he’s supposedly done, but don’t jeer at him for something that’s his father’s fault. You’re just making yourself no better than he is, you prick.
Gorgrael screams in rage and disappears, and Axis turns and rides back toward the barrows, whispering that Gorgrael is NOT his father. Of course he isn’t. There’s no way you could have an absentee deadbeat dad who’s ugly. Mary Sue always has to have attractive parents. If the parents are ugly, that just means they’re not the real parents.
They make it back to the barrows despite the “gale force” wind and pounding rain. Faraday is worried because she can’t see her mother anywhere. Then huge ice spears start falling out of the sky, killing a bunch of horses and people, and Faraday’s mum eats it. Oh no, a character I barely know just died. Woe is me. What a tragedy. Faraday starts wailing like a professional mourner and Timozel braces himself for imminent death, but just then Jack shows up. He’s still addressing Faraday as “lovely lady” (STOP THAT), and he guides her and Timozel to safety. Then he takes Faraday off with him, allegedly to do some grieving by herself.
Instead he tells her she should run off to Borneheld now because that way Axis will assume she’s dead and not search for her. Charming behaviour – making the man she allegedly loves think she’s dead. Naturally Faraday doesn’t have the slightest objection to this, because she has all the agency of an apple.
Jack knocks on the door of one of the barrows and speaks some sort of incantation (let’s pretend it was the Elvish word for “friend”), but they’re interrupted by Timozel, who’s in a fine temper and demands to know what the hell is going on. Yr attacks the poor sod, and just then the ground opens up and Faraday falls, hits her head and blacks out. I swear, if I had a dollar for every time a fantasy protagonist is conveniently knocked out via a blow to the head, I’d be typing this on a platinum keyboard in a beachfront property in Tuscany.
Axis arrives back at the barrows himself, and is appalled by the sight of all the dead guys lying around. Veremund tells him it was Gorgrael’s work, but Axis blames himself for being distracted by thoughts of Faraday and leading his guys right into it. He looks around for Faraday and is just in time to see her, Timozel and Jack apparently fall into a hole in the earth and disappear. Like most generic fantasy heroes he reacts by tearing at the ground and letting loose with a good old-fashioned “nooooo!” That’s the second time that’s happened in this book so far.
Further clichés ensue as Ogden tells him it’s too late and “they’re gone”, and Axis swears to go fight Gorgrael and get revenge. The chapter ends on that suitably melodramatic note.
The next one opens with Faraday waking up with zero brain damage – hell, she’s not even concussed – inside the barrow with Jack taking care of her. Naturally this means touching her face, because of course it does. Yr is there, but now she’s transformed into a naked woman. Yuck.
Timozel is also there, but unconscious. Jack uses some random magic to wake him up, and asks Faraday to persuade him that he and Yr are harmless because Timozel has weapons and might decide to kill them.
And you couldn’t just take his weapons off him while he was out of it because…?
Wait, why does Timozel have his axe in this scene? Didn’t that thing get eaten by the forest earlier on? Continuity!
Oh, and if the Sentinals die “all is lost”. Yes, and all of Alagaesia will fall into darkness as well, I’m sure. It’s probably just a personal quirk, but I really hate melodramatic proclamations about how if this or that happens All Is Lost. It’s just so cheesy. It also paradoxically removes a lot of the suspense, because we now know that whatever it is can’t happen. Because, you know, then the book would be over.
Timozel wakes up and is on edge at first, but then he sees Yr, who subtly flaunts her nakedness at him. This puts him off guard and he offers her his cloak to wear. Yr flirts with him some more, and Jack reflects that in her “womanly guise” she’s nothing but trouble.
I really hate the handling of the female characters in this series. Again and again femininity is subtly portrayed as a bad thing, and every single female character is weak-willed, easily led, over-emotional and ruled by her hormones. What some people don’t seem to realise is that having important female characters alone doesn’t make you a feminist. Writing them as a bunch of annoying charicatures sure as hell doesn’t.
Anyway, so Jack explains to Timozel that he and Yr are the Sentinals mentioned in the Prophecy. A POV jump to Timozel informs us that he doesn’t like the Prophecy because like everyone else he’s always been taught that magic is evil. Even so Faraday is able to persuade him to help take her to Borneheld, and Timozel decides this is his opportunity to prove what a great and honourable warrior he is. He pledges himself to Faraday with a special oath of service. She looks to Jack and Yr for guidance, and we get POV jumps to both of them as Jack thinks Faraday will need a friend, and Yr thinks that if Timozel is Faraday’s Champion (yes it’s capitalised) that will make him a more interesting sexual conquest for her. Gross.
The POV jumps back to Faraday, who infodumps at us about how the relationship between a Lady and her Champion is never sexual but her Champion is a friend, confidant, blah blah blah. She accepts Timozel’s oath. Thank goodness; the suspense was killing me.
