Chapter 5: Preparation

Hello, and welcome back to our irregularly scheduled nonsense!

Last time, Kelsey and Ren argued for the entire chapter, and then Mr. Kadam read us this book's MacGuffin prophecy.

(Uh, skip this next paragraph if you really don't want to read me reminiscing about how much I loved dragons in middle school.  It was a lot.)

Most of the prophecy concerns dragons.  Which would normally get me hyped, because I love fantasy stories with dragons.  No joke, there was a period when I was in middle school where that's...pretty much all I read.  I saw a book that mentioned dragons, I'd snarf it up.  Which means that I actually got to read some pretty interesting books that weren't the mainstream ones everyone was reading!  These are books like the Enchanted Forest Chronicles, where the main character decides her life as a princess is too boring so she volunteers herself as a dragon's princess; The Two Princesses of Bamarre, which really only has a dragon as a minor villain but she was really cool (and I also just really like Gail Carson Levine in general); the Fablehaven series, which actually has been revived in a new sequel series that takes place in the dragon sanctuaries, which is awesome (and are still fun to read as an adult, because I just did that); and A Wizard Named Nell, which I remember nothing about except that the main character had a cool miniature dragon for a pet.

And, of course, who could forget Dragonology?

The crown jewel of any childhood book collection.

Anyway!  I don't really know where I was going with all of this, except to say that I am normally pretty forgiving about dragons in fiction, because dragons are Cool.  Heck, I still have a soft spot for Eragon even though it's objectively not that good.  So, it takes quite a bit for an author to fuck up dragons enough to make me think they're lame.

Guess what Houck does?

Chapter Five: Preparation

God, I love it so much when Houck just lets us know in the chapter title that nothing happens.

Kelsey is still agog at the fact that dragons exist in this universe, which also has immortal were-tigers, magical items that can conjure food and fabric out of nothing, beings from Greek/Roman and Norse mythology, and a literal Hindu goddess.  Mr. Kadam says that he thinks the dragons will be helpful rather than harmful, and he doubts they'll have to fight them.

This kind of makes sense with Eastern dragons, which are generally seem as much more benevolent than Western dragons.  Of course, because Houck is dumb, one of the dragons that appears later is evil and they have to fight him, which makes this conversation pointless because it's not even correct.

Mr. Kadam asks what they talked about with Phet, and we're spared a summary of the conversation, although Kelsey does say that they talked for several hours about it.  I have no idea what they talk about for several hours, because not much actually happened at Phet's place.  Kishan drank some soma, Kelsey got some relationship advice, and Ren got goop in his hair.  And no, this hours-long conversation doesn't include any of the Drama we read about before, because Mr. Kadam has to finally ask Kelsey why there's so much tension between her and the two tigers.

Now we do get to read a summary of Phet's "pillow" advice, which is really boring.  Mr. Kadam asks if she was arguing with Ren about Kishan's feelings for her, and Kelsey says that she's mad at him for blocking her out of his memory.  Hey, Houck?  We know this already!

"We still don't know why that happened."

YEAH, BUT WE DO THOUGH

Anyway, Mr. Kadam says that since she got so riled up with Ren, it's obvious which one she should choose.  Kelsey says that he's right and it makes sense to choose Kishan since he isn't a raging asshole doesn't make her so angry.  Mr. Kadam says that's not what he meant but it's still up to her.  So yeah, Mr. Kadam also seems to be a Relsey fangirl.

Mr. Kadam says that since Phet said she'd be happy with either, it would be a good idea to make peace with both so that they can get through this next quest without murdering each other.  Which is true!  Kelsey agrees to apologize the next day, and then they go make some dinner.

Scene break!  Kelsey goes to the gym, where Kishan likes to hang out when he's not eating food in the kitchen (because Man Eats Lots is still funny, remember) or creeping on her veranda.  Kelsey ogles his bulging muscles and thinks about the advice Phet gave her.  This internal monologue goes on for like a whole page and it's not very interesting.  It doesn't even lead anywhere, since it's just Kelsey complaining about how haaaard it's going to be to make the choice.

