The Loinfire Library descends...

The Chronicler has finally recieved a packet containing the following book:

Decadent, by Shayla Black
"This summer… A girl becomes a woman… and learns she can preserve her virginity… by having anal sex with two men."

Seriously. SmartBitches read it. And we shall too, I'm sure.

The Blurb and the Book trailer can be found on the author's website.

The Loinfire Club doesn't read... An Affair Before Christmas

An Affair Before Christmas, by Eloisa James

Magic under the mistletoe . . .

One spectacular Christmas, Lady Perdita Selby, known to her friends and family as Poppy, met the man she thought she would love forever. The devilishly attractive Duke of Fletcher was the perfect match for the innocent, breathtakingly beautiful young Englishwoman, and theirs was the most romantic wedding she had ever seen. Four years later, Poppy and the duke have become the toast of the ton . . . but behind closed doors the spark of their love affair has burned out.

Unwilling to lose the woman he still lusts after, the duke is determined to win back his beguiling bride's delectable affections . . . and surpass the heady days of first love with a truly sinful seduction.

In Short:

Affair is a good book, but it crosses the Chronicler in two fundamental ways, which she understands that most readers really wouldn't care about, but they irritate her and so she inflicts this review upon the world.

The Good

This really isn't a bad book. And as a romance novel it is really quite awesome. The characters were plausible and behaved in a reasonable manner. The heroine had none of the standard hang-ups about her girly bits and the hero doesn't behave like a rapist. The blurb is exceptionally deceptive as it sets up the expectation of one of those "forced seduction" plotlines in which the hero tries to win back his wife and solve all the problems between them with his manly all-powerful cock.*

The Balance did point out to me that the Chronicler is perhaps too excited by the fact that Affair rejects many of the common tropes of romance novels and that in itself really shouldn't be enough to cause such undying love.

Poppy is the star of the book. She comes out of the personality her overbearing mother forged for her (and supposedly desired by her husband) and becomes her own person. And that is a delight to watch. She moves in with her friend the scandalous Duchess of Beaumont and is encouraged by her to do as she desires.

Poppy is a bit too much of a beautiful and unique snowflake at times (see below) and certainly her hobbies could do with better foreshadowing. Equally, I understand the desire to open in medias res but I'd like to have seen more of the earlier Poppy under the influence of her mother and in her disastrous marriage. I wanted to see the whole transition from timid mouse to angry lioness (or some other such silly metaphor) rather than just the last leg when she realises her mother's hold over her. She realises two chapters in that she has been living out her mother's ideals and starts the search for her sense of self. I would have rather seen a more gradual dawning. But overall, there is such satisfaction in seeing a romance novel heroine with hobbies, a spine and a life of her own that is independent of loving the hero, I could almost forgive anything.

The heroine's apparent frigidity (the source of the Big Misunderstanding and four years of misery) is resolved in a brilliant, brilliant manner. She is allowed to come to terms with her own sexuality by herself in her own time. And her husband is happy with that. He loves her enough to compromise. He appreciates her on levels besides the groin and his compromise shows this. He doesn't quite grovel and he was arguably a bit stand-offish, but forgivably so.

Suffice to say I was ecstatic. Heroine discovered her own sexuality by herself. I really can't get over how great that scene was. I have some problems with it (perhaps it came a bit too quickly, surely there are issues besides that, hero is really too much of a perfect lover making his earlier failure a bit implausible, though not impossible.) But as said, really really happy making.

Hero and his neurosis are plausible. The characters behaved like sensible, thinking, feeling people. Not always as good as communicating as they could be, but the marriage falls apart on an understandable inability to communicate and it is resolved. It is arguably a Big Misunderstanding, but James made it work and work well.

The subplot involving the two chess games of the Duchess of Beaumont are intriguing, but considering how little that plot progresses it takes up far too much of the book. The feelings of the three involved (Jemma, Villiers the lover and Elijah the estranged husband) are deliciously complicated but are never really elucidated or explored. Probably because it's supposed to have a book of its own, I am left frustrated and irritated rather than my appetite whetted for her next offering. Perhaps if it was more concise or more clear, then it would have worked better as a lead into the next book, but as it stands, I'm left confused and frustrated.

And Villiers also spends far, far too much of the book dying. Ever other chapter of the same groaning really wears thin my sympathy.

Eloisa James' prose is a cut above the rest, though not flawless. I wouldn't quite call it sparkling, as it suffers from the romance novel propensity for inappropriate metaphors,** but I suppose that's a given considering the genre.

The Bad:

Affair has one main flaw: one being that the characters are beautiful and unique snowflakes occupying a setting that is consciously made more restrictive to show off how beautiful and unique they are. And I really hate this with a passion of a thousand burning, burning suns.*** The underlying assumption of this sort of writing is that I as a reader am incapable of sympathising or empathising with cultures which aren't my own. Therefore the past becomes merely the present in funny clothes. And this assumption I find fundamentally insulting (and irritating) in many, many ways.

Perhaps because it is so widespread (within and without romance novels) that I really don't want to criticise James too much on this front. After all, Shakespeare and Chaucer did it, didn't they?

Time and time again, in the little details, James betrays that she's not really thinking about the characters as products of their own time and culture. Poppy, for example, finds it difficult to walk in side-panniers. After over four years of wearing them almost every day? I disbelieve. As a larper, I can testify that even hoopskirts (and corsets) can become comfortable and manoeuvrable after sufficient practice. It seems bizarre that Poppy shouldn't feel comfortable in them.

There is a constant rejection of Regency fashion, ideals, rhetoric and ways of doing things. Poppy decides that she must wash herself and her own hair after she realises her maid is not to be trusted. (I disbelieve that all French maids are so incompetent.) The House of Lords is enamoured at Fletch's new and inspired (modern) way of giving a speech: tell it like a story without rhetorical flourishes.**** Fletch refuses to powder his own hair. He dresses and washes himself. Poppy eventually comes round to his way of doing things. She eventually abandons French hairstyles and side panniers, but even before that she insisted on washing her hair and bathing every day. Poppy's mother slapping her is a Big Deal.

James also portrays eighteenth century society as more restrictive than it actually is, perhaps to highlight how unique and rebellious her characters are in their rejection of the norm. The Royal Society was offering lectures specifically with women in mind as an audience.***** It became fashionable to attend for women and with women. Women were more welcome to the sciences than other fields of study do it not being traditionally part of men's education (Oxbridge didn't offer it, after all). The paradigms of the time were more complicated than the simple: women are beautiful brainless objects. This is not to say they conformed to modern western liberal (or conservative) ideals. However, it's not that simple and not that oppressive (or maybe just differently oppressive.)

The point is that Poppy attending a lecture at the Royal Society isn't as daring or as controversial as the book makes it out to be.

The contrast between the English and French is overplayed and stereotypical. And strangely not far-reaching enough. Poppy should be scandalised by the Duchess of Beaumont's French slatternly behaviour in being in her dressing gown all day, for example. James on uses the English/French contrast when it suits her and really only in relation to sexuality. It's one dimensional and clichéd.

Lady Flora, Poppy's mother, first came off as a remarkably sympathetic character. Overbearing, certainly, but she seemed to have her daughter's interests at heart. And her experiences of the marriage bed really rather justifies her belief of it being a repulsive place. She's not "right" in inflicting her own neurosis on her daughter and all, but she's justified and it's understandable. I had suspected her to be a lesbian considering her descriptions of intercourse. She seems shaped by her experiences and though the result isn't a particularly pleasant woman, she's admirable for her strength of character and the extent of her ambition.

But no. In the last few chapters, Lady Flora is character-raped. She is stripped of her dignity and her reasons of behaving the ways she did and is instead shipped off to the nunnery by the plot and is revealed to have been indulging in the services of a male prostitute. I was indignant. I could make no sense of the character. Or rather, now she seems to be an enormous hypocrite and simply vindictive in her actions, rather than an overbearing but well-meaning mother.

Her "abuse" of Poppy taken in the context of the time is perfectly normal. Perhaps in that James and I differ, which is why Lady Flora must be tarred and feathered for all to see, shown to be a hypocrite and secretly submitting to the greatness that is the male phallus.

Other:

The Balance points out that the rule for slutty women emerging in James' books seems to be that they are only allowed their indiscretions when their attempt at a monogamous relationship has failed. Rather than start another, they have a series of affairs.



_____
Footnotes
* There is only one reference to its unusual size and for that I am thankful (I'm really not sure how heroes find out about these things out in ages of few statisticians; I'm sure all those courtesans/mistresses are but happy to flatter regardless.)

** Romance novel authors on a whole seem to forget that when you say something is like something else, not only the named property is conjured up and transferred. So egg-yolk yellow hair isn't just a really worrying shade of yellow for hair, it also calls to mind the consistency and texture of egg-yolk.

***Which may or may not be flaccid.

**** They all went to Oxbridge. "Just tell a story" really shouldn't float with them. And the simplifying of what would eventually become the Corn Laws, this highly complicated issue in English economic and political history, into "Bob the Farmer isn't selling his corn for enough money" insults my intelligence. I know there isn't time to go into all the details of the issue, but at least make me feel that the character who is supposed to be intelligent grasps some of it? Oh, and Eloisa James has no idea how debates in the House of Lords works. She makes it sound like the American Congress.

***** From the Balance, who studies the history of science. This is what he remembers from the Lecture, though he seems to have trouble finding an exact reference for the moment.

Knight of Darkness, continues, part six...

Blaise coughed, then flinched. "It's just a flesh wound," he said in a voice that was reminiscent of the black knight in Monty Python's Holy Grail...
The Anthropologist: "He does actually say that..."
Lady Miriam: "He's is, in fact, John Cleese!"
Pillywiggin (horrified): "Kill them with fire!"

The Anthropologist: "Blaise is in human form again, he summons clothes, even though he's not sorcerer... this is completely arbitrary isn't it?"

The Anthropologist: "Right. He's checking her for broken bones and feels her up. He blushes.... She's bitching about not something. Blaise has blown his cover and they're going on with this retarded plan... Yes, they've crash-landed... They've found an invisible flange wall flying across valley."

The Anthropologist: "She thanks him. The flange wall is sapping their magick and it would make them human by morning, which is baffling considering how they're described as separate species as opposed to be human plus..."

The mandrake had a vicious point. If that field or whatever it was, surrounded the valley on all sides, they were completely screwed and trapped here.
How ironic.
Azrael: "How is that ironic?"
The Anthropologist: "More unfortunate, really. Just?"

Legend had always said that the valley was green and lush…Yeah, right.
The Anthropologist: "More bitching about how legends are always wrong."

The Anthropologist: "He carries Merewyn. He and Blaise bitch at each other."
Lady Miriam: "They both gay men?"
The Anthropologist: "But they bitch at each other constantly."
Lady Miriam: "So, gay thirteen year olds?"

The Anthropologist: "Oh, they've found something else... fyrebaums... Yes, it's spelt with a 'y'."
"The trees." Blaise indicated them. "They're fyrebaums. Remember? Emrys gave one to Arthur for Michaelmas—not long after you'd been left at Camelot."

Emrys had said the trees had been created to be a source of light in the darkness. That they were symbolic of benevolent strength, dignity, and rebirth, which was why he'd given one to Arthur. Emrys had believed their fire was cleansing for the soul, and that any person who'd been exposed to it would be able to repent their past and find a new future.
Pillywiggin: "Oh! Spare us the symbolism!"

