December 14 -- Recovering Cynic -- Oathbound -- Chapter 6

[Recovering_Cynic]

Enjoy.

[Chaos]

Well. That was... interesting?

Maybe you are going for dark and gritty, but I'm not really buying this. Lucard is a bastard, to put it lightly, and I strongly dislike him. Actually, if you include the King and Emilea there, there really aren't a lot of good people here. They all feel asshole-ish, and not immensely distinctive in their asshole-ishness.

I basically felt a big "so what?" towards this chapter. Yes, we see Lucard being mean, and that Jagoth is superhuman in his abilities (because he's being controlled by a hound or a magus), but not a lot else to note.

I think you may have been reading too much Joe Abercrombie

Pretty much everyone in this kingdom feels evil. Upon inspection, the characters I dislike are the ones with Asharia's grace. I'm hoping this is because Asharia is quite displeased with the King and his servants, so She decided to corrupt them all. I'm really hoping on this, because otherwise, these characterizations feel very off. I don't understand why Lucard is just so... evil. No, not evil: he's just a jerk. If he's simply a jerk, well, I don't understand why that is. His viewpoint wasn't illuminating as to why he acts the way he acts. We need to get much further inside his head to sympathize with him at all. Or at the very least, understand why.

Even if it's the Asharia thing (which is a wild, wild guess), the characterization isn't flattering, nor does it make me want to read more from Lucard.

A few line things:

"Unfortunately for his sadistic tendencies" is a much too telly line.

I like that the oath makes his forehead itch.

"coming from without the gate." I really don't think "without" makes any sense in this context.

"As you are aware, it is rumored that the magus are in charge of the artifact that makes the hounds." This seems like the King would be VERY aware of this, so it seems quite out of character for Lucard to mention it. I mean, I really like what it implies (and that the hounds are some kind of human construct), but you have to come up with a better way of introducing it.

I have to ask, is this a pun? "Somewhere in the room, Lucard could hear the buzzing of an insect, as though a fly had made it into the room.  The sound bugged him." If so, it's not funny.



So yeah. Not much else I can say on this, except I'm having extreme difficulty believing your characterizations. They feel quite one-dimensional.

[Frog]

Outside of few added details I am not seeing many differences in this and the original chapter, so I really don't have much more to say. One thing I will say though about your writing in general is that you seem to like to make fairly narrow characters for comedic effect. I have done the same and if you wanted to join the dark side and write YA with me, I'd say you were right on the money, but I am not sure how much you can get away with that in the adult market. So yeah, need more layers to this character to make him believable.

One potential source of conflict I would personally love to see you exploit is in that you have a less morally minded character that may be influenced by a 'good' deity and his exact opposite in Baltier. So yeah, it might be fun if you brought that out as they are eventually (hopefully) pit against each other.

[vegetathalas]

Lucard is awfully mustache-twirly. I'd like to see a little more character complexity.

I like the name Lucard. It screams evil. If I knew my kid was going to grow up to be a supervillain, I'd probably name him Lucard. Or Howard. Because who would suspect a Howard?

I'm surprised Joshie could keep up if Lucard was trotting. He should be panting or something.

Some misuse of words. I think it's mete out justice and waist high.

You already described the dead bodies from the fight. You don't need to describe them again. Although I'd forgotten the guy who'd gotten shot through the mouth. That's pretty cool.

I like the fact that the knight doesn't catagorize himself as a man.

Heh, good transition.

Tripping an armored man would really hurt a bare ankle.

The word nubile will always make me giggle. Not in a good way.

She's leaning against the wall giving him a full view of her body and standing next to him tracing his breastplate at the same time.

Oriental? Seems like an earth-based term, out of place in your world. Unless this is taking place next to the Orient.

Emelia wasn't gossiping/eavesdropping, so I don't understand the king's jumping to that conclusion. The beating seems kind of intense. Why did the king follow the knight? Seems like kings bring people to them, not the other way around.

I'd like Asharia's grace explained here.

Good. Keep 'em coming.

[LongTimeUnderdog]

Well there's not much that hasn't been said yet, except . . .

