Can I get off this emotional rollercoaster yet?

I left things in kind of a bad place with last week’s post; I don’t regret anything I wrote there, but I’ve been feeling guilty about not writing a followup. At the same time, things have been changing so quickly and impactfully that I’ve had no idea what to say.

 

The View From the Brink, Redux

I write this on Monday, 02 November 2020, the day before “Election Day” in the US, or more accurately, as we wind to the close of an election that has been in progress for over a month, and which I hope against hope will not be the last election we see in this country. While I am for obvious reasons an anxious mess (even more than I am the rest of the time, I realise this is a narrow distinction to parse) I think it’s worth writing something to capture this moment in time, because regardless of the outcome(s) things are at best about to get very strange. It didn’t seem appropriate to say nothing, though I can’t imagine this is going to be very coherent.

 

Character Development vs Character Assassination, a Failure Mode Analysis

Well, hello there. This is Mitchell, the person you’ve probably forgotten exists because I’ve barely written anything substantial for the better part of two years (fuck depression and fuck the ability of politics to exacerbate depression), but technically this is my blog too. I’m back to talk about a story about wizards and how it disappointed me. No, not that one, sorry. The other one.

Over two years ago, I wrote this post, and, more significantly, the Magic: the Gathering fanfic I link to in it. That context may be helpful to understand the rest of this post, but I’ll try to write this in a way that is comprehensible without it. I mainly want to use this opportunity to talk about character development, what makes it work and ways it can go wrong, but in order to do that I’ll need to go into detail about this particular example.

Honestly, writing about this at all is a bit self-indulgent, but please bear with me, I think there are some useful lessons to take from it.

 

On Nagini apparently secretly being a human

Apologies for the dearth of content recently. I don’t have much excuse except that I just haven’t had the energy to write; hopefully this will change soon, but I can’t make any promises.

[I’ve had some stuff going on recently that drains my free time and energy. Chamber of Secrets has not been abandoned but it could be a while yet.]

I have to admit that we haven’t had our ears to the ground in Harry Potter fandom as much lately, so we’d missed hearing about this one until All-I-need brought it to our attention in the comments. Here’s the article she linked us to.

So. Um. That’s a thing, apparently. Nagini is now a “Maledictus”, a “blood curse that only affects women, and one that Nagini has no control over”. Charming. So it’s like a werewolf but not because reasons, like an animagus but not because reasons, and it only affects women because why not have more sexism? [There’s been no mention of a male equivalent. Unless werewolves are the equivalent, since it’s just occurred to me that we’ve never heard of a female werewolf in this universe, but I didn’t see Greyback being turned into Voldy’s pet/food source/soul vessel and deprived of all agency and freedom.]

There is also apparently a fair amount of discussion about racism happening, because the actor is Asian and this may have been an attempt to use something from Southeast Asian culture (and no doubt badly, given Rowling’s track record; that said, I don’t know enough to comment on that). [All I know for sure is that Nagini is the name of the female cobra in Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, and given Kipling’s usual naming conventions it probably just means ‘female cobra’. Potterverse Nagini is not a cobra. Beyond that, I have nothing.] What I can say is that “maledictus” is far too Latinate a name, which comes off as rather colonialist: if it really is based on something Asian, why not use the actual name, or come up with a variant on that?

Rowling claims she’s been waiting to reveal this for 20 years. I categorically do not believe this, because it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, and it is very typical of her tendency to retcon things that didn’t need changing for the sake of shock value. I would be utterly shocked if there was any evidence of this being a thing before the last year or two at best; it seems obvious to me that it’s an attempt to link the Fantastic Beasts films more closely to the original series in an effort to increase fans’ investment in them. [Yeah, it’s obviously a total ass-pull that came to her while putting together this clusterfuck of a script.] Also, the maths just don’t work (as per usual) – 20 years ago would have been 1998. The year Chamber of Secrets came out. It would be two more years before Nagini the character existed in canon.

So let’s get this straight. Rowling’s best idea for adding a female character of colour to the story is for her to have nonconsensual transformations into a snake form, previously only seen being used to obtain potion ingredients via milking venom, fed human flesh, made a vessel for Voldemort’s soul (again, presumably without her consent?), possessed and controlled (even just saying that feels gross in this context) as a weapon, and eventually killed. Killed only in order to make Voldemort vulnerable, for the exact same reasons as various inanimate objects: she has the same level of narrative agency as a goblet. [It’s particularly troubling since we now have a woman of colour being turned into a literal possession owned by a white supremacist. These people really do have no awareness whatsoever.]

This also raises the question of why Nagini’s venom would have been an effective restorative for Voldy if she wasn’t (as we previously thought) some product of his own power or a unique magical species. [And this also becomes yet another thing Dumbledore supposedly knew about all along – since he’s in this film – and just never bothered to mention.]