Varian didn't know about that, but he'd been captivated by the tree as a child. He'd stared at it for hours, trying to understand the source of the orange flame.
The Chronicler: "Wait? How the fuck could he forget something that's such a significant part of his childhood?"

Not even Merlin had been able to adequately explain it to him.
Pillywiggin: "Flange."

The Anthropologist: "They meet this Mother Sylph flange beast..."
The trees belched more fire that danced and entwined ten feet above them.

Varian looked up as the flames formed into the image of a young, beautiful woman. Every part of her from her flowing gown, to her facial features, to her limbs were made by the flames' spirals
(The Chronicler: "Is it too much to ask to look up your words before using them? They're traditionally air elementals.")

The Anthropologist: "They have an argument about whether they're good or evil... They probably only let good people pass."
The Balance: "But he's half-half."
Azrael: "He could walk past sideways?"

The Anthropologist: "The trees are confused. They hurl fireballs at them, which he deflects with his sword."
The Balance: "He's got Perfect Defence? (I just made an Exalted joke without ever playing the game.)"
Azrael: "Or he's in an anime."

The Anthropologist: "They question Varian's vow to protect Merewyn. She stands up to them about it... They escape."

How very strange to her. She'd never walked like this with any man except for her father. There was something unsettling and at the same time invigorating about the sensation of having his subdued power beside her.
(The Chronicler notes the Daddy Issues.)

"I wouldn't say that," Varian said, as if her gratitude made him uncomfortable. "We're not out of the woods yet. Literally."
Blaise snorted at his bad pun before he started singing, "Ain't no valley low enough…"
Cathed: "What?!"
The Anthropologist: "She's keeping up with pop culture."

The Anthropologist: "Blaise and V bitch at each other more... for far too many pages..."
Lady Miriam: "They're having a man off."
Cathed: "Doing it in the style of Intriguing Rivers of Male Lust."

They grew quiet to listen. It was a faint, almost indiscernible bell-like sound.
The Anthropologist: "There's a noise. They follow the sound..."
Pillywiggin: "That can't be a good idea."

Hanging in the trees were the remains of several knights. It was the spur of one who was swinging against a tree that accounted for the small metallic sound.
Lady Miriam: "We've found the redeeming feature."
Cathed: "That is quite impressively creepy."
Azrael: "Which means someone is going to try and have sex with it. It's what happens in these books. Pardon me if I'm a bit jaded."

The Anthropologist: "No, the cremate the bodies. With flange-ness."

The flames caught against the surcoat of the knight on top, then spread quickly to consume the others. It was a funeral ceremony very similar to the ones her Saxon brethren had practiced.
(The Chronicler: "Her Saxon brethren?!")

Merewyn watched as Varian whispered a small Adoni prayer for their souls.
(The Chronicler wonders what deities they have. And how she can be so very accepting of him praying to demon gods when she should be a Christian herself.)

Unlike his mother, he thought of more than his own selfish needs, and it made her want to hold him until his sadness passed.
The Anthropologist: "Nice to know the heroine's standards are also artificially lowered by knowing his mother."

"But you're an assassin for Merlin."
"And those I kill are traitors who sacrifice innocent people to Morgen's vanity and machinations.
(The Chronicler can't help but wonder if Morgen was a male villain, would her vanity and pride feature as much as negative traits? After all, there is no one more arrogant than the hero.)

...What I do, I do for the good of all. Trust me, the men I've killed were no loss to humanity. Not even the mothers who whelped them would mourn their passing."
(The Chronicler notices what he did there. He made them more bestial; We've debating over the concept of Grendel's Dam for years... Oh and do you want me to quote the earlier chapters?
There was nothing in life he enjoyed more than taunting others. Nothing he liked more than feeling the blood of his enemies coating his hands—but not before he'd had ample time to torture them.)

The Anthropologist: "We're told the plot of the grail knights dying again. And it's not any more interesting this time around. They argue some more and fail to communicate."
Cathed: "This book isn't really a romance novel, is it? It's just about the hero's, his best gay friend and his mummy issues."

The Anthropologist: "Merewyn makes best gay friend tell hero that he's a grail knight..."

"But I've never been that friendly to you."
It was true, he hadn't. "No, but you were never cruel to me either. That's the closest thing I've had to a friend since Narishka took me from my home."
(The Chronicler possessing a better memory than the heroine, remembers Magda, who wasn't just not cruel but actually nice to the heroine.)

The Anthropologist: "We find out about the traitor to Camelot, whom Merewyn remembers:
"He was a bit short, with a belly pooch. He had brown hair and eyes and the look of malice on his face. I didn't hear his name, but I'd know him if I saw him again."
Cathed: "Unsexy."

The Anthropologist: "Oh, for fuck's sake! It turns out that Blaise has secret flange weakness. Partially blind but only in human form."

Azrael: "WHY? And why hasn't this come up?"

The Anthropologist: "It's to explain why he doesn't judge beauty by outside... but by the heart. Because you need a flange reason for that."
"Everyone knows that mandrakes and Adoni are only attracted to physical beauty."

"Yo, Varian, we need to stop for a few."
Lady Miriam: "Burn him with fire."
Pillywiggin: "He's a pirate now."

The Anthropologist: "Moving on, she pisses, and just as she's finished pissing, she's kidnapped."
Pillywiggin: "It'd be funnier if it was during."

The Anthropologist: "V is very upset. He hears her screaming helplessly. The men kidnapping her are identical twins. One of which is named Derrick."
Pillywiggin: "My uncle is called Derek..."

Cathed: "How crappy is it to be kidnapped by someone named Derrick?"The Balance: "Worse of all they're Pillywiggin's relatives."
Lady Miriam: "Everyone knows the Irish are secretly fae."

The Anthropologist: "Apparently they've been waiting for a woman to come through, they've been stalking the character party... waited for her to piss so they can kidnap her and have sex with her."
Cathed: "Rape! But not the good sort of rape!"

The Anthropologist: "V throws his sword... not sensible throwing weapon. Then the heroine is feisty. She kicks him in the crotch...
Varian stiffened in empathy as he fought the need to cup himself out of habit.
Cathed: "Clearly he sees people getting kicked in the crotch all the time."

The Anthropologist: "He doesn't apologise for throwing his sword."
Cathed: "Of course he doesn't."
The Anthropologist: "...despite having killed innocent bystanders in the past. He thinks it's a good idea."

The Anthropologist: "Other twin grabs her..."
Lady Miriam: "Does the Benny Hill music come on?"

The Anthropologist: "He tries to throw the sword again. He pins the man's sleeve to a tree. And then the other twin picks her up..."
Pillywiggin: "Sounds like a really stupid flash game..."

The Anthropologist: "Merewyn is free for... she scooted away, that just isn't a word."
Azrael: "Clearly she was carrying a small fold up scooter."

The Anthropologist: "Maybe I read the second page twice... that all only happened once. The sword throwing..."
The Balance: "Keep doing that. It makes for an interesting race scene."

The Anthropologist: "Right, they were actually triplets, way back when. The third is hiding in a bush because he's been turned into a ferret... They're identical triplets, which is particularly rare."
The Chronicler: "Because they can't shapeshift or use illusory magic at all in Camelot."

The Anthropologist: "They're Derrick, Erik and Merrick... That doesn't quite rhyme."
The Balance: "Maybe it does in her accent."

"Aye," Merrick said caustically. "At least we were her lovers until Erik got drunk one night. After he failed to please her, she insulted his manhood, and he called her a frigid bitch incapable of human emotion, never mind an orgasm."
(The Chronicler is trying to get her head around this set of insults. After all, it makes little sense to call the infamously promiscuous Morgan a frigid bitch and whilst she may not have had an orgasm in his company, surely it's as much his fault as hers. And that aside, are we suggesting that only those who can feel human emotions can orgasm? Because... it's really messed up. That and the Chronicler is not sure any of them are human in the first place.)

The Anthropologist: "The hero commiserates with them, after all 300yrs without a woman..."
"Figures the only woman to touch my cock in over three hundred years damn near rammed it up my throat."
Lady Miriam: "Medical complication."
Cathed: "I was trying to innocently rape her and she hit me! What's up with that?!"The Anthropologist: "Not the world's most successful comedy character..."

"Serves you right," Merewyn said defiantly. "Your mother should have taught you better. You don't just grab a woman and haul her off."
Cathed: "Why bring their mothers into this?"
The Anthropologist: "It's part of the rape prevention techniques. She forgot to use it earlier, so now she brings up his mother in hopes of quelling his passion."

Merrick snorted. "You do when you're desperate."
(The Chronicler wonders why V hasn't killed them already. After all, if there were any more obviously unrepentant rapists...)

Still, Derrick showed no remorse for his actions. "Not from where we're standing or, in my case, limping. At least death would cure my blue balls."
(The Chronicler: "Just wank.")

Blaise curled his lip at them. "Ah, your mother was a hamster."
The Anthropologist: "Apparently they don't have Monty Python in hell, so it's lost on Merewyn and the triplets."

"Damn pity that. I'd shoot myself if I had to live without Monty."
The Chronicler: "But how did Blaise get to see Monty Python if he's been undercover?"
Blaise placed his hand over his heart as if her words wounded him. "When we get to Avalon, my lady, it's something you have to see."
Cathed: "On loop."

Blaise frowned. "I thought you said there were no women here."
"There aren't. Sylphs have no interest in men, and Nimue hates all of Morgen's ex-lovers. If anyone tries to be nice to her or seduce her, Merlin hangs them in the trees for everyone to see. He might not be able to handle Nimue, but he'll be damned before he lets anyone else near her."
(The Chronicler is given pause... the triplets define women as "women they're allowed to fuck.")

The Anthropologist: "Blaise has a flange parent who brought the flange trees to the flange valley. Adoptive father, actually... But he used to be encased in ice, whatever that means, and is now not... I really don't care."

The Anthropologist: "They have another argument. Blaise hits on Merewyn...."
The mandrake shook his head. "You're gay, aren't you?"
Varian raised the blade to rest against Blaise's Adam's apple. He carefully pressed it close. Not so much that it drew blood, but enough to let him know that he wasn't amused. "Or not."
(The Chronicler is finding the sexual politics in this book increasingly repulsive.)

The Anthropologist: "Ah, but he wished he was gay so Merewyn wouldn't tempt him. There are death threats. Such a true sign of friendship..."

Even though Merrick and Derrick had offended her with their actions, there was a tiny, tiny part of her flattered by their failed abduction.
(And now The Chronicler is even more repulsed. She understands that no one had found her sexually attractive for a long time, but she used to be the most beautiful woman in the world and she knew this on no uncertain terms. Threats of rape should not be flattering.)

The Anthropologist: "They're now singing the song from Spamalot. And they discuss the merits of the musical Spamalot..."

Sara Ramirez had nothing on Merewyn. The cadence of her tone actually sent a shiver down his spine. One that went straight to his groin and made him heavy and aching for her.
Cathed: "That's reassuring..."

The Anthropologist: "Blaise can't stop quoting from Spamalot. It's getting really, really annoying. And now they're discussing how great the triplets are in bed..."

He shook his head as she flounced off in front of him.
Two seconds later, she vanished...

The Anthropologist: "It turns out there's a small hole in the ground called The Pit of Despair. A flange hole in a flange valley. And it makes you more emo. She angsts for about a page."

The Anthropologist: "Apparently there's a poison gas that comes out of the pit that makes you feel suicidal."

