The Legend Of Rah And The Muggles: Chapter Ten - The Manchineet Tree
ZeldaQueen: This is just ridiculous. Even more so than before. I'll tell you all, I was laughing like a hyena when I read this.
Projection Room Voices: Starting Media in 3...2...1...
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Chapter Ten: The Manchineet Tree
Well what do you know? This chapter kicks us in the head, first sentence, with how Zyn was now a "loud and nasty" young man. The Muggles apparently are naive and have no freaking clue why he's like this. Jesus folks, maybe it's because you're giving his brother all of the attention? But naturally it's just that Zyn is a Bad Person and the poor little Muggles are just so confused as to why on earth Zyn is so badly behaved. Nona especially is upset and insists that she gave Rah and Zyn the same amount of love while raising them. If the previous chapters have been any indication, I find the accuracy of that statement to be highly suspect. Yur is a doddering old fool who insists that it's not anyone's fault that the kid is acting like this and that this is all caused by "what Zyn is not giving himself". What? Hello people, he's depressed! Yes his problem is partially caused by his lack of self esteem and the like, but why do you think he got the problem to begin with? If someone is as screwed up as he seems to be, you can't just go "Oh well, they'll have to fix themselves up" and ignore it! Augh!
We're then told that Zyn has a number of Muggles who ally themselves with him, originally because they felt he needed them, but now are basically battered into submission. No, really.
"Zyn's constant abuse beat them into submission. He owned their spirits, and their individual identities were as he decided they would be. They did whatever he told them to, at whatever time, whenever he told them to do it"
ZeldaQueen: Because of course Zyn is Just So Evil that the only way anyone could possibly hang around and support him is if they were abused into submission. Stouffer? This is not believable. That's not even bringing up the plot hole of why the heck the friends and families of these abused Muggles are just standing by and letting this happen. Or why Rah isn't doing anything. Seriously, it's one thing to say "My brother's mopey, I'll leave him to sort it out". It's another to just stand around while your brother is abusing a group of people who are smaller and weaker than him into submission.
Oh, and we're told that this group of put-upon Muggles that Zyn controls is called "Nevils". This, incidentally, is another one of the "plagiarism" things - these Nevils and Neville Longbottom from Harry Potter. I guess that's ignoring the fact that the names are spelled differently, used differently (one as a given name and one as a name for a group), and that Rowling picked a French name that predated Stouffer's works by a good many years. I guess it's only to be expected though. By her own admittance, Stouffer only quickly scanned through the first book and the lawsuit notes apparently have down that Neville Longbottom is "half-muggle". Yes, really.
Anyway, to prove how Evil and Horrible Zyn has become, Stouffer shows us how he yells at a Muggle named Teeter, who is the Keeper of the Aviary, because Zyn hates how much the birds are chirping and want them to be shut up. It's a good thing my Suspension of Disbelief Chord is made of elastic, because man alive is it getting stretched. I don't think Stouffer knows how sibling rivalry goes.
We're introduced to an albino hawk named Seymour, who for some reason is brought up with his name in quotes, as if that's allegedly his name or something. Maybe he's the Hawk formerly known as Seymour. I don't know. Anyway, Seymour asks why Teeter lets Zyn push him around and Teeter starts going on about how Seymour talks tough because he's safe in a tree. This is just...this is really freaking stupid. Zyn and now Teeter are talking like stereotypical "tough" guys or something and Stouffer's doing a lousy job at it. She had more success with Buddy the Barricuda. Seymour comments on how "[t]his nastiness is spreading like a bad disease" which is hilarious because the "nastiness" in the conversation thus far has been rather lame (including Teeter calling Seymour "you big fluff of nothing"). Seriously, this is like a bad version of the Smurfs or something.
Teeter actually tries to enforce Zyn's "no bird singing" request by hanging a sign that says, no fooling, that there is to be no singing after eleven o'clock or "Violators will pay with their lives!" Zyn is pleased by this and tells Teeter that it's a good thing he got the problem taken care of "or [he] might have had a few of [his] own - get the message?" (see what I mean about the stupid "gangster" dialogue?) Teeter basically says it's all cool, whilst pulling his pants above his waistline. Oh gods, not the waistline! Apparently Stouffer's idea of how stereotypical 'hoods dress is in inverse proportion to how they are now.
By the way, at the risk of being repetitive, I really hate how Zyn is talking. Actual quote, "Yeah, I got him right where I want him, oh, yes I do, diddy do - do!" Gag me!
