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charger_ss24
Learned Scribe
USA
108 Posts |
 Posted - 23 Apr 2014 : 05:05:10
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Wait, what?
"Malik was gone, too, of course. His god, Myrkul, had bestowed on him the ability to vanish like a ghost, and he practiced it often - especially when danger threatened."
Did I miss something down the road? Isn't Malik a Chosen of Cyric?  |
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Eltheron
Senior Scribe
740 Posts |
Posted - 23 Apr 2014 : 14:06:31
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quote:
Originally posted by The Arcanamach
{snip}
Joelle was horrible. If she is what passes for a follower of the goddess of love then Sune needs to fall to Cyric (just my opinion).{snip}
The lesbian relationship was too sudden to be credible IMO. If Arietta was self-aware enough to already know she had such feelings it would have been more palatable.{snip}
It's far, far worse than a poorly-constructed "late discovery of her true feelings" kind of thing, though. If real, genuine feelings were involved, it would've been a bit hackneyed and rushed, but acceptable.
But really, I think what Joelle did actually qualifies as rape. Joelle consistently and intentionally used her Chosen-enhanced magical charm gift to ensnare people into "love" of her - which wasn't love at all. Additionally, Joelle's end-goal wasn't any kind of lasting relationship, nor did it have any real affection behind it. It was to charm people such that one of them would essentially commit suicide as a "willing" sacrifice for her because of this false, magic-induced love. IMO, it was rape - which should be considered 100% evil, particularly for Sune the goddess of love.
It's sickening when you really think about the truth of what she was doing. Joelle attempted this with Kleef over and over, and when it didn't work with him she turned to Arietta. There was no love, no relationship, no intent to have anything real or long term. The only reason Joelle didn't try it with Malik is because she needed him as a carrier of Gruumsh's Eye.
Would Arietta have done or felt what she did, if it wasn't for the forced magical charm? At the very most, Arietta starting thinking of Joelle as a possible friend - which Joelle then took and twisted.
Bear in mind, I am not at all against portraying lesbian or gay relationships in Realms novels. But this was not a relationship (even a budding one). It was rape with the end-goal of causing the person to jump off a cliff.
This is what Sune wanted? Seriously?!?
More to the point: is this the kind of thing that I want to see in future Realms novels? Rape dressed up in magical charm, condoned and encouraged by an ostensibly good deity? No, this is just sick.
Let's say you have an empowered Charm spell in your inventory. You go into a tavern, cast it on an attractive wench, and use her for a night of pleasure. Then you convince her to throw herself onto the sword of a city watchman so you can escape arrest. Would that be self-sacrifice? Was the wench in love? Nope, and nope. It was rape and murder, forced by an irresistible magic charm. In my book, that's Evil with a capital E.
But here, it's apparently condoned and encouraged by a good goddess. Seriously, Cyric here was portrayed as being LESS evil and deranged than Sune. In every important way, this was a twisted perversion of Sune and her primary portfolio, not to mention her alignment.
Seriously, I can't even. This is the single worst thing they could've done for the goddess Sune.
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"The very best possible post-fourteenth-century Realms lets down those who love the specific, detailed social, political and magical situation, with its thousands of characters, developed over forty years, and want to learn more about it; and those who'd be open to a new one with equal depth, which there just isn't time to re-produce; and those repelled, some past the point of no return, by the bad-taste-and-plausibility gap of things done to the world when its guardianship was less careful."
--Faraer |
Edited by - Eltheron on 23 Apr 2014 15:59:37 |
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Mirtek
Senior Scribe
595 Posts |
Posted - 23 Apr 2014 : 19:51:06
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quote:
Originally posted by charger_ss24
Wait, what?
"Malik was gone, too, of course. His god, Myrkul, had bestowed on him the ability to vanish like a ghost, and he practiced it often - especially when danger threatened."
Did I miss something down the road? Isn't Malik a Chosen of Cyric?
Yeah, since when would a chosen of the Prince of Lies speak an untruth?
OK, for Malik it was actually surprising to see him being able to lie |
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Caolin
Senior Scribe
768 Posts |
Posted - 24 Apr 2014 : 23:02:36
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quote:
Originally posted by charger_ss24
Wait, what?
"Malik was gone, too, of course. His god, Myrkul, had bestowed on him the ability to vanish like a ghost, and he practiced it often - especially when danger threatened."
Did I miss something down the road? Isn't Malik a Chosen of Cyric?
I'll venture that you haven't even read the book yet. |
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Renin
Learned Scribe
USA
290 Posts |
Posted - 25 Apr 2014 : 22:44:21
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quote:
Originally posted by The Arcanamach
So far, the best Sundering novel IMO has been The Adversary followed by The Companions. The series falls very short behind them. I didn't have very high expectations for the series though. The blame doesn't lie with the authors but with Wizbro for butchering the setting. The authors are just doing what they are contracted to do and I think they're doing the best they can. The Sentinel wasn't all that bad though (and I don't mind the cheesy methods of resetting some aspects of Toril's landscape because, in the end, that's all that can be done to set things right).
Out of most of the conversations, this one seems to mirror most of what I feel about this book.
I didn't feel anything from this book. The Reaver's characters were at least better, but the events are merely backdrops for what feels like wiki entries based on press clippings until the campaign setting becomes available.
Based on how much I hated bury Elminster Deep and Elminster Enraged, I'm not coming to the Herald expecting anything.
As always, I hope to be suprised. |
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The Sentinel review spoiler warning.