Kelsey goes into the gym and apologizes for yelling at him, and Kishan immediately absolves her of any wrongdoing by saying it's what anyone would have done.  She says that she's trying to clear the air before going on their quest so no one gets hurt, so Kishan (again) asks her point-blank about what her feelings are towards him.  So Kelsey says that she relies on him and likes him more than she should, and that Phet said she'd be happy with either him or Ren.

Kishan seems happy with that, and launches into another monologue about how Great and Special and Beautiful Kelsey is, and how much he wants her.  Because we haven't had this EXACT SAME CONVERSATION about five times already.  He does say that if Kelsey chooses him, though, he wants it to be because she actually chooses him and not because she can't choose Ren.  Which is completely fair!

Kelsey sucks, though, so she says it might end up being both.  And because every character in this story exists to bend over backwards to make Kelsey happy, Kishan says that would be good enough as long as she loved him.  He also absolves her of any bad feelings she could have about choosing Ren in the future, because, again, Ren and Kishan are less fully-realized characters and more a loose collection of traits that exist so Kelsey can be in love with both of them at the same time without having to face any consequences of...loving both of them at the same time.

Scene break!  Kelsey goes searching for Ren, but can't find him anywhere.  She tries his bedroom, and enters the unlocked door.  Sheets of poetry are strewn about the room (because Ren is Tortured), and she reads one of the poems he's in the middle of writing.  It's a very ham-fisted poem about a pirate who can't remember where he buried his treasure and how he's sad about it.  Again, I'm not a poet or really skilled in analyzing poetry, but it's...not very good.  The metaphors used in it are also really janky and make no sense.

A maiden blush of Mandarin garnet

Like...what even is that supposed to mean.

Shining topaz eyes that burn and pierce like fiery diamonds

It's either topaz or diamond.  Not both.  Mixing the two in this metaphor makes no sense.

Ren walks in and grabs it from her, and asks why she's in his room.  I will note that this didn't stop him at all in the first book, where he sneaked in to her room and stole one of her hair ribbons to sniff.

Ren says that the poem she's holding is the first one he's been able to write since getting rescued, which directly contradicts what Kelsey told us before (where she said he didn't write poetry as much as he used to, which means he was still writing some).

"Really?  Maybe it's because Phet got rid of the PTSD," I ventured.

Fuck this book.

Ren slid the poem into a leather notebook and leaned against the bedpost.  "Maybe, but I suspect not."

"Well, then what got you writing again?"

"Apparently, I have a muse. [. . .]"

Ah, so it's not even related to the stupid PTSD that may or may not exist, it's because he Loves Kelsey.  Ugh.

He asks what she's doing in his room, and she says that she came to apologize.  Ren invites her to sit on the bed next to him, which Kelsey says maybe isn't a great idea, and Ren says that they'll work on his endurance at the same time.  Because Ren is a controlling asshole and likes to tell Kelsey what to do.

I obediently walked closer to him.

Hi, I hate this!

They talk about the different nicknames he used to call her, and he decides to pick a new one that's less insulting than "witch."  So he suggests strimani, which means "the best of women" or "a jewel of a woman."  Because the pirate poem, har har.

I looked up "strimani" in several Hindu-English dictionaries and got zero results, so make of that what you will.  I will note that I speak absolutely no Hindi, and this just might be a result of Houck's inconsistent Romanization of words that don't use our alphabet.

So yeah, Kelsey gets on the bed with him, and starts hugging one of his pillows, because Houck doesn't think that we understand the incredibly subtle "pillows = love" symbolism yet.  She huffs his pillow (I'm not joking) and Ren asks what she's doing.  She gets embarrassed and says that they smell like him.  Ren tells her to share everything she talked about with Kishan with him, and she can do the same with their conversation.  Kelsey thinks that this makes sense, so she does.  She also apologizes for yelling at him at Phet's place.

