Roo's Reaction Reviews: Polychrome (Part 2)
Hello again!
It's the second post of ten, and I really don't have anything else to say at the moment, so without any further ado, let's just continue reading Polychrome.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Hey, what do you know! Just at the end of last post, I commented that we hadn't really seen a lot of our book's resident two villains yet, but here they are! And... yeah, called it. now that Mrs. Yoop is Mrs. Yoop no more, but the beautiful Amanita, Ugu is lusting for her. (We don't know what Amanita thinks about him just yet...)
Ugu refers to having been a dove for "hundreds of years," but that can't be right. The Lost Princess of Oz was published in 1917, and the events of the books were always presented as having happened fairly recently, so assuming this book takes place in present-day, it'll be one hundred years at most. Not that this isn't a long time to be a dove, mind... and it's suggested that Ugu might not have kept time very well when he was a dove, so he's not actually sure of the exact number of years. So, unless there's some upcoming twist about time passing quicker in Oz, let's just make it easy and call it one hundred years, give or take a few years.
The Tempests have reported in that Polychrome has gone off and fetched a human from the mortal realm, Ugu reacts fairly calmly, just beginning to plot countermeasures; Amanita swings between raging over the news and blatantly flirting with him. We get a bit more information on how the two conquered Oz so completely; they allied themselves with the Phanfasms, evil spirits with bodies of humans and heads of animals, and among the more dangerous magical creatures in the Oz canon. The Phanfasms helped the Nome King try to invade Oz in The Emerald City of Oz (and it was this invasion that made Glinda cut Oz off from other countries), but at the end of the book they all lost their memories and went back home because they had no idea what they had been doing. The narrative notes that they still didn't have most of their memories... which might be why Amanita managed to trick them so easily. Under the pretense of wanting them as allies, she instead transformed them into... ummm... a vortex of power and rage... Right. That makes total sense.
(I'm lying. It makes no sense at all.)
Anyway, the Phantasms have now become a convenient power source for Amanita to tap into when she needs powerful magic, which probably explains just how the entire Emerald City was turned to stone. Ugu finds the entire thing an abomination, but at the same time it makes him want to bang her even more. Yeah, Ugu's kind of got issues.
Then... there's a scene called "First vision," in which Ozma reflects on how she is captured and enslaved. The narrative doesn't say it's Ozma, just using the non-specific "she," but... come on. It's Ozma. The most interesting part of this scene might be that she is described as trapped within a blinding, burning light... but there is a slight hope in one tiny spot of darkness. Not sure what this means yet, but I thought this inversion of the classic "light is good, dark is evil" trope was worth mentioning. Especially since the Tempest have been describing as not liking light.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Back with Erik and the Rainbow Lord, we discover that the Rainbow Lord has killed him, and the book is over. Naaaaaaaaah, of course not. The entire lightning-bolt thing was a test -- but, here's a pretty neat twist: While it was the standard test of courage (though really, "fear is weakness"? Don't tell the Cowardly Lion that; he'd never be able to stop self-loathing), it was also an experiment to see whether Erik truly was all-mortal with no fairy blood at all. If he'd had that fairy blood, the lightning bolt sphere would have killed him -- but pure mortals are so far removed from the magic of Faerie that they can't be hurt by it.
The Rainbow Lord's callousness aside, this is a neat idea... it's similar to one I've used in the past and am still using for some fantasy projects: The less magic you have, the less magic can affect and hurt you. In my setting, then, the greatest wizards are also the ones most at risk trom magic; they're so closely linked to it that it affects them to a bigger degree -- while those with no magical talent or training aren't harmed by magic at all; the wizard can fling spells at them right and left and it won't have any affect. And this is why wizards don't rule the world.
Back to the book, though. There's talk about the (sigh) prophecy, and how it says Erik's going to die.
Yeah, no, he's not. Let's not even pretend we believe that part.
