![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
silverflight8I woke up to schadenfreude the other morning, and by schadenfreude I mean the voting results out of the Hugos. HA!
===========
I finished the last book of The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel and I have to make a post about it because the ending. Actually the whole thing made me feel like it was partly a retcon and I hate retcons. (See my objections to the Mistborn book - that third book was practically a giant retcon of the entire series, especially the last scene.)
This is the first actual review I've done in a long time I think. Though I am not synopsising this book, that will stall me out. I recommend the Wikipedia article! It is somewhat spoilery though.
One sentence summary: modern-day twins discover they are subjects of a prophecy, Nicholas Flamel and other immortals battle for control of them and their destiny.
Oh my god first, what what what they're not twins? Does this mean that prophecy was incorrect? Is this meant to symbolize that being raised together counts more than being related by blood? Or about the prophecy being wrong, or prophecies not being reliable? Sorry to belabour the point about prophecies' correctness/incorrectness, but prophecies transmitting information or creating a frame for a story is very common in fantasy, and this particular one was given a lot of emphasis. Why is this never addressed? The twins thing is a big deal! In fact they were born several thousand years apart, you have to say something about this. Instead it's just dropped like it never happened.
The part with Osiris and Isis dying was totally anti-climactic. Actually, back it up - finding out Osiris and Isis are their "parents" - or if you think about it non-biologically and in the rearing way, their parents - that was so weird. It does retroactively explain why they didn't raise the alarm when their children went missing for days and days...but it felt tacked on. It was partly supported because we find out that they are Dee's masters, and at least Dee's masters were a big mystery since the first few books. But it kind of felt like a cheap trick. Not only is Aunt Agatha an Elder (I think?) but also their parents? Have they been surrounded by immortals all their lives? On one hand it makes sense - if you think this is the culmination of a very important prophecy you would try to be next to them - but on the other, the premise of the books is rather that these ordinary teenagers from the 21st-century are actually the Twins of Legend and fated to create and destroy worlds. And then Osiris and Isis simply die. There is so much set-up that they are very powerful, including politically, that it is strange they die and then that's all.
Also, they're not twins? Again, why isn't this addressed?
Another thing: all the levels of elder and immortal and Archon and Earthlord - there is a distinction but one that I barely took into consideration while burning through the books, because to me it felt like whenever there was established a fantasy god race above all others, it was eventually flattened down before an older and yet more advanced and mysterious almost-deity race. There was almost no development or differentiation between them; Scott just told us that this was an old race...but they are exploring the mysterious ruins of an even older civilization! I get that explaining too much takes the mystery out of it, but there was so little development I started thinking of them as different tiers of gods, like level 1 immortals, level 2, level 3.
It's a product of, I think, the classic problem of how to keep the fantasy's sense of wonder, newness, and story going. Farah Mendlesohn talks a lot about this escalation, not only in quest-like fantasy but also in, for example, horror; you can only have the naive protagonist organically once, but you're not done with the story yet, so you have to bring in more elements - a scarier, deadlier monster to combat your more skilled and knowledgeable protagonist, for example, so that you can re-create that tension or wonder. This series is extremely compressed in terms of time-scale. Only about a week passes, but it spans six books. And the structure is essentially one that simply rises up to a climactic battle: they find out that they are twins of legend and they rush to stay ahead of Dee and it is all leading up to a big showdown. So by necessity there is a lot of filler; there needs to be battles and conflict in the earlier books to fill them out and give a sense of what's ahead, but important people can't die and Dee can't succeed.
It stretches credulity sometimes, though Scott fills some of the gaps. The immortals who give the gift of immortality to humans are almost all exclusively hard to please, mercurial, demanding; they are able to revoke immortality at any time, which unsurprisingly makes creates a balance of power that allows them to exploit their human servants. But Dee has been chasing the Flamels for literal centuries and continually failed. Why isn't he punished? This problem propagates further ones too - are the immortals weak? Not paying attention? Not as deadly as originally advertised? Why do they suddenly need to physically touch Dee to remove the immortality? As a consequence of the structure the immortals have to fight each other or the protagonists and they cannot win, or else the story doesn't go forward, so then it also weakens the credulity of the antagonists. Dee is only allegedly powerful, but his schemes never work!