I just don't like anyone in this story.  There is no character that grasps me and makes me want to keep reading.  I'm totally bored at this point.

Here's why:

The stuff on the frontier was interesting because the inherent conflict of "survival," was always there.  On top of that, the PoV character from out there, Baltier, is essentially gone, and without much explanation.  Really it just seems like a massive prologue and now we actually have the real story, which is boring.

If you want to make someone look cool, you don't have them beat up a bunch of red shirts, you have them beat up Captain Kirk.  Alternatively if we're supposed to be cheering for Baltier+ then we need a reason.  Frankly he just seems like a mass murdering freak with a grudge and superpowers.  I just want someone to come up and pound him into the ground, chop him up into little bits, and kick some dirt on his stupid hat for spite.  I realize I'm supposed to be confused and concerned about Baltier since he's now trapped in the body of evil superman, but  . . . I really don't.  I can't even enjoy him on a Rambo level.

Lucard is another big jerk.  When he was looking for someone to hit, I wanted to laugh (having felt that way myself), but then he turned around and had to say, " YOU DARE IMPEDE A KNIGHT . . ."  I mean seriously, did he get his education at B-movie University?  Taking such classes as "Being an 80's cartoon villain 101?"

And that's really one of the problems with the piece, everyone seems like a villain.  That's cool . . . I guess . . . yeah kinda.  .. no . .. no  . . . no it's not.  It's really not.

Baltier wanting to enact a certain revenge for not being assisted when he rang the bell:  Cool.

Baltier+ running through the world and targeting anybody to randomly slaughter: Less cool.

It's not not that interesting, especially with all his superpowers.

And what the heck is a shield master?  You keep using the word and I guess you're trying to say "Green Barret," but I Keep thinking of some dueling shield specialist, but I'm not entirely sure about that since they seem to be more elite guard and not master of ridiculous weapon.

http://www.hurstwic.org/history/articles/manufacturing/pix/talhoffer_thrust_over_shield.gif
http://www.artofcombat.org/Dueling_2.jpg

(I can't find a picture of my favorite version of these, which is a giant oval shaped shield with spikes coming out the top and bottom, pointing at the opponent.  If you can imagine staff fighting with a giant shield instead of a staff, you'll get the idea.)

Okay, now onto the really bizarre thing:  Punching unarmored people with a plated fist.  This itself isnt' so bad, but at the same time doing so would very likely break her jaw, or some other bone.  It's not a serious big deal but I agree with Vegetable, I mean . . . Vegetathalas, that it's kinda out of no where.

And yeah nubile is one of those words where if you use it without other obscure words in the chapter, it just sounds like you're trying to show off.

[lethalfalcon]

Okay... well, it looks like you've already gotten the sound beating I was going to give you (curse me for getting behind). In short, I have to agree with others' opinions that this part just isn't that good. Normally I would try to follow this up with some things I did enjoy, but... sorry, it isn't going to happen.

Lucard is an ass. This is interesting, because the original picture I got was that they were some sort of paladin. However, the big problem is that there's no *reason* for him to act the way he does, at least not that I can see. Is he just evil for the sake of being evil? He doesn't seem to be just having a bad day, so I'm guessing this is how he normally is. So show us why! It would be very cool to see this paladin gone blackguard because of Asharia's corruption.

Which brings me to my next point. If Asharia's pissed off at the royal family, why are they still graced? For that matter, is this King Lyro? I never got the prologue, so I can't make the comparison, and you never give the king's name in this chapter.

Oh, wait, there's something I like. The mines having salt, and it fetching a premium. Perhaps this wasn't intentional on your part, but salt was really elite in the old days, especially in places away from the sea. Salt mines were also worked by prisoners, generally.   On the flip side, though, I have absolutely no idea what you're actually mining for. My *guess* would be that it's to get behind enemy lines (from the war talk), but it's never made clear.

My biggest problem, by far, is that we've had 5 chapters of Baltier (and friends), and now here's this major. In most books, by that many chapters with only one PoV (I'd assume your prologue was from Lyro, though), I'd start to think that it only had one. That's not bad, but throwing in another character seems a little weird to me. I understand that he might not make much sense before this point, but I guess this might just be because I think the first 3 chapters felt a little lost compared to these new ones.