CHAPTER NINE
After this bit of grave, but totally inaccurate news, there's some talk with the Little Pink Bear, and... I think the plan is that because Erik is 100% mortal and can't be hurt by fairy magic, the plan is to try and let the captured Ozma possess Erik, which would free her powers for use and give them a chance against the villains... but it's not totally risk-free, since while fairy magic can't hurt Eric, being vessel to such vast power may end up killing him anyway. There's also the chance that Ugu and Amanita will be able to use his mortal soul in a dark and twisted ritual that'll permanently sever Ozma's connection to Oz so they can fully enslave her and take her power instead of just leeching off it like they do now.
Erik quotes Aladdin and Babylon 5 before agreeing to try it.
But first, this pesky "Erik isn't a warrior" thing needs to be taken care of, so the Rainbow Lord calls for Captain Nimbus Thunderstroke, Captain of the Storm Legions, and basically says: "Okay, we need this guy, but he sucks at fighting and defending himself, so train him up until he sucks less, will you?"
I wonder where Polychrome went off to? Haven't seen her at all in this batch of chapters so far. Hey, Polychrome, you're still the titular character of this story, right? Don't stay away too long!
CHAPTER TEN
So, Nimbus -- he tells Erik to call him Nimbus, so I will too -- takes Erik off to train, while talking about how awesome mortals are. Laying it on a bit too thick here, aren't ya, Nimby? But he does say how Ugu and Amanita have taken control of Glinda's Oz-protecting spell to stay of potential rescue parties, but of course as a mortal Eric can pass through this. He's not at all cure he likes the idea of charging into an occipied Oz all by himself, and I can't say I blame him.
Hmm... all right, now Nimbus says that time does pass faster in Oz, so I guess there was a twist about that, and Ugu did spend sveral centuries as a dove and not just the one. According to Nimbus, Oz was conquered roughly three hundred years ago, their time.. yow! Ten chapters, and it's been three hundred years?! Huh. I suppose this is yet another of those weird "lack of time scale in fantasy" thing, especially when the characters are effectively immortal. I get that it took time for Ugu and Amanita to actually conquer all of Oz, even with Glinda, Ozma and the Wizard out of commision... but this just does not feel like it's been going on for that long. It took three hundred years for Polychrome to go to the mortal realm? Okay, blame that damn prophecy (this is one reason why I hate prophecies), but... Ugu still hasn't made a move on Amanita even though she's openly flirting with him, for three hundred years? You know how long three hundred years is, even if you don't age?! It just doesn't quite add up.
Hwever, I am interested to find that in our time it has been about fifty years. Because... Hang on. Roughly fifty years ago, that would be in the early 1960s. And the very last of the "Famous Forty" Oz books, Merry-Go-Round in Oz, was published in 1963!
Hah! All the while we thought it was low sales that finally ended the Oz series... turns out that the series ended because Oz was conquered and everyone turned to stone, hence there was no more adventures for the Royal Historians to record! At least none that could be turned child-friendly... I mean, the adventures of two usurpers of a magical kingdom, where one has enslaved and transformed spirits to make her super-powerful and evil, while the other switches between thinking her an abomination and wanting to fuck her... Yeah, it'd be hard to turn that into anything you'd want your children to read.
I still don't think I buy the "three hundred years" part, but that bit was brilliant.
The training begins, Nimbus starts getting all Drill Sergeant Nasty, and Erik as a mortal is stronger and more awesome than he thought... hoo boy.
Look, it's not that I'm against characters becoming badass, even self-insert characters, but they have to earn it. It's why I was cheering for Tiffany Aching being all badass and becoming the youngest Head Witch ever back in Shepherd's Crown; Tiffany had worked for this. She'd been tested and tried for five books, she'd fought against increasing threats; she'd made stupid mistakes and almost ended up getting herself killed, but she owned up to her mistakes and fixed them. She worked herself to exhaustion because she took on more than she could handle and had to learn to pace herself. Her journey from curious little girl to powerful witch was filled with blood, sweat and tears. By the end of The Shepherd's Crown, Tiffany has truly earned her position as Most Badass Witch, and the respect she finally gets from the older witches.
