The Spirit Bear has left me ill.

[kippurbird]

I've read a lot of books. Good ones, bad ones. This is the first time I've read something that actually disgusted me enough that I had to put the book down for a while before picking it back up again. And that's saying something.

Basically, Cole eats the mouse. While rather horrifying in its own right, it's the way that it's described that turns up the notch to unacceptable in my personal book. It's completely and utterly gratuitousness. We didn't need to see Cole eat the mouse.

For those of you who are curious as to what exactly happens, I've typed it up and put it behind a cut, because I don't think it's something that everyone wants to see.



The mouse struggled, biting at Cole's finger with razor sharp teeth, it's teeny feet clawing frantically to escape. Cole pitied the scared little mouse, but he held on, griping with all his strength. This mouse was his quarry, like a gull catching a herring or an owl catching a rabbit. He squeezed the mouse but was too weak to stop the struggling.

Cole felt the mouse squirming free so quickly he brought his fist to his mouth. He pressed his hand against his lips and forced the struggling rodent between his teeth. It kept struggling, biting at Cole's lips and tongue.

Cole bit down, too, and a tiny bone crunched. The mouse spasmed but kept squirming. Cole bit again but his jaw lacked strength. Still the mouse wiggled and twisted, frantically chewing at Cole's tongue. For a brief second, Cole felt a furry head pass between his back teeth and he willed his jaws together with every ounce of strength he could gather. The small skull crushed, and then the mouse stiffened and quit squirming.

With the dead mouse bunched in his cheek, Cole rested his jaw. Occasionally the tiny body twitched. Gradually Cole worked his teeth together, gnawing on the body. Salty fluids filled his mouth, and he forced himself to again imagine a baby sparrow with an opened beak. Food was energy and energy was life.



The next couple of pages is about Cole thinking about how much he wanted to live and that food was energy and energy was life. He chases the sea gulls away from his vomit, because there are fish chunks in there and he needs them to eat. He eats them. Sleeps. Still doesn't die.

And then he starts feeling energy when he wakes up. It rains, again, and he puts mud on his wounds hoping it'll keep the mosquitoes away. And he gets some muddy water to drink.

The Spirit Bear returns and Cole is afraid, wondering if the bear is going to finish him off. In an act of defiance he spits at the bear. And the bear comes towards him.

Comments

[christinaathena.livejournal.com]

KILL HIM ALREADY, you stupid bear!

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

But what about the rest of the book?!

[christinaathena.livejournal.com]

That would be all about Spirit Bear frolicking in the wildnerness with the other animals. Or maybe about all the people back home celebrating the news of Cole's death.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

Oh. I like that ending.

Is that Jesus on a dinosaur in your Icon?

[christinaathena.livejournal.com]

Yep. :) One of the dinosaur herds that were roaming around 1st century Judea.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

Ooooh, right! Those! Funny that none of the Jewish texts say anything about them.

[christinaathena.livejournal.com]

Yeah, rather peculiar. I guess they just didn't like talking about them.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

You would think they would. Long discussions on if a brontosaurus was Kosher or not, things like that.

[christinaathena.livejournal.com]

Hmm, good point. It must be a cover-up! Someone destroyed all the many ancient documents talking about the dinosaurs! It's a massive conspiracy of Da Vinci Code proportions! (For what purpose, I don't know)

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

How else would the Evolutionists prove themselves right! Without the ancient documents the Creationists have no proof!

[christinaathena.livejournal.com]

Ah! That must be it! Those dastardly evolutionists!

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

And since evolution is a new theory, the Evolutionists must have created a time machine to go back in time to destroy the documents. *nods*

[christinaathena.livejournal.com]

Wow ... rather throrough that evolution conspiracy!

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

Well, they're evil God hating, bible hating devil worshipers, they are. They'll do anything to corrupt our children.

[christinaathena.livejournal.com]

True enough. :-) They're probably in league with the Homosexual Agenda and the Evil Pharmaceutical Commpanies.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

Of course they are. All those people are out to corrupt our good Christian values. You allow evolution taught in school and the next thing you know, gays are going to be allowed to marry.

[christinaathena.livejournal.com]

And then what? I mean, they may even start allowing women to vote and hold jobs, and then where will we be?

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

And then other religions will be wanting freedom of worship too.

We'll end up right back in the Dark Ages I say. And we can't have that!

[syderia]

So...

Another couple of point in favor of the "Cole is a zombie" theory.
- the wounds the bear made should be infected. It's claw had to have been dirty. * imagines the bear washing its paws before attacking Cole*
- he's been lying in the rain for what? 24h? More? With only a mouse and his own vomit to eat and severe blood loss? I mean, if he's too hurt to move, he shouldn't be able to survive that long.
- he puts mud on his wounds. That doesn't seems sanitary to me.

In an act of defiance he spits at the bear
I have a new theory. Cole is suicidal. That's the only explanation.

[dryaunda.livejournal.com]

Putting mud in wounds'll even, canonically, stop Wolverine's healing factor.

[syderia]

That's the cherry on top of the cake.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

I have a new theory. Cole is suicidal. That's the only explanation.

What? With his new found desire to live?!

[berseker.livejournal.com]

The boy surely wants to live. Bleargh.

Or not, considering he just defied the bear. But then again, what could he do? pretend to be dead but still

I can tell you that, he´s paying for his sins. That´s what you get when you touch your spirit bear. u.u

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

Oh yes he does. He eats mice to prove it.

Of course, I'm not really sure how spitting at a bear defies him? I mean the bear doesn't know what spiting at him means. Or even cares. Or notices. So, he's just being stupid.

