Chapter 13: Waterfall

Well, most of my grades are out by this point, and they went well! To celebrate: more Tiger's Curse.

Last time, I had to issue a correction about the new character showing up. He actually shows up in the next chapter after this one. So I was close, but missed it by a couple of chapters.

I can't wait until he shows up.

This is another pretty pointless chapter. Kelsey and Mr. Kadam have another conversation, and then Ren and Kelsey go back into the jungle to wait for more stuff to happen, and then it ends. See you in the next chapter!

Okay, fine, I'll get deeper into this one. But, really, nothing happens.

Chapter Thirteen: Waterfall

Kelsey wakes up to find a backpack already packed for her once again, and a note from Mr. Kadam telling her that she should pack for a couple of days of travel. Also that she should bring a swimsuit. It looks like they're going traveling again. I'm not sure how long they've been back at Ren's house, but I think it's been about a day and a half? Kelsey slept for like twelve hours when they got back from Kanheri Cave, and then she spent the rest of the day dicking around and reading Shakespeare and flirting. It's not very clear how much time has passed, is what I'm getting at.

As Kelsey helps Mr. Kadam load the car for the journey, Mr. Kadam lets her know that Ren changed the plan a bit and that Mr. Kadam is dropping the two of them off somewhere for a couple of days to do something. I'm not sure why Mr. Kadam is being so secretive about what Ren wants to do. It's very possible that Ren told him not to tell Kelsey what exactly they were going to be doing. Mr. Kadam even says, "Ren would prefer to tell you himself."

So...why didn't he? As we found out recently, there is no limit to when he can turn into a human, just a limit on how long he can stay as a human. What's stopping him from turning into a dude and saying, "Hey, Kelsey, here's a basic explanation of why I'm making you go stay in the jungle again for a few days, I'll be able to explain more when we get there." And then poofing back into a tiger. That way he isn't delegating almost every non-flirting conversation to poor Mr. Kadam, who I'm sure enjoys being their go-between all the time.

Kelsey just goes along with this and just accepts the fact that Mr. Kadam is keeping information from her when she's going to a potentially dangerous part of the jungle. Because last time she got attacked by a black panther.

They finish loading up their stuff in the car, and Kelsey decides to pass the time by finding out more about Mr. Kadam's past life back in 17th century India. Mr. Kadam was born in 1635 and is twenty-two years older than Ren. Which means Mr. Kadam is only 43 years old.

Huh. I've been picturing someone who's in his late fifties or early sixties this entire time. Like, someone who's a bit past his prime but is still a capable warrior. Or something like that. This feels weird to me.

He was also a member of the Kshatriya caste. I bring this up only because it's the only time I can remember in either of the first two books that the Indian caste system is mentioned, let alone discussed. The Kshatriya caste is the warrior/leader caste, created from Brahma's arms and a representation of carrying out his will.

Mr. Kadam explains that India's social hierarchy is split among four different varnas, which themselves are split up into many different classes inside each major caste level. From what I can tell, this is accurate! Although I do note that Mr. Kadam doesn't mention the less savory aspects of the Indian caste system, such as the Dalit (or Untouchable) caste, which were considered so spiritually impure that they could not be touched by the members of the four pure castes. They were forced to do  spiritually "unclean" tasks such as preparing bodies for funerals and tanning hides. Beginning in the 1930s, the Untouchables began campaigning for equal rights in modern society, and began calling themselves "Dalit," meaning "oppressed" or "broken" to call attention to their plight. While still facing discrimination today, Dalits are able to find work in most areas of modern society, and B.R. Ambedkar, a Dalit, authored India's constitution.

None of this is mentioned in the book, but I think it's cool. So there you go.

Mr. Kadam further explains that although the caste system has been officially outlawed it is still practiced in many places in India. From what I can tell, this is sort of accurate. Officially, the Indian constitution forbids discrimination for any reason between castes, and the government has passed a lot of laws to deal with Dalit discrimination (such as the 1955 Untouchability (Offenses) Act, renamed to the Protection of Civil Rights Act in 1976) and laws creating job quotas that required equal hiring from all castes. So I wouldn't say that they're illegal because they still have laws in place that enforce quotas.

Mr. Kadam was arranged to marry a woman that was part of the same caste as him. He says it's because it was "easier for him to continue his life as a retired soldier" in doing so, but it likely would have been impossible (and, quite likely, unthinkable) for him to marry outside of his social class as a highly-regarded soldier that personally served the king. Wait, but he wasn't a retired soldier when he got married, because he still served the king. Now I'm very confused.

