Chapter 18: Durga's Temple
Before I get into this chapter, I want to talk a bit about writing romance into your story, and about how it's not really done very well here.
Keep in mind, I'm like the last person who has the experience to talk about this stuff in real life, but I've read enough that I know when it works in a fictional narrative.
I'll compare this story to Unseen Academicals because I just finished it (and also it has a romance that I thought was really well done even if it wasn't the focus of the story). I don't read super widely in the romance genre, but I do read a lot of fantasy/adventure stories that have romance in them. I think that's what Tiger's Curse is supposed to be (as it has a lot more action than your typical YA Paranormal Romance Twilight clone), so I'll stick to that as comparison.
Unseen Academicals is primarily a story aboutsoccer football, but it also has a couple of well-written romances in it. We don't normally see a lot of growing romance in Discworld books, but this story has complete character arcs because it's a standalone story with one-off protagonists. (Wikipedia says its a Rincewind novel, but that's a complete lie because it's never once told from his viewpoint and he has about three lines over five hundred pages.)
Anyway! This book is a fantastic example for the development of the relationships between the four main characters, all of which go through their own individual character arcs that weave into their changing relationships. The book takes its sweet time developing their relationships from strangers to friends, and then friends into romantic partners, which happens over the span of a few hundred pages. It allows the characters to have interactions that aren't completely based in "oh, wow, the other person's really hot and that's all we're able to talk about!"
Here's what I'm talking about. For context, earlier in the story Trevor asked Nutt to help him write a poem for Juliet. Juliet, who couldn't understand it, asked Glenda to help her read it.
After a while, Glenda said, "You wrote that poem for Trev didn't you?"
"Yes, Miss Glenda. I hope [Juliet] liked it."
Glenda thought she'd better raise this carefully. "I think I ought to tell you that she didn't understand a lot of the words exactly. I sort of had to translate it for her." It hadn't been too difficult, she reckoned. Most love poems were pretty much the same under all the curly writing.
"Did you like it?" said Nutt.
"It was a wonderful poem," said Glenda.
"I wrote it for you," said Nutt. He was looking at her with an expression that stirred together fear and defiance in equal measure.
That's some good shit! It's short, to the point, and much more effective at communicating a change in relationship than any of the stuff that happened in the last chapter of Tiger's Curse!
Tiger's Curse does not have a well-written or well-paced romance. Note that the following page numbers are taken from the Kindle version, which might be different from a physical copy of the book.
Kelsey meets Ren (as a tiger) on page 40, in chapter 3 (which is already completely crazy pacing because 40 pages is way too long to spend before we even get close to something resembling a plot, but that's a whole other issue. Ren doesn't speak as a character until page 108, right before chapter 8, almost seventy (!) pages later. She doesn't even know that he's human until this point.
In chapter 8, Kelsey thinks that Ren is hot, and he touches her waist, sits close enough to Kelsey to make her feel uncomfortable, and tells her that she smells nice. Their conversation only concerns the whole "I'm actually a three hundred year old prince" thing, and not much else.
They don't talk again until chapter 10, at his house, after he gave her the fancy dress. He plays with her hair, and exposits about the Matt Damon Amulet, and kisses her fingers. The next day, he starts calling her "most beautiful," steals her hair ribbon to sniff, and literally spells out all the reasons he's interested in her romantically.
Chapter 11 is mostly just Indiana Jones adventuring in Kanheri Cave, but they do flirt a bit while they're inside, I guess.
Chapter 12--Ren brushes her hair, gives her a massage, and kisses her hand again. Later, he gives her a rose and she reads him Romeo and Juliet.
Chapter 13--they go to the waterfall in the jungle. Ren spends most of his time out looking for Kishan, but spends the evenings back at camp with Kelsey. They flirt some more, share some poetry, and then they have their argument over Ren asking to kiss Kelsey.
This happens on page 237, about 130 pages after Ren was introduced as a speaking character. They've only had six conversations (unless I missed a short one in skimming over what I've sparked so far) before going to the jungle to find Kishan. And their relationship has stayed exactly the same in these 130 pages. If you take lines from the conversation where they first meet, and put them into the last conversation before their forced argument, I wouldn't be able to tell the difference.
"You know, sleeping outdoors isn't all bad. You get to stare up at the stars and cool breezes ruffle your fur after a hot day. The grass smells sweet and," he made eye contact with me, "so does your hair."
Versus:
He leaned toward me again and pulled on a strand of my hair. "Now, Kells, there are some of my animalistic tendencies that you seem to like." He started making a rumbling sound in his chest, and I realized that he was purring.
These are from about a hundred pages apart from each other. They seem like they could be part of the same conversation. This is not a good thing!
Also, you thought I was joking about the purring thing, didn't you? I wasn't.