Derrick thought about that for a second. "You know that wouldn't be so bad as long as her body wasn't cold or stiff."
That disturbed him on a level he didn't even want to contemplate. "You're disgusting."
"Three. Hundred. Years," Merrick said each word slowly. "No sex. Think about it."
The Loinfire Club has no words. The Loinfire Club had joked about them being necrophiliacs earlier but...

The Anthropologist: "Her angst turns into feminist angst. Because she's angsting over how all men are brutish. Feminism is apparently entertaining."

"The burden of you men. Why couldn't women be left alone without you and your cockfighting and your cocks…"
Varian choked. "Our what?"
The Chronicler: "She lived in the pit of promiscuity for several centuries. Why are you surprised?"

"Really? Is it any wonder? Why would any woman want to subject herself to the male ego? Why?"
The Chronicler: "A question that the author never answers."

"Sure, you're a handsome beastie with kissable lips when they're not bleeding. You're fair in form with big, bulging – hyphen
Pillywiggin: "More to the hyphen count, then?"

He actually cringed in fear of the word "cock" coming out of her mouth again, but luckily she averted her thoughts as her gaze met his.
Azrael: "Battle of the gaze!"
Pillywiggin: "Quick! Gaze leap on her and stop her from saying cock!"Cathed: "Diplomatic relations between the gazes..."

The Anthropologist: "They're teasing V about his inability to withstand Merewyn saying the word cock..."
"Yeah," Blaise teased. "You're worthless, Varian. And what on him bulges again, Merewyn?"
Varian glared at the mandrake, who merely continued to laugh at him.
"Everything. His arms, his legs, his—"
Pillywiggin: "Again with the hyphen."

"They destroy everything. Everything. Because you're all worthless whoremongers."
Pillywiggin: "Whoremongers?"
Cathed: "They're also rather worthless rapists."
Azrael: "Of course they're worthless whoremongers. They're not mongering any whores. She's telling them they're really shit pimps."

The Anthropologist: "And then there are flange rocks. But no one cares... we skip the pointless flange thing they effortlessly overcome..."

The way she held him was so very trusting, almost childlike. No woman had ever really held him.
The Balance: "I thought we've put all that behind us after the Lolita-heroine of Come to Me."

The Anthropologist: "Angsts killing. Angst other things. Angst feminist. Inner beauty... I don't care... They finally rescue her from flange pits. And there's pissing again."
Azrael: "Makes the books gritty."
Cathed: "Or cute and charming and humorous."

Beauty and Freedom: The Chronicler rants some more

I could be writing the write up for Knight of Darkness, but I'm again enraged... the book is incredibly repulsive on a great number of ways, but the one I'm wanting to focus on is this: The idea of beauty.

The heroine's desire to be beautiful, or at least, unrepulsive, is understandable. After all, being treated with distain and disgust from every front for several centuries is unpleasant. To be in a form that encourages kindness is certainly an attractive prospect.

On the other hand, there is no middle ground. She must either be gorgeous or hideous. She doesn't desire to be unrepulsive as much as her original, most-beautiful-woman-in-the-world self and yet her angst never centers on that that is her true self.

First I’m tortured by an evil bitch and her minions. Then I try to make myself pretty so that others will at least look at me without cringing and what happens...

She desires to be beautiful so that others won't cringe at her. This is understandable, admittedly, but seeing as she herself is disgusted by her own appearance, it never occurs to her to think of her bargain in terms of being unrepulsed by herself. She exists to be seen, to be admired and that is the purpose of her beauty, not to be at peace with her own skin.

Lastly, I can't imagine it being comfortable to be hunchbacked, possessing of a lazy eye, limping and the half a dozen other physical complaints she must have when in "crone" form. Never does she think of the benefits of being attractive in terms of not having back pain and the ability to run and jump. She marvels at the ability to stand straight when first she is transformed, but never again does it cross her mind. It can be that only her appearance changes and being a crone is as comfortable as being her young and sprightly self, but this is never explained.

Merewyn comes off as being obsessed with her ability to attract. She isn't concerned with her physical appearance in any other way. She is solely concerned with her ability or inablity to gain male attention and to a lesser degree. Her own perception of herself is unimportant. She has no desire that her appearance reflect her inner self (whatever that may be) or that she be in a state capable of youthful bounding. In her many, many monologues about her appearance and what it means to be ugly, her primary and often only concern is how it affects those around her.

Knight of Darkness, continues, part five...

For those who wish to read the earlier parts, they can be found here: One, Two, Three, Four.
Chapter four...

"Are you ready, chit?"

We're back to Merewyn and her attempts to seduce the unsuspecting Varian to the side of evil in exchange for her freedom.

The only part that gave her pause was the fact that she'd never been touched by any man. Her father had kept her carefully sequestered as a child, and once Narishka had turned her ugly, her father had cast her out, and no man would look at her, never mind touch her.
(The Chronicler notes the pure virginal heroine.)

But that didn't matter. Her virginity was a small price to pay for freedom.
(The Chronicler: "Yes, it is. You're trading it for freedom. So get bloody over it.")

Narishka tells her to get Varian food. Merewyn is confused...
When Narishka had said "seduce," she'd naturally assumed intercourse. This bargain was looking better and better.
(The Chronicler worries for the intelligence of the heroine who can stay for centuries in the darkened vale of Camelot and not learn a trick or two.)

...bowels of the dungeon...
(The Chronicler notes that the author likes this phrase far, far too much.)

Foolish question that. She'd lived here long enough to know that they didn't think of kindness. Ever. It was all but alien to them.
(The Chronicler: "They did. Which is why they're using you, silly bint. You're there to play good cop. Honestly.")

His long, black hair fell forward, obscuring the handsome face she'd seen in the abbey. His black armor was dented and twisted, but what disturbed her most was the blood that was pooled at his feet. As she watched, more blood dripped at sickening intervals...
Lady Miriam: "What, like his blood drips in 7-4?"

And all thoughts of herself fled as she slowly approached him.
The Anthropologist: "She's losing her self-identity again... Though that doesn't usually happen for a few pages. This book is breaking records for how fast the heroine loses her sense of self."

Varian heard the soft rustle of a woman's gait. Assuming it was his mother come to ask him again to convert, he didn't bother looking up. Honestly, he hurt too much to breathe, never mind move.
Lady Miriam: "A real medical complication for a change."
The Balance: "More of a medical inconvenience."

At least not unless it was while he was choking the life out of her treacherous body.
The Anthropologist: "She can't really be traitor to the cause, when you're metaphysically evil. You know this person is evil so if you're surprised, it's just your stupid fault now."

He wanted to lie down so badly that he could taste it,
The Balance: "So what does lying down taste like?"
Cathed: "Chicken."

In spite of the bracelet, he'd discovered that he had enough magick to remove the armor, but that would have been stupid beyond stupid...
Cathed: "Stupid beyond stupid.... Well, I'm glad we have a term for it now."

He felt a gentle hand on his head an instant before it brushed the hair back from his face. It was so tender that for a moment it actually weakened him. It was the kind of caress he'd ached for all his life...
Cathed: "He still thinks that it's his mother..."
The Balance: "Oedipus?"
The Chronicler: "It's remarkable that this whole love-tenderness thing really does physically sap him of strength."

But no one ever touched him like that.
Pillywiggin: "Except for Merlin a few chapters ago."

Instead, it was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen. Her long, dark brown hair fell in soft ringlets all the way to her waist. Her face was small and oval,...
The Anthropologist: "Small and oval compared to what?"
Azrael: "Compared to the ridiculous amount of her hair she has."

"They told me to feed you," she breathed in a soft, dulcet tone that was tinged by an old Anglo-Saxon accent.
(The Chronicler rages and rages and rages. As if they didn't speak a different language.)

"So they can torture me more? Forgive me if I'd rather die of starvation." Merewyn was surprised by his dark humor.
Azrael: "It's not a very good joke. In fact, I'm not even sure it is one."

His lips swollen and purple...
Pillywiggin (who adores the colour purple): "Purple!"

There was no trace left of his handsomeness. Indeed, he looked more like her when she'd been a crone.
Cathed: "Oh the irony!"

She couldn't imagine how much pain he'd have to be in. Her own beatings had hurt so badly at times that she hadn't even been able to move afterward, and none of them had left her this bloodied or swollen.
The Chronicler: "Because you hadn't been hit by sledgehammers!"

During her centuries at Camelot, she'd seen a great deal of horror and numerous atrocities, but never anything like this, and the fact that it was his own mother who had done such was incomprehensible to her.
The Anthropologist: "Those must have been some really boring centuries of atrocities if the worst you've seen is a man being beaten by sledgehammers."

Varian wasn't sure why he was allowing her to feed him at all as the salty meat burned the cuts on his lips and his loosened teeth [...]No one had ever been so kind to him, especially not when he was weak like this.
The Anthropologist: "If you're here feeding me food, it's because the people hitting me sledgehammers want you to, therefore your ultimate motive could not be to my advantage. Is it really that difficult logic?"

All the people he'd known, including his father and brother, had only attacked him more whenever he was down...
The Balance: "The mother I never knew is so hawt!"

But what surprised him most was the fact that she wasn't a miren, mandrake, Adoni, or sharoc. There was no magick to this woman whatsoever. No power.
Pillywiggin: "It's world of darkness!"
The Anthropologist: "That would explain the emo."
The Balance: "And the stupid werewolves."
The Chronicler: "Wrong book for stupid werewolves."

"No," he said quietly. "How can a human be here in Camelot?" Her eyes turned dark and sad. "By great foolishness on my part."
The Anthropologist: "EMO!"

And when she met his searching gaze, he knew exactly what had happened to her.
Cathed: "The gaze is searching her... I've got a mental image of his Gaze like a shark circling now..."

To his shock, Varian actually felt for her and whatever stupidity had possessed her to make her bargain. The Adoni never fulfilled their promises, unless they involved pain and torture. No human should ever be at their mercy.
Azrael: "Why isn't he thinking of idiot tax?!"

Varian carefully chewed and swallowed before he spoke again. "Do you have a name, lass?"
"Merewyn." It was a beautiful name that fit her ethereal grace. In the fey Adoni language, a merewyn was a sea witch.
The Chronicler: "Otherwise known as Welsh. Literally meaning, Sea-White."
The Chronicler also marvels at the fact that an Anglo Saxon King would name their child something in the Adoni language (which sounds like Welsh).

A tempting mer-creature that would grab unsuspecting sailors from their boats and drag them down to the bottom of the sea and trap them there to serve them until they grew tired of the man's presence or form. Then the merewyns would feed them to the sharks.
Perhaps that was a fitting name for a woman like her.
Cathed: "Ah sea-witch, it suits you..."
Azrael: "Is he subtly accusing her of being a slut like his mother?"

Even through the agony of his body her touch soothed him. How could he feel anything other than the pain of his beating? It didn't make sense, and yet somehow he did.
Pillywiggin: "No, no it doesn't."

As she fed him a piece of bread, he caught a whiff of her sweet skin. She smelled of rosewater and lilac...
The Chronicler: "You mean like your grandmother..."
Cathed: "Nothing new. We've already seen the twisted family dynamics!"

Conceived by deception and sold for one woman's vanity. It wasn't for him to have a human. He didn't deserve such comfort. All he deserved was hatred and scorn.
Cathed: "Emo!"
The Chronicler notices that this book has a similar hierarchy of awesomeness with humans at the top of it again. Much like Come to Me.