Ren comments on Kishan's promise to Kelsey not to kiss her unless he's sure she's finished with Ren, and seems very smug about the fact.  He asks if there's anything he promised her while they were dating, since he can't, you know, remember.  Basically, he wants to know what he's done to hurt her, so he can avoid it in the future.  Kelsey brings up the birthday present he got her in the last book, which was a pair of socks.

"On Valentine's Day you gave me your mother's earrings.  I told you that you could have given me socks.  You said, and I quote, 'Socks are hardly a romantic gift, Kells.' [. . .]"

So, wait, her entire problem with the socks wasn't that it implied his memories were in there somewhere?  I literally interpreted that scene in the last book to mean that she was upset he couldn't remember her but she could see their past relationship through his subconscious actions.  No, what she was actually upset about was that Ren thinks socks aren't a romantic gift, so his giving her socks means that he doesn't love her.

Wow, that's really dumb.

She also complains about how when they went to Tillamook he ordered peaches and cream ice cream because that's how she smells, but then on her birthday he said he didn't like it.  Also, he said he liked Nilima's perfume more than Kelsey's natural scent.

So, uh, is it just me or are these super petty reasons to be upset?  I understand the whole amnesia thing has to suck for her, but all of the examples she's giving him are "Waaaah, you gave me a present that I told you I wanted, and you don't want to force yourself to eat ice cream you don't like, and you like the smell of perfume over my BO."  Like, is Kelsey five years old?

She gives him some more examples.  She says that she gets jealous when he talks about Nilima.  Which I'm sure sucks, again, but she's not dating him anymore.  She's also upset about how Ren doesn't get jealous when Kishan shows interest in her.  Yeah, it was a problem then!  He literally almost killed like three people because they dared to breathe in her direction!  That's not normal!

And again, this is what I mean about how Kelsey is really selfish--he's been doing this BECAUSE HE DOESN'T REMEMBER HER AT ALL.  All of the examples Kelsey is giving?  Every single one boils down to "my life sucks because of your traumatic amnesia."  That's not something a Good and Kind protagonist would think, but we're clearly supposed to think that Kelsey is the most wonderful person in the universe because Houck writes every other character to constantly say that she is!

That isn't to say that it's a bad character trait for a character to have--it's a pretty good character flaw.  But the whole point of a character flaw is for a character to, you know, grow past it.  Like, Scott Pilgrim is a huge asshole, and he has an entire graphic novel series and a movie about him realizing that he's kind of a bad person, and growing past that.  Kelsey doesn't get to do that--it's like if Scott never actually had to face his character flaws, and then every other person constantly pumped up how nice of a guy he is.

Anyway.  She says that she loves his poems and that she misses him and that the song he couldn't remember was the one he wrote for her and that she promised she'd never leave him.  Yeah, it's that disjointed in the dialogue, too.  Again, I swear it's like she's like a hyperactive five-year-old.

Ren says that it's his turn to talk about his Feelings, only commenting that "that was quite the confession" because he's an asshole.  He says that he feels numb unless he's around her and, just in case you didn't get the comment about finding a muse earlier, he explicitly tells her that she's his muse.  There is no such thing as subtext in this book.  It's all just text.

And because showing instead of telling is haaaard, Ren just explicitly says, "And because we're being open, I'll say that I'm fairly certain I'm falling in love with you again."

He also apologizes for the socks, and just completely throws Kishan under the bus:

"No one told me we were celebrating until the last minute, and Kishan tossed me the gift, which I now think he might have done on purpose."

Yeah, except for the tiny detail that Kishan wasn't around for the conversation where you talked about socks.  He had no way of knowing that it would be a problem!  He was trying to help Ren fit in with everyone despite losing his memory, I'm pretty sure!  God, Ren is such an unbearable asshole!

