Chapter 20: A Princess, a Dragon, and Two Knights

Hello, and welcome back to our irregularly scheduled nonsense!

Last time, Kelsey got kidnapped and watched TV.

It was a weird chapter.

This time, Kelsey continues to be kidnapped and watch TV. Thrilling.

Chapter Twenty: A Princess, a Dragon, and Two Knights

Jeez, what an unwieldy chapter title.

Anyway. Kelsey falls asleep (natch) and wakes up to heavy footsteps coming toward her room. Kelsey refers to Lvselong as "the hunter" instead of, uh, his name, which she knows. He bursts into her room wearing not his stereotypical pith helmet/safari gear combo, but a stereotypical "tunic and cloak of a fairy-tale prince." Hey, if he's role-playing a German fairy tale, why does he have a Russian accent? Don't worry about it.

He accuses Kelsey of cheating.

"You signaled them somehow. You told them where to find you. There was no way they could have discovered this island on their own."

I've been playing Phoenix Wright recently.

It's an hour's swim from the other island to the one Kelsey is on. Looking at various triathlon forums, it looks like a decent distance to swim in an hour is about two miles. Granted, these are tigers swimming, and not humans, but given the fact that they're already completely exhausted by the time they start to swim, I think we can safely say that Kelsey's island is less than two miles away.

According to this handy-dandy chart, the horizon is about 2.7 miles away when viewed at sea level. Ren and Kishan are on a beach, so the island isn't over the horizon. Also, Kelsey is in a tower. We don't actually know how high up it is, but it's apparently high enough that Kelsey doesn't even consider trying to scale the outside of the tower to escape. So they should definitely be able to see the island she's on with the naked eye. From the beach they're standing on.

Anyway. Kelsey staring wistfully at Ren through the mirror is apparently enough to signal ner location..."somehow." That's literally the only explanation we get.

Lvselong says that he's going to make the next challenge harder. Oh no! (They're not in any actual danger, remember, since they heal almost immediately, and require a one-hit KO to be killed. Maybe. Since we never actually got confirmation on that, either.

He says that she doesn't look the part and snaps his fingers. Suddenly, Kelsey's clothes change into a princess gown.

Essentially.

Then he comments on how short her hair is and how it doesn't fit in with the princess ensemble. Now, it makes complete sense that this guy would be weirdly possessive over Kelsey's hair, because he's explicitly a bad guy and has already expressed interest in keeping her as a consort. That does not excuse Ren's obsession with Kelsey's hair, because he's supposed to be one of the good guys.

He snaps his fingers and her hair starts to grow until it's past her knees. That showed her, I guess?

He leaves and Kelsey goes to switch on the mirror TV. But before she can, she notices that the dragon also apparently did her makeup. Now, it kind of made sense for the Silvanae to do this, because they're like, weird fairy people. I have no idea why Lvselong even bothered.

Oh, wait, it's so Houck can talk about how unexpectedly Beautiful and Hot Kelsey is and how She Can't Even Tell It's Her in the Mirror. This scene happens every time Kelsey gets remotely dressed up for something, so it's really getting old by this point in the third book.

Clothes porn!

He'd dressed me in a blush-pink gown that enhanced my dark eyes and hair. The dress had long tight-fitting sleeves with silver embroidery at the edges and was embellished with satin ribbon. An elegant neckline, trimmed in silver, swept just over my shoulders, leaving my neck bare.

So there's that.

Filmy organza tippets draped from armbands and a thick silver belt hung at my waist.

Wait, it's still going--

The skirt was tiered in alternating silk and organza, and the bodice was adorned with silver embroidery to match the sleeve edges.

This is entirely excessive--

Twisted silver and blush piping bordered the hemline of the skirt, and I wore dainty silver slippers.

Why does any of this matter--

My long brown hair was shiny and fell in waves from a delicate silver headband with a long pink veil.

STOP!

Actually, wait. Her hair falls in waves "from" the headband? As in, it originates from the headband? That's a...strange image.

I've said it before. The amount of detail you should use when describing something is directly proportional to how important it is in the narrative. Describing the outfits in the Hunger Games makes sense because the crazy outfits are actually important. Here, the dress is present in one (1) chapter, and absolutely nothing would change if she was just wearing jeans and a T-shirt. So this much description is waaaaay too much.

Also, this much description makes no sense in the context of the scene. She's worried about Ren and Kishan, right? She turned to the mirror to immediately check on them to make sure they're not dead, right? So why does she spend the next--I can only assume--several minutes detailing the exact shade and material of every single aspect of her dress? This is supposed to be a high-tension scene, so it doesn't make any sense to stop the action to describe something in detail, especially when that something doesn't really even matter that much.

I was a beautiful, pouty-looking princess who was extremely ticked off.

So, she's ticked off, but she looks pouty? That doesn't make sense.

She braids her hair and then turns on the mirror. I only mention that because she takes the time to French braid knee-length hair before turning the mirror on, instead of turning it on and then braiding like any normal person would do. She literally can't do two things at the same time.