We're given a Robot Roll Call of the six other Nevils besides Teeter. First is Jiitters (spelled that way, and I'm not sure if it's on purpose or not), who has a problem with his hands shaking when his conscience bothered him "and lately they shook all of the time", just in case we hadn't figured out that the Nevils were all Horrible and Nasty yet (though I have yet to see anything that portrays them as actually villainous).
Then we have Chops, a fifteen year old who chews gum and pops the bubbles with his fingers, the horror! Wait, they have gum in Aura? He also wears a black leather jacket with C.H.O.P.S on the back. We're told that his real name is Peter (so much for the "colorful" Muggle names from before) but "[e]veryone also knows that it isn't a good idea to ever call him Peter, not if they knew what is good for them". I'll leave you all to bang your heads over that. I think I'll concuss myself if I do any more head desking.
Fraidy is next, and he is the seventeen-year-old stereotypical geek Muggle. He's apparently always biting his nails and wears huge sunglasses, which apparently now exist in Aura. Sure, why the heck not?
Stubby is also a member of the gang, and you might remember him from before, as the Muggle kid who could talk at age five (which Muggles weren't supposed to be able to do) and asked a lot of questions. We're told that he's known for "jumping up and down behind other Nevils in front of him"...good for him. We're also reminded of his love of asking questions and how he yanks on the clothes of people if they ignore him, to the point of sometimes tearing the clothes. And he's supposed to be fifteen? Incidentally, according to this in-depth review, this chapter is supposed to take place twenty-two years after the children washed up on Aura. Stubby was five then. So apparently he ages slower than anyone else or fell in a time warp or something.
Next on the list is eighteen-year-old Boggs, so named because he is always dirty and smells like a swamp. Apparently this has gone on since childhood, when he got his name. Maybe he's this book's evil version of Pigpen, I don't know. His clothes are also always covered in green mold and in shreds and he mostly grunts. (Look folks, I'm just sporking this thing, alright?)
And lastly, we have the fourteen-year-old Patch, who always has a "'whatever'" attitude. Apparently he is "totally carefree" and does anything and everything, not because he's a thrill seeker, but because he doesn't care. Alright then.
Stouffer informs us that the Nevils are "terrorists" and are so threatening that even the Greeblies are uneasy around them. What, they scare off the rat-things? They must be terrifying!
Seriously though, terrorists? Really? And we are never actually shown that they do anything! They never blow anything up, they never attack anyone, and they never steal or occupy anything or any place. This is just stupid!
ZeldaQueen: Muggle terrorists! Silence! They kill you!
In all seriousness though, folks, this is just dumb. I mean, I know it was before, but this cranks it up to eleven. It's like Stouffer suddenly started retelling West Side Story, but in fairy tale terms. She talks about how Zyn and the Nevils are "terrorists" but then says that their actions are "nasty pranks". Well...I guess that's one way to describe terrorist activity...
We're also told that even though Rah sustains several injuries from their wrongdoings, he is not afraid of any of them. Okay, fair enough. *raises hand* Oh Stouffer! Question! If Rah is so clever and big and strong, why isn't he doing anything to stop this behavior? Why isn't anyone doing anything to stop this? According to the text, pretty much every Muggle is attacked by this group, right? So why don't they do something? At the very least, because it's their youth who are getting screwed up! Are they just sitting around, letting the hooligans do whatever they want? And Rah too? If so, to heck with them all, they're clearly too dumb to live!
And that goes double for the "bad-boy Nevils and Zyn", as we find out shortly. They all have made their hideout/home in a tree called a "Manchineet Tree", which is next to a place called "Seven Secret Swamp". This is all well and good, until you take into minor account that the tree is freaking radioactive. Or rather, it sheds radioactive pollen. And these folks just keep living in there, acting like it's an inconvenience! And it's not like this is another one of Stouffer's blunders, where the radioactivity has no effects on them. Oh no, it actually screws with their health. Their skin goes discolored, their nails turn "thick and crusty", and their eyes turn yellow and bloodshot. We also learn how Zyn's hair falls out in clumps along with his eyelashes and all in all he is very ill. The only explanation we get as to why they don't just camp out in the woods or something rather than stay in the stupid tree is that they've all turned lazy. Um, no. Lazy is not wanting to get off of the sofa to get the remote. Not wanting to move out of a radioactive tree is just having a death wish.
And yes, I'm well aware of how stupid the concept of a radioactive tree is anyway. I think that goes without saying.