Kelsey displays a rare moment of self-awareness, and asks, "Mr. Kadam, does it bother you that I ask so many questions?" It bothers me! Especially when most of them are "What's a caste system?" and other very obvious questions! Of course, Mr. Kadam doesn't mind because he is less a human being and more an exposition sponge that Kelsey squeezes every couple of chapters.

She asks him about his military career. He apparently started training when he was about four years old because of his place in the caste system (which isn't said in so many words, but this is what he means). This also gives us a better idea of where/when the Mujulaain Empire is supposed to have been. Apparently, Mr. Kadam grew up when there were many different Indian kingdoms, and the Mujulaain Empire was one of the most powerful.

Map of Indian kingdoms in 1648.

By the point in time Mr. Kadam is describing, most of the different kingdoms had been absorbed by the Mughal Empire, founded in 1526. So, the Mujulaain Empire is either supposed to be a fictionalized version of the Mughal Empire, or it's supposed to be one of the little kingdoms left over and Mr. Kadam is over-exaggerating the importance of his country.

Apparently, Mr. Kadam was mostly trained in hand-to-hand combat. The following conversation is really dumb, so I will present it here. I'll go line by line because it hurts my brain.

"I was trained in all variety of weapons, but the first skill we were taught was hand-to-hand combat. Have you ever seen martial arts movies?"

Martial arts movies are kind of a terrible comparison because they're literally choreographed to look cool rather than be realistic in any way. Although since Kelsey has literally zero real-world common sense she probably only knows about any style of martial arts through movies and not general knowledge of how the world works, so it just looks like Mr. Kadam is talking down to her. Which would be pretty great if that was actually what was happening.

"If you mean like Jet Li and Jackie Chan, then yes."

Hello, Bruce Lee? I don't appreciate you leaving out Bruce Lee.

Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon.

No complaints about Jackie Chan, though. He's great.

Fashion icon.

He nodded. "Fighters who were skilled in hand-to-hand combat were highly sought after. As a young man, I rose in rank quickly because of my skill in this area. No one was able to best me in sparring matches. Well, almost no one. Ren has beaten me on more than one occasion."

So, Mr. Kadam, who was trained practically from birth in hand-to-hand combat, is commonly beaten by Ren, who presumably has much less training in this area. Because he's better than you.

I looked at him with surprise. "Mr. Kadam! Are you telling me you are a master of karate?"

Well, no, because karate is a Japanese style of martial arts. India has traditionally had several different kinds of martial arts, ranging from unarmed combat like Mr. Kadam is describing to training in archery and other forms of weaponry to tactics. It is theorized that Shaolin Kung Fu actually originated in India and travelled to China during the Gupta period, but this isn't confirmed.

So, not karate at all.

"Something like that." He smiled. "I was never as good as the celebrated masters who came to train us, but I picked up enough. I enjoy sparring, but my great skill is with the sword."

So, either Houck is making a mistake and thinks that all styles of martial arts are referred to as karate, or Mr. Kadam is suggesting that Japanese masters of karate travelled all the way to India to train them in karate. Given that Japan was well into its isolationist ideology during the Tokugawa dynasty and didn't contact the outside would at all, this is very unlikely.

"I always wanted to learn karate."

Again, not karate.

"During that time, we didn't call it karate. The martial arts that we used during warfare was less visually exciting. It emphasized overcoming your opponent as quickly as possible which often meant killing or striking a blow that would knock someone out long enough for you to escape. It wasn't as structured as you see it today."

You didn't call it karate at any time, because it's not karate. And while it's true that modern karate (and many modern styles of martial arts in general, like taekwondo) are not very effective as a real fighting style, I can guarantee that karate as it was used in actual combat situations did...exactly what Mr. Kadam is describing. Houck seems to be under the impression that karate has always been very style-over-function, which simply isn't true.

"Gotcha, no Karate Kid I, skip ahead to Karate Kid II. Fights to the death it is. [. . .]"

Go ask the next teenage girl you see if she's seen Karate Kid II.  I haven't even seen Karate Kid II.

Mr. Kadam then waxes poetic about how cool Ren is. He studied science and crafts and arts and philosophy and warfare and martial arts, and he was the best at all of them. Ren's mother was also apparently trained in martial arts. To my surprise this is actually kind of plausible, assuming that she was 1) Chinese and 2) still a bit of a rarity. I'm not sure how likely it was for a princess to be trained in martial arts, but apparently it was more common practice that I thought in 17th century China for women to be taught martial arts. Cool!

Kelsey reacts to this story of girl power by imagining Ren without his shirt on.