Then they have a very contrived argument, and Ren doesn't talk to Kelsey for about a chapter and a half, and then--like magic--they're back to normal shortly after. Like, functionally identical to their relationship before their argument. Nothing has changed. They don't talk about it again, like it never happened.
So, what we're left with (at least before Kelsey and Ren officially become An Item in the previous chapter) is an incredibly static character dynamic that really doesn't change. At all. We don't really see them get to know each other, or even really become friends at all. We don't really know about anything they share except for "they like poetry" and "Ren has the hots for Kelsey because she's pretty" and "Kelsey has the hots for Ren because of his gloriously sculpted abs."
And now we get to see how their relationshipchanges stays the same now that they're a thing. Goody.
But enough of that. Let's move on to the chapter.
Chapter Eighteen: Durga's Temple
If you don't remember what they're up to (I don't blame you with my terrible update schedule), Kelsey and Ren discovered a prophecy telling them the first step in breaking Ren and Kishan's curse. The first part told them to go to Hampi, Hanuman's realm, and get the Golden Fruit. They're stopping by a one of Durga's temples on the way to seek her blessing before they enter into Kishkinda.
Oh, Durga actually shows up in this chapter. Like, the actual, factual Hindu goddess Durga. So that's something interesting that happens, for once.
They're at the site of the temple, which is of course another tourist destination. I feel like all of the settings in the book are really well-known and readily available on the Internet because it's easier for Houck to find pictures to reference when writing descriptions. Not that they're very good most of the time:
The entry was open to the air and displayed tall pillars that supported the access way. The threshold was just high enough for a person of average height to walk through. On either side of the opening were amazingly detailed carvings of Indian gods and goddesses.
It's like I'm there.
That being said, the description isn't too bad once we get inside the temple. It goes on for too long (we really don't need a room-by-room description of the entire temple...), but it actually conjures up an image in my head, which is more than I've been able to get so far. Well, one paragraph of it, which is here:
The next room housed a stone altar of sorts. A small broken statute, now unidentifiable, rested on top. Everything was coated with a thick sepia powder. Particles of it twinkled in the air like pixie dust. Beams of light descended from cracks in the dome and spotted the floor with narrow rays. I couldn't hear Ren but every move I made echoed through the empty temple.
Like, that actually conveys a mood for the scene! It's an empty temple that's incredibly old, and slightly mystical, and it's like it's waiting to be woken up. More descriptions like this, please. This is leagues better than the entire chapter about the plane--it's short, gives only necessary details, and is (shock) important, since this is where they're going to meet a literal goddess.
They poke around for a while without finding anything, until they turn a corner and find a statute of Durga, all of her eight arms splayed out and holding various weapons, including the gada that she spoke about with Mr. Kadam earlier. Damon (a.k.a. Dawon) is there too, in the middle of fighting the buffalo demon.
"I guess she had a tiger to protect her too, huh, Ren?"
Yeah, hi, no. Durga is a warrior goddess who can very much take care of herself, thank you.
Kelsey and Ren try to figure out exactly what they're supposed to be doing here. Me, too. The only reason they're here is because the prophecy told them to come here and seek Durga's blessing in the first place. So she can give them magical swag.
Kelsey walks around poking her hands into things and looking for something out of the ordinary, but she's not able to find something. So she immediately sits down and says, "I give up. I just don't know what we should be looking for." Just what I want in a protagonist! Someone who gives up immediately at the slightest sign of trouble!
I honestly think that this is the hardest thing they've had to do so far. That's including all that nonsense with the bugs and thorny vines from earlier. Now they actually have to use their brains, so they're pretty much useless.
Kelsey looks up and sees a carving on a pillar next to her that shows people making an offering to Durga. One of the people is carrying a bundle of fruit, and one of them is carrying a bell. Kelsey thinks that they should try to do the same thing. They head back out to the car, where Mr. Kadam is waiting (guess he's not special enough to be part of the curse-breaking squad), and Kelsey tells him her idea.
"Excellent idea, Miss Kelsey! I don't know why I didn't think of it myself."
Because you're a sad excuse for a character who exists to spout off exposition without contributing anything to the plot outside of historical background and translations?
He gives them some fruit, but he doesn't have a bell. He does say that the temple should have an old bell inside, and that they should look for it so they don't have to drive back to town to buy one. Which is a really funny concern for him to have, so that's why I'm sharing it.
Kelsey asks him not to be disappointed in her, to which he says he could never be disappointed in what she does. I beg to differ. I am constantly disppointed by Kelsey.
Back inside the temple, they search around for the bell. After a few minutes, Ren finds it, because having your main character accomplish things is boring, I guess. Ren tells her that she should be the one to make the offering to Durga because she's the Chosen One and all that.