We're also told that Zyn point-blank refuses to swallow his pride and ask the Muggles or Rah for help, which actually makes some sort of sense. After how everyone has basically given Rah so much attention and only ever scolded him and made no effort to help him out, I find it completely believable that he wouldn't want to go to them for help. I'm still seeing no terrorist evidence though, so yeah. Stouffer still sees fit to whack us over the head with how Evil and Horrible Zyn is, by having him basically tell the Nevils to suck it up and continue living in the radioactive tree until he figures things out.
Meanwhile, Rah the Sainted is agonizing over what on earth went wrong with Zyn and what he could have done to prevent it. Maybe if you had a talk with him, this wouldn't have happened! And still, no one gets it! Instead, Yur just tells Rah "all questions aren't answered in a day, Rah. Just give it some time". I...what? This makes no sense! According to Stouffer, Zyn and his mooks are wandering around hurting people and they're just acting like he ran away from home in the middle of the night! Don't they care that there's a group of their children out, hurt and sad and sick and engaging in violent behavior?
*sigh* Moving on, Rah reads from The Ancient Book of Tales, "The Year Of The Rabbits". This is just a weird tale. I mean, the story itself isn't so bad (and I actually think it was used in a chapter of Pet Shop of Horrors), but it's like the one with the gilded cages - I just have no idea how it relates to the actual events. The story itself is, of course, about rabbits, specifically vicious little devils who continue to consume their food supplies until everyone else is starving. As a result, the rabbits began to multiply like crazy until there wasn't enough food for them all and they began to starve. Rabbits were now the most plentiful food source on Aura, which meant that they were now what was being served up for dinner. Rabbits became the prime food supply for the people of Aura for some time and the rabbits learned that to be too greedy could lead to extinction.
Oh, I feel I ought to point out one particular point of fail in that story - according to Stouffer's website and the character glossary in the back of this book, Muggles are vegetarians. So they're eating rabbits in this story...why?
Anyway, story finished, Rah starts to fall to sleep and is thinking of his birth mother the entire time. He starts wishing that she were there and that he needed her. Sorry kid, your mother was too busy flirting with the butler to take care of you. Oh, and we're reminded of a key on a chain which Rah has had since he washed up on Aura, which he is certain his mother left him and which he has no idea what it unlocks. I feel I ought to add that this was in fact mentioned in the first chapter, but I think I forgot because I was too busy trying to figure out why Lady Catherine felt it was absolutely necessary to send her babies into the freaking ocean.
And the page turned and the Yoshi grew happier.
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Onward to: Chapter Eleven: The Big Plan
Back to: Chapter Nine: An Attitude
Back to: Table of Contents
Projection Room Voices: Starting Media in 3...2...1...
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chapter Ten: The Manchineet Tree
Well what do you know? This chapter kicks us in the head, first sentence, with how Zyn was now a "loud and nasty" young man. The Muggles apparently are naive and have no freaking clue why he's like this. Jesus folks, maybe it's because you're giving his brother all of the attention? But naturally it's just that Zyn is a Bad Person and the poor little Muggles are just so confused as to why on earth Zyn is so badly behaved. Nona especially is upset and insists that she gave Rah and Zyn the same amount of love while raising them. If the previous chapters have been any indication, I find the accuracy of that statement to be highly suspect. Yur is a doddering old fool who insists that it's not anyone's fault that the kid is acting like this and that this is all caused by "what Zyn is not giving himself". What? Hello people, he's depressed! Yes his problem is partially caused by his lack of self esteem and the like, but why do you think he got the problem to begin with? If someone is as screwed up as he seems to be, you can't just go "Oh well, they'll have to fix themselves up" and ignore it! Augh!
We're then told that Zyn has a number of Muggles who ally themselves with him, originally because they felt he needed them, but now are basically battered into submission. No, really.
"Zyn's constant abuse beat them into submission. He owned their spirits, and their individual identities were as he decided they would be. They did whatever he told them to, at whatever time, whenever he told them to do it"
ZeldaQueen: Because of course Zyn is Just So Evil that the only way anyone could possibly hang around and support him is if they were abused into submission. Stouffer? This is not believable. That's not even bringing up the plot hole of why the heck the friends and families of these abused Muggles are just standing by and letting this happen. Or why Rah isn't doing anything. Seriously, it's one thing to say "My brother's mopey, I'll leave him to sort it out". It's another to just stand around while your brother is abusing a group of people who are smaller and weaker than him into submission.
Oh, and we're told that this group of put-upon Muggles that Zyn controls is called "Nevils". This, incidentally, is another one of the "plagiarism" things - these Nevils and Neville Longbottom from Harry Potter. I guess that's ignoring the fact that the names are spelled differently, used differently (one as a given name and one as a name for a group), and that Rowling picked a French name that predated Stouffer's works by a good many years. I guess it's only to be expected though. By her own admittance, Stouffer only quickly scanned through the first book and the lawsuit notes apparently have down that Neville Longbottom is "half-muggle". Yes, really.
