Dragonwatch vs. Camp Jupiter

 I had this idea, and I didn’t think it was completely fair because I haven’t even read all the Dragonwatch books that are out yet. But I couldn’t think of much else that I wanted to talk about other than that I want Argonian werewolves and vampire dragons in fiction.

I know, lame.

Anyhow I’m playing Discovery Tour on AC: Valhalla, and I’m happy to learn stuff, so far I don’t find it as interesting or as cool as the Discovery Tour for AC: Odyssey, and again I’m more than a little annoyed that it tries to go with “Vikings pillaged, colonized, and enslaved, but they probably weren’t that bad! That was probably just Catholic propaganda! And they probably didn’t even know that monasteries had religious significance!”

Not amused.

Anyway let’s talk about Dragonwatch and Heroes of Olympus.

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Dragonwatch vs. Camp Jupiter

Are you familiar with the Greek mythology books by Rick Riordan? I kind of hope so because I talk about them a lot in Saturday Notes. But basically Percy Jackson and the Olympians tells the story of how the Greek gods survived into modern day, still have demigod children, and those demigods, if they survive long enough, train at Camp Half-Blood on Long Island to learn how to fight monsters and not die. The overarching Plot, told from the point of Percy himself, depicts the return of the Titans and their second war with the gods, and it ends by wrapping up almost everything but teasing more with a quick prophecy that no one wants to deal with.

The sequel series, Heroes of Olympus, introduces a butt ton more viewpoint characters and redoes the war between the gods and the giants. This one introduces the previously never-mentioned or even hinted-at camp for Roman demigods called Camp Jupiter, and the conflict between the Greek and Roman camps takes center stage and drives a large chunk of the Plot.

Got it? Good, okay.

Alright so in the past couple of years I started reading Fablehaven by Brandon Mull. The premise is that there are these sanctuaries that are nature preserves for magical creatures like fairies and dragons all around the world, and the siblings Kendra and Seth Sorenson find out that their grandparents run one called ‘Fablehaven.’ And that’s cool and all, but it also sucks because there’s this organization called the Society of the Evening Star which is hellbent on bringing down the sanctuaries and taking the magical artifacts housed there so they can open the demon prison for nefarious purposes. (Does anyone open the demon prison for benevolent purposes? A clue: no.) To do this our heroes are given magic powers, and join the Knights of Dawn, a group dedicated to fighting the Society of the Evening Star.

The sequel series is Dragonwatch, in which everyone’s like, “Okay, now that the demons are out of the way you guys know that dragons will make their play to take over the world?” And our heroes join Dragonwatch, a group within the Knights of Dawn that tries to make sure dragons don’t take over the world. This involves going to Wyrmroost, one of the dragon sanctuaries, and then going to some other previously-unvisited preserves.

Got it? Good, okay.

In terms of Sequel Series Plots, the point I’m writing this essay to say is: Dragonwatch does it, overall, better.

To be clear, I’m not saying that Dragonwatch is the superior series overall, or that Brandon Mull is a better writer. I think he and Rick Riordan have different strengths. Honestly, there are a lot of characters I have trouble remembering in Fablehaven and Dragonwatch, and I think that Mull introduces more characters than he really has the time to develop them, to begin with. But as a sequel series, I think Mull’s works better.

See, Heroes of Olympus tells us that there’s apparently a completely different, never-before-hinted-at faction of demigods doing Plot-relevant things in the war against the Titans on the other side of the country (in an area our heroes specifically have been around) and we’ve just never heard of them. Neither has anyone else. And in the book that they’re introduced, they’re apparently close enough that it seems like they’re always at least just-missing each other--our Greek-inclined heroes overhear monsters mentioning a son of Mercury, and we’re later told that the Roman demigods led an assault on the Titan fortress, an event never hinted at and no one mentions other than to say that it happened and that Jason was a badass during it. No mention of casualties in that siege, no mention of other events that went down, just… yeah, that happened. There’s also an entire city attached, with a thriving population, its own university--and there are adult demigods all over the country who are happy to play a support role to questing demigods.