Mr. Kadam was apparently in charge of the king's army by the time he was twenty-five. I'm calling BS on that one. That's really young. I'm almost that old. He was also solely in charge of training soldiers and was the king's chief military strategist by the time he was thirty-five. That's still really young.

I think this is maybe why I pictured Mr. Kadam as significantly older than he is. He's had a full military career, and he's only forty-three?

He also used war elephants, which is pretty cool, I guess. 

Kelsey comments that living your entire life dedicated to warfare must have been pretty awful. Mr. Kadam replies that "War was different than it is today. We followed a warrior's code, similar to Europe's code of chivalry." Then he outlines each rule in excruciating detail. They weren't allowed to fight people with different armor, a fight ends with disabling the opponent instead of killing them, they're not allowed to kill women, children, the infirm, or people who surrender, and they're not allowed to destroy temples or places of worship. Mr. Kadam then clarifies that these four rules are part of "the Kshatriadharma, or the Law of Kings, which means that we could only fight in battles that were considered just, or righteous, and had the approval of the people."

In typical Houck fashion, this is kind of right, but mostly not.

What Mr. Kadam is talking about is actually called the Kshatriya Dharma, and is meant to serve as a code of personal development for members of the kshatriya caste (which, if you remember from before, is the warrior/ruler class that Mr. Kadam is a member of). It's not a secular code of conduct for how a king should conduct himself, but rather an ethical code that allows the king (and other members of the warrior class) to develop himself in a holy way.

Additionally, the military code of conduct that he's referring to is way more than the four that he listed. Those are a few of the codes contained within the Kshatriya Dharma, and other rules include:

1. Dying in battle is the greatest honor that can be bestowed. A far cry from the peaceful society that Houck is trying to paint Ren's kingdom as.

2. Mercy killing is allowed. This kind of goes against not injuring the helpless, but as that's also contained in the codes I'll allow it.

3. Kshatriyas are allowed to fight women as long as the woman chooses to be involved in the battle herself (which is rare but not unheard of).

4. No fighting after sunset to give the armies time to rest, as long as it's not a guerrilla war (where you're allowed to if you're going to win, which is pretty funny).

There's a lot of the Kshatriya Dharma that isn't included in Mr. Kadam's explanation, because, again, it's not just a military code of conduct. It's a code of ethics for living a holy life. There's a lot of values for women and children, as well. Interestingly, female kshatriya children are considered incarnations of the goddesses Parvati, Lakshmi, and Durga, who I've spoken about before as various aspects of the same female mother goddess figure. And, oh yeah, Durga. This would have been a good time to bring this up in a chapter immediately following Durga's actual prophecy.

Um, the Dharma also encourages women to commit suicide when their husbands are killed at war to preserve dignity, so there's also that. And says that women should never be independent for her entire life. I can see why skirting around that subject makes sense in your trashy YA romance novel.

Kelsey says that she thinks its sad that he saw so much war in his lifetime, but Mr. Kadam says that he's seen a lot of other things that made it worth it, like seeing how things have changed over the three centuries that he's been alive. This is a nice moment, actually, since Mr. Kadam is actually offering an opinion about something for once rather than spouting off exposition. So I actually found something nice to say for once!

Kelsey starts to read a book about Hanuman to figure out more information. She's apparently pretty interested in what she's reading, but we're not actually told what she finds out, so I'm not sure why it's in here.

We do get to hear what she eats for lunch, though. If you were curious. (It's curry and naan bread.)

After that, Kelsey starts studying the "prophecy" again, and then asks Mr. Kadam if there are any temples to Durga near Hampi. Mr. Kadam says that there are temples to Durga all over in almost every city, which just makes me wonder again why they went to a Buddhist temple to find a prophecy from a Hindu goddess. But I've already complained about that, so I'll ignore it for now.

Kelsey then takes an entire paragraph to "think" about the prophecy, but it's literally just a repetition of her and Mr. Kadam's conversation from the last chapter and contains exactly zero new pieces of information.

Mr. Kadam thinks that the "lurid phantoms" might be literal, which makes Kelsey nervous. And since there has been a complete lack of tension in this entire book so far, I think it's safe to say that the characters are always correct in their predictions and that there will actually be ghosts running around.

(They were wrong about the fruit, though, which I talked about last time. They're only wrong about things that don't matter.)

They talk about the number of snakes that India has because the prophecy mentions snakes. It's not very interesting.

Kelsey falls asleep in the middle of their conversation (which, same, Mr. Kadam is really boring) and wakes up when they're at the mysterious place that Ren wanted them to go to. Mr. Kadam shrugs off Kelsey's concerns by telling her that Ren will protect her. So he is once again stranding her in the middle of the jungle with only Ren to keep her safe, and Ren is a huge creep.