The next chapter goes back to Axis, who has made camp by the barrows while the dead and wounded are taken care of. He’s in a bad mood and decides to take it out on Ogden and Veremund. I know, that’s so unlike him. When they invite him to sit and talk with them, he sits with “one smooth motion” and Ogden reflects that he has “the Icarii grace, and the temper to match”. So all Icarii are foul-tempered, overly aggressive jerks? I already don’t like them.
Axis demands the truth, and is told pretty much what we already know – that he saw Gorgrael in the storm, and the storm was sent to try and stop him. Ogden reflects that he shouldn’t be told too much while he’s caught up in “angry self-denial”. Wait, what denial? What is he denying? I don’t know. They also decide not to tell Axis that Faraday is probably alive because that would divert him from “the path of the Prophecy”. Fuck the Prophecy.
You see what I mean about how much this kind of prophecy sucks ass and how much it damages the story and its characters? Everyone’s being compeltely manipulated to do or not do this that or the other thing, just so the stupid Prophecy won’t be upset. It cheapens the whole thing so much and reduces the characters to puppets.
See, one of the things that defines a character is their choices, and in turn, their actions. What someone chooses to do in a given situation tells you what sort of person they are, and when the situation is truly dire and seemingly hopeless, that’s when you find out what they’re truly made of.
Here, it doesn’t matter. Nobody’s choices matter because everything’s pre-set and pre-determined. Neither Axis nor Faraday get to make any meaningful choices because they’re being manipulated by the Prophecy and the Sentinals. Sure, the author keeps threatening that the Prophecy can be broken, but only if one of them dies prematurely and we already know that won’t happen. Not in a story this cookie-cutter it won’t. Everybody’s plot-armoured up and the ending is a foregone conclusion. So why am I bothering to read this, again? Why should I be expecting any surprises or plot twists?
Trick question – I’m not. I’m expecting more clichés.
And more clichés is exactly what we get! Ogden tells Axis that Gorgrael is driven by hate and wants to destroy everything. When Axis asks why the answer is Because He’s Just That Evil. Well, okay, it’s because “he hates” and that’s enough for him. Which pretty much means the exact same thing in the end. Never mind all that complex motivation shit; he’s just evil, the end.
Axis asks about the song, and when he’s told it’s a ward against evil he yells sorcery and starts freaking out. And by that I mean he just says “sorcery!” and the author blandly informs us that he’s been taught that magic is evil. That happens a lot in this book. I think the narrator is just a bit too fond of listening to herself talk. Goodness knows the damn characters barely get a word in edgeways.
Veremund tries to smooth things over by explaining that no, it’s not magic, it’s just a ward against evil. Which… doesn’t count? He adds that Axis’ dad loved him so much he sang it to him while he was in the womb. Axis actually starts crying a bit and asks who or what his father is. He’s told that his dad totally loves him but has been kept away by circumstances outside his control.
LOL, no. Daddy just didn’t want to pay his alimony bills.
Apparently “neither felt it was the time was right to tell Axis that his father was almost certainly an Icarii Enchanter”. Oh, ya think? You tell him that and he’ll probably burst a blood vessel.
Axis finally says he’s going North to deal with the situation and isn’t sure he wants to know anything more about the Prophecy. Sensible man. I wish I didn't have to hear anything further about it either.
Axis avoids Faraday after the little make out incident, which is just as well, though Faraday keeps mooning about it. Yr stays with her, and “amusingly” acts like an actual cat, imperiously demanding food. Har har, it is to laugh. She also addresses Faraday as “sweet one”, because of course she does. Even if Faraday were a little girl I’d find this demeaning.
Meanwhile the weather is looking rather ugly, and Veremund and Ogden worry that the Destroyer is going to attack them, presumably with bad weather. Yes, Gorgrael’s arm must have grown long indeed if he can fling snow at them from all the way over here. Sigh.
They go and warn Axis about the encroaching bad weather, and turns out he’s been too distracted by thoughts of Faraday to consider it. Why is he so besotted with her? He just is, okay? Next!
He draws up a pentagram and lights a few black candles to summon Belial, who tells him the storm is about an hour away. Axis orders everyone to spread out, and then the wind hits. Ogden yells that Gorgrael sent the storm, and Axis asks then how is he supposed to fight it. Ogden doesn’t know, so Axis tells everyone to just make a break for it. How the entire army is able to hear him when they’re stuck in a howling gale I have no idea.
Up the back Faraday struggles along, and one of her mother’s maids comes off her horse and gets trampled to death. Since we didn’t know her or anything about her, this moment is rather meaningless. Faraday starts crying like the good Damsel in Distress she is. I swear, this woman cries about as often as I go to the bathroom.