I guess I'm not pleased about the twin thing because the strength of their relationship - a sort of us against the world mentality - is important for the books. The twins are suddenly thrown into this new world they had no idea existed and they rely on each other because that's all they have left. It bothers me somewhat that suddenly they are split - because suddenly Josh becomes this nigh-mythical thing, like the personification of Death. And sheds his identity as Josh. Also unusually for fantasy, there is a very strong undercurrent of being unable to trust figures of authority. Often in fantasy you have the wise guide/mentor, who helps the protagonist get information, and it's assumed that they are almost always right, with maybe a little leeway if they have information blurred by centuries of handed-down oral tradition or something. The mentor helps set up the world and they need to be trustworthy for that. But Josh clearly and occasionally uncomfortably (narratively you're expected to side with Flamel) distrusts Nicholas Flamel. He thinks Flamel is lying or leaving out facts, that they don't actually care for the twins, and falls under the influence of Dee and Machiavelli, both of whom try to steer him in the other direction. Sophie follows a much more conventional protagonist path; she listens to and accepts what Nicholas and Perenelle are saying, and she implicitly trusts the Witch of Endor's memories, which since they are downloaded right into her head are conveniently there to supply facts. I think Josh, being so skeptical, helps reinforce the opinion that Sophie is right, sometimes. It would be simpler if they all just believed, but Josh stands in for the reader who boggles at them simply taking everything at face value. Lamp-shade hanging, in a way, but that's not the only role - he is distrustful for a long time (many books) and his eventual transformation into Marethyu only reinforces that, since Marethyu shapes the events of history himself.
OK the marriage thing, I have to talk about that. There are a lot of married couples. I think it is a shorthand for devoted, long-lasting love, and I do mean shorthand; there are so many storylines and characters running through the books that there just isn't enough space to also develop or show romantic storylines. Some of the relationships are very long lasting; the Flamels are almost seven hundred years old and have been married for pretty much the entirety of that.
I have even more things to say but I really need to just post this for now. STAY TUNED. Also, this is not meant to mean I disliked the books; on the contrary I'm still thinking about them (and feeling vaguely empty; I keep thinking that I'll read/listen to the next chapter and then realizing I finished the book...a couple days ago).
===========
I finished the last book of The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel and I have to make a post about it because the ending. Actually the whole thing made me feel like it was partly a retcon and I hate retcons. (See my objections to the Mistborn book - that third book was practically a giant retcon of the entire series, especially the last scene.)
This is the first actual review I've done in a long time I think. Though I am not synopsising this book, that will stall me out. I recommend the Wikipedia article! It is somewhat spoilery though.
One sentence summary: modern-day twins discover they are subjects of a prophecy, Nicholas Flamel and other immortals battle for control of them and their destiny.
Oh my god first, what what what they're not twins? Does this mean that prophecy was incorrect? Is this meant to symbolize that being raised together counts more than being related by blood? Or about the prophecy being wrong, or prophecies not being reliable? Sorry to belabour the point about prophecies' correctness/incorrectness, but prophecies transmitting information or creating a frame for a story is very common in fantasy, and this particular one was given a lot of emphasis. Why is this never addressed? The twins thing is a big deal! In fact they were born several thousand years apart, you have to say something about this. Instead it's just dropped like it never happened.
The part with Osiris and Isis dying was totally anti-climactic. Actually, back it up - finding out Osiris and Isis are their "parents" - or if you think about it non-biologically and in the rearing way, their parents - that was so weird. It does retroactively explain why they didn't raise the alarm when their children went missing for days and days...but it felt tacked on. It was partly supported because we find out that they are Dee's masters, and at least Dee's masters were a big mystery since the first few books. But it kind of felt like a cheap trick. Not only is Aunt Agatha an Elder (I think?) but also their parents? Have they been surrounded by immortals all their lives? On one hand it makes sense - if you think this is the culmination of a very important prophecy you would try to be next to them - but on the other, the premise of the books is rather that these ordinary teenagers from the 21st-century are actually the Twins of Legend and fated to create and destroy worlds. And then Osiris and Isis simply die. There is so much set-up that they are very powerful, including politically, that it is strange they die and then that's all.
Also, they're not twins? Again, why isn't this addressed?