Anyway. She turns the mirror on just as Lvselong appears next to the tigers, so I guess he was also taking his sweet time. He turns them back into humans and tells them that he's increased the difficulty. So instead of giving them their weapons, he's going to hide them in the maze for them to find along the way. Also, each one will be guarded, so they'll have to fight for them.

Also, he changes their clothes. For Reasons.

(Kishan is dressed like "Robin Hood" and Ren is dressed like "Prince Charming," if you're curious.)

He also separates the two of them just to be annoying. 

Kelsey immediately switches to Ren's position.

He looked up the hill toward the castle, but the dragon had caused a mist to cover it, so it would be harder to find.

This wouldn't make the castle harder to find IF IT'S IN THE DIRECTION THE MIST IS. 

Now it's time for Houck to be lolsorandem like she was during the House of Gourds thing from the previous book. Ren gets some food and water from a pack of dogs, as well as a random sword "from a gnome he'd captured and hunt upside down while holding his foot." What??

Kishan gets the Golden Fruit by killing a boar with his bare hands, so that's neat. Ren gets the chakram by killing an ogre, and Kishan gets the bow and arrow by winning an archery contest.

[Kishan] moved ahead quite a ways but guessed the wrong answer when a manticore asked him a question.

Oh, come on, it's not the manticore that asks riddles, it's the sphinx. That's, like, Baby's First Mythology right there. If you're going to rip off Goblet of Fire (which also had a magical maze filled with monsters, including a sphinx that asked riddles!), at least rip it off properly!

The next day, Ren gets attacked by a group of men with spears and nets (so, like, gladiators, I guess?) and wins a horse (??). Kishan wrestles a snake for the gada and beheads a vulture for the trident. This is literally the same amount of detail you get in the actual book. Ren chops up some harpies that try to seduce him for the Scarf. Once again, it's not harpies that seduce people. It's sirens. Yes, they're both bird women, but harpies are portrayed a lot more monstrously.

This chapter is a mess.

Kishan gets attacked by a crocodile and gums its mouth up with peanut butter. I don't know what kind of peanut butter Houck's been eating, but it's not glue. But he gets the kamandal out of it.

You think I'm skimping on details here? I'm cutting maybe two sentences down to one. It's so RANDOM.

Just in case you thought that maybe Houck didn't rip off Goblet of Fire, a bunch of huge spiders come out of the hedge maze at Ren, which is another thing that happens in Goblet of Fire. He makes a net with the Scarf. Gee, that sure was easy.

Then Ren comes across a big salamander that spits poison! That's funny, because in folklore, salamanders are typically associated with fire, not poison. One of the Plinys talked about poisonous properties of salamanders, though, but there's nothing I can find where they spit poison. Anyway, he gets Fanindra.

Ren also fights a dude made of bronze. Houck doesn't say who he is, but a quick Google search turns up Talos from Greek mythology.

TALOS THE MIGHTY! TALOS THE UNERRING! TALOS THE UNASSAILABLE!

Fanindra bites him behind the knee and he dies. This is--and here's a huge surprise--not what happens in the actual myth! In the actual myth, Talos has a nail behind his knee that binds his vein shut (which is not how biology works, but alright). He was killed by Medea when she made him go crazy and take the nail out. (There are other versions of the story, but this is the only one about knees, so I'm guessing this is what Houck tried and failed to reference). Houck seems to be mixing him up with Achilles, who had a weak spot on one of his ankles and was killed that way. Proof:

When Ren examined the body, I could see through the mirror that Fanindra had bitten him on a tiny patch of white skin where the man had been vulnerable.

Bad.

Kishan's reached the castle, and he fires darts from the trident into the wall and uses those to start climbing up. Fanindra shows Ren the way to the castle, and he creates a rope, attaches it to the chakram, and wraps the rope around the tower with a throw. I have no idea how that would even work, but sure.

Both brothers start climbing at the same time, and Lvselong turns back into a dragon to fight them. As both enter the tower, their clothes change into suits of armor. For Reasons.

Ren finds a set of stairs and Kelsey hears him calling her name. This apparently counts as cheating to Lvselong, and it (note: not "he" anymore) tells Ren that he has to slay the dragon before rescuing the princess.

Why is any of this happening.

Kishan joins in on the fight, using the Fruit to douse the tower in hot oil, which makes Lvselong slip off. That's kind of a funny, image, actually.

The dragon breathes fire at Kishan, which causes the whole tower to catch on fire. Oops?

They fight for a while, and it looks like the dragon is going to win, but then Ren skewers it with a spear, so it's over. Yee haw.

So, you want to know the real point to all of this? The reason why the dragon kidnapped Kelsey (for no reason), dressed her up (for no reason), and made Ren and Kishan fight to save her (for no reason)?

It's because "only the winner may claim the prize."

So, it's more relationship Drama. Natch.

Since Ren speared the dragon, Kishan waves him ahead to try the door, but it won't open.

The dragon laughed. It's not my doing, tiger. She is the one keeping you out.

"What do you mean?" I hollered.

You aren't letting him in.

"Of course, I am!"