Back with Axis, he sees a face forming in the clouds. It’s ugly and has a beak, tusks, silver eyes, lizard skin, fangs and a big tongue. The narrator blandly informs us that it’s “the most terrifying thing Axis could imagine encountering”. And that’s all we get from him.
The face starts talking, addressing Axis as “my son”. Ogden yells that it’s not true; the face is a likeness of Gorgrael and he’s a liar. Axis freezes up anyway, so Ogden jumps on the back of his horse and starts singing in his ear. Axis responds to this, and Veremund, via yet another POV switch, exposits that the song is a – GAH! – “ward for protection”of the sort Icarii enchanters sing to their unborn children in the womb, and if Axis is one of the line of Icarii Enchanters it should work very well on him.
Ahem – excuse me.
Axis starts to sing along and of course he’s Awesome at it as we’re blandly informed that “his voice was very beautiful and very moving”. Really, author? That’s seriously the best you could do? Argh.
Veremund taunts Gorgrael, asking if anyone ever sang to him and calling him “unloved one”. Wow, that’s cheap. That’s really fucking cheap. He keeps on with the taunting, asking if Gorgrael’s father loved him enough to sing to him.
Of course the answer is no, but again, Gorgrael’s dad was StarDrifter. So StarDrifter knocked up the guy’s mum and didn’t bother to stick around. How is this Gorgrael’s fault, exactly? Also, mocking someone for having an unloving, absent father is just about the lowest of the low blows. By all means have a go at him for the evil stuff he’s supposedly done, but don’t jeer at him for something that’s his father’s fault. You’re just making yourself no better than he is, you prick.
Gorgrael screams in rage and disappears, and Axis turns and rides back toward the barrows, whispering that Gorgrael is NOT his father. Of course he isn’t. There’s no way you could have an absentee deadbeat dad who’s ugly. Mary Sue always has to have attractive parents. If the parents are ugly, that just means they’re not the real parents.
They make it back to the barrows despite the “gale force” wind and pounding rain. Faraday is worried because she can’t see her mother anywhere. Then huge ice spears start falling out of the sky, killing a bunch of horses and people, and Faraday’s mum eats it. Oh no, a character I barely know just died. Woe is me. What a tragedy. Faraday starts wailing like a professional mourner and Timozel braces himself for imminent death, but just then Jack shows up. He’s still addressing Faraday as “lovely lady” (STOP THAT), and he guides her and Timozel to safety. Then he takes Faraday off with him, allegedly to do some grieving by herself.
Instead he tells her she should run off to Borneheld now because that way Axis will assume she’s dead and not search for her. Charming behaviour – making the man she allegedly loves think she’s dead. Naturally Faraday doesn’t have the slightest objection to this, because she has all the agency of an apple.
Jack knocks on the door of one of the barrows and speaks some sort of incantation (let’s pretend it was the Elvish word for “friend”), but they’re interrupted by Timozel, who’s in a fine temper and demands to know what the hell is going on. Yr attacks the poor sod, and just then the ground opens up and Faraday falls, hits her head and blacks out. I swear, if I had a dollar for every time a fantasy protagonist is conveniently knocked out via a blow to the head, I’d be typing this on a platinum keyboard in a beachfront property in Tuscany.
Axis arrives back at the barrows himself, and is appalled by the sight of all the dead guys lying around. Veremund tells him it was Gorgrael’s work, but Axis blames himself for being distracted by thoughts of Faraday and leading his guys right into it. He looks around for Faraday and is just in time to see her, Timozel and Jack apparently fall into a hole in the earth and disappear. Like most generic fantasy heroes he reacts by tearing at the ground and letting loose with a good old-fashioned “nooooo!” That’s the second time that’s happened in this book so far.
Further clichés ensue as Ogden tells him it’s too late and “they’re gone”, and Axis swears to go fight Gorgrael and get revenge. The chapter ends on that suitably melodramatic note.
The next one opens with Faraday waking up with zero brain damage – hell, she’s not even concussed – inside the barrow with Jack taking care of her. Naturally this means touching her face, because of course it does. Yr is there, but now she’s transformed into a naked woman. Yuck.
Timozel is also there, but unconscious. Jack uses some random magic to wake him up, and asks Faraday to persuade him that he and Yr are harmless because Timozel has weapons and might decide to kill them.
And you couldn’t just take his weapons off him while he was out of it because…?
Wait, why does Timozel have his axe in this scene? Didn’t that thing get eaten by the forest earlier on? Continuity!
Oh, and if the Sentinals die “all is lost”. Yes, and all of Alagaesia will fall into darkness as well, I’m sure. It’s probably just a personal quirk, but I really hate melodramatic proclamations about how if this or that happens All Is Lost. It’s just so cheesy. It also paradoxically removes a lot of the suspense, because we now know that whatever it is can’t happen. Because, you know, then the book would be over.