She flinched at the sound of his mother's voice. She didn't want to leave him alone to their cruelty again. How could she? No one deserved this.
The Anthropologist: "And yet it's been heavily implying that he's spent lots of time pulling fingernails off his enemies. So it's really just tit for tat."

Weakness was death to a creature like him. Strength. Solitude. Those were what he needed to live and thrive.
The Balance: "I live off angst!"
Pillywiggin: "He's a wraith!"

Closing his eyes, he let the pain take him away from any solace. Let it seep through him until it was all he felt. It allowed his magick to grow in strength...
The Anthropologist: "He's powered by emo. This system is so very broken!"

Merewyn felt a single tear slide down her cheek...
Azrael: "Single tears!"
The Balance: "That's an Eragonism!"

...as Varian dipped his head again so that he was looking at the floor while his dark hair hid his features from her.
Cathed: "He even has an emo fringe!"

"I wonder why it is that my spell didn't remove all of his powers? Perhaps I should have made it stronger...
The Anthropologist: "Why do the villains always, always suck?"

... Although I gave it enough of a charge that it should have depleted even the Kerrigan."
(The Chronicler notes that Kerrigan was the hero of the pervious book. What she's saying is that Varian is even harder and more flangey and more sexy than Kerrigan.)

Merewyn was aghast at Narishka's coldness, but she made sure she didn't show it.
The Anthropologist: "You shouldn't really be, you have been there for centuries."

Narishka was evil to the center of her dark soul. She didn't care for anyone. Really. If Morgen were to fall from power tomorrow, Narishka would just as easily serve another. So long as she could spew her venomous cruelty, she was happy.
(The Chronicler: "Why not work for Merlin then? Since she's perfectly happy for Mr.ITortureMyEnemiesForFun work for her?")

"Yes. To look as you do now is to invite nothing but trouble from the others. And the fact that you're a virgin…too tempting. There are many dark spells that call for the sacrifice of beautiful virgins. [...]And it would take me too long to replace you with another human."
Pillywiggin: "Because humans are rare."
Azrael: "Hot humans are rare."
The Balance: "Hot human virgins are rare?"


Anything. But it was hopeless. Narishka had left her with nothing. That lying bitch!
The Anthropologist: "Again you seem surprised by this."
The Chronicler: "How has she lied? She hasn't completed her mission of bringing Varian over in three weeks yet?"

Merewyn slid to the floor as her ragged emotions tore through her.
Lady Miriam: "Medical complication."

Anger, hurt, hopelessness. Yet underneath that, she realized that as bad as this was, she was still better off than Varian.
(The Chronicler notes that this will be the first of many times the heroine thinks the hero has it worse than her.)

And with that came a wave of despair so large that it rolled over her and left her breathless.
Luca: "I'm despairing, too."

"There's no way out," she whispered, her chest aching with the truth.
Lady Miriam: "She's asthmatic. Allergic to the truth is terribly inconvenient."

She was smarter now than she'd been as a girl in Mercia.
The Anthropologist: "No you're not! Or if you are that really makes me worried as to your original mental condition."
Cathed: "If she was smarter she'd have gotten their agreement in written form."

Having lived with Narishka all these centuries, she'd learned much from her mistress. She knew this game, and by all that was holy, or not, she was going to win her freedom. No matter what it took, she would leave this place and never look back. She didn't care who she had to sacrifice or what she had to do.
"I won't ever be a fool again."
The Anthropologist: "That is such a doomed concept right there."
The Chronicler: "What she means is: she'll sacrifice anything and anyone but the hero."

The Loinfire Club, really quite sick of all this passes the book to The Anthropologist to skim...
Pillywiggin: "Use your laser eyes."

Chapter 5 ...Two days later
She coldcocked the mandrake ...
The Anthropologist: "I understand that she's using the word according to its definition but it's just so very dodgy..."

...before she raked her nails down Varian's swollen cheek.
(The Chronicler: "What sort of torture is that? She's an evil minion not a bloody dominatrix!"
The Balance: "Clearly they're going to the psychological pain... this could be a gentle mother's touch but no! It is an evil dominatrix scratch!")

Her eyes snapping fire, she turned on the other mandrake, who cringed in fear of what she'd do to him...
The Anthropologist: "Right...they still haven't gotten the armour off him."
Cathed: "How does he pee?"
Azrael: "There's an Ancient Roman torture technique similar to that..."
The Balance: "Maybe he has diarrhoea so it just drips out."

Conversation diverges into execution methods in other cultures, including the Greek method of apparently putting the prisoner in a canoe on stagnant pond, after covering him in honey and feeding him lots of milk. He'll be sick: that and honey would attract insects. So he'll either die of diarrhoea, insects or starvation.

Which only made her angrier. "Fetch a crowbar, jaws of life, can opener, I don't care what you have to do, I want that armor off him!" she ordered the one standing mandrake.
Azrael: "They have no imagination."
Pillywiggin: "If they had a can-opener made of adamantine..."

She grabbed the sledgehammer from the floor where the immobilized mandrake had dropped it and slammed it into his stomach with enough force to lift him off his feet. Varian felt the blow all the way to his bones as his body was jarred by it.
The Anthropologist: "You'd think it was more painful, given he's not passing out yet."
Azrael: "That's pretty good armour."

His mother shrieked again. "Why won't you bend?" Because it was what everyone expected of him. His father, his brother, every warrior in Avalon. Hell, even Arthur had expected him to side with his mother and Morgen at some point. There were times when Merlin, too, looked at him as if she were waiting for him to turn.
(The Chronicler has no words. Centuries of loyalty and they expect him to betray them still? Oh, and unending teenage rebellion!)

Varian hissed as he felt something biting into his back as a grayling tried to pry the armor free. "It's like it's skin or something, my lady."
The Balance: "It's grafted on."
Pillywiggin: "Just use flange to take it off..."

"Why would you rather I beat you than simply do what I ask?"
He gave her a taunting smile. "Because it is ever my goal to piss you off."
Lady Miriam: "Stop being so fucking twelve about it?"

The Anthropologist: "Shouldn't he have lost all circulation in his arms by now?"
The Balance: "He has his Magic-with-a-k to pump blood."

The Anthropologist: "Skipping ahead. The next scene is just a repeat of previous scene. He's in pain and she's all sympathy."

He snorted at that, then grimaced as if a sharp pain had gone through him. "Would you sell out someone for your freedom?"
The Anthropologist: "Give it another century."

"You don't know, and yet you bleed for it?"
He gave her a gimlet stare that froze her to the spot. "Is there not something you would bleed for?"
"No," she said fervently. "Nothing. Why should I? No one would ever bleed for me."
Lady Miriam: "Has she not started her period yet?"

"Because I won't be what my father was. I won't turn against my oath. Not for anything." She didn't agree with him, but at least that made some sense. "Then you bleed for honor."
Cathed: "Bleed for honour? Hands to foreheads!"

The Anthropologist: "More blood-related semantics. She is asked to loosen the laces..."

"No. But I can't loosen it myself and I know better than to ask my mother for help."
The Anthropologist: "Which isn't really an explanation given he knows she's working for his mother."

The Anthropologist: "She angsts on and on about whether or not she should take the armour off him."

They would be even more merciless, and he would have no protection from them at all. None.
Azrael: "Nothing means something in this book."

Do it! Narishka would be pleased beyond measure.
Pillywiggin: "Just do it. He asked for it. Quite literally."

She saw herself as she'd been in Mercia…dressed in a beautiful gown with noblemen vying for a smile from her.
The Chronicler: "I thought she hated that?"

In her mind, she imagined the world she'd left behind. The beauty. The warmth. The color. Here the only color to be found was bloodred. And eyes so green, they practically glowed...
The Balance: "His eyes are so flangey they glow green in monochrome world."


"Why not?" [...] "Because I might remove it if I did." And with that, she left the room.
The Anthropologist: "You vowed never to be stupid again. Oathbreaker!"

The Anthropologist: "He angsts about whether or not he can trust chick, fantasises about her..."
More than that, he could feel the gentle touch of a woman's hand on his cheek. She'd always been faceless and formless in the past, but not this time.

Azrael: "I've dreamed it... and blogged about it."
Lady Miriam: "He is thirteen."
The Chronicler: "Wait... didn't his mother use Merewyn's beauty as her own for centuries? Is he just in fact dreaming about having sex with someone who looks like his mother?"

The Anthropologist: "Angst.Angst.Angst... Several days later. Still standing. We're looking at serious medical problems. And no, he hasn't pissed yet."
Pillywiggin: "He'll have gangrene by this point."

"So you've returned," he said dryly. She gestured toward her tray at his feet. "I forgot my things."
He raised a doubting brow that all but called her a liar.
Cathed: "Things... He doesn't buy that either."

The Anthropologist: "He's guess that she's the deformed woman. Because...
"Of course you do. I'm not a fool, Merewyn. I knew the moment I saw your eyes who and what you were. My mother changed everything about you except for that. Your eyes will always give you away."
Lady Miriam: "Colour contacts > Magic."
Pillywiggin: "Doesn't she have really lazy eye in ugly crone form?"
The Anthropologist: "Clearly she has lazy eye now, but he hasn't noticed."

"I know my mother, lass..."
The Balance: "Where is he getting this Scottish accent from?"

That was her worst fear, and it held her throat in an iron grip that radiated through her entire body. She didn't want to be ugly anymore. She didn't want to be spat at, despised, and mocked for ugliness.
The Chronicler is marvelling that she cares more about being beautiful than being kept as an abused slave, that she cares more about being beautiful than say, not being ancient and uncomfortable in a frail arthritis-torn hunchbacked body.

The Anthropologist: "He's worked out that she's there to seduce him. He tells her that his mother will screw her over and kill her. And he won't be there to save her."

Surely she hadn't come this far and survived so much cruelty to die as he said. Not even Damé Fortune would be that mean.
The Chronicler: "What has the blue guy got to do with this?"

She'd damned herself the moment she'd sought out the old hag in the Mercian woods and paid her to summon an Adoni for her so that she wouldn't be forced to marry a man who couldn't see anything more than her beauty.
Pillywiggin: "Everyone knows that lazy eyes are really hot!"

The Anthropologist: "She angsts about how she sold her soul and how many men died for her beauty. How she was selfish and vain and..."

All her life in Mercia, she'd been spoiled and vain. Stupid. A young girl so caught up in her own world that she'd thrown her entire life away rather than marry the man her father had chosen. She'd foolishly dreamed of love and happiness. At that time, she'd thought herself worthy of it.
The Chronicler marvels that back in way-back Mercia you had the ideas of marriage for love. Anglo-Norman concept, at best.

And now, instead of bargaining herself, she'd sold out another person for her own selfish gain
The Chronicler: "Humanity = altruism to the hero."

"Will you be able to look in the mirror knowing your beauty was bought in blood?"
The Chronicler: "Beauty = freedom."

He met her gaze levelly, and the ice in his eyes chilled her. "You get me out of here, and I will make sure that no Adoni ever lays a hand to you again. Ever."
The Anthropologist: "And so the plan is formed."

Pillywiggin is by this point trying very hard to summon Voldie and meeping frantically.
Lady Miriam: "That arm is not sufficiently evil!"


The Anthropologist: "Merewyn is in a different room. She remembers the plot of the last book. She meets Blaise the Mandrake who is really good looking. White hair albino with tanned skin, apparently. Now that she's hot, he's hitting on her."