It doesn’t fit with what we’ve already been told, is what I’ve getting at here. Camp Jupiter and the Roman faction feels tacked on and it’s obvious that the author didn’t think of it during the composition of the first series.

Compare this to Dragonwatch. I don’t think that Brandon Mull thought of the Dragonwatch organization when writing Fablehaven, but it doesn’t stick out that much. We’re told earlier on that the dragons are dangerous, even when they’re helping the heroes against the demons, and there are plenty of magical sanctuaries we haven’t seen but we know are out there. It’s made abundantly clear that there are a lot of places in the magical world that Kendra and Seth haven’t visited, but are mentioned or alluded to by other characters. In short: it doesn’t come out of nowhere. There is room prepared for this to happen.

Both serieses have this issue of “Everything’s resolved, but now we’re telling you what happens next, and so characters arcs you thought were resolved are back with very little justification.” And that’s frustrating. But when speaking about the main thrust of the Plot and the faction introduced that drives it, Dragonwatch for Mull and Camp Jupiter for Riordan--I think Mull wins out in this case because there is room for this group and this Plot to exist. It doesn’t work that well to just pull another faction out of nowhere and insist they’ve been there the entire time.

And yeah, with long-running series stuff like this is bound to happen sooner or later, but it’s something to keep in mind while worldbuilding. If you have an idea for something to add, make sure you leave room for it in the story you’re telling right now.

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Child Protagonists Again

 My Friday was… difficult because my stomach was giving me trouble, so I was spending a lot of time grumbling and running to the restroom which is Not Fun. And that’s a shame because I was really looking forward to this weekend? Hopefully I’m much better by the time I get to posting this and you get to reading this.

Anyhow I’ve started “Wrath of the Druids” so I’m exploring Ireland in the Viking Age now. And Discovery Tour comes out next week!

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Have a Reason for Child/Teen Protagonists

I know I’ve talked about this before, but every so often these days I see a post on Tumblr that says something like, “Of COURSE YA stories have teen heroes! That’s the genre! That’s the audience! Any examination of why teens or children are the ones saving the world is just being a stupid nitpick!” And I… well, as you can probably guess from my previous writing on the subject, I strongly disagree with that assertion.

Again, I’m not saying that you can’t have heroes who are children or teenagers, and that they can’t do Cool Action Things, but I think it absolutely has to be addressed in the story. I think if you don’t have an explanation for why grownups aren’t doing this, either explicitly supplied to the reader or implied by the subtext, then you’re in an awkward situation and you could have done this better.

Especially considering that there are plenty of reasons why there would be juvenile heroes completing the tasks! It’s not that hard to come up with an explanation of one sort or another. The three that I came up with in my notebook:

ONE--The Adults are dead/busy/incapacitated. Maybe there are capable grownups in the setting, but they can’t handle it because they’re not around. Spy Kids, Young Justice (the season one finale and all of season two), and Avatar use this one. In a couple of those listed examples, the kids are also required to save the adults--that’s the mission at the end of season one of Young Justice and the first Spy Kids.

I give Avatar: The Last Airbender a lot of leeway here too, because from the getgo we’re told all the adults in the Southern Water Tribe are away at war, and it’s lampshaded plenty of times that these kids really shouldn’t have to be the ones to do this, and they go through plenty of trauma because of it, but they’re the ones who have to. Also the Avatar has to be the one to set the world right.

Percy Jackson has this variation in that demigods tend to not live to adulthood, and so of course that kids are the ones who are prepared to deal with the situation. There are no adults, apparently--other than the gods themselves, but we’ll get to that in a minute. The explanation doesn’t feel quite right because it basically means everyone we get attached to is statistically likely to die. The sequel series is worse about that because it straight-up tells us that the Roman camp has adult demigods, they just don’t care about their children marching to war, I guess.

