teres. (Reply)

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I dare say Douglass is handing out powers out of supposed obligation instead of narrative necessity. ('Fantasy has magic users, right?')

That does make sense, unfortunately. The magic system in this thing is REALLY poorly thought out.

To be strictly fair, a sizable sounder of adult pigs is able to run off most predators. But yes, they should say that.

Yeah, because your average reader isn't likely to know this. I didn't.

Yeah, I hate that too. It's very classist and elitist, and it's a very dangerous attitude to promote.

100% this. You're infantalising your characters when you treat them like this because you're essentially saying they don't know what's good for them and are too stupid to figure things out for themselves. Paolini did much the same thing with his Varden assholes choosing the new ruler without bothering to consult the people or giving a damn what they think. It's not even considered or suggested, not even by Eragon, who has already had the gall to call himself "the champion of the people" - a position they at NO point put him in. Because he never even interacts with them. He just arrogantly assumes he's fighting for them when in reality he's fighting to put Nausea on the throne.

You know, I think they're using manufactured urgency to convince her she doesn't have time to question them. This is a tactic used by scammers, because someone who's rushing is far less likely to notice the holes in their claims.

Ha, that's true. You just have to look at the contents of my spam folder. URGENT! YOUR COMPUTER IS DAMAGED! $10,000 HAS BEEN TAKEN FROM YOUR APPLE ACCOUNT! etc etc. If someone is trying to put you on the spot to make a decision and won't let you go away and think about it is 100% trying to rip you off. I had a "charity collector" accost me who kept insisting I give them money immediately and kept dodging questions such as "do you have a website". He pretended they were going to pack up their stall in a minute so there wasn't enough time.
Half an hour later they were of course still there. Collecting funding for a supplementary medicine that didn't even have a name.

Anyway, that's exactly what Jackass and Yr are doing, including the evasiveness. It's so sleazy. Not to mention unnecessary.

Which explains why they haven't been trying to work around Timozel - that might give Faraday time to think!

Even as stupid as she is, sooner or later she probably would have started to put two and two together. Can't have that; then she might start - GASP - thinking for herself and making her own decisions. The horror.