Erik hasn't earned it. He's a nice enough guy, and he's scored some points with his willingness to help and to sacrifice himself, but him just automatically being better and stronger and tougher than the Sky Fairies just because he's human? That's not earning it. Not even if it means that Nimbus says this means he'll have to train him even harder. But, it's still early in the book. We'll see how this develops.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Hmm. This is basically just a training scene, Erik has been training for two weeks and for the umpteenth time in this book he's told that he isn't that bad, he just doesn't use what he has very well. Chapter's really too short and uneventful to recap in any more detail than that, but it does refer to Nimbus's old friend Cirrus who has vanished and might show up later in the story, and it hasa snicker-worty line at the end when Erik wishes he could just go through a training montage.
I still want to know where Polychrome is. She left back in Chapter Six with a "don't worry, my father's a nice person" and hasn't been seen since.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Last chapter for now, and since we're back with Ugu and Amanita, it doesn't look like we'll be getting any Polychrome at all in this post. Amanita is screaming and raving and ranting because the sky fairies have a self-insert... I mean, a mortal on their side, and -- well, that was fast. Now we discover where Nimbus's old friend Cirrus went to. He's right here; turns out he's been a spy for the bad guys all along, and he "went missing" because he went to join them and tell them all about Erik. Actually, this isn't even the real Cirrus, because he died three hundred years ago, and this guy has been impersonating him ever since. Apparently doing a good job too, because not even his best friend Nimbus noticed the difference.
Fake-Cirrus does mention that Nimbus really is a swell guy, and he feels a little guilty for betraying such a cool dude, yo. But Ugu is quick to console: No, brah, you never betrayed him, because you were never really his friend to begin with. And the real Cirrus never betrayed him, because he died fighting. So no betrayal has taken place and everything is awesome. It's such a spectacular use of circular logic that I'm genuinely impressed. The only flaw in the argument is that it doesn't actually make any sense. But Fake-Cirrus seems to buy it, so Ugu's tactic works.
Amanita is still furious, but Ugu, who seems to be the voice of pseudo-reason whenever he's not fantasizing about her naked or whatever, points out that they can turn this all to their advantage: Now they know about the mortal and the prophesy, but the sky fairies don't know that they know. So they can play along and lead the sky fairies and their pet motal along for a bit, and then grab the mortal to use in that previously-mentioned dark and twisted ritual of their own. And finally... they have Fake-Cirrus, who has lived with the sky fairies and been in their army for three hindred years, and as such know all their secters and defenses.
This all cheers Amanita so much that she agrees to end the chapter with the traditional Evil Laugh(TM).
Not much happened in this batch of chapters, not compared to the action-packed batch of chapters from the first post. Still some good stuff here, mind; Nice to see the villains display some level of on-screen competence -- we know they had off-screen competence, or they would never have managed to take over Oz in the first place, but here we see that at least Ugu is capable of rolling with the punches and try to turn a disadvantage to an advantage, and knows how to treat/manipulate his minions. Not so sure about Amanita, mind -- she mostly seems unstable and cartoonishly evil.
And it's getting kind of a hassle to refer to her as Amanita all the time too. I know who Mrs. Yoop is, so suddenly calling her "Amanita" all the time jars a little. And I keep forgetting the name unless it's right there in front of me. I might just go back to calling her "Mrs. Yoop," narrative be damned.
Erik's training and apparent physical superiority to the fairies (even if he's not that skilled) is... something I hope we're not going to spend a lot more time on. I've sort of resigned myself to the fact that the prophecy's going to be involved in everything, but it'll never be a part of this story I enjoy. Sorry, prophecies are just so often used as a staple of lazy writing (We don't need a reason why this guy is impotant, There Was A Prophecy! We don't need the characters to use their brains and figure things out, There Is A Prophecy!) that they've been completely ruined for me. If I never see a prophecy in a fantasy story again, it'll be too soon.
And I miss Polychrome. She's still the best thing about this book, six chapters is too long not to feature the titular character!
It's the second post of ten, and I really don't have anything else to say at the moment, so without any further ado, let's just continue reading Polychrome.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Hey, what do you know! Just at the end of last post, I commented that we hadn't really seen a lot of our book's resident two villains yet, but here they are! And... yeah, called it. now that Mrs. Yoop is Mrs. Yoop no more, but the beautiful Amanita, Ugu is lusting for her. (We don't know what Amanita thinks about him just yet...)
Ugu refers to having been a dove for "hundreds of years," but that can't be right. The Lost Princess of Oz was published in 1917, and the events of the books were always presented as having happened fairly recently, so assuming this book takes place in present-day, it'll be one hundred years at most. Not that this isn't a long time to be a dove, mind... and it's suggested that Ugu might not have kept time very well when he was a dove, so he's not actually sure of the exact number of years. So, unless there's some upcoming twist about time passing quicker in Oz, let's just make it easy and call it one hundred years, give or take a few years.
The Tempests have reported in that Polychrome has gone off and fetched a human from the mortal realm, Ugu reacts fairly calmly, just beginning to plot countermeasures; Amanita swings between raging over the news and blatantly flirting with him. We get a bit more information on how the two conquered Oz so completely; they allied themselves with the Phanfasms, evil spirits with bodies of humans and heads of animals, and among the more dangerous magical creatures in the Oz canon. The Phanfasms helped the Nome King try to invade Oz in The Emerald City of Oz (and it was this invasion that made Glinda cut Oz off from other countries), but at the end of the book they all lost their memories and went back home because they had no idea what they had been doing. The narrative notes that they still didn't have most of their memories... which might be why Amanita managed to trick them so easily. Under the pretense of wanting them as allies, she instead transformed them into... ummm... a vortex of power and rage... Right. That makes total sense.
(I'm lying. It makes no sense at all.)
Anyway, the Phantasms have now become a convenient power source for Amanita to tap into when she needs powerful magic, which probably explains just how the entire Emerald City was turned to stone. Ugu finds the entire thing an abomination, but at the same time it makes him want to bang her even more. Yeah, Ugu's kind of got issues.
Then... there's a scene called "First vision," in which Ozma reflects on how she is captured and enslaved. The narrative doesn't say it's Ozma, just using the non-specific "she," but... come on. It's Ozma. The most interesting part of this scene might be that she is described as trapped within a blinding, burning light... but there is a slight hope in one tiny spot of darkness. Not sure what this means yet, but I thought this inversion of the classic "light is good, dark is evil" trope was worth mentioning. Especially since the Tempest have been describing as not liking light.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Back with Erik and the Rainbow Lord, we discover that the Rainbow Lord has killed him, and the book is over. Naaaaaaaaah, of course not. The entire lightning-bolt thing was a test -- but, here's a pretty neat twist: While it was the standard test of courage (though really, "fear is weakness"? Don't tell the Cowardly Lion that; he'd never be able to stop self-loathing), it was also an experiment to see whether Erik truly was all-mortal with no fairy blood at all. If he'd had that fairy blood, the lightning bolt sphere would have killed him -- but pure mortals are so far removed from the magic of Faerie that they can't be hurt by it.
The Rainbow Lord's callousness aside, this is a neat idea... it's similar to one I've used in the past and am still using for some fantasy projects: The less magic you have, the less magic can affect and hurt you. In my setting, then, the greatest wizards are also the ones most at risk trom magic; they're so closely linked to it that it affects them to a bigger degree -- while those with no magical talent or training aren't harmed by magic at all; the wizard can fling spells at them right and left and it won't have any affect. And this is why wizards don't rule the world.
Back to the book, though. There's talk about the (sigh) prophecy, and how it says Erik's going to die.
Yeah, no, he's not. Let's not even pretend we believe that part.