There’s also Wee Free Men in which Tiffany is the only witch for miles. Miss Tick leaves to go get help, and that help doesn’t arrive until the very end of the story. And Tiffany can’t wait that long! She’s got to go save her little brother, even if he’s a bit obnoxious about begging for candy.

TWO--The Protagonists don’t trust the grownups/the grownups are untrustworthy. Basically, the heroes do it themselves because they can’t tell the adults in the setting. Harry Potter runs on this a lot, especially the first installment. The Trio keeps trying to tell the authority figures around them that they just know that Snape is trying to steal the Philosopher’s/Sorcerer’s Stone, and none of them believe them because they assert that the protections around the thing are too strong and that Snape is trustworthy. They take it upon themselves to handle it because no one believes the threat is real.

[And to be fair, it turns out that Snape isn’t trying to steal Stone at all, but SOMEONE is and if they’d paid attention they would have been able to deal with it.]

A notable take on this that I really like is the webcomic Gunnerkrigg Court in which our main character Antimony doesn’t trust the authority figures in the school, and goes on a mission with her friends to solve the Plot, only to require backup. And Jones, one of the good adults in the Court, straightforwardly tells Antimony that if only she bothered to tell her what was going on, Jones could have helped fix everything a lot faster.

You also have things like The Dragon Prince in which many of the adults in these characters’ lives are normally trustworthy people, but the fact is that they would try to stop these kids on their mission if they knew what was going on. General Amaya is a fantastic aunt, but if she knew that the kids were travelling with Rayla to Xadia to return the egg of the Dragon Prince to his mother, she would turn them right around and march them home, and Callum and Ezran know it. This adds the complexity that the adults mean well but still won’t solve the problem and do what the kids know needs to be done.

And sometimes the adults really aren’t trustworthy for different reasons. I cited Percy Jackson above, and the later books reveal that the gods are too divided to efficiently handle the situation. They take forever to really agree that the Titans are returning and that they should go to war with them. And they spend so much time arguing with each other that most of the minor gods defect to the enemy’s side right as Kronos starts recruiting, and bringing many of their less-appreciated demigod children with them.

THREE--only the child/teenage protagonist is equipped with the powers to handle this. There are adults around, and they would gladly handle it if they could, but they can’t because they don’t have the powers necessary. Avatar again comes to mind--Aang is the Avatar, and so he kind of has to do these things because no one else is capable of bending all four elements and being the human bridge to the spirit world.

Or something like Runemarks, in which Maddie is the only person around with any of the titular runemarks and thus, the capability of learning Aesir magic. At least, she’s the only one with a whole runemark--there are other people and animals in the area with partial runemarks, but she’s got a full one, and it’s what lets One Eye/Odin know that she can do what he needs her to do.

It doesn’t have to be powers, as such. The title character of Artemis Fowl doesn’t usually have any sort of powers, but he is the only one with the connections in the fairy world and the intelligence to handle all of the complicated Plots going on. He’s the smartest one in the setting, so he’s the one who gets to fix things. Ir in the case of the first book, the one instigating the Plot because he starts out as a supervillain.

There are, perhaps, variations on all of these situations, and definitely ways to mix and match them. But the point being, there needs to be a something. Maybe it’s a throwaway line. Maybe it’s a quick explanation. Maybe it’s implied more than explicitly stated. Fine, whatever--but you do need to give a reason as to why the kids are doing The Thing, because otherwise it doesn’t make sense! And I (because my criticism is clearly the only one you should really care about, I think) will sit there wondering why a capable adult isn’t handling the problems.

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“Avenge Us,” Star Wars, and Sympathetic Villains

 Hallo! I’ve been thinking about Verdi a lot lately for Reasons. I finished the second Thursday Next book, and I think I’ll be doing either Silver Chair or The Disaster Artist next.

There is probably not going to be a Saturday Note next weekend because I will be out of town.