The Anthropologist: "He's shown kindness, so she trusts him. She's also seen him secretly touching his shoulder blade."
She reached to touch his left shoulder blade and pressed her hand against a spot she knew had meaning for him. "You have always been counted as a friend. For many, many years."

The Anthropologist: "He's secretly a knight. She convinces him to save Val..."

The Anthropologist: "They both burst in. He uses flange to break the handcuffs.
Here," Blaise said, setting him back on his feet. He moved to cup Varian's face between his hands as he whispered quietly in Mandrake. "Asklas gardala varra deya."

Blaise hesitated before he dropped the cuff to the floor. "Are you okay, V?"
The Chronicler: "Why? Why must they always be shortened to V?"

The Anthropologist: "He, too, is struck by Valrian's features. They can't teleport away...."
Cathed: "It's like those collars in Night Play all over again..."
The Balance: "They could always chop off his hand. He's got enough power to reform it.... Blaise is a PC. He'll figure it out."

The Anthropologist: "Blaise and V are having an bitchfest about whose fault is it that they're about to get killed..."
"Not as close as you did. What the hell's wrong with you?" "Me? You're the one who's half-Adoni. Why didn't you get out of there when I left?" "Remember what I said? My mother is still restricting my powers. I can't travel anywhere with my magick so long as I have this on."

Merewyn held her hand to her head...
The Loinfire Club hold their respective hands to their foreheads.

Her eyes snapped fire at him, and it singed him to the deepest part of his manhood.
Cathed: "At least it's not his manroot."

"Of course it is. Where are we to go that they won't find us?" He glanced out the small window that overlooked the valley at the far end of Camelot. "Val Sans Retour."
Azrael mumbles something about bad French.

In case you haven't noticed, simpkin. No one, and I mean,no one returns from that godforsaken place...
The Anthropologist: "Now we know she's really angry... She's using simpkin... the ultimate insult."

The Anthropologist: "Essentially, the Valley of No Return joins up Camelot and Avalon. Or so the hero hopes..."
"And it backs up to Avalon. I'm willing to bet that if you make it through the valley, much like Glastonbury, you can walk through to our side."

Merewyn's face turned pale at his words. "I can't go there." "Yes, you can. The barrier is only to keep out evil. You're not evil, Merewyn. You're just foolish."
(The Chronicler: "The barrier is going to act as the great arbitrator of good and evil. Maybe it is like D&D and you can metaphysically detect good and evil.")

Blaise's face was doubtful. "That's easier said than done. If they see us, I'm through as a double agent. They'll know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I'm working with Merlin. No offense, but I've spent too many centuries spying in Camelot to just throw that away now."
(The Chronicler wonders what good has he done or not done in all the years as a double agent, considering how centuries of conflict seem to have passed them by without leaving anything memorable to recount.)

"Don't you think they're going to know you're on our side when they find us in your room? They're not dumb enough to think Merewyn brought me here, and they know I couldn't have freed myself."
The Anthropologist: "You'll be surprised."

Varian closed his eyes and summoned what magick he could. [...] whispered the words that would unleash the breath of the dragons who'd once made Camelot home...
The Anthropologist: "I understand that you can't tell us these things all at once, but some warning would be nice... I thought all that was under Camelot was the MODs and rotten limes."

They were the forefathers of the mandrake people. A stronger, more primitive race, the dragons had lacked the magical abilities of their progeny...
The Balance: "That makes little sense. Neither humans nor dragons are magical, where are they getting it from?"
Pillywiggin: "Ah, half biscuits..."
Lady Miriam: "They have to shag on a ley nexus to infuse it with magic."

A magick that had come as a result of the dragons breeding with the fey until the last of their pure breed had died and left the half-breeds such as Blaise and the rest.
The Balance: "Wait... why were the hybrids fertile? And why exactly does the parent species dying out cause magic-with-a-k to occur in the hybrid?"

It was said that the elders of their breed slumbered in the ground beneath the castle. And one of the first tricks any sorcerer learned was how to awaken the dragons for a brief time.
Pillywiggin: "And no one has done this before because..."
The Anthropologist: "You'd think they'd have gotten rid of them by now."

"All right," Blaise said as he shifted from human into his...
Pillywiggin: "Into an appropriately shaped key?"

The Anthropologist: "No, into a dragon. But this other dragon, not his own dragon form, even though we've established that he's going to get ratted out as the most rubbish undercover agent ever. They climb on top of him... he angsts about her hands and her sitting close to him on armour..."

She wrapped her slender arms around his waist and slid herself close to his spine. The delicate pallor of her arms struck him.
Pillywiggin: "Living in perpetual twilight does that to you."

But not nearly as much as her hands, which were ill kempt and raw. She wasn't a lady. She was a servant who his mother hadn't hesitated to abuse, and for that he felt a strange pang of guilt.
The Chronicler wonders why he feel responsible for his mother's actions. And why her hands are all calloused since her body has returned to it's pre-Camelot state of beauty.

For one thing, mandrakes could be unpredictable. For another, it meant relying on someone else for his safety, and trust had never come easily to Varian.
(The Chronicler notes that incidentally, the author is once more pissing all over mythology. A mandrake is traditionally either a plant or a familiar demon which animates little fetish-like dolls. At no point are they were-dragons.)

The Anthropologist: "Gargoyles are chasing them...."

Varian sighed in aggravation. A sword was useless against the gargoyles…as was Blaise's dragon-fyre.
The Anthropologist: "Dragon fyre is spelt with a y!"
Pillywiggin: "DO NOT WANT!"
Lady Miriam: "Waynt!"


Feint left, then dodge right and swoop toward the trees," Merewyn called.
"What?" Varian asked.
"Trust me. Gargoyles can't distinguish color, only movement. If Blaise flies around the dark gray trees, the color of his scales will blend in, and so long as the breeze is moving the leaves, they won't be able to tell which is Blaise and which is the forest."
The Balance: "Just like t-rexes."

The Anthropologist: "But the mandrakes can see you. And mandrakes can also breath fire, or rather fyre. There really is no disadvantage to shagging outside your species, is there?"

The Anthropologist: "They land. To protect here, V grabs her as he ducks and rolls. She lands on top of him in comedy fashion. Breathing faster. Extremely sexy..."

She looked extremely sexy with her hair and clothes mussed. Her lips parted.
The Anthropologist: "He gets hard on. He's embarrassed by this..."

Still dazed by the heat in his groin...
Lady Miriam: "Does it have a y in it too?"

"Can't you flash us to the valley like you did from the dungeon to your room?" Merewyn asked. Varian answered for him. "He's a mandrake, Merewyn, not a sorcerer..."
The Anthropologist: "This system is completely arbitrary. It's telling me that as though these concepts mean things."

Her touch was featherlight and delicate—like the brush of a fairy's wing...
The Chronicler wonders if fairies exist in this worldsetting, since fae and dragons do.
Pillywiggin: "Bug wings!"
The Anthropologist: "He probably has some sort of hand fetish considering how often it comes up."
Pillywiggin: "I'm presuming he feels the brush of fairy wings as he bites them off fairies."

But the Adoni in him was fascinated by her. It was the curse of his mother's race that they were part incubus. There had never been an Adoni born who didn't have a hefty sexual appetite. One that was hard to satiate. Though Varian tried to leash that part of himself, it wasn't always easy.
(The Chronicler notes that this is the beginning of the idea of uncontrollable Male Urges, which the hero being more manly than the rest can reign in, but lesser men are crushed by it and we shouldn't think worse of them... it's all here.)

He was the son of her worst enemy, and he bore a reputation for cruelty that was only surpassed by his mother and Morgen...
The Anthropologist: "I thought we've already established he wasn't willing to work for them on pain sitting in his own excrement-sodden clothes for week. Why is it an issue?"
The Chronicler: "Evil is hereditary."

I am the greatest idiot ever born.
Cathed: "Yes, yes you are."

The Anthropologist: "The valley is full of Morgen's exes."
She rolled her eyes at his acerbic tone. It was a well-known fact that Morgen banished all of her old lovers to the valley once they ceased to please her.

He paused to look at her. "I don't think Morgen truly fears anything, do you?"
"No. She is a bit arrogant that way."
The Anthropologist: "You say it like it's a bad thing."

The Anthropologist: "He has some backstory angst about the grail. Apparently he didn't get to go for it because he wasn't pure of heart enough and had to protect the kingdom instead. She asks if they were all that and apparently they weren't..."

"I liked Percival a lot more before he touched the grail and was changed by it."
(The Chronicler: "She's going for the shiny-knights-are-really-arrogant-cocks theme, but tragically her non-shiny hero is even more of a cock, so it just doesn't work out.")

Even though she was a virgin, she'd been in Camelot long enough to know every sexual position ever invented. The men and women there didn't really care who watched them while they sought to please themselves.
The Balance: "Explaining the sexual knowledge of the heroine in a way that doesn't make her a slut... check."

Sometimes, they didn't even bother to find a partner. Rather, they'd touch themselves and smile wickedly while others watched.
The Anthropologist: "Because everyone knows masturbation is more controversial and edgy than actual sex itself."

It was something she'd only tried once, but like everyone else, her twisted body had repelled her so much that she'd figured either it was overrated or she was too inexperienced to understand how she was supposed to touch herself for pleasure.
The Anthropologist: "That's really incompetent."
Cathed: "Surely she'd learn from watching all those people masturbating all over the place in Camelot."
Pillywiggin: "Did she just fail to find her clit?"

Biting her lip, it was all she could do not to rub herself against him.
Cathed: "But his skin is made of armour?"
Azrael: "All of his skin? That's just not going to end well."

The Anthropologist: "She starts moaning as he brushes against her by accident. She falls over because she's so embarrassed... And then there are stun darts!"

They'd only taken two steps when something very soft grazed against her cheek. It was as if something had kissed her. She'd never felt anything like it before.
Cathed: "WHAT?!"

The Anthropologist: "She gets hit in the arm, both go numb. She's worried about her lungs..."

The Anthropologist: "Kobolds show up. They use the word 'ye' a lot."
There was a short, round kobold eyeing them through the trees. A cursed race of fey, the kobolds were more akin to trolls than their more fair cousins...

The Anthropologist: "She's drooling. And is quite upset about this. Quite disgusted."

The valley was only probable death. Panting from his sprinting, he could feel the sweat streaming down his back and face. Taste it on his lips
Cathed: "He likes tasting things. I wonder what does the valley of bad French and exes taste like."
Azrael: "French taste like bad aftershave..."

The Anthropologist: "Dragons also chasing them. Or flange mandrakes. I really don't care... Ah new chapter..."

Knight of Darknes, contines, part four

For those who wish to read the earlier parts, they can be found here: One, Two, Three.

Chapter three! Sex!

Narishka came through the wall of Morgen's chamberswith the air around her crackling from her fury and her powers.
The Balance: "She walks through walls, apparently."

As was typical, Morgen was naked, entwined on her bed with her latest paramour. An evil Adoni like herself, Brevalaer...
The Anthropologist: "He's a toastie maker!"
Cathed: "It's his name just Latin for short and a good lay but together?"
Azrael: "She hit keyboard see what come out."

...was a trained courtesan and thus far had lasted longer than any of Morgen's previous lovers.
(The Chronicler wonders if she means this in terms of stamina or survival in the court.)

With no embarrassment whatsoever, Narishka approached the dais where the large, carved bed rested and parted the bloodred silk curtains.
The Balance: "That has to be a bad metaphor! Blood-red silk curtains..."