CHAPTER NINE
After this bit of grave, but totally inaccurate news, there's some talk with the Little Pink Bear, and... I think the plan is that because Erik is 100% mortal and can't be hurt by fairy magic, the plan is to try and let the captured Ozma possess Erik, which would free her powers for use and give them a chance against the villains... but it's not totally risk-free, since while fairy magic can't hurt Eric, being vessel to such vast power may end up killing him anyway. There's also the chance that Ugu and Amanita will be able to use his mortal soul in a dark and twisted ritual that'll permanently sever Ozma's connection to Oz so they can fully enslave her and take her power instead of just leeching off it like they do now.
Erik quotes Aladdin and Babylon 5 before agreeing to try it.
But first, this pesky "Erik isn't a warrior" thing needs to be taken care of, so the Rainbow Lord calls for Captain Nimbus Thunderstroke, Captain of the Storm Legions, and basically says: "Okay, we need this guy, but he sucks at fighting and defending himself, so train him up until he sucks less, will you?"
I wonder where Polychrome went off to? Haven't seen her at all in this batch of chapters so far. Hey, Polychrome, you're still the titular character of this story, right? Don't stay away too long!
CHAPTER TEN
So, Nimbus -- he tells Erik to call him Nimbus, so I will too -- takes Erik off to train, while talking about how awesome mortals are. Laying it on a bit too thick here, aren't ya, Nimby? But he does say how Ugu and Amanita have taken control of Glinda's Oz-protecting spell to stay of potential rescue parties, but of course as a mortal Eric can pass through this. He's not at all cure he likes the idea of charging into an occipied Oz all by himself, and I can't say I blame him.
Hmm... all right, now Nimbus says that time does pass faster in Oz, so I guess there was a twist about that, and Ugu did spend sveral centuries as a dove and not just the one. According to Nimbus, Oz was conquered roughly three hundred years ago, their time.. yow! Ten chapters, and it's been three hundred years?! Huh. I suppose this is yet another of those weird "lack of time scale in fantasy" thing, especially when the characters are effectively immortal. I get that it took time for Ugu and Amanita to actually conquer all of Oz, even with Glinda, Ozma and the Wizard out of commision... but this just does not feel like it's been going on for that long. It took three hundred years for Polychrome to go to the mortal realm? Okay, blame that damn prophecy (this is one reason why I hate prophecies), but... Ugu still hasn't made a move on Amanita even though she's openly flirting with him, for three hundred years? You know how long three hundred years is, even if you don't age?! It just doesn't quite add up.
Hwever, I am interested to find that in our time it has been about fifty years. Because... Hang on. Roughly fifty years ago, that would be in the early 1960s. And the very last of the "Famous Forty" Oz books, Merry-Go-Round in Oz, was published in 1963!
Hah! All the while we thought it was low sales that finally ended the Oz series... turns out that the series ended because Oz was conquered and everyone turned to stone, hence there was no more adventures for the Royal Historians to record! At least none that could be turned child-friendly... I mean, the adventures of two usurpers of a magical kingdom, where one has enslaved and transformed spirits to make her super-powerful and evil, while the other switches between thinking her an abomination and wanting to fuck her... Yeah, it'd be hard to turn that into anything you'd want your children to read.
I still don't think I buy the "three hundred years" part, but that bit was brilliant.
The training begins, Nimbus starts getting all Drill Sergeant Nasty, and Erik as a mortal is stronger and more awesome than he thought... hoo boy.
Look, it's not that I'm against characters becoming badass, even self-insert characters, but they have to earn it. It's why I was cheering for Tiffany Aching being all badass and becoming the youngest Head Witch ever back in Shepherd's Crown; Tiffany had worked for this. She'd been tested and tried for five books, she'd fought against increasing threats; she'd made stupid mistakes and almost ended up getting herself killed, but she owned up to her mistakes and fixed them. She worked herself to exhaustion because she took on more than she could handle and had to learn to pace herself. Her journey from curious little girl to powerful witch was filled with blood, sweat and tears. By the end of The Shepherd's Crown, Tiffany has truly earned her position as Most Badass Witch, and the respect she finally gets from the older witches.