Another thing: all the levels of elder and immortal and Archon and Earthlord - there is a distinction but one that I barely took into consideration while burning through the books, because to me it felt like whenever there was established a fantasy god race above all others, it was eventually flattened down before an older and yet more advanced and mysterious almost-deity race. There was almost no development or differentiation between them; Scott just told us that this was an old race...but they are exploring the mysterious ruins of an even older civilization! I get that explaining too much takes the mystery out of it, but there was so little development I started thinking of them as different tiers of gods, like level 1 immortals, level 2, level 3.
It's a product of, I think, the classic problem of how to keep the fantasy's sense of wonder, newness, and story going. Farah Mendlesohn talks a lot about this escalation, not only in quest-like fantasy but also in, for example, horror; you can only have the naive protagonist organically once, but you're not done with the story yet, so you have to bring in more elements - a scarier, deadlier monster to combat your more skilled and knowledgeable protagonist, for example, so that you can re-create that tension or wonder. This series is extremely compressed in terms of time-scale. Only about a week passes, but it spans six books. And the structure is essentially one that simply rises up to a climactic battle: they find out that they are twins of legend and they rush to stay ahead of Dee and it is all leading up to a big showdown. So by necessity there is a lot of filler; there needs to be battles and conflict in the earlier books to fill them out and give a sense of what's ahead, but important people can't die and Dee can't succeed.
It stretches credulity sometimes, though Scott fills some of the gaps. The immortals who give the gift of immortality to humans are almost all exclusively hard to please, mercurial, demanding; they are able to revoke immortality at any time, which unsurprisingly makes creates a balance of power that allows them to exploit their human servants. But Dee has been chasing the Flamels for literal centuries and continually failed. Why isn't he punished? This problem propagates further ones too - are the immortals weak? Not paying attention? Not as deadly as originally advertised? Why do they suddenly need to physically touch Dee to remove the immortality? As a consequence of the structure the immortals have to fight each other or the protagonists and they cannot win, or else the story doesn't go forward, so then it also weakens the credulity of the antagonists. Dee is only allegedly powerful, but his schemes never work!
I guess I'm not pleased about the twin thing because the strength of their relationship - a sort of us against the world mentality - is important for the books. The twins are suddenly thrown into this new world they had no idea existed and they rely on each other because that's all they have left. It bothers me somewhat that suddenly they are split - because suddenly Josh becomes this nigh-mythical thing, like the personification of Death. And sheds his identity as Josh. Also unusually for fantasy, there is a very strong undercurrent of being unable to trust figures of authority. Often in fantasy you have the wise guide/mentor, who helps the protagonist get information, and it's assumed that they are almost always right, with maybe a little leeway if they have information blurred by centuries of handed-down oral tradition or something. The mentor helps set up the world and they need to be trustworthy for that. But Josh clearly and occasionally uncomfortably (narratively you're expected to side with Flamel) distrusts Nicholas Flamel. He thinks Flamel is lying or leaving out facts, that they don't actually care for the twins, and falls under the influence of Dee and Machiavelli, both of whom try to steer him in the other direction. Sophie follows a much more conventional protagonist path; she listens to and accepts what Nicholas and Perenelle are saying, and she implicitly trusts the Witch of Endor's memories, which since they are downloaded right into her head are conveniently there to supply facts. I think Josh, being so skeptical, helps reinforce the opinion that Sophie is right, sometimes. It would be simpler if they all just believed, but Josh stands in for the reader who boggles at them simply taking everything at face value. Lamp-shade hanging, in a way, but that's not the only role - he is distrustful for a long time (many books) and his eventual transformation into Marethyu only reinforces that, since Marethyu shapes the events of history himself.
OK the marriage thing, I have to talk about that. There are a lot of married couples. I think it is a shorthand for devoted, long-lasting love, and I do mean shorthand; there are so many storylines and characters running through the books that there just isn't enough space to also develop or show romantic storylines. Some of the relationships are very long lasting; the Flamels are almost seven hundred years old and have been married for pretty much the entirety of that.
I have even more things to say but I really need to just post this for now. STAY TUNED. Also, this is not meant to mean I disliked the books; on the contrary I'm still thinking about them (and feeling vaguely empty; I keep thinking that I'll read/listen to the next chapter and then realizing I finished the book...a couple days ago).
Schadenfreude?
Date: Aug. 25th, 2015 03:24 pm (UTC)Re: Schadenfreude?
From:Re: Schadenfreude?
From:Re: Schadenfreude?
From:Re: Schadenfreude?
From:Re: Schadenfreude?
From: