Discuss and rate the last thing you read

[Hawki]

that I'm not fascinated by transgression - a word which here means "to defy a code" - in children's literature anymore.

Oh God, don't you start.

The Series of Unfortunate Events... series is incredibly repetitive. If you've read the first one you are basically good. I think I made it through 3 before I gave up. The children go to a new home. Olaf shows up in disguise. Everybody refuses to believe that it's Olaf for reasons of stupidity. Olaf is exposed. Rinse. Repeat.

There's arguably some variation in that they get sent to a boarding school, mill, and village over the first seven books, and after seven, the formula's pretty much dropped for the remainder of the series.

I imagine I would've fancied the series a bit more as a kid, just because I was drawn to kids' lit that wasn't immediately safe and cozy and had a mean streak to it (I guess because that makes it look superfitially more adult).

As I said, the "go to a relative, Olaf messes things up" is eventually dropped, so FYI. That said, while I enjoyed the series as a kid, as an adult? Well, I re-read the first three books not too long ago, and I don't think it's as adult accessible as, say, Harry Potter. Like Harry Potter, it does get a bit more weighty and dark, with the 12th book

Spoiler

Leaving an entire hotel full of people to burn to death

and the 13th book being heavy on Biblical imagery and references (references you're unlikely to get as a child), but, yeah.

Also, the narrator clarifying the meaning of words ad nauseum. Loved it as a kid, detested it as an adult.

 

[Drathnoxis]

I read through the whole series a few years back over the course of like a year or so. I enjoyed it(and the netflix series) but there's a certain amount of wierd logic you just have to roll with. Like pretty much anything regarding the legal system in these books, it can be jaring. Like the whole, it's legally okay for a man to marry his teenage adopted daughter(under duress to boot) except if she signed the marriage contract in her off hand because.....yeah.

Oh right! I had forgotten the details of that. That whole plan annoyed me to no end! I just can't wrap my head around how it could possibly work.

 

[Hawki]

I read through the whole series a few years back over the course of like a year or so. I enjoyed it(and the netflix series) but there's a certain amount of wierd logic you just have to roll with. Like pretty much anything regarding the legal system in these books, it can be jaring. Like the whole, it's legally okay for a man to marry his teenage adopted daughter(under duress to boot) except if she signed the marriage contract in her off hand because.....yeah.

Oh right! I had forgotten the details of that. That whole plan annoyed me to no end! I just can't wrap my head around how it could possibly work.

I don't mind the bizzare legal systems in the series, and they arguably add to their charm. My take on the series is that the books aren't really our world, or at least, are meant to be satire on the absurdities of our world that already exist (we can all agree that absurdities exist in legal systems for instance). So from the out of universe standpoint, it works as sattire. From the in-universe standpoint, I can accept that this is simply how the world operates - that children can work in sawmills, that man-eating leeches exist, that villagers can worship ravens with murderous intensity, etc. It kind of adds to the macabre nature, that this world is slightly darker than our own with people able to abuse their power with fewer checks - virtual slavery at Lucky Smells, forced to live in a shack due to legal BS at a boarding school, etc. It isn't just the Baudelaires who have it tough after all.

 

[Hawki]

So, read more graphic novels:

Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Search (4/5)

Terminator: Enemy of My Enemy (2/5)

Sonic the Hedgehog: Sonic Forces (2/5)

Sonic the Hedgehog: Team Sonic Racing (2/5)

Aliens: Fast Track to Heaven (2/5)

Quick thoughts on each:

-The Search: Not quite as good as The Promise, but it's trying to be its own type of story - less political, more personal. Does it succeed? Hell yes. Not perfect, as I think Azula gets shafted a bit (the comic leans way too much into her insanity, and never really resolves it), but it hit me in the feels plenty of times.

-Enemy of My Enemy: Y'know how I've said how writers for Terminator tie-in works have rarely "got" the setting? Yeah, it's one of these cases. Jesus Christ, this was stupid. Even more stupid than Sector War. I didn't think that was possible in the 21st century, but apparently Skynet terminated Dark Horse's brain cells in publishing this nonsense.

-Sonic Forces: Publishing a series of tie-in comics to Sonic Forces? Good idea. Failing to do anything meaningful with those comics? Bad idea.

-Team Sonic Racing: ...

Writer: "How many references do you want to game mechanics per panel, regardless as to how natural the dialogue sounds?"

Sega: "Yes."

-Fast Track to Heaven: Mix Aliens with Underwater, make it worse than the latter, and give a blurb on Europan fumerole vents on the last panel because screw it.

...yeah, I'm noticing a pattern of quality here.