I grimaced. "Perhaps, but you forget that I'm a foreigner and you're a prince of India. Surely, you know what you're doing more than I do."
Which is a fair point! It only shows how out of place Kelsey is in all of this! There's using a newcomer protagonist to give an excuse for exposition, and then there's this!
"I was never a Durga worshipper. I don't really know the process."
"What did or do you worship?"
What an awkward way to say that question.
"I participated in the rituals and holidays of my people, but my parents wanted Kishan and me to decide for ourselves what to believed. They had a great tolerance for different religious ideology because they were from two different cultures. What about you?"
Of course, we'll never hear about which culture his mother was from because "Asian" is not a culture, Houck. It is true that India (well, the Mughal Empire, at least, which seems to be what the fictional Mujulaain Empire is based on) was pretty tolerant of other religions, given that it was a combination of various Indian, Persian, and Islamic cultures.
Then Houck makes the mistake of bringing up other modern religions. Which just opens up a whole can of worms regarding how to treat religion in your fiction.
"I haven't gone to church since my parents died."
So, Kelsey went to a (presumably) Christian church up until she was seventeen, which gives her a long period of time in which she was at least nominally Christian.
How has there been no mention of how her previous experiences with religion are challenged or supported by the literal existence of Hindu gods? There is no reference to this anywhere else! If it wasn't brought up here, I wouldn't have questioned it and thought that Kelsey just didn't grow up in a religious household! Wouldn't it be so much more interesting if we see our protagonist struggling with her preconceptions of how the world works? Like, I'm not asking for introspective discussions of faith and religion in my trashy YA romance, but having any kind of internal character struggle makes things so much more interesting to read!
Ren seems to have a pretty agnostic and optimistic approach to life, which Kelsey is surprised about. Same. He is the victim of an ancient curse that is explicitly tied to Hindu mythology, which means that the religion is true. Surely that's at least a bit of evidence.
In a better series (cough, Dresden Files), there's a character who is a staunch atheist despite being a warrior literally chosen by God and who deals with angels on a semi-regular basis. It leads to some fun character interaction. That's not a thing here, unfortunately.
They decide to clean up the huge amount of dust on the statue to start their offering. Wait, isn't this a tourist spot? You'd think that they'd take better care, you know, preserving the temple for display since people pay to visit here.
They put the fruit at the base of the statue, and Ren rings the bell. Kelsey isn't sure what to say, so Ren starts off and lets Kelsey finish up.
In a loud, clear voice, he said, "Durga, we come to ask your blessing on our quest. Our faith is weak and simple. Our task is complex and mystifying. Please help us find understanding and strength."
He looked at me. I swallowed, tried to wet my dry lips, and added, "Please help these two princes of India. Restore to them what was taken. Help me be strong enough and wise enough to do what is necessary. They both deserve a chance to have a life."
Nothing happens, but when Ren turns back into a tiger, which causes an earthquake and lightning! Oh no!
Debris is falling all around them and Ren tries to cover up Kelsey because Romance. When the earthquake is over, one of the walls has fallen down to reveal...another wall. But this one has an indentation shaped like a hand, so Kelsey puts her hand in it like she did at Kanheri Cave a few chapters ago. The rock gets hot and her skin turns transparent (!) and the pattern that Phet drew on her hand starts glowing, accompanied by some sparks. She hears a growl and turns around.
The tiger in the statue turns into a real tiger. Then the statue turns into a real person. It's Durga! Her skin is made out of gold and she's decked out in jewels and rainbow lights shoot around the temple, so it's very magical.
One of her golden limbs stretched out and gestured toward us. "Welcome to my temple, daughter."
I wanted to ask her why I was her favored one and why she called me daughter. I wasn't even Indian. Phet had said the same thing, and the concept still baffled me, but I felt it was better to keep quiet.
Hey, I still want to know why Kelsey's the Chosen One! All I've gotten so far has been "something about you is special" and "you're confident and empathetic!" That's not an answer!
Durga accepts their offering, and they just kind of stand there awkwardly waiting for Durga to speak.
She looked at me and smiled. Her voice echoed like a tinkling bell through the cavern. "I see you have your own tiger to aid you in times of battle."
I mean, Ren's been doing a lot more than aiding her in battle. Kelsey just kind of screams and falls over a lot.
Durga just keeps serenely smiling at them throughout the whole scene, and it's a bit disconcerting (to me, anyway, Ren and Kelsey are cool about it). She says that she'll give them her blessing.
Is this because the prophecy says that she will, or because she actually chooses to? She wrote the prophecy (I think? It's unclear). This is why I'm not a huge fan of prophecies, but I know I've talked about that before.
Ren and Dam/won are sniffing and growling at each other in the background for some reason. I'm not really sure why.
