25 May 2009 - Renoard - EL SHADDU- ch 4 part 2

[Renoard]

Rated V for humiliation and death.

some vengeance. And explanation of sorts and and escape?

[RavenstarRHJF]

Other than being a little graphic in some places, very good submission!   And as for the graphic-ness, nothing was even close to over the top.

A few notes:
You may want to think of a different term to use for Sid'ri than "nun."  If she's a religious prostitute, then the two concepts are so wildly contradictory (in most people's understanding) that it's more confusing than anything else.

You should probably also think of including a pronunciation guide in the back when your book is finished.  I find myself trying most often for what I think (which is not very accurate) Hebrew sounds like when presented with your names.

Female calves are heifers, not bulls.

I find myself wondering why Hahniel complies so readily to the sacrifice (which seems to be meant as a joke originally, and so a desecration, not to mention being offered improperly due to their location and the lack of a proper altar) when he had such a problem with calling on the Presence during his torture sessions.  Don't get me wrong, you described it well, but it does seem a bit odd- almost like a complete turnaround.  He goes from thinking of escape and zero reverence for the ruler of the city to accepting a consecration as Priest of the Most High from him.  :?  You do sort of address this issue later, but I still wonder what he was thinking as it became clear what was happening.  Nothing really wrong with it the way it is- just needs clarification.

[Renoard]

Glad it didn't seem overdone.  I was concerned about that.

was there a reference to the calf as a bull calf? I'll have to take care of that.  Thought I had.

Clarification.  Yeah I agree.  I took a stab at making it clearer.  But I need a bigger prod to make him do this thing, cause I need him to do it. . 

A word on pronunciation: I have a glossary with phonetics and a couple of other tables as appendices but they are total spoilers.  In the mean time, this isn't Hebrew.  It's a project of an "old tongue" that is antecedent to Hebrew.  Best name would be Kanaanian (technically Kanaanit or Retenuit).  This language would predate Hebrew and shares roots in common with Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. ;P

The "transliteration" I've used if far simpler than classical Hebrew translit. For the most part it's phonetic using the vowels and consonants from the western US with a couple of exceptions "ah" is like the o in odd, "ay" is like the y in lyre, and kh is both the het and the and the aspirated kof.  This one is complicated for a lot of American types.  if you take the phrase "kick him"  and combine the ck from kick and the h from him and cram them together the same way they are in that phrase, you should be in the neighborhood.  Think ck with a glob of phlegm and a sigh  causing your throat to flutter noisily at the end.

[RavenstarRHJF]

Thanks for the phonetics lesson.  I actually know what you're talking about- similar to a German guttural "r," right?

"Accept this young bull as a token of our submission and let our sins be laid upon her as we offer her on your altar.  In turn let her innocence and purity be imparted unto us as partake of her scorched flesh." (emphasis mine) 

All other places, you refer to the calf as a bullock (which might be a species name, rather than a gender), or simply "it."

As to the prod... can't help you there.  Sorry.   There is the most obvious solution- which is to move up his explanation of his mother's ritual, making his desire to be consecrated by a "proper" authority his motive... but that doesn't really sit well with what I think you're trying to do with his character.

[Renoard]

One other phoneme is the eh which is eh which is the ai in main.

Wow.  I do know the difference between a bullock and heifer, thought I had edited better than that.  I DID change the beast's sexual identity.

[ErikHolmes]

Great submission, as always Renoard!

The only comment I have is that I'd like to know more of how Hahniel felt during parts of the chapter, especially when the presence comes upon him and he is staggered. Was he staggered due to emotion, does he feel anything from El, etc? It partly seemed that this scene was more emotional for the First then for Hahniel.

I got the impression that what the First did was, unintentionally, a very important thing to Hahniel, but to me Hahniel  seemed pretty mechanical about everything, especially after the presence comes to him.

Just my suggestion, great read though!

[Silk]

One thing I'm starting to notice (the paragraph where the protagonist first describes his fellow prisoner is what moved me to make the comment, but I think it applies generally as well) is that you're dropping a LOT of names here, and while they're a nice touch of verisimilitude, you often put a lot of them in very close proxmity, and especially since we don't know what all of them mean it starts to sound like gobbledegook after a while.

On page six, you write "Was he really going to dump the coals on that altar and attempt to ignite this travesty of a sacrifice that the prince had arranged?  ...  No!  Whatever happened to him, he would not forfeit that privilege [the presence] just to save his life."

This implies that Hahniel has decided not to go through with the ritual - but moments later, with no apparent change in thought (unless the prince's order swayed him, but it seemed strange to me that it would) he goes through it anyway.

The Prince seems to completely disappear during the ritual.

The dialogue between the prince, Hahniel and the nun, after the prince has announced that he is turning them out of the city, drags a bit.

Actually throwing them out is a good move, though. I'm interested to see where this goes, though of course the outside world had better live up to the fear these guys have of it.

That's all I have this time.