He says that he does like the way she smells, and apologizes for the ice cream even though he reiterates that chocolate and peanut butter tastes better (because he still has to be Right even when a simple apology would suffice).  He promises not to dance with Nilima and thanks her for liking his poetry.  Again, any traces of subtlety are complete obliterated:

"It was you I was describing."

Yeah, no shit.  Although given Kelsey's demonstrated intelligence, she probably does need this to be spelled out for her.

"And if it wouldn't make me violently ill, I'd be kissing you right now."

Hey, wasn't the whole point of the amnesia plot to let Houck rewrite them falling in love again, because they're ~destined~ to be together, or something?  But Ren is just...already in love with her, which makes this whole amnesia plot doubly pointless, because we don't even get any interesting character interaction?

Ren asks if she still loves him, and Kelsey says that she does.  So he kisses her even though it hurts because he's Tortured and Angsty.  This completely kills his tolerance of her and he has to leave, which makes Kelsey sad but hopeful for the future.

Scene break!  Mr. Kadam has been spending time with Ren to try to find the trigger to unlock his memories.  During these times, Kelsey and Kishan sneak off to hang out watching movies or swimming in the pool.  You know, instead of actually doing anything productive like preparing for the dangerous quest they're going on soon.

She does do some research though, but only with Mr. Kadam.  The prophecy mentioned a trident and a kamandal, which are the weapons they'll receive the next time they visit Durga.  

"Mr. Kadam, this book says a kamandal is a vessel typically used to hold water, but in myths, it is said to hold the elixir of life, or holy water, and is also a symbol of fertility.  The sacred Ganges is said to have originated in a kamandal.  Huh.  Do you have any water from the Ganges?  It says here most Indian households keep a vial in their home, and they consider it sacred."

NO ONE TALKS LIKE THIS.  People don't just launch into paragraph-long monologues where they ask questions to the other person and then just keep talking.

Mr. Kadam says that he doesn't but his wife did.  Mr. Kadam exposits for an entire paragraph about the Ganges (which is pointless, because of course it's not actually referring to the Ganges), and says that people's ashes get sprinkled into the Ganges after they die.  Then Kelsey asks if Ren's parents were cremated.  I'm getting whiplash from this conversation.

I mean, this conversation only exists in the book so Houck can show off the fact that she did research.  That's the point of the majority of Mr. Kadam's dialogue.

Mr. Kadam says that he was going to cremate Rajaram, but Deschen didn't let him because she's Buddhist.  So they watch over his body for three days and then bury him.  Hey, fun fact!  Deschen is from Tibet, and Tibetan Buddhists don't seem to bury their dead.  That's where the "sky burial" tradition comes from, where the dead were left to feed vultures and other animals in one last act of generosity.  So even when she wants to show it off, Houck's research isn't even right.

Because Deschen's One True Love is dead, she also dies.  Because you're incomplete without a romantic partner.  Never forget that.

After he's done telling the story, Kelsey notices his eyes are tearing up.

"You loved them."

No shit, Sherlock.  It was so unclear.

He says that he'd like to be buried next to them when he dies.  Neat.

Mr. Kadam gets back to business and says that the prophecy mentioned diving, so he's arranged some diving lessons for everyone.  You know, exposing them to more people makes it so much easier for Lokesh to find them, especially when he's already shown he's not afraid of torturing information out of people.  Getting more people involved than you have to is super dumb.

Kelsey seems surprised that it's going to involve swimming, even though she knows the whole elemental theme thing, and the fact that the prophecy literally talks about swimming.  Because she's dumb.  She points out that this will make things extra difficult for them since the tigers will lose a lot of maneuverability in the water, and she's not sure how her lightning power will work underwater.  Mr. Kadam says that he thinks he knows what they're looking for, which should simplify things a bit.

Um, last time a giant snake just told them what they were looking for.  They already knew where it was, and learning that they were looking for the Scarf was basically answered with saying, "Neat."

Anyway, they're looking for Durga's pearl necklace.

"Her necklace is said to have been stolen centuries ago by a jealous god--which, by the way, leads me to my second discovery."

