Crescendo: Chapter 5

[zelda_queen]

ZeldaQueen: I hope you guys have plenty of booze on hand, because this chapter is just bad.

Also, a happy birthday to arpeggio513!

Comments

[chibi_regalli]

... I think video game lemmings have better self-preservation instincts than Nora Grey. I know actual lemmings do, but that's because Disney staged the scene in their 1960s Alaska movie where the lemmings jump off cliffs. True story. More interesting than this.

The sad part is, intentionally pulling dangerous stunts ACTUALLY MAKES SENSE in story context. It's a horrible idea, but it holds up under this twisted logic.

GOOOOO, SCOTT! GO NEPHILIM! KILL THE FALLEN ANGELS, STARTING WITH HIM! *Points pom-poms at Patch* Seriously, it's saying something that NO ONE in this book is at all sympathetic.

As for pool... honestly, I think my great-grandfather's nursing home had a pool table, and he knew how to play. And believe me, that's saying something.

[zelda_queen]

I think so too. At least some video game lemmings will carry weapons, or do something remotely helpful.

[chibi_regalli]

Honestly, it takes talent to be as stupid as Nora. I'm not sure whether she should be proud of herself or ashamed.

[stormswift]

If I had a friend/acquaintance/significant other decide that "good times" meant a seedy bar where people (routinely?) get killed in brawls, we would no longer be friends. Period. Especially if they then proceeded to ABANDON ME OUTSIDE. Nope. You can damn well believe that I would throw a shrieking fit or call the police or do whatever it took until they turned right around and left me alone to wallow in the ice cream that Nora ought to be eating out of the freezer that no longer works in the power outage.

Out of all the stupidity in this chapter (and I'm not touching Patch's "do what I tell you or else" bullshit with a ten foot pole), that one really stuck out at me. Thanks, Scott! You're a pal!

[zelda_queen]

The thing that stumps me is that EVERYONE does this to Nora! Patch continuously drags her to dangerous and seedy places for their dates. Vee tries to rope Nora first into going to a party where people are clearly trying to grope her, then on a camping trip with a guy who tried to throttle Nora, and then to break in and enter the high school for hide and seek. Nora's mother just lets her wander around alone, no matter how many life-threatening things happen to her daughter. And now, we see that Scott brings Nora to a place where a murder happened, for a date.

I can really only conclude from this that Fitzpatrick herself is too stupid to realize the implications of what she writes. Which is really damned depressing.

[angel_renoir]

My friends go to a pool hall every once in a while when they had nothing to do. I don't play pool, so I usually don't join them, but I went with them once and I know that it's a nice place. There's a bar there, sure, but it's just like any regular liquor bar you'd see in restaurants. Nothing seedy at all.

What's so badass about playing pool anyway? Was there a seedy pool hall trope in old mafia/gangster stories that I wasn't aware of?

Fitzpatrick clearly has never been to actual seedy areas before.

[zelda_queen]

Pool is used in a lot of stories as a way to show someone as badass or bad boy. There's even a page on TV Tropes, "Bad Boys Play Pool". Even in a lot of those stories though, the pool halls themselves aren't portrayed as dens of corruption or whatever. It's just that it looks cool to see the bad boy wandering around with the cue stick. (In the case of Rush Hour, it's also a nice way to work in a Jackie Chan fight scene).

Given how blase these characters all are about the dangerous situations they're in, no I really don't think she has.

[angel_renoir]

>___<

Okay then...

About the seedy places... I still can sort of buy there being shitty bars like that scattered around the town. Certain areas in Seattle get real creepy when it's dark, and gang shootouts happen every once in a while downtown. Weird homeless people, most of the time high, drunk or stoned, lurk around the streets asking you for money or cigarettes or whatever. If you're not with someone else it's very scary.

But when every place she goes seem to be dark and creepy and full of seedy people... Well. Bad rape porn setup much? >.< There seemed like a pretty decent beach in the first chapter, buuut...

[carakasla]

Vancouver's Dawntown East Side is fairly infamous for being seedy, full of addicts and other seedy people. My mom, who lived in and around Los Angeles for over 20 years, will do everything she can NOT to go anywhere near that area.

Actually sounds perfect for Patch, though I'm not sure if there any pool halls in the area. Not that I'd know. That place is fucking scary.

[detritius]

I don't know where in Maine this story is supposed to take place, but I've been to Portland and some of the surrounding coastal area, and it was nice: some cute little shops, awesome clam chowder, fairly clean, well-kept beaches (although the water is always freaking freezing). I guess this story takes place in either a seedy part of Maine I haven't been to, or some kind of alternate, dystopic Maine where the whole town is the bad part of town, people go around murdering each other constantly, there are no cops or social services, and everyone is an asshole.

And I'm with chibi_regalli -- go Nephilim! I don't know how you can write a conflict between an incredibly oppressed group of people and their tormentors, and try to make the oppressed people out to be the bad guys. It just doesn't work.

[zelda_queen]

I've vacationed with my family a number of times in Maine, mainly around Bar Harbor and that area. It was cold, but the houses were charming and the shops were nice and it was very pretty. Now granted, my parents planned the trip and they weren't going to visit any seedy parts of Maine with two kids and a dog, but still! It's like I said in my sporkings of the first book, every single place Nora visits is gloomy or dark or abandoned or otherwise filthy and sleazy!

And oh boy, we have not yet gotten to the worst of the Nephilim-bashing. I swear, I have no idea why we're supposed to see them as in the wrong at all. We're just told "they're unnatural and evil", but they don't DO anything!

[chibi_regalli]

While we're at it, who's fault is it they're unnatural and evil? 'Cause I'd think that'd be more the fault of the angels who produced them, don'tcha think? They were just BORN.

[detritius]

Yeah, I'm sure they have some crime and stuff up there, but I know there are nice parts, too. Why can't one of these guys pick one of those places to take Nora on a date, instead of a seedy bar? Like, they could at least find somewhere without a recent murder. It's just ridiculous. And you're right, even if it is supposed to be a bad area, it's a little bit much. I go to school in the good part of a city that has some gang and drug problems (and everyone knows what part of town to avoid. We don't have stupid people like Nora who somehow keep wandering into it or asshole boys who hang out there for fun, at least as far as I know.) and it isn't nearly this bad. But then, I'm still of the impression that Fitzpatrick gets a lot of her material from bad movies, so that would explain why it's so over-the-top.

Just imagine that's Eowyn beating the crap out of Patch.

[ladyhadhafang]

*Joins the pro-Nephilim club*

Seriously, I haven't seen such levels of douchequakery in our so-called "good guys" since I read LEGACY OF THE FORCE. And oh dear God -- while we're at it, why is Scott supposed to be the bad guy here? Because honestly, he seems a better fit for Nora than Patch ever was.

Great sporking, zelda_queen, but oh man... *Sends you plenty of chocolate through the Internet, just because*

Re: Just imagine that's Eowyn beating the crap out of Patch.

[zelda_queen]

Near as I can tell, Scott is supposed to be the bad guy for the same reason Jacob is supposed to be oh-so-uncontrolled and childish and unpredictable. Because Patch is a jealous asshat and Nora is too spineless to call him out on it for real. I say "for real" because for all she crows about making him jealous, we all know she's going to forgive him for it all by the book's end.

Aw, thanks! ^^ *noms*

Re: Just imagine that's Eowyn beating the crap out of Patch.

[ladyhadhafang]

Yeah. Unfortunately. :/

And you're welcome. *Hugs* ^^