The goddess ignored them, smiled warmly at me, and announced, "The prize you seek is hidden in Hanuman's kingdom. My sign will show you the gateway. Hanuman's realm has many dangers. You and your tiger must stay together to make it safely through. If you separate, there is great danger for you."
This doesn't say anything we didn't already know.
Durga then looks through the weapons that she's holding and chooses one to give to Kelsey. She eventually decides on the gada, which means that the discussion from many, many chapters ago wasn't entirely pointless. This gada is made out of solid gold but surprisingly isn't heavy, and it's really sparkly and amazing and pretty.
I thanked Durga and she smiled benevolently at me. She raised an arm and pointed at the pillar, then nodded, encouraging me.
Kelsey holds the gada like a baseball bat and hits the pillar and it basically explodes into tiny pieces. So, I guess we can add "desecrating a temple and popular tourist destination" to what Kelsey's accomplished. Although I guess she did it at the request of a literal goddess so I don't think that claim would hold up in court.
My mouth gaped open in amazement. I turned back to the goddess, who was smiling proudly at me.
"I guess I'll have to be really careful with this thing."
Durga nodded and explained, "Use the gada when necessary to protect yourself, but I expect it will mostly be wielded by the warrior at your side."
Which, once again, removes any usefulness Kelsey has in this whole quest. Ren can already fight! He doesn't even have hands most of the time!
Kelsey finally has a chance to actually accomplish something and then Durga basically says, "You're too useless to use the gift I just gave you," which is stupid!
Durga has another gift! She's wearing a snake arm band, which comes to life and sticks its tongue out at Kelsey. It's literally made out of gold and has emerald eyes, so it's very fancy, but still girly enough for it to explicitly be for Kelsey. It slithers off of Durga's arm, and Kelsey sees that it's a cobra and freaks out! Even though it's a gift from a literal goddess who by all means seems very friendly and helpful! But it's a snake and it's icky.
There's about an entire page of description of the snake climbing up Kelsey and it's very boring. The gist is that Kelsey really doesn't like snakes, which is the first time that it's been mentioned in over three hundred pages. It crawls over her arm and starts to wrap around it and constrict, which doesn't make sense because cobras don't...do that. They're not pythons. But I guess since this is a magical cobra it doesn't have to make sense.
There's another page of description as it wraps around her arm. Gotta pad out the page length, I guess.
I cautiously dropped my eyes to look at it and was awed to see that it had become jewelry.
It literally started out this way a couple of pages ago. It turned into a real snake from a piece of jewelry identical to the one you're wearing now.
It looked like one of the snake armlets that ancient Egyptians wore.
Is it too much to ask that things that are purporting to be from Hindu mythology actually resemble things from the culture you're taking inspiration from? Apparently.
Durga explains (yay, more exposition!) that the snake is named Fanindra, "the Queen of the Serpents."
Durga further exposits that "[s]he is a guide and will help you find what you seek. She can conduct you on safe paths and will light your way through darkness."
Keep in mind, I'm like the last person who has the experience to talk about this stuff in real life, but I've read enough that I know when it works in a fictional narrative.
I'll compare this story to Unseen Academicals because I just finished it (and also it has a romance that I thought was really well done even if it wasn't the focus of the story). I don't read super widely in the romance genre, but I do read a lot of fantasy/adventure stories that have romance in them. I think that's what Tiger's Curse is supposed to be (as it has a lot more action than your typical YA Paranormal Romance Twilight clone), so I'll stick to that as comparison.
Unseen Academicals is primarily a story about
Anyway! This book is a fantastic example for the development of the relationships between the four main characters, all of which go through their own individual character arcs that weave into their changing relationships. The book takes its sweet time developing their relationships from strangers to friends, and then friends into romantic partners, which happens over the span of a few hundred pages. It allows the characters to have interactions that aren't completely based in "oh, wow, the other person's really hot and that's all we're able to talk about!"
Here's what I'm talking about. For context, earlier in the story Trevor asked Nutt to help him write a poem for Juliet. Juliet, who couldn't understand it, asked Glenda to help her read it.
After a while, Glenda said, "You wrote that poem for Trev didn't you?"
"Yes, Miss Glenda. I hope [Juliet] liked it."
Glenda thought she'd better raise this carefully. "I think I ought to tell you that she didn't understand a lot of the words exactly. I sort of had to translate it for her." It hadn't been too difficult, she reckoned. Most love poems were pretty much the same under all the curly writing.
"Did you like it?" said Nutt.
"It was a wonderful poem," said Glenda.
"I wrote it for you," said Nutt. He was looking at her with an expression that stirred together fear and defiance in equal measure.
That's some good shit! It's short, to the point, and much more effective at communicating a change in relationship than any of the stuff that happened in the last chapter of Tiger's Curse!
Tiger's Curse does not have a well-written or well-paced romance. Note that the following page numbers are taken from the Kindle version, which might be different from a physical copy of the book.
Kelsey meets Ren (as a tiger) on page 40, in chapter 3 (which is already completely crazy pacing because 40 pages is way too long to spend before we even get close to something resembling a plot, but that's a whole other issue. Ren doesn't speak as a character until page 108, right before chapter 8, almost seventy (!) pages later. She doesn't even know that he's human until this point.
In chapter 8, Kelsey thinks that Ren is hot, and he touches her waist, sits close enough to Kelsey to make her feel uncomfortable, and tells her that she smells nice. Their conversation only concerns the whole "I'm actually a three hundred year old prince" thing, and not much else.
They don't talk again until chapter 10, at his house, after he gave her the fancy dress. He plays with her hair, and exposits about the Matt Damon Amulet, and kisses her fingers. The next day, he starts calling her "most beautiful," steals her hair ribbon to sniff, and literally spells out all the reasons he's interested in her romantically.
Chapter 11 is mostly just Indiana Jones adventuring in Kanheri Cave, but they do flirt a bit while they're inside, I guess.
Chapter 12--Ren brushes her hair, gives her a massage, and kisses her hand again. Later, he gives her a rose and she reads him Romeo and Juliet.
Chapter 13--they go to the waterfall in the jungle. Ren spends most of his time out looking for Kishan, but spends the evenings back at camp with Kelsey. They flirt some more, share some poetry, and then they have their argument over Ren asking to kiss Kelsey.
This happens on page 237, about 130 pages after Ren was introduced as a speaking character. They've only had six conversations (unless I missed a short one in skimming over what I've sparked so far) before going to the jungle to find Kishan. And their relationship has stayed exactly the same in these 130 pages. If you take lines from the conversation where they first meet, and put them into the last conversation before their forced argument, I wouldn't be able to tell the difference.
"You know, sleeping outdoors isn't all bad. You get to stare up at the stars and cool breezes ruffle your fur after a hot day. The grass smells sweet and," he made eye contact with me, "so does your hair."
Versus:
He leaned toward me again and pulled on a strand of my hair. "Now, Kells, there are some of my animalistic tendencies that you seem to like." He started making a rumbling sound in his chest, and I realized that he was purring.
These are from about a hundred pages apart from each other. They seem like they could be part of the same conversation. This is not a good thing!
Also, you thought I was joking about the purring thing, didn't you? I wasn't.
Then they have a very contrived argument, and Ren doesn't talk to Kelsey for about a chapter and a half, and then--like magic--they're back to normal shortly after. Like, functionally identical to their relationship before their argument. Nothing has changed. They don't talk about it again, like it never happened.
So, what we're left with (at least before Kelsey and Ren officially become An Item in the previous chapter) is an incredibly static character dynamic that really doesn't change. At all. We don't really see them get to know each other, or even really become friends at all. We don't really know about anything they share except for "they like poetry" and "Ren has the hots for Kelsey because she's pretty" and "Kelsey has the hots for Ren because of his gloriously sculpted abs."
And now we get to see how their relationship
But enough of that. Let's move on to the chapter.
Chapter Eighteen: Durga's Temple
If you don't remember what they're up to (I don't blame you with my terrible update schedule), Kelsey and Ren discovered a prophecy telling them the first step in breaking Ren and Kishan's curse. The first part told them to go to Hampi, Hanuman's realm, and get the Golden Fruit. They're stopping by a one of Durga's temples on the way to seek her blessing before they enter into Kishkinda.
Oh, Durga actually shows up in this chapter. Like, the actual, factual Hindu goddess Durga. So that's something interesting that happens, for once.
They're at the site of the temple, which is of course another tourist destination. I feel like all of the settings in the book are really well-known and readily available on the Internet because it's easier for Houck to find pictures to reference when writing descriptions. Not that they're very good most of the time:
The entry was open to the air and displayed tall pillars that supported the access way. The threshold was just high enough for a person of average height to walk through. On either side of the opening were amazingly detailed carvings of Indian gods and goddesses.
It's like I'm there.
That being said, the description isn't too bad once we get inside the temple. It goes on for too long (we really don't need a room-by-room description of the entire temple...), but it actually conjures up an image in my head, which is more than I've been able to get so far. Well, one paragraph of it, which is here:
The next room housed a stone altar of sorts. A small broken statute, now unidentifiable, rested on top. Everything was coated with a thick sepia powder. Particles of it twinkled in the air like pixie dust. Beams of light descended from cracks in the dome and spotted the floor with narrow rays. I couldn't hear Ren but every move I made echoed through the empty temple.