If this line makes you think we'll be meeting said jealous god, you are sorely mistaken.  That would be exciting, so it doesn't happen.  It's just another pointless bit of dialogue that wastes time as filler, as most of this series is.

Anyway, Kelsey asks what that discovery is, and Mr. Kadam says they'll be going to the City of the Seven Pagodas.  Kelsey asks where that is, and Mr. Kadam says he'll tell them all tonight, which means that Houck just wanted to save the reveal for a dramatic end to the chapter rather than just moving this scene to the end, because editing is haaaard.

Despite my pleading to know our destination immediately, Mr. Kadam insisted we continue our research on the prophecy.

Wouldn't knowing where they're going help immensely with researching the prophecy????  Unless Mr. Kadam knows Kelsey isn't contributing much to the research, which is very possible.

After gulping down the fastest dinner in history, we gathered in the peacock room.

Why is this reveal being treated like the reveal of the murderer in the Accusing Parlor in an Agatha Christie story?

Mr. Kadam exposits about Durga some more.

"Durga is known by many names," he began.  "One of them is Parvati."

Except, no, not really.  Durga is an aspect of Parvati, but they seem to be separate entities from what I can tell.  Even if they're not, it's more accurate to say that Parvati is also known as Durga, rather than the other way around.

Anyway, it's time for more Mr. Kadam explaining mythology!

Parvati's husband, Shiva, was annoyed because Parvati wasn't paying him enough attention, so he sent her to live as a mortal in a fishing village.  Lots of men fell in love with her, which made Shiva jealous, so he sent his servant Nandi to the village to steal her "Black Pearl Necklace," unnecessary capitalization and all, and cast it into the ocean and let the village know that the man who killed the shark guarding the necklace could marry Parvati.  Thing is, Nandi was the shark, and Shiva planned to swoop in and grab the necklace after Nandi killed all the men trying to get to it.  All of the murder kind of made Parvati upset.  Another lesser god named Indra (the god of lightning, thunder, rain, and warfare, which really doesn't sound like he's a "lesser god" to me) learned about the killer shark and came to the village to investigate, immediately falling in love with Parvati.  So he planned to disguise himself as a mortal to fight the shark.  Unhappy that another god was butting into his action, Shiva went after the necklace as well.  Shiva grabbed the necklace at the same time Indra killed the shark.  Shiva revealed the whole scheme and Nandi turned back into Shiva's servant, which made Indra upset.

Shiva placed the necklace on Parvati's neck, and she remembered her husband.  Indra made the village choose who the actual victor was, since he was the one to actually kill the shark, and the village chose Shiva because "the love between Shiva and Parvati was obvious to everyone," despite, you know, the whole "siccing a murderous shark on all of the eligible bachelors in the village" thing.

Indra never got over it, and stole the necklace from Parvati again, flooding the village and sinking all of the temples underwater, killing everyone.  Then he hid the necklace and turned into a shark.

Now, this is more detail than we usually get in this series--so you'd think it would actually be based in a real myth.  From what I can find while doing some research, it's totally made up.  Like, invented whole-cloth for this stupid series in order to create a "love triangle" reference to Hindu mythology.

This is...this is beyond insulting.  This is why you tread carefully when you're writing about religions that people still actively follow today!  You can play with Greek myths or Norse myths because those aren't MAJOR RELIGIONS THAT OVER A BILLION PEOPLE ACTIVELY ADHERE TO.

So yeah, flippant disregard of the faith of a billion people worldwide aside, this myth also makes no sense from a mythological standpoint.  I did some researching and it seems to have been taken from this totally reliable website.  Also, why does Houck's version involve two separate thefts of the necklace and two separate people turning into sharks and murdering people?  If you're just pulling stuff out of your ass in the first place, wouldn't it make more sense to simplify your bastardized myth and make it so that only one person does these things?  Also, the entire point is just to invent a love triangle so Kelsey can angst some more, and SUBTLY FORESHADOW the shark that shows up later.