I would agree with the use of nubile. It's simply another word for sexually attractive, and I think you're already accomplishing that. If you want something more powerful, use a word to describe her breasts more directly. I'm a little confused, though, because you say she's barely coming into womanhood, but her breasts are large enough to hold up her loose gown. My guess is that they're buxom, given that they're holding up her gown. I'm sure a female would have a better idea how to describe her adequately.

So... a lot more character development needed to make Lucard believable (and I feel horrible saying that with my oh-so-flat characters).

[Silk]

I assume you know that Lucard is not sympathetic. Still, he's so completely overbearing that I'm getting a headache from rolling my eyes at him. (Okay, I exaggerate. I had the headache anyway and I haven't actually done any eye-rolling yet, just thought about it.) I'm not sure if that's a bad thing, necessarily, but there it is.

At least, it's not a bad thing yet. If he does something more interesting in the next few pages then that'll be fine.

Having read the rest of this chapter, I'm not really interested in Lucard himself so much, but I'm interested in why the king keeps Lucard around, since he obviously knows precisely what kind of man Lucard is. I don't hate Lucard so much yet that I'm not willing to keep reading about him, so that'll do.

There's a line where Lucard says he laughs "like a good sycophant". I can't decide whether I like this line or not. Since we are in Lucard's POV here, at first it struck me as unlikely that Lucard would think of himself as a sycophant. But on the other hand, if he really is capable of that sort of honesty with himself, that makes him a bit more interesting, now doesn't it?

Ummm... So who was it that hit Emilea in the head? I think it was the King, but the way it's written now I'm not entirely sure.

Also, I guessed that the royal family probably had some super-cool healing powers even before you showed them to us, but that said, smashing someone in the side of the head--with a gauntlet no less--is a good way to do someone some rather serious harm.

You're doing a really good job here of slipping in little details and hints about your world--I have a good idea what the Replacement is, for example. This is the sort of thing that your earlier chapters have been lacking, but I think that's more to do with the narrowness of the earlier chapters than anything. (Note that I don't mean 'narrowness' in a pejorative sense here; it's just hard to reveal much about your wider world when your POV character is an exile from it.)

The bit where Lucard notices the God-King's grey hair is well done and revealing. I wondered at first if you might want to make your God King a little more Godlike, but I think it suits your purposes to make him a more relatable character. I do think, however, that you could focus on the "God" part of the God King in the sequence where Lucard actually sees the grey hair. All throughout that paragraph, you simply refer to him as the King, and it might help your cause to emphasize that this is the God King we're talking about here, just to eliminate that "so what, it's a grey hair" reaction. Yes, we know he's the God King, but you haven't put too fine a point on it so far. Which I like, actually, but I think a little more emphasis here would do you good.

Alright, so. At the moment I'm far more interested in the King than Lucard, to be honest. Lucard has his redeeming qua--

Okay, no he doesn't. Let me revise that. I'm interested in what's happening around him: He's our only access to the King, who I find interesting. I'm interested in the magic involved in his oaths, and I'm kind of interested to see how he'll continue to get around those oaths. I'm also interested in his point of view since it's the first point of view that really belongs to this world--Baltier/Jagoth is an outcast in more ways than one. So there are definitely interesting things about Lucard's POV scenes. Those interesting things just don't happen to be Lucard himself.

I may be a minority in this, but I think it's perfectly legitimate to have an unlikeable/unsympathetic character. I even think it's legitimate to have him be that way just because. I'm willing to buy that Lucard just has a stick up his a is just a jerk. But it means that you're really raising the bar for yourself. The less likeable a character is, the more interesting he has to be to make up for it. So far, Lucard... isn't, really.

Because there were other things about this chapter that I DID find interesting, reading this wasn't a chore and I won't go into the next Lucard POV feeling ilke it's going to be a chore, either. But I do think that he has to step up to the plate somehow, because his act is going to get old in a real hurry.

On the other hand, I like the way you've set it up so that Jagoth is here for the guy who ran his horse down, and not (unless I've missed something huge) Lucard, even though Lucard has been a minor antagonist in the past.