Anyway, to prove how Evil and Horrible Zyn has become, Stouffer shows us how he yells at a Muggle named Teeter, who is the Keeper of the Aviary, because Zyn hates how much the birds are chirping and want them to be shut up. It's a good thing my Suspension of Disbelief Chord is made of elastic, because man alive is it getting stretched. I don't think Stouffer knows how sibling rivalry goes.
We're introduced to an albino hawk named Seymour, who for some reason is brought up with his name in quotes, as if that's allegedly his name or something. Maybe he's the Hawk formerly known as Seymour. I don't know. Anyway, Seymour asks why Teeter lets Zyn push him around and Teeter starts going on about how Seymour talks tough because he's safe in a tree. This is just...this is really freaking stupid. Zyn and now Teeter are talking like stereotypical "tough" guys or something and Stouffer's doing a lousy job at it. She had more success with Buddy the Barricuda. Seymour comments on how "[t]his nastiness is spreading like a bad disease" which is hilarious because the "nastiness" in the conversation thus far has been rather lame (including Teeter calling Seymour "you big fluff of nothing"). Seriously, this is like a bad version of the Smurfs or something.
Teeter actually tries to enforce Zyn's "no bird singing" request by hanging a sign that says, no fooling, that there is to be no singing after eleven o'clock or "Violators will pay with their lives!" Zyn is pleased by this and tells Teeter that it's a good thing he got the problem taken care of "or [he] might have had a few of [his] own - get the message?" (see what I mean about the stupid "gangster" dialogue?) Teeter basically says it's all cool, whilst pulling his pants above his waistline. Oh gods, not the waistline! Apparently Stouffer's idea of how stereotypical 'hoods dress is in inverse proportion to how they are now.
By the way, at the risk of being repetitive, I really hate how Zyn is talking. Actual quote, "Yeah, I got him right where I want him, oh, yes I do, diddy do - do!" Gag me!
We're given a Robot Roll Call of the six other Nevils besides Teeter. First is Jiitters (spelled that way, and I'm not sure if it's on purpose or not), who has a problem with his hands shaking when his conscience bothered him "and lately they shook all of the time", just in case we hadn't figured out that the Nevils were all Horrible and Nasty yet (though I have yet to see anything that portrays them as actually villainous).
Then we have Chops, a fifteen year old who chews gum and pops the bubbles with his fingers, the horror! Wait, they have gum in Aura? He also wears a black leather jacket with C.H.O.P.S on the back. We're told that his real name is Peter (so much for the "colorful" Muggle names from before) but "[e]veryone also knows that it isn't a good idea to ever call him Peter, not if they knew what is good for them". I'll leave you all to bang your heads over that. I think I'll concuss myself if I do any more head desking.
Fraidy is next, and he is the seventeen-year-old stereotypical geek Muggle. He's apparently always biting his nails and wears huge sunglasses, which apparently now exist in Aura. Sure, why the heck not?
Stubby is also a member of the gang, and you might remember him from before, as the Muggle kid who could talk at age five (which Muggles weren't supposed to be able to do) and asked a lot of questions. We're told that he's known for "jumping up and down behind other Nevils in front of him"...good for him. We're also reminded of his love of asking questions and how he yanks on the clothes of people if they ignore him, to the point of sometimes tearing the clothes. And he's supposed to be fifteen? Incidentally, according to this in-depth review, this chapter is supposed to take place twenty-two years after the children washed up on Aura. Stubby was five then. So apparently he ages slower than anyone else or fell in a time warp or something.
Next on the list is eighteen-year-old Boggs, so named because he is always dirty and smells like a swamp. Apparently this has gone on since childhood, when he got his name. Maybe he's this book's evil version of Pigpen, I don't know. His clothes are also always covered in green mold and in shreds and he mostly grunts. (Look folks, I'm just sporking this thing, alright?)
And lastly, we have the fourteen-year-old Patch, who always has a "'whatever'" attitude. Apparently he is "totally carefree" and does anything and everything, not because he's a thrill seeker, but because he doesn't care. Alright then.
Stouffer informs us that the Nevils are "terrorists" and are so threatening that even the Greeblies are uneasy around them. What, they scare off the rat-things? They must be terrifying!
Seriously though, terrorists? Really? And we are never actually shown that they do anything! They never blow anything up, they never attack anyone, and they never steal or occupy anything or any place. This is just stupid!