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“Avenge Us,” Star Wars, and Sympathetic Villains

Alright I had this idea at the beginning of the week and figured I’d go with it. I suspect I was browsing the Headscratchers page for the Sequel Trilogy on TV Tropes, and thinking about how terribly-planned out it was and trying to think of some really good Star Wars media. Some spoilers for Star Wars: Rebels and Jedi: Fallen Order.

The main antagonist of Star Wars--Jedi: Fallen Order is the Second Sister, one of the Inquisitors, Force-users that are trained with the express intention of hunting down remaining Jedi and Force-sensitive individuals. Their numbers reflect their rank. Most of them appear to have been former Jedi, and the Second Sister is no exception--she was Jedi padawan Trilla Sudari, who upon finding out that her master sold her out to the Empire after extreme torture, turned the Dark Side and became one of the top-ranking Jedi hunters.

Our hero, Cal Kestis, not only fights her, but makes an actual effort to redeem her--despite her being the one hunting him across the galaxy throughout the entire game. Her goal is to grab the Jedi Holocron Cal’s after, which holds the names of a butt-ton of Force-sensitive children, in the hopes of either eliminating them or recruiting them. And yet Cal sees the good in her, and tries to bring her back to the light. And after her final boss fight, it looks like maybe he’ll succeed.

And then Vader walks in, berates Trilla for her failure, and kills her. Her last words are: “Avenge us.”

Which is… odd. Not in an ‘out-of-character’ way, but interesting and not what one might expect. 

It reminded me of Maul’s final death in Star Wars: Rebels. As he’s dying on Tatooine, having been bested for the final time by Obi-Wan, he realizes that he’s there to protect someone (Luke), and asks if he’s the Chosen One. When Obi-Wan answers in the affirmative--George Lucas disagrees, but it’s not out of the question that Obi-Wan himself thinks Luke’s the Chosen One--Maul says, as his last words, “He will avenge us.”

Now both of these cases aren’t really redemption. I don’t think anyone would ever look at Maul’s character arc and call it redemption. I think Trilla’s arc ends just short of redemption, because maybe she’s about to start down that path, but Vader kills her before she can reach it. But both of them are, in their final moments, portrayed sympathetically. Trilla gets sympathetic moments long before her end--Maul only sporadically gets those, and those mostly relate to his brother Savage. But in these sympathetic death scenes, their last words about how they would be, or should be, avenged.

This is odd.

If you’ve been paying any attention to Star Wars, unlike in most pop culture fiction, revenge is almost universally portrayed as a Bad Thing. In mainstream Star Wars media, you can probably drop the ‘almost.’ This is not what being a Jedi is about. Revenge is giving in to anger and hatred, to negative emotions. The Jedi aren’t doing the good things that they do because they want revenge, it’s because it’s the right thing to do--defeating the villains will stop oppression and bring balance back to the universe.

So we have two villains who have sympathetic death scenes, asking or hoping for something that we’re repeatedly told is a Bad Thing, a selfish act that we know (from the way the story works) won’t actually make anything better. They know that a Wrong has been done, not just to themselves, but to the balance, and something needs to be done to fix it. And so they request the one way to fix imbalance that they understand: revenge. They’re not redeemed, and these lines make it clear that’s the case, but they were reaching for it and they still want things to be fixed from the wrongs they’ve experienced, the things that have twisted them to the Dark Side.

I know Star Wars gets some flack from people as being very “Black and White” in its regards to morality. As I’ve explained before, I have never really minded this--I’m not going to complain about the fascist authoritarian government run by space satanist wizards being portrayed as Evil. But I think making the assumption that the setting has absolute Good and Evil means that there are no in-betweens, and that characters must fall into one or the other all the way is a mistake. Here we have two characters who are villains, and are quite wrong in the final wishes they express--explicitly so by the rules of the text. But they’re not portrayed, in that moment, as being worthy of sympathy.

It’s a small thing, but a really interesting bit of dialogue in both cases that shows a complexity in the characters that I think isn’t talked about enough.

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