(On the human flesh thing, Loten’s complained about this to me before. Rowling doesn’t know how snakes work, a snake eating something as large as a human corpse would go into a near-hibernation state while digesting and that might well take over a month. I also seem to recall that snakes tend to prefer live prey to corpses?) [Yes, most snakes prefer live food. I suppose this stupid handwave would somewhat explain why Nagini doesn’t act like a snake; in addition to this, she never seems to shed her skin and seems unbothered by the temperature.]

I don’t have much else to add. If this Nagini character was a willing participant in everything Nagini did in HP canon, then it’s basically just another Bellatrix, another hate-sink character who is evil for evil’s sake and doesn’t serve much of a useful narrative purpose. If she wasn’t, then this is yet another female character being created solely for the purpose of her exploitation. Neither is a good look, really. (Also, is she older than Tom Riddle then? I’m not entirely clear on the timeline, but that also seems weird to me. Why would Rowling do this?)

[Presumably there will be a reason why Nagini is in human form in Fantastic Beasts 2 but only ever exists as a snake in the main canon timeline. Presumably this reason will be terrible.]

Before reading the article, my first thought was that Nagini being human was a (bad) attempt to patch the Cursed Child timeline problems – if Bellatrix didn’t have time to be pregnant, why not shoehorn in another female character who could be Dolphin Sue’s mother instead? (The mental image of her hatching from an egg or something and later being told Bella was her mother is something I have to admit I did find amusing.) This doesn’t appear to have been the motivation at all, but if anything there seems to be even less purpose behind it, so I figured I might as well share that for a laugh.

I really can’t see any way this could have been a good idea. I guess Rowling wanted more attention or something. Honestly, it’s all so stupid I’m having a hard time remembering it’s also problematic and offensive.

[Of course Rowling’s latest shock reveal is tiresomely racist and misogynist as well as making no sense whatsoever. Why wouldn’t it be, most of the others have been.]

Edited to add this – in case you wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt, don’t.

 

Monthly Spotlight:Joe Abercrombie’s The First Law

Going to be a short one this month, I’m a bit pressed for time at the moment. My apologies to Abercrombie since I may sell him a bit short as a result, but a lot of my other options for spotlights need more explanation.

The First Law comprises the original trilogy (The Blade Itself, Before They Are Hanged and Last Argument of Kings), three standalones (Best Served Cold, The Heroes and Red Country) and assorted short stories and novellas now available as Sharp Ends: Stories from the World of the First Law. I appreciate this, by the way. Not enough authors let you read their short stories and extras without having to buy anthologies full of other crap you mostly aren’t interested in. There’s also a sequel trilogy in the works.

I’m going to focus on the original trilogy, since the standalones will be a lot more appealing once you know the world and since the trilogy allows a lot more character development that in my opinion make them more interesting to read. Many of the novellas deal with backstory and so on as well, and you should probably read the originals first.

The setting isn’t really anything to write home about, mostly following well-trodden sword and sorcery lines along a simple enough plot – you have your home kingdom being torn apart internally by politics, your generic northern barbarian enemies-turned-reluctant-allies, and your invading outside foes forcing everyone else to stop bickering and unite, with some magic thrown in for good measure.

But it’s the characters who make this series so worth reading, from the most genre-aware and cynical barbarian I’ve read outside of pure parody – one actually hampered by physical reality in terms of injuries and so on, as well – to an actually believable and well handled badly disabled and traumatised character who is genuinely morally ambiguous. Refreshingly, the band of heroes who form our protagonists generally can’t stand one another and don’t try to hide it, and it’s a lot more fun to read about than just another group of best friends. There’s a decent amount of humour to lighten up a fairly grimdark setting, but not so much that it spoils the serious moments.

Standard representation disclaimers apply, sadly – don’t expect much. There are women among the main characters, but they’re rather more one-dimensional than the boys. Same for other ethnicities, sexualities etc – they exist, barely, but that’s about it. A couple of the standalones do better and I have hope for the sequels.

Abercrombie has written a second series, The Shattered Sea. I’ve read it once and found it sadly forgettable, though the premise was good. I’ll probably give it another chance sometime.

Shoutout to my brother for recommending these. One day I might even tell him that the character he named my nephew after doesn’t actually spell his name that way. (Don’t rely too much on audiobooks, folks. You look silly when things like this happen.)

 

Monthly Spotlight: Max Gladstone’s Craft Sequence

Shorter one this month, recommending a new thing I just finished reading that impressed me rather than an old favourite. I don’t quite know how to categorise the Craft novels; the setting is a little bit steampunk, a little bit sci-fi, a little bit fantasy and a little bit something else. The basic premise of the world is that it takes place a little way into the future, where water has become the defining resource of the planet and power belongs to the companies who produce and control it – by using local gods for fun and profit, as well as mage lawyers.

(Shoutout to the Something Awful Let’s Play forums for recommending these: they covered one of Gladstone’s interactive text games, Choice of the Deathless by Choice Of Games, which is also set in this universe and lets you explore how the magic system works with your own character.)