Timozel wakes up and is on edge at first, but then he sees Yr, who subtly flaunts her nakedness at him. This puts him off guard and he offers her his cloak to wear. Yr flirts with him some more, and Jack reflects that in her “womanly guise” she’s nothing but trouble.
I really hate the handling of the female characters in this series. Again and again femininity is subtly portrayed as a bad thing, and every single female character is weak-willed, easily led, over-emotional and ruled by her hormones. What some people don’t seem to realise is that having important female characters alone doesn’t make you a feminist. Writing them as a bunch of annoying charicatures sure as hell doesn’t.
Anyway, so Jack explains to Timozel that he and Yr are the Sentinals mentioned in the Prophecy. A POV jump to Timozel informs us that he doesn’t like the Prophecy because like everyone else he’s always been taught that magic is evil. Even so Faraday is able to persuade him to help take her to Borneheld, and Timozel decides this is his opportunity to prove what a great and honourable warrior he is. He pledges himself to Faraday with a special oath of service. She looks to Jack and Yr for guidance, and we get POV jumps to both of them as Jack thinks Faraday will need a friend, and Yr thinks that if Timozel is Faraday’s Champion (yes it’s capitalised) that will make him a more interesting sexual conquest for her. Gross.
The POV jumps back to Faraday, who infodumps at us about how the relationship between a Lady and her Champion is never sexual but her Champion is a friend, confidant, blah blah blah. She accepts Timozel’s oath. Thank goodness; the suspense was killing me.
The next chapter goes back to Axis, who has made camp by the barrows while the dead and wounded are taken care of. He’s in a bad mood and decides to take it out on Ogden and Veremund. I know, that’s so unlike him. When they invite him to sit and talk with them, he sits with “one smooth motion” and Ogden reflects that he has “the Icarii grace, and the temper to match”. So all Icarii are foul-tempered, overly aggressive jerks? I already don’t like them.
Axis demands the truth, and is told pretty much what we already know – that he saw Gorgrael in the storm, and the storm was sent to try and stop him. Ogden reflects that he shouldn’t be told too much while he’s caught up in “angry self-denial”. Wait, what denial? What is he denying? I don’t know. They also decide not to tell Axis that Faraday is probably alive because that would divert him from “the path of the Prophecy”. Fuck the Prophecy.
You see what I mean about how much this kind of prophecy sucks ass and how much it damages the story and its characters? Everyone’s being compeltely manipulated to do or not do this that or the other thing, just so the stupid Prophecy won’t be upset. It cheapens the whole thing so much and reduces the characters to puppets.
See, one of the things that defines a character is their choices, and in turn, their actions. What someone chooses to do in a given situation tells you what sort of person they are, and when the situation is truly dire and seemingly hopeless, that’s when you find out what they’re truly made of.
Here, it doesn’t matter. Nobody’s choices matter because everything’s pre-set and pre-determined. Neither Axis nor Faraday get to make any meaningful choices because they’re being manipulated by the Prophecy and the Sentinals. Sure, the author keeps threatening that the Prophecy can be broken, but only if one of them dies prematurely and we already know that won’t happen. Not in a story this cookie-cutter it won’t. Everybody’s plot-armoured up and the ending is a foregone conclusion. So why am I bothering to read this, again? Why should I be expecting any surprises or plot twists?
Trick question – I’m not. I’m expecting more clichés.
And more clichés is exactly what we get! Ogden tells Axis that Gorgrael is driven by hate and wants to destroy everything. When Axis asks why the answer is Because He’s Just That Evil. Well, okay, it’s because “he hates” and that’s enough for him. Which pretty much means the exact same thing in the end. Never mind all that complex motivation shit; he’s just evil, the end.
Axis asks about the song, and when he’s told it’s a ward against evil he yells sorcery and starts freaking out. And by that I mean he just says “sorcery!” and the author blandly informs us that he’s been taught that magic is evil. That happens a lot in this book. I think the narrator is just a bit too fond of listening to herself talk. Goodness knows the damn characters barely get a word in edgeways.
Veremund tries to smooth things over by explaining that no, it’s not magic, it’s just a ward against evil. Which… doesn’t count? He adds that Axis’ dad loved him so much he sang it to him while he was in the womb. Axis actually starts crying a bit and asks who or what his father is. He’s told that his dad totally loves him but has been kept away by circumstances outside his control.
LOL, no. Daddy just didn’t want to pay his alimony bills.
Apparently “neither felt it was the time was right to tell Axis that his father was almost certainly an Icarii Enchanter”. Oh, ya think? You tell him that and he’ll probably burst a blood vessel.
Axis finally says he’s going North to deal with the situation and isn’t sure he wants to know anything more about the Prophecy. Sensible man. I wish I didn't have to hear anything further about it either.