Morgen lay with one hand entwined in Brevalaer's dark hair while his head was buried deep between her spread legs. Morgen's large breasts were covered by a sheer red gown that Brevalaer had pushed up to pool at her waist...
The Anthropologist: "I'm still picturing it as a toastie maker!"
Pillywiggin: "Now, even cheesier sex scenes..."

His tanned, rippling body...
(The Chronicler: "Eeeww... fake tan in the land of eternal darkness!")

...was every bit as bare, but unfortunately Narishka could only see his well-shaped buttocks and back. How she wished she could join them, but unlike Morgen, she believed in business before pleasure
The Chronicler produces a picture of the character from the author's website
Pillywiggin: "Why is he badly photo-shopped?"

Morgen turned her head toward her slowly, but she didn't stop Brevalaer. Little wonder that.
(The Chronicler is intrigued that the internal monologues of both the hero and the heroine are identical. There can't be that many people who use the expression "Little Wonder that.")

It was said that his tongue held more magick than the whole of the fey court...
Cathed: "They should cut it off and sell it on ebay..."
Pillywiggin: "Even better than incubus-possessed rings."

"I have no idea. He's grotesquely abnormal, which is why I sent him to live with Lancelot when he was a child. I've never understood him. He's not motivated by greed, lust...."
Sordan: "He's not motivated by anything that makes sense!"

"...we can pretty much guess that Galahad and Percival are grail knights, but neither of them will ever be foolish enough to fall into our hands..."
(The Chronicler: "Either she's really smart or really stupid...")

"There has to be something that entices him. Something he reacts to without fail." Narishka paused at those words as she remembered the little fat mouse trailing behind her...


Cradling Tarynce's body in his arms, Varian entered the tombs of Avalon...
The Anthropologist: "Where did he get that from?"
Cathed: "We don't care. It's not sex."

And Varian had sworn to him that he would spend his life protecting those who couldn't protect themselves.
The Chronicler: "Something tells me that torturing prisoners doesn't come under protecting those who couldn't protect themselves. In fact, some may say it's quite the opposite since the prisoner is completely at your mercy."

The sarcophagus was plain except for the gold that Bors and Galahad had insisted on in direct contradiction to Arthur's wishes
"I need no fancy crate for my remains. Spend the gold on those who are still living. Where I'll be, for better or worse, it'll do me no good. But if it'll feed one hungry child, it'll be much better spent than on a dead man's grave." Arthur truly had been a great man.
(The Chronicler: "He's a man in the middle ages. That runs against just about every single belief of that age to not care about where your corpse is after you die... Oh! And let's not forget what Varian has been risking his life doing: saving Tarynce's cold, dead corpse. Isn't your time better spent feeding hungry children?!")
(The Chronicler: "Oh, and paying a guy to make a live-size stone statue of you has to be comparable to paying a guy to gild your casket.")

The Loinfire Club has decided on part-skimming at this point, Cathed is in charge
Cathed: "Varian buries the body. Merlin turns up. She's incompetent at him and he has to correct her a lot... And Bracken's a demon. Apparently. And there'll be a confrontation."

Maybe he was being stupid by fighting his mother and her wants. Maybe he should switch his allegiance. Really, would there be a difference?
An image of the hapless crone in the abbey being bandied between the men flashed in his mind. Along with the sight of her gratitude when he'd picked up the goblet and handed it to her. She was the reason why he fought alongside Merlin.
The Anthropologist: "But... but... time paradox!"

The strong should never prey on the weak.
The Chronicler: "Coming from the guy who loves torturing his enemies and beating the shit out of the 'strong' in pubs."
The Anthropologist: "Clearly he only tortures strong people."
Pillywiggin: "They last longer."

He moved back, out of reach. "It's all right, Merlin. Dealing with assholes is my specialty."
"Assholes are one thing. Insane demons are another."
"Maybe in your book. In mine they're the same. Both cowardly bastards who come at my back."

Cathed: "Are demons just assholes with leathery wings?"
Pillywiggin draws picture:

The Balance: "They're made of assholes not ass!"

Now she bore the face that she'd been born to. Gone were the scars and the twisted body of the crone. She now stood upright with no hump, no pain. She was beautiful...

The original terms had been for her to remain ugly only for the cycle of the moon. But Narishka had failed to tell her that here in Camelot there was no moon cycle at all, and so she'd been trapped for eternity.
Cathed: "That's a good contractual omission. Good demons, not fail!demon like Samira."

She turned to find Magda standing behind her. Old and gnarled, she'd been one of the few people who had befriended Merewyn during her centuries here.
(The Chronicler: "Appearing here only for the purposes of being plotdumped at. She has three more mentions after this scene. The last one on page 93. Which goes to show you should never bother befriending the heroine because she'll forget you the moment the hero shows up.")

Varian's service to Morgen. She had three weeks to turn him to their side. Three weeks...
Cathed: "Three weeks to turn seduce him with her virginity. And then go free."

"Give up hope, child. This is your fate. You're one of us now. Grayling in form, you will never again be the beautiful woman you were."
Pillywiggin: "Except for the fact that she's all pretty in front of you right now."

"I can't give up hope, Magda. It's all I have. I was stupid once, but I know that someday I'll have the chance to be free. [...] I want to be my own person again. Not a twisted crone, but a woman."
The Chronicler: "I like how she equates beauty with freedom."

"So who will you destroy to be beautiful?" "Varian duFey [...] Tell me, have you ever heard anyone say anything good about him?" "Only you." Merewyn looked away as pain filled her. It was true, he'd been kind to her. But one act of kindness couldn't erase all the cruelty he'd committed in his lifetime.
The Chronicler: "Ugh."

"You're just jealous that you're trapped here while I've been given a chance to earn my freedom." Nothing but silence answered her, but it didn't matter. She knew the truth. There were no decent people left in this world. None.
The Chronicler: "Not even the nice woman who was trying to convince you to grow a conscience. None whatsoever."


Closing his eyes, Varian took himself from Avalon to the dark back halls of Camelot...
Pillywiggin: "He never has to walk anywhere!"

But the sharoc pulled back…no doubt going to report his presence to his mother or Morgen.
The Chronicler: "This world really does just revolve around him and his bloody mother."

On the southern tower where he was, it was the domain of the MODs. "MOD," pronounced mode, was an acronym for Morgen's minions of death.
The Anthropologist: "Because calling them Minions of Death just takes too long to say... I thought the only way to make Minions of Death sound more stupid was to shorten it to MODs, but no, pronouncing it mode just makes it worse."

Legend said it was his grandson Lugh who'd done the actual murder, but that'd been a lie perpetuated by the gods who didn't want it to be common knowledge that Balor's servants had that kind of power.

But! Before! For fuck's sake... Before her! LKAjgrgdkht;k abour to kill.
(The Chronicler had descended into angry incoherence at this point. This is quite possibly the most unimaginative retelling of Celtic myth ever.)

Under a death warrant that'd been issued by the entire Tuatha Dé Danann group of gods, the MODs had been hunted to virtual extinction until Morgen had offered them refuge in her shadowy realm.
Lady Miriam is growling at this point. Her rant deserves more time than we have space for right now. But let it be known that she is angry. Very angry.
(The Chronicler will, however quickly note that the MODs are based quite on Fomorians, who are the gribblygods as Pillywiggin put it. The Dagda and the Morrigan are in a completely different pantheon which came afterwards.")

Since they weren't exactly civilized and disdained even the dim light that was found here, they'd decided to live beneath Camelot, in a cold, damp hole. The stone walls oozed some effervescent green muck that smelled like rotten limes.
(The Chronicler gets it. Evil people have no hygiene standards. And Good people exude an aura of cleanliness.)

And in true MOD form, they lived in a commune environment. Bracken was the only one of them who had private quarters.
The Chronicler: "Like just about everyone else for most of bloody history."

The rest fed, slept, ate, and fornicated out in the open.
There were probably a hundred of them strewn about the open area, but only a small handful even bothered to look at him as they went about their business, which included eating the flesh of Adoni victims scattered about the floor.
Pillywiggin: "I can't get this mental image out of my mind: this giant plate with little imps bouncing up and down..."

One of the MOD females looked up with a speculative gleam in her eyes as he walked past. He gave her a look to let her know that he wouldn't die easily.
More to the point, he wouldn't die alone.
(The Chronicler is really, really sick of this. The entire bloody world wants to kill him or fuck him. We get the point. And he's really, really hard. We get it already!)

All in all, he had to give the MODs credit. Like the Adoni, they were beautiful. Golden and fair with wings that were black and amber, they were more akin to the angels attributed to heaven.
(Azrael: "Evil is always either very beautiful or very ugly. I suppose it's consistent. She probably thinks pretty evil is the subtler and more insidious of the two.
The Chronicler: "It's not. She just runs out of hyperbole."
Azrael: "With added reader hatred through jealousy.")

He'd expected to meet the demon lord on his own terms. What he hadn't expected was to meet Bracken while the demon was nuzzling Varian's mother
The Anthropologist: "That's just wrong on so many levels..."

That action was wrong on so many levels that he couldn't quite sort out which one disturbed him most.
Pillywiggin: "This author has a bit of a clue."

One thing was certain, he'd never call that bastard Dad.
Cathed: "Why would he want you to?"

Bracken pulled back from his mother's neck before he raked Varian with a sneer.
The Balance: "Everyone carries around farming implements for this very purpose."

"You are ever a pain in my ass." "Good. I've spent the whole of my life aspiring to hemorrhoid status. Nice to know I've finally attained it."
The Anthropologist: "You achieved that many, many pages ago. Now stop."

Bet you're hell on the other contestants at a freak party contest, huh?
The Anthropologist: "What the hell is a freak party?"
The Balance: "It has contests for who's the bigger freak..."
Pillywiggin (looking around her): "Like this. This is a freak party."

Bracken and the hero growl at each other to prove how manly they both are. Narishka inexplicably comes between them...

How nice of his mother to help him for once. Not that it mattered.
(The Chronicler notes that it's really very nice of him to be so very hung up about his mother.)

"He didn't say much. Pietra tore his tongue out after he refused to tell her his clue."
In a very fucked-up sort of way, it was nice to know that the fine art of torturing someone for information was lost on the MODs.
Cathed: "They're the most rubbish torturers ever!"
The Chronicler: "Why need we ever worry if the side of evil is so incompetent?"

Varian forced himself not to react even though inside he ached dearly for the poor unsuspecting man who'd been up against Morgen's pets.
The Chronicler: "I'm not convinced. He's an all powerful Grail Knight. There's nothing weak or poor about that."

The fact that MODs held no compassion for anyone was what had enabled them to turn on their own parents.
The Chronicler: "Or their parents were EvilSlutBitches like yours."

"How did you capture him?"
One corner of Bracken's mouth quirked up. "I can't be giving away our secrets, turncoat."
The Anthropologist: "You've already given all the secrets away."

"Come, Varian. You visit me so seldom that I don't want to waste our time down here with the MODs."
The Balance: "Drink! Dodgy comments!"

He froze in the middle of the hallway as her words went through him like acid.
Lady Miriam: "Acid? That's a medical complication."

"And you also told me that you'd see me dead, which makes me wonder if this person is the one you'd have kill me."
The Anthropologist: "Why is the 'tardmonkey following her again? Can't he just zap himself away?"