Like, that actually conveys a mood for the scene! It's an empty temple that's incredibly old, and slightly mystical, and it's like it's waiting to be woken up. More descriptions like this, please. This is leagues better than the entire chapter about the plane--it's short, gives only necessary details, and is (shock) important, since this is where they're going to meet a literal goddess.
They poke around for a while without finding anything, until they turn a corner and find a statute of Durga, all of her eight arms splayed out and holding various weapons, including the gada that she spoke about with Mr. Kadam earlier. Damon (a.k.a. Dawon) is there too, in the middle of fighting the buffalo demon.
"I guess she had a tiger to protect her too, huh, Ren?"
Yeah, hi, no. Durga is a warrior goddess who can very much take care of herself, thank you.
Kelsey and Ren try to figure out exactly what they're supposed to be doing here. Me, too. The only reason they're here is because the prophecy told them to come here and seek Durga's blessing in the first place. So she can give them magical swag.
Kelsey walks around poking her hands into things and looking for something out of the ordinary, but she's not able to find something. So she immediately sits down and says, "I give up. I just don't know what we should be looking for." Just what I want in a protagonist! Someone who gives up immediately at the slightest sign of trouble!
I honestly think that this is the hardest thing they've had to do so far. That's including all that nonsense with the bugs and thorny vines from earlier. Now they actually have to use their brains, so they're pretty much useless.
Kelsey looks up and sees a carving on a pillar next to her that shows people making an offering to Durga. One of the people is carrying a bundle of fruit, and one of them is carrying a bell. Kelsey thinks that they should try to do the same thing. They head back out to the car, where Mr. Kadam is waiting (guess he's not special enough to be part of the curse-breaking squad), and Kelsey tells him her idea.
"Excellent idea, Miss Kelsey! I don't know why I didn't think of it myself."
Because you're a sad excuse for a character who exists to spout off exposition without contributing anything to the plot outside of historical background and translations?
He gives them some fruit, but he doesn't have a bell. He does say that the temple should have an old bell inside, and that they should look for it so they don't have to drive back to town to buy one. Which is a really funny concern for him to have, so that's why I'm sharing it.
Kelsey asks him not to be disappointed in her, to which he says he could never be disappointed in what she does. I beg to differ. I am constantly disppointed by Kelsey.
Back inside the temple, they search around for the bell. After a few minutes, Ren finds it, because having your main character accomplish things is boring, I guess. Ren tells her that she should be the one to make the offering to Durga because she's the Chosen One and all that.
I grimaced. "Perhaps, but you forget that I'm a foreigner and you're a prince of India. Surely, you know what you're doing more than I do."
Which is a fair point! It only shows how out of place Kelsey is in all of this! There's using a newcomer protagonist to give an excuse for exposition, and then there's this!
"I was never a Durga worshipper. I don't really know the process."
"What did or do you worship?"
What an awkward way to say that question.
"I participated in the rituals and holidays of my people, but my parents wanted Kishan and me to decide for ourselves what to believed. They had a great tolerance for different religious ideology because they were from two different cultures. What about you?"
Of course, we'll never hear about which culture his mother was from because "Asian" is not a culture, Houck. It is true that India (well, the Mughal Empire, at least, which seems to be what the fictional Mujulaain Empire is based on) was pretty tolerant of other religions, given that it was a combination of various Indian, Persian, and Islamic cultures.
Then Houck makes the mistake of bringing up other modern religions. Which just opens up a whole can of worms regarding how to treat religion in your fiction.
"I haven't gone to church since my parents died."
So, Kelsey went to a (presumably) Christian church up until she was seventeen, which gives her a long period of time in which she was at least nominally Christian.
How has there been no mention of how her previous experiences with religion are challenged or supported by the literal existence of Hindu gods? There is no reference to this anywhere else! If it wasn't brought up here, I wouldn't have questioned it and thought that Kelsey just didn't grow up in a religious household! Wouldn't it be so much more interesting if we see our protagonist struggling with her preconceptions of how the world works? Like, I'm not asking for introspective discussions of faith and religion in my trashy YA romance, but having any kind of internal character struggle makes things so much more interesting to read!
Ren seems to have a pretty agnostic and optimistic approach to life, which Kelsey is surprised about. Same. He is the victim of an ancient curse that is explicitly tied to Hindu mythology, which means that the religion is true. Surely that's at least a bit of evidence.
In a better series (cough, Dresden Files), there's a character who is a staunch atheist despite being a warrior literally chosen by God and who deals with angels on a semi-regular basis. It leads to some fun character interaction. That's not a thing here, unfortunately.
They decide to clean up the huge amount of dust on the statue to start their offering. Wait, isn't this a tourist spot? You'd think that they'd take better care, you know, preserving the temple for display since people pay to visit here.
They put the fruit at the base of the statue, and Ren rings the bell. Kelsey isn't sure what to say, so Ren starts off and lets Kelsey finish up.