And--here's the best part--the shark ISN'T EVEN INDRA.  It's just a big shark!!!  What's the point of setting up a god-turned-shark if the god never actually shows up?

This is another big problem we have in this series--the only god who actually shows up onscreen is Durga herself (and even then, the last book, uh, casts some doubt on that as well--we'll get there).  Hanuman never shows up despite going to his kingdom, Greek/Roman gods never show up despite all the nonsense we had to endure with the Silvanae, and while there are Chinese dragons in this book, we never meet any Chinese gods, when it would make sense to.  It makes this universe feel so empty.  Like, compare this with American Gods, where you can't spit without hitting a mythological figure!

Anyway!  Kelsey reacts to this story in a way no human being would.

  "Wow," I said.  "That story is disturbing on so many different levels.  One thing that's mystifying about Indian mythology [note--this is about Hindu gods, so calling it "Indian mythology" is wrong and stupid] is how often the names change.  The skin color changes--she's golden, she's black, she's pink.  Her name changes--she's Durga, Kali, Parvati.  Her personality changes--she's a loving mother, she's a fierce warrior, she's terrible in her wrath, she's a lover, she's vengeful, she's weak and mortal, then she's powerful and can't be defeated.  Then there's her marital status--she's sometimes single, sometimes married.  It's hard to keep all the stories straight."

That entire paragraph added literally nothing, and I'm pretty sure it isn't even correct.

It only exists so Ren can make this joke:

Ren snickered.  "Sounds like a normal woman to me."

Ren's an asshole.

Kelsey--shocker--complains!  She doesn't want to have to fight a shark.

"Let me sum it up for you with a Shakespeare quote, 'Fishes live in the sea, as men do a-land; the great ones eat up the little ones.'  And I'm a little one."

Summed up more succinctly with a wonderful prequel quote.

Kelsey complains that she'll also be useless in the water since she'll just electrocute herself with her lightning power.

Mr. Kadam asks if they want to know where they're going.

"Yes," the brothers said in harmony.

"Harmony" is an objectively terrible word to use here, since they're not singing.  "Unison" would be better.  I hate this book.

"We'll be going to Indra's city. [. . .]"

Oh, so right back to Hindu mythology then.  Even though the ENTIRE GLOBE'S WORTH OF RELIGION AND CULTURE has been opened up after the last book, we're...just going back to the first book's worldbuilding where it's just Asian mythology.  I hated the second book for just starting the "all myths are true" thing out of nowhere, but now it's not even staying consistent to that!

Also, they don't even fucking go to Indra's city.  Yeah, they go the the City of Seven Pagodas, but, uh, pagodas are remarkably Chinese buildings.  And all the dragons they meet are Chinese with Chinese names.  What the fuck does Indra have to do with any of that?

Anyway, it is located along the coast of India, despite, again, everything inside being Chinese.  Because Houck hates me personally.  Mr. Kadam said that no one knew it existed until the earthquake in the Indian Ocean in 2004 caused a tsunami that uncovered an underwater city.

Uh, does Houck mean this real-world tsunami?  The one that killed a quarter of a million people in real life?  That she's using as a plot device in her horrible paranormal romance series?

Book three is the fucking worst out of all of them so far.

So, yeah.  Underwater city.  It's not Atlantis, but it's basically Atlantis.

I blew out a breath and stood.  "Okay.  Bring on the diving lessons."

"First, I think we should relocate."

"Relocate to where?" I asked, confused.

Mr. Kadam clasped his hands together and answered matter-offactly [sic], "Relocate to the yacht, of course."

Never forget that Ren is richer than you and better than you.  Anyway, that's the end of the chapter.

Closing Thoughts

This chapter sucks.  Nothing happens in it, Houck plays fast and loose with actual religious beliefs, and nothing makes sense.  Ren continues to be an asshole.  Ugh.

Next time, Chapter Six: The Star Festival!  More fucking filler!!!