Yet before he could move, he felt her snap something onto his wrist. He looked down at the small gold bracelet that was heavily etched with the fey words—Era di crynium bey. Freedom is an illusion [...]
She stepped forward to whisper, "You can no longer travel through the veils. You're stuck here, Varian. More than that, your magick is neutralized so long as the bracelet is on your wrist."
Pillywiggin: "That's flangy!"
The Anthropologist: "The GM has probably realised that it's just fundamentally broken to have him zap everywhere like that."
The Chronicler: "It's remarkable that the paranoid man who has lightning reflexes managed to not evade that silly bracelet."

Even though he continued to fight, they clapped a chain on each wrist and chained his arms to opposite walls so that he was standing in the room with his arms spread wide.
Pillywiggin: "Kinky."

There was no missing the satisfied gleam in his mother's eyes.
Pillywiggin: "Even moreso."

"Peel his armor off."
The Anthropologist: "It's probably been embedded into his skin by now."

"It won't come off." [..]
Shrieking, she struck him hard against his back, forcing him forward so that his arms were wrenched by the chains.
Pillywiggin screams long and hard.
The Anthropologist: "Do not want!"
(The Chronicler is really sick of shrieking women. She has this mental image of the banshee-like EvilSlutBitches and it really, really annoys her.)

"Fine, then, fetch us two mandrakes and sledgehammers."
Varian forced himself not to react to that. He had to give her credit. Even in armor, a sledgehammer would hurt.
The Anthropologist: "I thought they were just about to insert the mandrake into the armour..."

He locked gazes with her, but there was no compassion to be found there. Not that he'd expected it. No Adoni had ever possessed an ounce of maternal instinct. It just wasn't in their genes.
Lady Miriam: "Fay have genes?!"
The Balance: "Well, if they can interbreed with humans, you'd assume they have some..."

She ran a cold finger down his cheek and eyed him as if measuring his strength.
Pillywiggin: "Not potatoes for eyes."

And as the first mandrake slammed his hammer down on Varian's shoulder and he felt it all the way to the marrow of his bones, he knew this was going to be a seriously long day.
(The Chronicler and The Balance debate about whether or not Varian is wearing plate or chain. He was previously described wearing chain, but plate is the traditional image and it makes little sense trying to sledgehammer chain off.)

Brisingr

As we all know, the Chronicler has a special space in her heart which she reserves for hating child genius author, Christopher Paolini. The latest in the Inheritance no-longer-a-trilogy will be coming out in September and the Chronicler is seething in anticipation. (The Chronicler is a bitter, horrible person who likes being angry.)

The Chronicler also happens to have an Old Norse exam on Wednesday and is writing a dissertation that requires her to do a lot of translating from that language. Veritably bathing in dictionaries and glossaries, she's noticed something that angers her to no end:

BRISINGR (BRIS-ing-gr), an Old Norse word for fire, will be familiar to fans of the cycle as the first word in the ancient language that Eragon hears.

from the Random House press release

No, it just doesn't. You're just wrong. Brisingr doesn't in any way, shape or form mean "fire." I really don't know what he's on. Brísingr, on the other hand, does mean "flame."

I know, it's just a bloody acute accent. But in Old Norse the accent makes it a different letter. They are considered different letters. They're listed separately in Zoëga's dictionary. They're pronounced differently. And they can make a different word.

And on the sidenote, it's also a very obscure word that means fire. Really, really seriously obscure. Zoëga's dictionary doesn't include it, for example. (Which is why certain people on the Internet think the word doesn't exist and Paolini is just pulling it out of his bag of I Make Shit Up.)

The Brísingar, by the way, are usually thought to be a family or a people. We don't know much about them at all. But they owned a necklace at one point, which may or may not be the same necklace that crops up in Beowulf.

Not to mention it has lots and lots of mythological baggage: I can't see the word without thinking of Brísingamen, Freyja's necklace. The exact significance of it we don't know, but there are theories associating it with Northern Lights, the rising sun and fertility rites. Either way, I'm sure Paolini wasn't trying to make me think of the obscure but powerful artefact, the very symbol of female sexuality belonging to the goddess Freyja that corresponds to Þórr's hammer (which is, incidentally too short). He almost certainly wasn't intending me to think about the goddess Freyja sleeping with four dwarves for four nights to obtain it...

It's telling that he probably read about Brísingamen, read the etymology and then came up with the word. It is not the way to do these things, especially considering the aforementioned mythological baggage.

Oh, and never forget: the great draumr kópa, the infamous dream-gawking!

Knight of Darknes, contines, part three

The reading began here, spilled into here and is now as follows:

Chapter two...

Glastonbury Abbey was a cesspit of human filth and debauchery...
Lady Miriam: "All those sixty year old women drinking tea and eating tea cakes in the tea room..."

But back in the day when Avalon and Camelot had been part of the human world, it'd been a marvel of engineering and beauty. The ribbed vaulting of the nave had been painted bright colors and gilded until it shone like the very sun. The stained-glass windows had been a riot of color that caught every ray of sunshine before spilling it in brilliant rainbows against the stone floors.
The Anthropologist: "Why must you rape our culture?"
Pillywiggin: "I'm sorry to say that that's probably what the medieval people would have been doing to their stonework. Painting it bright, tacky colours."
The Anthropologist looks hopefully at the Chronicler who confirms this.
Lady Miriam: "It's the Lysergic acid common in the bread those days. Makes them do things differently."
(The Chronicler: "Though the real question is when were the days of Avalon and Camelot? Where exactly did she sneak in a King Arthur and why is it not pre-Norman Conquest?"

The monks who'd called it home had taken great care to keep up its beauty.
(The Chronicler notes that they loved it so much they ran the biggest King Arthur scam in history: the discovery of King Arthur's grave.)

In the original plan, only Camelot and Avalon were supposed to have been taken behind the veil to conceal...
The Anthropologist: "Yes, we've heard that already. Last chapter."

But Damé Fortune wasn't always kind...
The Chronicler: "Is that the medieval embodiment of fortune based on the goddess Fortuna or the blue guy, Dah-may For-tune-nah?"
The Anthropologist: "It says here that if you mispronounce his name bad things will happen."
The Chronicler: "Why is he a dude? The medieval mind made her a chick for a reason."
Cathed: "Merlin's a chick, now."
Azrael: "At this rate of gender-swapping, Arthur's going to be an old lady."

... numerous men and women had been caught in the middle of this battle and been trapped here, out of time...
Lady Miriam: "So it's like having a group of Medieval re-enactors in a box."
The Anthropologist: "So ever six months they'll dress up in silly clothes and hit each other with sticks?"

Banned by accident from the realm of Avalon, their only choice now was to live in Glastonbury or to venture into the lands of Camelot...
Yet with every passing year, their neutrality dwindled, and the inhabitants were beginning to look more and more like the twisted souls who called Camelot home. It was a shame really.
Pillywiggin (summoning the Dark Lord): "Make it stop..."
The Chronicler is really surprised that Merlin and company with all their magic haven't done something about this in the last seven hundred years.

To the left was the curtain of light and color that delineated Avalon. To the right was the dark gray world that was Morgen's Camelot...
... For those who lived in Avalon, the darkness was something to fear. It was said that any who dared to venture to it would be consumed by it. To live in darkness was to surrender all that was good inside you. The Dark was a vicious mistress who demanded the sacrifice of morals and decency...
The Anthropologist: "Considering the binary alignment system, you'd think they'd have done something besides sitting in the middle being trapped in this ridiculous hell. On one side you have the shiny beacon of Goodness and on the other you have the evil sinkhole of Evil. Not really a tough choice."
Azrael: "Maybe they're old and want to sit there and complain... Back in my day, we didn't have the unattainable city of everlasting beauty and grace and goodness hovering over our shoulders."
(The Chronicler notes that the Dark is feminine.)

And just like the inhabitants of Camelot, they, too, despised those who lived in Avalon...
The Anthropologist: "I'm not surprised. We've established they're utter fucks in the first chapter."

No, [Merewyn]'d lived in the land of Mercia as a princess. More beautiful even than Helen of Troy...
Azrael: "The face that launched two thousand ships."

...[she] had been forced to watch men kill one another just for a chance to see her smile.
She'd hated every minute of it.
Lady Miriam: "Poor you."
(The Chronicler wonders why the men weren't busy in all the nunnery-brothels that Mercia was infamous for in the 9th Century)

And when her father had told her that the time had come for her to marry a man who saw nothing more than her beauty [...] With magic-with-a-k...
Pillywiggin: "Can we shorten it to Magic K?"
Cathed: "Special K..."

...she conjured one of the Adoni—an elfin race so cruel that even demons feared them.
The Anthropologist: "She summoned drow. Why did you summon drow?"
Azrael: "And there was only one way to make drow more stupid... to call them adoni. Like Hebrew for Lord, but singular."
The Chronicler: "Because Adonai would be blasphemous."
Azrael: "Or maybe it's just Adonis without the s?"

She'd traded her beauty for freedom, or so she thought [...] Now she was in the abbey, hidden behind a wall with her mistress—the very being who'd stolen her beauty and enslaved her.
Cathed: "I'm getting the feeling that they wouldn't be fail demons this time, which is good. Screwing people over with contracts is what demons should be doing."
(The Chronicler wonders why she couldn't have just joined one of the nunnery-brothels Mercia was so famous for. Yes, the Chronicler is really amused by Merica's nuns.)

All of the Adoni were beautiful, but even by their exceptional standards Narishka stood out. Petite and curvy, she was what every man dreamed of touching and what every woman dreamed of being.
The Anthropologist: "This is the stupid neutral land. No one wants to do that."

Except for the blackness of her soul, which was only matched by that of her heart...
The Loinfire Club is beside itself with giggles and is completely unable to actually snark this statement for a long time.
The Anthropologist: "What exactly is the difference between the soul and the heart in this system? And how does she know? I mean, does the doctor check when you visit, right after blood pressure and pissing in a test tube, they say: "And let's have a look at your heart... yes, it's still pretty dark. Are you taking that medication I've been prescribing?"

Cathed (melodramatically): "Oh! My Soul is not a slut but my heart wants sex!"

She hated her limping gait [...]Turning, the man cursed and screwed his features up in distaste as he saw her hideously pockmarked face and matted hair.
The Balance: "Drink! That's a skin and a hair comment."
The Anthropologist: "But an original twist... I am hanging onto it."

Then he, too, shoved her away, into a table where a group of men were dicing. This time her collision caused drink to spill all over the man whose arm she bumped.
Pillywiggin: "Hag bowling!"

Cursing, he rose from his chair, twisting a circular dagger on his index finger as he glared his hatred at her.
The Anthropologist: "What exactly does a circular dagger look like? A pizza cutter?"
Azrael: "She probably means the dagger-Frisbee-like-things? Chakras?"
Lady Miriam: "No, that's something else completely."
The Balance: "Shouldn't that be a Chakram? What Xena uses?"
Azrael: "Maybe they actually mean sharpened CDs..."

Her jaw went slack. Not from fear, but from speechless awe. The newcomer was tall and lean with the greenest eyes she'd ever seen in her life...
Cathed: "It's Harry Potter."
The Anthropologist: "I'm really not sure that's a compliment.... Wow! That's an interesting colour. It's like grass green by greener. Could you just stand there whilst I get out my wallpaper chart?"

As clear as a scrying crystal, they seemed to glow from a face that was so perfectly sculpted he should be...
The Anthropologist: "Scrying crystals are transparent. And his eyes aren't transparent."
Watcher: "Not very attractive if you can see through to the back of his skull."