Erik hasn't earned it. He's a nice enough guy, and he's scored some points with his willingness to help and to sacrifice himself, but him just automatically being better and stronger and tougher than the Sky Fairies just because he's human? That's not earning it. Not even if it means that Nimbus says this means he'll have to train him even harder. But, it's still early in the book. We'll see how this develops.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Hmm. This is basically just a training scene, Erik has been training for two weeks and for the umpteenth time in this book he's told that he isn't that bad, he just doesn't use what he has very well. Chapter's really too short and uneventful to recap in any more detail than that, but it does refer to Nimbus's old friend Cirrus who has vanished and might show up later in the story, and it hasa snicker-worty line at the end when Erik wishes he could just go through a training montage.
I still want to know where Polychrome is. She left back in Chapter Six with a "don't worry, my father's a nice person" and hasn't been seen since.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Last chapter for now, and since we're back with Ugu and Amanita, it doesn't look like we'll be getting any Polychrome at all in this post. Amanita is screaming and raving and ranting because the sky fairies have a self-insert... I mean, a mortal on their side, and -- well, that was fast. Now we discover where Nimbus's old friend Cirrus went to. He's right here; turns out he's been a spy for the bad guys all along, and he "went missing" because he went to join them and tell them all about Erik. Actually, this isn't even the real Cirrus, because he died three hundred years ago, and this guy has been impersonating him ever since. Apparently doing a good job too, because not even his best friend Nimbus noticed the difference.
Fake-Cirrus does mention that Nimbus really is a swell guy, and he feels a little guilty for betraying such a cool dude, yo. But Ugu is quick to console: No, brah, you never betrayed him, because you were never really his friend to begin with. And the real Cirrus never betrayed him, because he died fighting. So no betrayal has taken place and everything is awesome. It's such a spectacular use of circular logic that I'm genuinely impressed. The only flaw in the argument is that it doesn't actually make any sense. But Fake-Cirrus seems to buy it, so Ugu's tactic works.
Amanita is still furious, but Ugu, who seems to be the voice of pseudo-reason whenever he's not fantasizing about her naked or whatever, points out that they can turn this all to their advantage: Now they know about the mortal and the prophesy, but the sky fairies don't know that they know. So they can play along and lead the sky fairies and their pet motal along for a bit, and then grab the mortal to use in that previously-mentioned dark and twisted ritual of their own. And finally... they have Fake-Cirrus, who has lived with the sky fairies and been in their army for three hindred years, and as such know all their secters and defenses.
This all cheers Amanita so much that she agrees to end the chapter with the traditional Evil Laugh(TM).
Not much happened in this batch of chapters, not compared to the action-packed batch of chapters from the first post. Still some good stuff here, mind; Nice to see the villains display some level of on-screen competence -- we know they had off-screen competence, or they would never have managed to take over Oz in the first place, but here we see that at least Ugu is capable of rolling with the punches and try to turn a disadvantage to an advantage, and knows how to treat/manipulate his minions. Not so sure about Amanita, mind -- she mostly seems unstable and cartoonishly evil.
And it's getting kind of a hassle to refer to her as Amanita all the time too. I know who Mrs. Yoop is, so suddenly calling her "Amanita" all the time jars a little. And I keep forgetting the name unless it's right there in front of me. I might just go back to calling her "Mrs. Yoop," narrative be damned.
Erik's training and apparent physical superiority to the fairies (even if he's not that skilled) is... something I hope we're not going to spend a lot more time on. I've sort of resigned myself to the fact that the prophecy's going to be involved in everything, but it'll never be a part of this story I enjoy. Sorry, prophecies are just so often used as a staple of lazy writing (We don't need a reason why this guy is impotant, There Was A Prophecy! We don't need the characters to use their brains and figure things out, There Is A Prophecy!) that they've been completely ruined for me. If I never see a prophecy in a fantasy story again, it'll be too soon.
And I miss Polychrome. She's still the best thing about this book, six chapters is too long not to feature the titular character!