The books (so far) are as follows: Three Parts Dead, Two Serpents Rise, Full Fathom Five, Last First Snow, Four Roads Cross and The Ruin of Angels. Each one has its own separate plot, but also ties in to each of the others and builds up to an overall story in the way so many authors try for and so few actually manage. The separate protagonists lead separate lives and their paths cross as the series goes on, and it manages to feel natural and plausible rather than being forced for the sake of the plot.

We’re checking all the representation boxes this time – there are a lot of queer and bi characters of different genders, various ethnicities (amongst others, two of the books are set in almost-Mexico and almost-Hawaii), and several trans characters, and it all seems (from my outsider perspective, for whatever that’s worth) to be well done and natural and none of them feel like they’re there just to prove a point. It’s just an inclusive setting in a way you don’t often see.

I can’t say too much without giving away the plot, and these are books you need to experience for yourselves. There’s a lot of detail and a lot of thought and some very clever moments. And interesting magic, of course. The Craft is powered by starlight, and blood, and gods, and other stuff depending on who’s using it. There’s necromancy, religious/clerical magic, your good old-fashioned raining fireballs, some neat dimensional stuff – something for everyone, with a healthy pile of humour on top.

Turns out Max himself says it better than I can. From his website:

The God Wars ended, and we’re living with the world they left.

I write the Craft Sequence series of books and games, set in a postindustrial (and post-war) fantasyland, where black magic is big business, wizards wear pinstriped suits and conduct necromantic procedures on dead gods, and day-to-day commerce rests on people trading pieces of their souls for goods and services. The Craft Sequence books are legal thrillers about faith, or religious thrillers about law and finance. Plus there are hive-mind police forces, poet gargoyles, brainwashing golems, nightmare telegraphs, surprisingly pleasant demons, worldshattering magic, environmental devastation, and that deepest and darkest evil: student loans.

Have fun. I did.

 

Monthly Spotlight: Raymond E Feist’s The Riftwar Cycle

We’re back in the realm of very long medieval-fantasy series this month. The Riftwar Cycle comprises 30 books of varying length, broken down into various trilogies, duologies and quartets, most – but not all – set on the world of Midkemia. Some of them stand alone, others really need to be read in some sort of order. Feist has only written two books outside this cycle, a standalone called Faerie Tale and the beginning of a new series called King of Ashes; I haven’t read either of those.

Credit to my brother for first introducing me to these books, many years ago.

The key to these books is that there’s something for everyone. There’s magic – the magic system isn’t as developed as some, but it’s there and there are different types and different users. There are battles, and politics, and dragons, and dwarves, and elves, and goblins, and gods, and demons. They move along briskly, too – no long loving descriptions of every bit of scenery here, it’s almost all action. We have a variety of protagonist characters with distinct personalities. If you’re not keen on one arc, you’ll like the preceeding or following ones.

Let’s begin. This is going to be another long post, with so many volumes to cover.

 

Monthly Spotlight: Tamora Pierce

something something Harry Potter soon mumble mumble

This month we’re looking at Tamora Pierce, a rather underrated young adult author who seems less well known now than she was when I started reading her stuff aged twelve or so. In many ways she is the first ‘young adult’ author, I suppose; her first book was published in 1983 and nobody was quite sure how to categorise it. Which caused a few issues, as we’ll see later. She’s known for decent female protagonists (before the world and his wife started throwing around the term ‘strong female character’) and for addressing everyday practical concerns such as menstruation and birth control.

Her books mostly consist of quartets following individual characters, and are set in one of two fantasy worlds, Tortall and Emelan. I’ve talked to a lot of her fans over the years, and without exception it seems that the ones you read first are the ones you like best. It has to be said that one of the reasons for this is probably because there are quite a few similarities in character and storyline between the two, but more on that later. Since I read Tortall first and Mitchell has only read Emelan so far [I did read the Alanna quartet also, just not the rest of them yet], you get both of us rambling at you this month. I’ll let him go first, under the cut.

 

Monthly Spotlight: Robin Hobb’s Farseer novels

Eventually there will be posts aside from these, I swear. As ever, life gets in the way. Neither of us are dead though.

This month’s post was going to be a different author that we both will have a lot to say about, but being the clever person I am, I left it so late in the month that I decided it’s better to postpone that and make sure it’s a decent post. So instead we’re going to talk about the three Farseer trilogies by Robin Hobb. (For once I’m breaking one of my rules for this series; I haven’t actually finished the final trilogy yet.)

[Mitchell here. Unfortunately I’m going to have to be quiet this month (please try to hide your sighs of relief), as I haven’t read these. They sound like something I’d enjoy and I want to get to them at some point, but I have no idea when that will be.]

 

Monthly Spotlight: Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time

This month we’re going to look at some epic fantasy. The Wheel of Time turns throughout fifteen monstrously huge books (well, fourteen and one shorter prequel novel) that make the A Song of Ice and Fire books look like novellas in magazines. Seriously, I could kill someone with one of the hardbacks without much effort. The first eleven were written by James Oliver Rigney Jr, also known as Robert Jordan; after his death the series was finished by Brandon Sanderson. Mitchell gets to have some input this time too. Cut for length, though this is nowhere near as long as the Pratchett post.