Cathed wants cookies and there is a brief digression here in pursuit of them. The Chronicler rather guiltily admits to having eaten all the cookies.

His curly black hair brushed against his shoulders in a haphazard manner that said he wasn't one to be overly concerned with his looks—as did the whiskers that darkened his tanned cheeks and accentuated the slight cleft in his chin...
Cathed: "Oh! Swoon!"

"That's Varian duFey you're attacking, Hugh. Think long and hard."
Azrael: "Long and hard... That's just ridiculously dodgy."

Merewyn snapped her jaw shut at the name that was legendary among the evil beings who called Camelot home. [...] That he'd sold his soul to the devil or Tuatha Dé Danann so that no man would ever be able to defeat him in battle. That he'd killed his own brother just so that he could learn Adoni magick and feed his own powers. But even worse, it was said that he knew magick so black that even Morgen feared him. [...]
And by the evil twist of his lips as he watched Hugh like a man eyeing a fly he intended to kill, she could believe every one.
Azrael: "Wow, she's gullible."
Luca: "She's the heroine."

Varian taunted in a deep resonant tone that went down her spine like warm velvet.
The Chronicler: "Him taunting his enemies really shouldn't be sexy."
Lady Miriam: "It's a medical complication. It's definitely meningitis."

Rumor claimed Varian duFey used the entrails of his victims as laces for his boots and armor...
Azrael: "You'd think you could just check that really easily."
Cathed: "Excuse me, sir, could you just stay still for a moment so I can see if your boots are laced with entrails? They aren't? I thought that was a stupid rumour..."

Hugh spat on the ground before he sheathed his dagger at his waist and retook his seat?
The Anthropologist: "What sort of a sheath does a circular dagger have?"
The Balance: "A circular one."
Cathed: "Maybe he has a CD wallet. Then he can carry all 36 of his daggers out at once..."

And as his gaze fell to each one, they looked away nervously before they returned to what they'd been doing...
The Anthropologist: "His gaze is in charge now. They've completed the dominance ritual. We've proven his gaze can take on an entire room."

To her complete shock, he handed it to her, and if she didn't know better, she'd swear his face actually softened as his gaze met hers...
Cathed: "Wait? Soften? I'm not sure that suggests their gazes are compatible."
Pillywiggin: "Maybe she's a fag hag."

"You'd best be on your way, lass. A little more carefully this time."
The single word that acknowledged her as a woman and not a hag went through her with a giddy rush. It'd been centuries since any man had looked at her with anything other than complete disgust in his gaze.
Lady Miriam: "He doesn't hate me... maybe he'll shag me!"

Countless centuries since one had called her anything other than "hag," "crone," or some other insult.
The Balance: "You! Some other insult! Get over here!"
Azrael: "There's nothing more demeaning than lazy hatred."
Cathed: "Surely she needs to leave a two second pause just to make sure he doesn't throw in the 'hag' at the end..."

He'd already forgotten her, but she would never forget him or the kindness he'd shown her.
Lady Miriam: "Kill it with knives."
Pillywiggin: "And then fire."
The Anthropologist: "It's useful that the heroine's standards and expectations of a relationship are artificially lowered before the book starts, or else she'd never be able to put up with the hero."

He liked to keep his eye on the crowd at all times.
And speaking of, he found his gaze traveling over the angry patrons to find the gnarled crone he'd saved.
Cathed: "He calls her a crone in his internal monologue... Oh! He only insulted me in his mind! He's so considerate!"
Pillywiggin: "Gaze come back here!

Scarred by the pox, she had a lazy eye and an overly large nose. Her lips were twisted and swollen, and given to so much moisture that she was constantly having to wipe them on the back of her hand.
The Chronicler: "I recognise this story! It's Loathly Lady plotline! Chaucer does a version of it... very popular and with proto-feminist overtones."
The Chronicler summarises the story.
The Balance: "So what it's saying is that women want what they want."
The Chronicler: "Yes. Essentially. But it's saying they want things. They want to make their own decisions."
Azrael: "So, heroine not appearing in this book."
The Anthropologist: "That's not just reading wiki article, it's clicking on the links at the bottom of the page. I'm getting increasingly impressed by the levels of research."
Lady Miriam: "Don't be."

If not for the fact that she was here in Glastonbury and was so obsequious, he'd think her one of the twisted graylings who served Morgen.
Azrael: "Don't worry, her hump'll swing around to the front. And she'll be all pretty soon."
Pillywiggin: "But this is almost Dragosh levels of ugly."

Varian looked back at Dafyn, who eyed him with malice…and that cut him soul deep. Centuries ago, Dafyn, who was a large, stout man with round, whiskered jowls, had owned a small tavern in Glastonbury...
Azrael: "You have all the flange in time travel, but the barkeep is still fat with whiskers. Nothing ever changes in these parts."

But as Varian had grown to manhood, he'd often found himself back in the tavern, spending time with Dafyn...
Azrael: "Like any other teenager. Not really surprising given how boring the rest of the world is."

Until the night the veil had come down and Dafyn had discovered himself trapped on this side while his family was still in the human world.
Cathed: "Oh woe! I am forever trapped in this pub! How tragic! I must drink!"

The pain, grief, and bitterness of that had ruined a good man, and now Dafyn, like all the others here, would kill him if he had a chance.
The Anthropologist: "They ran out of beer."

Varian opened the small leather purse at his waist and pulled out twenty gold marks. "There was a man murdered outside the abbey last night."
Azrael: "Are you finally setting your tab? It's been several centuries..."

"Bracken was leading them."
The Anthropologist: "That name means something and is easy to spell."

That name actually gave Varian pause. Bracken was one of the more lethal MODs Morgen commanded—though the term "commanded" was used loosely since the MODs had eaten their last master, the god Balor.
Lady Miriam: "They ate Balor! How can you eat a God?"
The Anthropologist: "Unless you're Christian? Then you do it every weekend."

At the end of the day, there was no doubt that they could kill her easily enough, but the last thing the MODs wanted was to be turned out to face the wrath of the entire Tuatha Dé Danann. That particular group of Celtic gods were known for their viciousness.
Pillywiggin: "I'm not sure they don't mean it in the Christian sense."
The Anthropologist: "Maybe the Egyptian sense, then?"
Lady Miriam mumbles about how it was Lugh who killed Balor.

"Hi, mum," he said before he turned to look at her over his shoulder.
Narishka was still as beautiful as any twenty-year-old human woman.
The Anthropologist: "She went on the Atkins."

Her golden blond hair was worn in braids that she had coiled around the crown of her head in an intricate design and fell in loops about her shoulders. Her flowing black gown barely covered her ample assets as she offered him a cold smile.
The Anthropologist: "She's your mother! Stop ogling her ample assets!"
Cathed: "He so has Mummy issues..."
The Chronicler: "I suppose he has to find her hot because it's technically Heroine's beauty he's looking at."

He reached behind the counter to grab a jug and goblet before he poured himself a potent drink.
The Loinfire Club reach for their potent drinks.

"Ah yes, you prefer to make your bed with our enemies."
(The Chronicler notes the first of many, many more sexual innuendos involving him and his mother.)

"A strategic miscalculation on my part."
"Hmm…" he said, not believing that for a moment as he set his goblet down. His mother never made those kinds of mistakes.
The Anthropologist: "But she just did. She just said so."

Tilting his head to one side, he frowned as he saw the twisted crone in his mother's shadow.
Cathed: "He's still calling her a crone in his head."

Lots of evil mother angst ensue.

He glanced back at his mother's cold gaze.
Cathed: "Her gaze is cold. He should really give it a jacket, poor thing."

She feigned an innocent pout. "Can't I simply be missing my boy?"
The Chronicler: "Why is pouting so common in romance novels?! No grown woman should be pouting seriously."
Cathed: "You're evil! We've established that. You've been oozing it since page one. Moving on..."

"And just how many centuries has it taken for you to discover this deeply buried maternal instinct? Oh wait, I better get a jackhammer to cut through the granite so we can find it, huh?"
Pillywiggin: "Not as witty as you hoped."

Never once in his life had his mother ever touched him with affection.
The Anthropologist: "Unlike Merlin."

And unless she'd seriously snapped a wheel...
Azrael: "His mother has wheels, now?"
Cathed: "She's actually a robot."

"Yeah. Of course you do. But it's a few centuries too late, mum. You two witches should have used your powers to see that little Varian wouldn't come back to the flock. Ever...
The Chronicler: "I'm glad he's resolved the Evil or Not suspense for all of us so soon. Now can he stop bloody angsting about it?"

...You told me on the day you left me at Camelot that you had more important things to do than play nursemaid to an unruly brat."
The Anthropologist: "All of us have better things to do than put up with this guy."

"What I did was regrettable—"
The Balance: "Regrettable hyphen."

...Well, not proud that you fight for that bitch and thwart Morgen's plans, but proud that you don't hesitate to kill those who get in your way. You are evil at heart, just like us...
The Chronicler: "But good guys kill to. This isn't a setting where killing is evil. It's like D&D, so her point is?"

...You can have all the coin you wish. You can have the most beautiful women—even virgins...
The Chronicler: "You too can sleep with women who don't know what to do and lie there terrified by your manly glory."
The Anthropologist: "Surely the most beautiful women are statistically less likely to be virgins..."

...Though it will probably take some searching to find those at Camelot, but…Whatever it takes to win you over, we will gladly cede."
The Chronicler: "I think she's offering the most beautiful women and the virgins separately."

I need no help with women, and I personally like what I do.
Pillywiggin: "Virile."

"So instead you'd have me serve Morgen, killing indiscriminately? Still hated and still worthless?"
Cathed: "I see where this is going!"

He narrowed his eyes at that statement, which told him much. "So what exactly did you learn from Tarynce's torture?"
The Anthropologist: "Ooo... alliterative."

Completely unabashed by what they'd done to the poor man, she actually answered.
The Chronicler: "He is rather hypocritical considering his relish of torture earlier."

"There are other grail knights. Five more to be precise. We must have their names."
Pillywiggin: "Because more than that is boring."

Oh boy! Let him sign up for that…not
The Balance: "He is, in fact, a fifteen year old girl on MySpace."

"This is Morgen we're speaking of. Morgen who threw the entire universe out of order for her own selfish gain, murdered her own brother and who has no love or respect for any living creature. Uh-huh. You would really trust her?"
(The Chronicler notes the morality presented in this book.)

She lashed out and grabbed his arm in a grip so tight, it managed to hurt even through the armor.
Azrael: "Wow. She's strong."
The Anthropologist: "He's wearing chainmail under his leathers. Maybe it's the hair catching on the links. That can really hurt."

Her eyes flamed to red as her grip tightened even more
Pillywiggin (marking in the book in a satisfied manner): "Eyes and fiery!"

And then she tried to zap herself out of the room.
Varian laughed at the stunned look on her face.
Luca: "How many centuries has she been living there?"

...but for the fact that he knew her brain was already concocting some way to fuck him over.
Cathed: "Dirty...

The latter would never happen, so that left him with Morgen throwing everything she could at him. Night and day. Day and night. Eternally.
The Balance: "It's not all about you, you know."
Cathed: "Is that like the name of the brothel next door?"

... All he needed now was for Bracken to gouge out his eyes and swallow them.
Pillywiggin: "Is that a medical complication or an eye comment?"