Contest winner and commentary, and children's books endings (contest again!)

[alanajoli]

According to Random.org, last week's winner (with a twitter feed from HeldenSiegfried) is holmes_iv. Congratulations! Let me know the best way to get you the book. :)

I have to say, I really enjoyed the Trickster love that showed up -- from Coyote to Anansi to Sun Wukong (lyster, is he the Monkey King?). I also liked the idea of Q, who is arguably a Trickster

Comments

[breathingbooks]

The ending of that book still upsets me when I think about it. It has power, yes, and it's not totally out of character for the bittersweet feel of the books, but wiping people's memories always feels like such a horrible cheating trick. And then Will gets to have and eat his cake but poor Bran can't? (I am remembering that bit very fuzzily, but I seem to recall that Bran is now the once and future human and Will is not.)

[alanajoli]

Oh, thank you. I'm glad it's not just me. I can't figure out quite why Cooper thought it necessary, but I'm hoping someone has a good answer. It does work as bittersweet... but it seems to me to undermine the validity of the choices made by plain, everyday humans -- and those choices seemed to be at the core of the story -- to have them forget the consequences of their actions, good and bad.

That said, I've started the "rewrite" in my head -- an after-the-fact story that takes place when the children are all adults, and Jane confronts Will about the dreams she's been having that she thinks are real. I don't know that I'll ever actually write it, but I think I will go on believing that Jane, at least, eventually figures out a way to remember.

[breathingbooks]

It definitely makes the humans out as weaklings too, who can get mind-wiped at will and then be kindly left to be friends with the guy who gets to keep his memories because he is special, a friend who is also hurt because he's never going to have a fully real friendship with them ever again.

It's a powerful ending, but plenty of evil people are powerful, so I've never bought the idea that "Rocks Fall, Stuff Sucks" is better than one that makes you shake your first in triumph. I mean, yes, sacrifices must often be paid, but (A) children's series and (B) most people know that or figure it out in their own life.

[kattw]

Well, Q DID write his own book (which you should read if you haven't, even if you don't like Trek books, since it's one of the 2 or 3 totally worth reading regardless

[orryn_emrys]

You know, I read these books when I was young and I remember really loving them, but I couldn't have told you how they ended... and now I remember why. For some reason, nothing disturbs me more in the culmination of a story than the idea that the experiences the characters went through are slipping away from them. For good or ill, the adventure we shared together had some profound quality that sucked me into the story... but memories are the immortality that gives a story meaning. And for characters that don't remember, it might never have happened.

I have always had this issue. Even in a novel like Stephen King's IT, the idea that the characters were losing their memories of the events that brought them together and forged them into the people they were was profoundly unsatisfying, despite the psychological horrors that likely would have plagued them throughout their lives.

And yes, Susan's fate really did bother me...

[holmes_iv]

Woohoo! I win! Presumably because I had some number between 2 and 8, which is all that random-number generation seems able to do for me lately. ;-) Talking of which, I suspect the best way to get it to me is to hand it to me, Sunday after next-unless you're coming to Brooklyn next week for J's shindig?

[alanajoli]

Hmmm... J's having a shindig? I wonder if she mentioned that and it went into Mommy-brain-limbo...

Vikings is actually meeting on the 24th, not the 17th, as I won't be home from Boston in time to run anything on the 17th. I should possibly send out an e-mail about this.