Awesome.

Also, that worked out really well last time with the, you know, panther attack and everything.

Mr. Kadam gives her her stuff and says that the reason he can't stay is that he needs her for something. Um. And then he refuses to tell her what it is and drives away. Um.

She's annoyed that she's following him into a jungle again, which, fair.

"Hey, Ren. How come I always have to follow you into a jungle? How about next time you follow me to a nice spa or maybe to the beach? How about that?"

He snuffed and kept on moving.

Good to know our love interest is ignoring the concerns of the protagonist. What a gentleman.

It turns out that through the magic of a scene break they end up at a waterfall. It's very pretty. The description isn't very helpful because it just describes what a waterfall looks like. Which I guess is better than we usually get, but since I already know what a waterfall looks like, it would be nice to see the description set up something like a tone, or a mood, or anything that actually accomplishes anything thematically in this book.

But no. It's just a waterfall.

There are a lot of butterflies. Kelsey twirls around in a cloud of butterflies and it's very Magical.

Ren turns into a dude and starts explaining what the butterflies are. It would be nice to have some conversations that aren't pure exposition. There are brown butterflies with white spots and darker brown butterflies with blue spots. The first one is a crow butterfly, and the second one is called a blue tiger butterfly.

Crow butterfly

Blue tiger butterfly

Then he says that the crows are poisonous so blue tigers camouflage themselves by hanging out with the crows so they don't get eaten.

Now, a normal book would use this as a point of symbolism. Ren, obviously the blue tiger, would be pretending to be something he's not so he doesn't get killed. Something about duplicity, or lying, that would tie into the plot seamlessly.

This is not a normal book. This isn't symbolic of anything other than the fact that the butterfly is a blue tiger. It's completely useless and pointless information that does nothing.

This is why I'm sporking this book. It does so much that makes no sense. It wouldn't even be hard to make this book a fun read! It just doesn't do anything to actually try to say something outside of "hot immortal tiger man is hot and this is a story about him being hot."

I hate it.

(And yeah I suppose you could say that it's supposed to be a comment on his relationship with his brother, who's the "bad boy" of the series, but this makes no sense because 1) Ren isn't trying to pretend to be his brother, and 2) the only "bad" thing about Kishan is that he flirts more obviously with Kelsey. That's it.)

Oh, yeah, they're here to meet Ren's brother. I've spoiled that way before this, but that's why they're here.

"Your brother? I assumed he was dead. You haven't mentioned him at all, except that he was cursed with you. You mean he's still alive and lives here?"

You know, that curse that bestows immortality. I.e., not dying. Kelsey's dumb.

"To be honest with you, I don't know if he's alive or not. I assume he is because I am. [. . .]"

Wait, is that how the curse works? How does Ren know that? Mr. Kadam just said that he knows next to nothing about the curse or how the amulet works! I have no idea how literally we're supposed to take this, or even how the characters would have access to this information in the first place. I mean, I know why it's here. It's because Houck has no idea how the curse works and she didn't edit out information that doesn't make sense.

Ren's not sure if Kishan is here, even though he just said a couple of paragraphs ago that this is his favorite place and comes here all the time. I'm just going to skim past that because there are bigger problems in this chapter.

He tells her that he brought her along in the hopes that Kishan would come talk to her if Ren couldn't find him.

So, uh. She's bait.

It's never actually said that this is what she is, but that's what this is.

Which would have been nice to know before this, because she's going to be sitting in the jungle alone for most of the time waiting for a complete stranger, who is also potentially a feral were-tiger who hasn't had human contact in over three hundred years, to come and find her. Or, even if Kishan was dead, she'd be sitting alone in the middle of the jungle while Ren is out doing who-knows-what who-knows-how-many miles away, as easy pickings for any dangerous animal that happens to wander by.

So, you know, perfectly safe.

I don't think this plan was very well thought-out.

Kelsey doesn't seem to be worried. We get a quick run-down of what she has for dinner (freeze-dried chicken with chocolate pudding, natch), and we get a return of an old friend! She makes fun of her foster mom's cooking again. It's been so long since this terrible joke.

Ren shows up without having found anything. In keeping with the tradition of only the most ~~~romantic~~~ things being highlighted by other Kindle users, I will reproduce the bit below:

I unzipped the tent and asked him if he would mind me using his back as a pillow again. He moved and stretched out as an answer. I scooted closer, laid my head on his soft fur, and wrapped my quilt around me. His chest rumbled rhythmically in a deep purr [remember that tigers can't actually purr], which helped me to fall asleep.