:D

[berseker.livejournal.com]

Oh, it´s the meaning that counts. He thinks he´s defying the bear, so that comes to show he´s brave and courageous and got fighting spirit.

Now wait a minute...

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

Or just a complete and total idiot. Maybe he's delusional too.

[reverie-shadow.livejournal.com]

Bears are actually most liable to come at you if you pretend to be dead, because they aren't very prone to attacking living things unless provoked. So if Cole tried playing dead, the bear could've mistaken him for being a carrion and thought, "Sweet! Free food!"

[berseker.livejournal.com]

I´ll try to remember this if I ever get attacked by a bear. Because, really, OOUCH!

So, Cole made a wise choice then. Interesting. This could be a sign of some kind of author skill, making the boy do something that´s really in character and, at the same time, a smart thing to do. Hum...

[reverie-shadow.livejournal.com]

It's just that I remember this story of a kid who got mauled by a bear in his sleep while camping, because the bear thought he was a piece of carrion. When the people in the camp started going at it, they managed to chase it away.

All thoughts considering, Cole is still an idiot. Everything he has done in this story has pointed to nothing more than he is an even bigger idiot as it goes on. Whatever sign of "author skills" there are would be nothing more than dumb luck, I would presume.

Unng.

[berseker.livejournal.com]

Whatever sign of "author skills" there are would be nothing more than dumb luck, I would presume.

All things considered, that´s probably true. Especially because, if the reader has to find excuses for things that looks like flaws, it means the author failed. And usually things that looks like flaws are flaws anyway.

[lauramcvey.livejournal.com]

Ew.

Ew, ew, ew.

I'm so glad we read To Kill A Mockingbird instead.

Also, my Icon of Spoilerage is on my journal, as well as my "My favourite characters are dead!" rant.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

That was my reaction too. Really. It was.

Love the Icon. And the Rant.

[lauramcvey.livejournal.com]

We need an icon that says "Puppyshippers make Baby Teddy cry".

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

Heh. You know, I need to go into the pit and see what's turned up.

[ghostgecko.livejournal.com]

What an idiot. I used to have snakes and a carnivorous lizard, and there are plenty of ways to quickly and painlessly kill a mouse.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

Um, yeah, but then we wouldn't have had that needlessly graphic description of Cole trying to eat the mouse. *nods*

[delphinapterus.livejournal.com]

That was vile. I totally agree it has no real purpose. Now I'm thinking about how the mouse dies in Cole's mouth which means that he's got mouse urine and feces in his mouth and he's eating it. *shudders* Obviously the author knows nothing about medicine either if he has Cole packing himself with mud. Why can't the idiot got septic and die already?

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

The mouse eating thing could have totally been told and not shown. If only for a matter of good taste. This author seems to have problems with when to show and when to tell.

See, I don't have much of a problem with Cole using mud for his wounds because he's an ignorant twat and would probably think that something like that is helpful.

However, why Cole is not burning with fever yet, or dead? I dunno.

[delphinapterus.livejournal.com]

See that's my issue too. Cole does all this stuff that should rightfully have killed him or at least brought him a lot closer to dying that he actually is yet he's recovering even though it really isn't realistic to expect that.

[reverie-shadow.livejournal.com]

Wow. I think that if the author lost a nickel for every lack of realism and overall dreck he wrote in his writing, he'd officially be bankrupt by now.

The fact that he eats the mouse whole is not only disgusting, but just about guaranteed to kill him (followed by the many other things that should have killed him). There's a reason people cook their meat before eating it--raw meat makes us sick. Not to mention that wild rodents and avians carry all sorts of bacteria and disease. The fact that Cole invited all of that into his digestive system--and allowed the mouse to cut and bite into his tongue! This brings all of that bacteria into his bloodstream now once he puts the whole thing into his mouth--is bad enough as it is. If Cole doesn't end up with some kind of disease later down the line, the author needs to be shot. Well, he seriously needs to go back to school (if he was every schooled at all), but still needs to be shot.

Also, if Cole did take a dump, and he's currently lying in his own shit, that also opens another fatal possibility: Shit is full of pathogens. Wounded as he is, he's also allowing a lot of disease to enter his body as well. So it's not a matter of "Ewww! I'm lying in my own shit! That's so disgusting!" but a matter of that could seriously kill him.

Which brings back to the fact that Cole's a zombie: Only zombies would be able to eat fresh, living flesh, and also be able to survive all that he has thus far. It is the only possibility.

[sonic-sues.livejournal.com]

Ew. Poor mouse. I love little mice.

I found a character in a book that is as stupid as Cole and Eragon: Jenneson from Pillars of Creation. The author must be related to Paolini or something because they make the same mistake in that stupid book.

I read the front flap in the library and it sounded interesting so I checked it out. I only got to page 100 or so before turning it back in.

The author says that this evil sorcerer king guy named Rahl has been hunting Jenneson since she was six, so she has to stay in hiding. Why? I don't know. After 100 pages, I never found out why he wants Jenneson, or why the peasants hate Rahl so much, or why he's evil, or even what's going on. Sound familiar?

Jenneson had no personality. She was a damn Sue who stood around wailing, "There is nothing good in life! Woe is me!" You don't know anything else about her, except that she's hot and likes knives.

She was supposed to be an "expert at hiding," the author says, but she was really stupid. 1). She changed her name every time she moved...but only her last name. 2). The author said that her hair color was extremely rare. If I was her, I would have dyed my hair. Otherwise, all that Rahl has to do to find her is to tell the peasants to look out for a redheaded chick named Jenneson and he's find her. Dumbass.