In a loud, clear voice, he said, "Durga, we come to ask your blessing on our quest. Our faith is weak and simple. Our task is complex and mystifying. Please help us find understanding and strength."
He looked at me. I swallowed, tried to wet my dry lips, and added, "Please help these two princes of India. Restore to them what was taken. Help me be strong enough and wise enough to do what is necessary. They both deserve a chance to have a life."
Nothing happens, but when Ren turns back into a tiger, which causes an earthquake and lightning! Oh no!
Debris is falling all around them and Ren tries to cover up Kelsey because Romance. When the earthquake is over, one of the walls has fallen down to reveal...another wall. But this one has an indentation shaped like a hand, so Kelsey puts her hand in it like she did at Kanheri Cave a few chapters ago. The rock gets hot and her skin turns transparent (!) and the pattern that Phet drew on her hand starts glowing, accompanied by some sparks. She hears a growl and turns around.
The tiger in the statue turns into a real tiger. Then the statue turns into a real person. It's Durga! Her skin is made out of gold and she's decked out in jewels and rainbow lights shoot around the temple, so it's very magical.
One of her golden limbs stretched out and gestured toward us. "Welcome to my temple, daughter."
I wanted to ask her why I was her favored one and why she called me daughter. I wasn't even Indian. Phet had said the same thing, and the concept still baffled me, but I felt it was better to keep quiet.
Hey, I still want to know why Kelsey's the Chosen One! All I've gotten so far has been "something about you is special" and "you're confident and empathetic!" That's not an answer!
Durga accepts their offering, and they just kind of stand there awkwardly waiting for Durga to speak.
She looked at me and smiled. Her voice echoed like a tinkling bell through the cavern. "I see you have your own tiger to aid you in times of battle."
I mean, Ren's been doing a lot more than aiding her in battle. Kelsey just kind of screams and falls over a lot.
Durga just keeps serenely smiling at them throughout the whole scene, and it's a bit disconcerting (to me, anyway, Ren and Kelsey are cool about it). She says that she'll give them her blessing.
Is this because the prophecy says that she will, or because she actually chooses to? She wrote the prophecy (I think? It's unclear). This is why I'm not a huge fan of prophecies, but I know I've talked about that before.
Ren and Dam/won are sniffing and growling at each other in the background for some reason. I'm not really sure why.
The goddess ignored them, smiled warmly at me, and announced, "The prize you seek is hidden in Hanuman's kingdom. My sign will show you the gateway. Hanuman's realm has many dangers. You and your tiger must stay together to make it safely through. If you separate, there is great danger for you."
This doesn't say anything we didn't already know.
Durga then looks through the weapons that she's holding and chooses one to give to Kelsey. She eventually decides on the gada, which means that the discussion from many, many chapters ago wasn't entirely pointless. This gada is made out of solid gold but surprisingly isn't heavy, and it's really sparkly and amazing and pretty.
I thanked Durga and she smiled benevolently at me. She raised an arm and pointed at the pillar, then nodded, encouraging me.
Kelsey holds the gada like a baseball bat and hits the pillar and it basically explodes into tiny pieces. So, I guess we can add "desecrating a temple and popular tourist destination" to what Kelsey's accomplished. Although I guess she did it at the request of a literal goddess so I don't think that claim would hold up in court.
My mouth gaped open in amazement. I turned back to the goddess, who was smiling proudly at me.
"I guess I'll have to be really careful with this thing."
Durga nodded and explained, "Use the gada when necessary to protect yourself, but I expect it will mostly be wielded by the warrior at your side."
Which, once again, removes any usefulness Kelsey has in this whole quest. Ren can already fight! He doesn't even have hands most of the time!
Kelsey finally has a chance to actually accomplish something and then Durga basically says, "You're too useless to use the gift I just gave you," which is stupid!
Durga has another gift! She's wearing a snake arm band, which comes to life and sticks its tongue out at Kelsey. It's literally made out of gold and has emerald eyes, so it's very fancy, but still girly enough for it to explicitly be for Kelsey. It slithers off of Durga's arm, and Kelsey sees that it's a cobra and freaks out! Even though it's a gift from a literal goddess who by all means seems very friendly and helpful! But it's a snake and it's icky.
There's about an entire page of description of the snake climbing up Kelsey and it's very boring. The gist is that Kelsey really doesn't like snakes, which is the first time that it's been mentioned in over three hundred pages. It crawls over her arm and starts to wrap around it and constrict, which doesn't make sense because cobras don't...do that. They're not pythons. But I guess since this is a magical cobra it doesn't have to make sense.
There's another page of description as it wraps around her arm. Gotta pad out the page length, I guess.
I cautiously dropped my eyes to look at it and was awed to see that it had become jewelry.
