Teres

If you want to make us hate Gorgrael, Douglass, it would fit you do so based on what he does, not who he is.

Amen to THAT. Appearances seem to be all that matter in this stupid fucking trilogy. If you look at what Axis (and later Azhure) does, he's objectively ten times worse than Gorge, but he's handsome so who cares, right?

Chapter Thirty-One: Smyrton

How are you even supposed to pronounce that anyway? I've been pronouncing it "smear town".

Though his grief over Faraday’s death has been dulled, his guilt has not, and he could not bring himself to explain to Faraday’s “two elder sisters”

As I said in my own spork, if Faraday has two older sisters (both of whom are married), how is she such an insanely rich heiress? Shouldn't her two brothers in law have inherited the lion's share? Not that we ever see either of them. Or the other sister, for that matter. We only get to see Annwin (I might have spelled that wrong but fuck it).

Also, if both sisters are married adults why haven't they moved out to live with their husbands on their presumed estates?

Also also, when Faraday is finally set free in the sequel trilogy, why doesn't she ever (as far as I recall) go and see them? She leaves the rest of her surviving family still believing she's dead! I don't think she even makes any effort to protect them when the Assrape Demons show up! Good fuck.

Then, he also has the entire army go around it, which costs him a day! True, he is still on schedule, but the sooner he gets to Smyrton and then Gorkenfort, the better. I also find it quite selfish of him to make the entire army detour (and did he even say why?) just because of his guilt.

Because only Axis' feelings matter. And nobody (author included) stops to consider how cruel leaving Faraday's family in the dark is.

Axis doesn't really experience true guilt anyway. When he claims to be feeling guilt it's really just thinly disguised selfishness. He never expresses true remorse and doesn't ever try to make amends. He just postures about how he feels so bad about whatever it is he's doing, then keeps doing it anyway.

Actually I just realised what this reminds me of.

You can't keep doing this! You can't keep doing shitty things and then feel bad about yourself as if that makes it okay! YOU NEED TO BE BETTER!

[Source: https://youtu.be/ohoLzH9EQzg?si=Rees7wkaUFfP4d6o ]

Axis does shitty things all the time but he hides behind excuses and blame-laying. Constantly. He never cops to it and tries to do better. And the author enables him because he never really suffers any consequences at all. He's always let off the hook because he's just so goddamn Special and superior.

I also see that Belial, supposedly Axis’s best friend, made no use of his position to talk Axis away from this. He truly does seem like an enabler…

Oh, that's exactly what Belial is. His sole role in this story is to prop up Axis' ego and agree with everything he does.

Sues always need enablers. Otherwise the reader might forget just how Special and always right they are.

And how did they “deal” with these bandits? Did they kill them all, or not? We need some details, Douglass, especially if you want to show how awesome the Axe-Wielders were for this.

Instead, we NEVER find out just why the AW are the best army ever. Or indeed why Axis is the best commander ever. It's all just shoved into the background and you're expected to take the author's word for it.

And just how did this group of "bandits" become so numerous anyway? Is there no local law enforcement at all?

Axis is also reassured by his reaction to the cloud, as he dealt without it without using “the strange music or songs that still haunt[] him from time to time”. Well, that is good for Axis, then. I might just wish we got some more focus.

We could have been SHOWN this and gotten some character development for Axis in the process, but noooo, that would have been too hard and couldn't have just been handwaved with a bunch of narration which included "powerful" and "beautiful" being used ten times a paragraph.

That aside, this is just so corny. It feels like some kind of idealised version of life in such a village, which just does not fit with what Douglass is trying to do, and it would also have to be planned for everything to look the same, which does not make much sense.

Seconded. Even I know this isn't what medieval peasant villages were like, and yet Douglass was the one with the PhD in history and I'm just a history enthusiast who watched A History Of Britain a bunch of times.

Though as it happens I have a friend who is also a medieval historian with a PhD, and she told me that in life Douglass was, and I quote, "a crap historian" who taught materials which were "forty years out of date".

Yes, they have “white-washed picket fences” now! Never mind that that is typically associated with the U.S., this fantasy village has them too!

...case in point.

He also has “fat cheeks”

You can tell Hagen is evil because he's fat, also a Christian priest uh I mean Plough-Keeper.

Axis is then introduced to their wives, who are just “plump” and “beaming”. Then come two “tall, thin” people, who are “Miller Powle” and his son, “Wainwald”

Ah yes, the old stereotype of the happy plump farmer's wives. And here we've also just been introduced to Wainwald Powle, who will have a truly disgusting reappearance in book three.

One is “Goodman Hordley”, who is a “sandy-haired stout fellow”

Him too, only more so.

On the ride north, he says, he has decided to accept “the one gift Faraday [has] given him”: the first pride in his birthright. From now on, he will “bear the metronymic of Rivkahson as a badge of honour”.

Oh fuck OFF.

She carefully hides her dislike and smiles at “this arrogant Carlonite”.

POV jump alert.

She says her mother ran off with “a travelling pedlar” when she was five, because she obviously found life in Smyrton “a little slow for her blood”

If she's being abused by her father why the fuck is she provoking him like this? Later on she even thinks about how he's totally going to beat her again for making a fool of him in front of Axis and Belial and that she's still recovering from "three broken ribs" he gave her the last time that happened!

The mood “change[s] abruptly”. Azhure’s face “tighten[s] completely” and she grabs a poker and goes to jab angrily at the fire. Um, why does she betray so much of her reactions? Since she is helping with the Avar, she should know by now that she should be careful with what she shows. And given the further context… she should be quite capable of it, too. This is just weird.

It's painfully obvious that Douglass had no idea how to write a victim of domestic abuse. Azhure isn't quietly avoiding drawing attention to herself or going out of her way to keep her "father" happy. Instead she's deliberately provoking him, showing disrespect to the (ugh) BattleAxe in front of him, and now getting all belligerent and sulky - again, in front of him. He beats you so badly you should be fucking DEAD, Azhure. If it's too much to expect from you to have gotten out of there years ago, you could at least have learned some goddamn self-preservation.

He then remarks on how fortuitous it is that Axis should arrive “in time for their execution tomorrow morning”.

Why is the execution always "tomorrow morning"? Why is it never "immediately"? It's not as if they're going to put the two of them on trial first.