ZeldaQueen: Muggle terrorists! Silence! They kill you!
In all seriousness though, folks, this is just dumb. I mean, I know it was before, but this cranks it up to eleven. It's like Stouffer suddenly started retelling West Side Story, but in fairy tale terms. She talks about how Zyn and the Nevils are "terrorists" but then says that their actions are "nasty pranks". Well...I guess that's one way to describe terrorist activity...
We're also told that even though Rah sustains several injuries from their wrongdoings, he is not afraid of any of them. Okay, fair enough. *raises hand* Oh Stouffer! Question! If Rah is so clever and big and strong, why isn't he doing anything to stop this behavior? Why isn't anyone doing anything to stop this? According to the text, pretty much every Muggle is attacked by this group, right? So why don't they do something? At the very least, because it's their youth who are getting screwed up! Are they just sitting around, letting the hooligans do whatever they want? And Rah too? If so, to heck with them all, they're clearly too dumb to live!
And that goes double for the "bad-boy Nevils and Zyn", as we find out shortly. They all have made their hideout/home in a tree called a "Manchineet Tree", which is next to a place called "Seven Secret Swamp". This is all well and good, until you take into minor account that the tree is freaking radioactive. Or rather, it sheds radioactive pollen. And these folks just keep living in there, acting like it's an inconvenience! And it's not like this is another one of Stouffer's blunders, where the radioactivity has no effects on them. Oh no, it actually screws with their health. Their skin goes discolored, their nails turn "thick and crusty", and their eyes turn yellow and bloodshot. We also learn how Zyn's hair falls out in clumps along with his eyelashes and all in all he is very ill. The only explanation we get as to why they don't just camp out in the woods or something rather than stay in the stupid tree is that they've all turned lazy. Um, no. Lazy is not wanting to get off of the sofa to get the remote. Not wanting to move out of a radioactive tree is just having a death wish.
And yes, I'm well aware of how stupid the concept of a radioactive tree is anyway. I think that goes without saying.
We're also told that Zyn point-blank refuses to swallow his pride and ask the Muggles or Rah for help, which actually makes some sort of sense. After how everyone has basically given Rah so much attention and only ever scolded him and made no effort to help him out, I find it completely believable that he wouldn't want to go to them for help. I'm still seeing no terrorist evidence though, so yeah. Stouffer still sees fit to whack us over the head with how Evil and Horrible Zyn is, by having him basically tell the Nevils to suck it up and continue living in the radioactive tree until he figures things out.
Meanwhile, Rah the Sainted is agonizing over what on earth went wrong with Zyn and what he could have done to prevent it. Maybe if you had a talk with him, this wouldn't have happened! And still, no one gets it! Instead, Yur just tells Rah "all questions aren't answered in a day, Rah. Just give it some time". I...what? This makes no sense! According to Stouffer, Zyn and his mooks are wandering around hurting people and they're just acting like he ran away from home in the middle of the night! Don't they care that there's a group of their children out, hurt and sad and sick and engaging in violent behavior?
*sigh* Moving on, Rah reads from The Ancient Book of Tales, "The Year Of The Rabbits". This is just a weird tale. I mean, the story itself isn't so bad (and I actually think it was used in a chapter of Pet Shop of Horrors), but it's like the one with the gilded cages - I just have no idea how it relates to the actual events. The story itself is, of course, about rabbits, specifically vicious little devils who continue to consume their food supplies until everyone else is starving. As a result, the rabbits began to multiply like crazy until there wasn't enough food for them all and they began to starve. Rabbits were now the most plentiful food source on Aura, which meant that they were now what was being served up for dinner. Rabbits became the prime food supply for the people of Aura for some time and the rabbits learned that to be too greedy could lead to extinction.
Oh, I feel I ought to point out one particular point of fail in that story - according to Stouffer's website and the character glossary in the back of this book, Muggles are vegetarians. So they're eating rabbits in this story...why?
Anyway, story finished, Rah starts to fall to sleep and is thinking of his birth mother the entire time. He starts wishing that she were there and that he needed her. Sorry kid, your mother was too busy flirting with the butler to take care of you. Oh, and we're reminded of a key on a chain which Rah has had since he washed up on Aura, which he is certain his mother left him and which he has no idea what it unlocks. I feel I ought to add that this was in fact mentioned in the first chapter, but I think I forgot because I was too busy trying to figure out why Lady Catherine felt it was absolutely necessary to send her babies into the freaking ocean.
And the page turned and the Yoshi grew happier.
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Onward to: Chapter Eleven: The Big Plan
Back to: Chapter Nine: An Attitude
Back to: Table of Contents