It literally started out this way a couple of pages ago. It turned into a real snake from a piece of jewelry identical to the one you're wearing now.
It looked like one of the snake armlets that ancient Egyptians wore.
Is it too much to ask that things that are purporting to be from Hindu mythology actually resemble things from the culture you're taking inspiration from? Apparently.
Durga explains (yay, more exposition!) that the snake is named Fanindra, "the Queen of the Serpents."
Durga further exposits that "[s]he is a guide and will help you find what you seek. She can conduct you on safe paths and will light your way through darkness."
So, I think Fanindra is supposed to be a naga, a legendary cobra-like creature from the mythology of a lot of south Asian cultures. Nagas can assume the forms of humans, cobras, or human-snake hybrids, are associated with sources of water, and are said to protect treasure. They do have a place in Hindu mythology as jewelry, though, as Shiva is often depicted wearing a snake as a necklace.
My only basis for the naga connection is that in Sanskrit, a synonym for "naga" is "phanin," which sounds close-ish to Fanindra.
The goddess reached out to stroke the snake's immobile head and counseled, "She is sensitive to the emotions of others and longs to be loved for who she is. She has a purpose, as do all of her children, and we must learn to accept that all creatures, however fearsome they may be, are of divine origins."
Okay, a couple of things. One, this little diatribe is cool and all (because it actually scolds Kelsey, for once), but it is literally meaningless to the story. Kelsey has never struggled with this before seeing the snake, and she won't again (but she will complain about having a snake on her arm almost constantly, so look forward to that). She doesn't judge anything else by its appearance, either. So this is pretty pointless.
And snakes actually have a pretty positive role in Hindu mythology, so I'm not sure why Durga is making it seem like snakes have traditionally been seen as evil or something. They were created by Brahma and told that they could only bite people who were truly evil or destined to die prematurely. They're associated with a lot of gods, and are seen as being "good" creatures, from what I can tell.
Durga offers to give them some more advice before they head out.
I demurred, "Of course, Goddess."
That's a weird dialogue tag. Worse than "encouraged."
She reminds them not to get separated again (virtually guaranteeing that they'll get separated), and tells them that if it does happen to trust their hearts instead of their eyes. She then tells them that once they get the fruit they should hide it because there are evil people who will use it for nefarious deeds. I have no idea what kind of evil a person can invoke from...a magic piece of fruit that magically feeds people (especially once we figure out what the fruit actually does in a few chapters), but okay. And another reference to the big bad of the series who is not named, isn't known by our main character, and does nothing for the entire book. Joy.
Kelsey asks what they're supposed to do with the gifts, and Durga says to keep them. In the middle of her explanation, she turns back into a statue, so we don't get to hear the ending of something that isn't very important. Normally, when you make a character get cut off in the middle of giving advice, they get cut off before something very important that the protagonist has to figure out for herself, but not here! It's not important information at all.
Kelsey and Ren leave the temple and meet up with Mr. Kadam, who's been patiently waiting the entire time. Again, I have no idea why he didn't go with them. Kelsey asks if he felt the earthquake.
"An earthquake? No. It's been quiet as a church out here."
He chuckled at his own joke. "What happened in there?"
Why is this broken up into two paragraphs? What's the joke supposed to be? What's happening?
He sees the gada Kelsey is holding, and Kelsey hands it to him.
He tentatively reached out both of his hands and took it from me. He seemed to struggle a bit with the weight, which made me wonder if he was weaker than he looked in his old age.
He's in his forties. That's not "old age," even to a teenager.
Mr. Kadam thinks the gada is really cool, and Kelsey says that she'll explain what happened off screen while they're driving to Hampi. Then they drive off and the chapter ends.
Closing Thoughts
Durga is one of the most boring depictions of a warrior goddess that I've ever seen in my life.
Let's take a look at Durga's role in real mythology. Most artistic depictions of Durga show her in battle with the buffalo demon.
She was literally born to fight the demon, created out of the desire of the other gods to stop him. When she manifests, she's basically always fighting something. She presents a calm and serene exterior despite the amount of violence she's involved in because her fighting is necessary to protect people and do good, as well as allowing creation through destruction.
Houck presents her as "perpetually smiling and constantly supportive." Which is fine, I guess, but really boring. What if Durga was harder to please? What if Kelsey has to earn her respect through fighting the good fight, and proving her worth? That seems to be what Durga is all about--doing what is necessary, even though it's violent and difficult, because it's the right thing to do.
Durga isn't really a character. She's a plot device who exists to give Kelsey some cool stuff. And that's a shame, because I think there's some rich characterization that you could do with her.
Next time, Chapter 19: Hampi! I keep looking at the chapter numbers and thinking that I'm almost done, but we're only about 2/3s of the way through.
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