You aren't. The hero wins the prize, and you are a prize who doesn't want to be one, deti dama. If you want him to save you, open the door.

"I can't!"

I don't mean the door to the room, the dragon spoke in my mind, I mean the door to your heart.

So yeah. Because Kelsey isn't admitting that she has feelings for Ren, this somehow translates to her being a prize that doesn't want to be won, which somehow translates into the door not opening for him. I got nothing. It's really stupid and contrived.

So she decides to open their connection back up (I think, it's really confusing), and now Lvselong is helping her even though he seems to enjoy the fact that she's suffering, so it really makes no sense and is a huge mess. She closes her eyes and the dragon leads her through a bunch of mist to a glowing rope, which she follows to the "source," i.e., Ren.

She sees actual scenes of her memories with Ren, and it's so ~hard~ to keep going, but she does. She eventually hears his voice and turns around, and he's standing there. She hugs him, and they have a stupid conversation.

"Why was it so hard for you to find me, iadala?"

"You left me. I had to let you go."

"I never left you. I have a place for you in my heart always." Ren lifted my chin with his finger. "But what about you? Do you feel differently now? Do you wish for me to let you go?"

What part of "I'm breaking up with you and I never want to see you again" MEANS THAT HE NEVER LEFT HER? I'm losing my mind, I think. Notice how he puts the blame on her for leaving him and making it so difficult for him WHEN HE'S THE ONE WHO ENDED THINGS IN THE FIRST PLACE

AAAAAAAAAAA

She says that of course she doesn't want him to leave her, and she says that it was painful when he left, ~jUsT lIkE hEr PaReNtS~ which rings really hollow when she never, uh, actually talks about her parents, like, ever. Kelsey asks him how he could do that to her, and Ren uses the standard excuses of, "Oh, I had to let you go because I loved you so much," and "It was really hard for me too, trust me."

"Even so, my heart always belonged to you. Surely you still felt that."

"You should have been able to tell what I was thinking. This is all on you." Ugh.

Kelsey says that she understands that she still loves him, but she's tried so hard to get rid of them she doesn't know if she'll succeed. Ren forgets to talk like a person.

"For many, love is a two-sided coin. [. . .]"

As opposed to all of those one-sided coins and three-sided coins.

"It can strengthen or stifle, expand or enfeeble, enrich or pauperize. When love is returned, we soar. We are taken to heights unseen, where it delights, invigorates and beautifies. When love is spurned, we feel crippled, disconsolate, and bereaved."

"Hey, Kells, I just got a thesaurus, can you tell?"

He quotes some Count of Monte Cristo at her, which is really confusing, because he admits in the next sentence that they never got around to reading it together. So I have no idea how he knows it well enough to quote it from memory when he's never actually read it before.

Kelsey thinks he's a dream, so she admits that she still loves him. She feels open and vulnerable, but she also hears the door unlock, so that's nice. She's still in misty dream world and makes out with Ren, but she's startled back to reality as Kishan bursts through the door. He looks jealous. 

Oops.

Uh, that's the end of the chapter.

Closing Thoughts

I cannot express how much I hate these lolrandem chapters. Houck throws a spaghetti of mythology at the wall just to see if any of it sticks. But she put waaay too much olive oil into the pasta so it all just slides off, leaving a disgusting mess.

Also, her hair is long now, so look forward to some more stupid Drama about her hair in the coming chapters. Yeah, we're not done with that yet.

Before we finish up, I just want to write a little bit about these kinds of scene. I've already written (at length) about making sure that every scene in a book should have a purpose. But here's a great example of an event that technically has a purpose, but it's really disproportionately long when compared to the point it's making.

Like sure, the whole point of getting captured by Lvselong is to make Kelsey confront her feelings towards Ren. This in itself is fine! It makes sense that she'd need an external motivation to force her to face this conflict. I'm totally on board with this in theory.

But Houck kind of skips over the fact that the whole setup was to resolve an internal conflict and turned it into two whole chapters of Kelsey describing what Ren and Kishan are doing with absolutely zero introspection until the last couple of pages. Ren and Kishan's actions have literally zero impact on what she's doing. So while the end goal of this whole event is to resolve an internal conflict, the vast majority of what happens has absolutely no impact on that internal conflict. If Kelsey didn't have that mirror, it would have ended up exactly the same way, because the internal conflict begins and ends as soon as Ren and Kishan get to the door.

What this means is that all of the action scenes with Ren and Kishan being hunted, working their way through the maze, and fighting the dragon are, well, filler. They don't really work as action scenes (like their fight with the kraken) because each "fight" is completed within a paragraph, and usually in under three sentences. It's like a montage, but a montage is a tool that's used to show the passage of time--this has only been a couple of days, so it's just weird.

So, basically, I think my point is that there's a lot of extraneous stuff that's sort of relevant to the point of the scene, but is juuust irrelevant enough that it buries the actually important stuff.

If that makes any sense, good. It kind of turned into rambling.

Next time, Chapter Twenty-One: Storm! One of the random details in the first few chapters finally comes back, so much later that I completely forgot about it, which made reading through it very confusing!