Twelve highlights.

(As an aside, usually the parts of the books that the readers think are the best are highlighted. All of the Discworld books I own on Kindle have the most clever bits highlighted. So this is what's considered good writing by the fans of these books. Oof.)

The next day, Ren gives her some mangoes that some monkeys threw at him. Foreshadowing of the future conflict in Kishkinda, or completely pointless? You decide! I think you know which one I think it is.

They talk a bit more about hunting and Kelsey doesn't like the fact that Ren, who has lived about 90% of his time as a tiger in recent history and 100% of his time as a tiger for over three hundred years, hunts for food.

Then he, uh, flirts with her by pretending to hunt her. It would be okay except for the fact that she's literally serving as bait right now. It's also just weird.

[. . .] His lips were pulled back in a wide grin, and he almost looked . . . feral.

He spoke in a silky, mesmerizing voice, "When you're stalking your prey, you must freeze in place and hide, remaining that way for a long time. If you fail, your prey eludes you." He closed the distance between us in a heartbeat.

Even though I'd been watching him closely, I was startled at how fast he could move. My pulse started thumping wildly at my throat, which was where his lips now hovered as if he was going for my jugular.

He brushed my hair up to my ear, whispering, "And you will go . . . hungry." His words were hushed [which, yeah, he's whispering]. His warm breath tickled my ear and made goose bumps fan out over my body.

So, yeah, Ren just referred to Kelsey as his prey. This is fine. Everything is fine.

Kelsey is actually made pretty uncomfortable by this, displaying normal human emotions for a change. "I suddenly had the distinct impression that this is what it felt like to be a deer." She even literally says that "Ren was making [her] nervous."

Houck thinks it's hot, though, so we're supposed to think it's hot.

To Ren's credit, he apologizes, but when Kelsey asks him to stop talking about hunting he...continues talking about hunting, despite her express request. What a gentleman.

Oh, apparently Ren can still purr as a human, which isn't how biology works, I think. But who knows how this curse works? Houck doesn't seem to.

They start talking about the waterfall and Ren used to come here all the time back when he wasn't a tiger. Kelsey's the first person who he's shown it to other than his family. Ooooh.

I think Houck realized that Kelsey hadn't really shared any of her experiences with Ren up to this point, so now it's Kelsey's turn to exposit! She tells him about going to a waterfall back in Oregon with her parents in one of the most purple pieces of dialogue that I've ever seen. Like, I know Paolini had some problems with purple prose past Eldest (I remember a scene in the third book (?) that describes a knot of wood for like, three paragraphs), but at least it didn't creep into the dialogue.

"It's beautiful. The water freezes as it falls down the craggy mountains. The smooth rocks around the falls become slick with ice, and, as more water pours over them, icicles start to grow. The spiky ice slowly swells and lengthens as it creeps down the hill, stretching and cracking and breaking until the icy tips touch the water below in long, thick, twisted ropes. The water that's still moving seeps, dribbles over the icicles slowly and glazing it in shiny layers. In Oregon, the surrounding hills are lush with evergreens, and are sometimes tipped with snow."

I want you to read this out loud and pretend that it was an impromptu answer to what a waterfall is like in the winter. I know I was just asking for more description of a waterfall, but I didn't mean this! This would probably be fine in narration, but it's just weird as dialogue.

She kicks Ren out of the clearing so she can change into her swimsuit and then swims around in the waterfall for a while. It's very nice and she feels like a mermaid and imagines that she's in A Midsummer Night's Dream, which doesn't really do anything other than reinforce the fact that she likes to read, which we already know by this point.

Ren shows up again and the two swim together for a while. He still doesn't turn into a dude. This can only mean one thing: pretend hunting is supposed to be sexier than having your male lead shirtless. Which, granted, is something different, at least.

Then Kelsey gets clocked in the head with a rock and passes out in the water. Cliffhanger!

(Yes, it's that sudden and out of nowhere in the book, too.)

Closing Thoughts

Once again, lots of words, not a lot happening. The entire chapter is "Kelsey and Mr. Kadam talk for a while, and then Kelsey and Ren hang out in a jungle." We do get more conversation between Ren and Kelsey, which is nice, but I am so sick of hearing Mr. Kadam talk because he never says anything interesting or useful. It's all just exposition! And most of it doesn't even matter!

Next time, Chapter 14: Tiger, Tiger! Where we actually get to meet that second tiger.

(It's Kishan and he's hot too.)