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kippurbirdPart Five
Having lost their beloved Angel, the others go home to cry and lick their wounds. I’m not sure exactly how badly they all are hurt, it looks more like cuts and bruises since Max is able to fix them up with a first aid kit. Max wishes that she was normal. At least that’s what I think she’s doing:
What’s missing is the “as if that would ever happen”. Other wise it feels like, to me, that she’s saying like “yeah right, like I’d ever wish that would happen to me”.
It reminds me of a scene in the Fourth series of the New Doctor Who where the Master and the Doctor meet each other again for the first time and the Master is running off with the TARDIS.
There’s this brief snippet of conversation between the Master and the Doctor with this line:
See, the “I don’t think” at the end negates the beginning first part of the sentence. The “yeah right” negates the previous paragraph. If that’s true, then she doesn’t wish she was normal, had parents or had Jeb back again. Without any qualifiers, that is.
They yell at each other some and cry and Iggy wants to know what happened out there since, you know, he couldn’t see. And apparently helicopters don’t make noise, because they had to tell Iggy that Angel got taken away by a helicopter. He doesn’t give them a no duh in regards to there being a helicopter either, so clearly they are silent like the HOWLING WIND.
And apparently despite the person that Max loves the most has been kidnapped by EVIL PEOPLE OF EVIL WHO WILL DO EVIL TO HER EVILLY she is clearly un-upset enough to notice that the kitchen isn’t clean.
They then discuss the fact that the EVIL PEOPLE OF EVIL wanted Angel in particular and didn’t care if the others were dead or alive. And that they know where they took her. Even if the Gasman as to say “They could be anywhere by now”.
Because, you know, the EVIL PEOPLE OF EVIL aren’t going to go back to their EVIL LAIR OF EVIL. Which isn’t as obvious as the sun in the sky during the day time on a nice bright and sunny day.
The problem is that this is something that everyone knows. The scene is supposed to be dramatic. They’re worrying about her. They’ve figured out that she’s probably still alive, this scene has been done in movies and tv shows all over the place and then there’s the dramatic “INSERT NAME OF EVIL PLACE HERE” revelation as everyone winces.
But when the place is so obvious to EVERYONE then there shouldn’t even be a question of it. It should have been “Okay, we know they took Angel to the school (Why do I keep on thinking of the Buffy version of Angel and how much more awesome would that make this entire book?) how do we get in?”
This is not met well. Nudge gasps. The Gasman looks scared but pretends to try and not look it. Iggy’s spine tightens (how she knows that... I think he meant back stiffened) and his face is like ice and I have no idea what that means.
Then, randomly, we learn that Iggy wasn’t always blind. When he’d been at the School, they’d tried to surgically enhance his night vision. Now he was blind forever. Oops.
Oops? Who the hell says Oops in regards to something terrible happening to a family member that you care about?
My dad got hit by a car and broke his legs. Oops.
My best friend had to put her dog down because he got bit by a rabid raccoon. Oops.
My beloved accidentally got a bomb dropped on his head and is now a freaky mutant bagpipe creature doomed to play Stop Hammer Time as he breathes for the rest of his life. Oops.
Oops? Really. Oops. The oops after that is something that
OH is this that million dollar vase of yours that I shouldn’t touch? oops. Oh dear it broke. Gee. I’m so sorry.
I’m fairly certain that it is supposed to be sarcasm, but it’s not really coming off like that.
Never mind the fact that mentioning how Iggy got blind right there is in the most utterly and completely random of places.
Okay. We finally learn that they’ve been gone for four years.
Wow. This school sucks ass at finding things. Four years. Where is the immediacy in this? So, what do they do? They get a map.
Where did they get a map?
Well, apparently Jeb kept one in a manila envelope sealed with wax. And not only that Max knew about it.
Why the hell would he keep a map in an envelope sealed with wax? I mean, sure sealed is fine with me. But with wax? This isn’t some sort of fantasy novel. Who thinks about sealing things like this in wax?
But it is a map. Of the school. In California.
For some reason though Max has to say it’s a map of a secret facility first. Because we didn’t know that the School was a secret facility in the first place. It wasn’t obvious that the place where they did HORRIBLE EVIL EXPERIMENTS ON KIDS wasn’t a SECRET FACILITY in the first place.
Iggy, the Gassman and Nudge are all oHMiGAWD!! And then Nudge starts to babble.
Peeled her fingers apart? Like bananas?
But anyway, that was dumb and annoying and … birdbrained.
It’s about six hundred miles from where they are. I’m assuming they’re not in California. A seven hour flight not including breaks.
Iggy doesn’t want to go because they’re out numbered. Max insists that they are going. But not Iggy or the Gasman. Because Iggy is blind.
So nice of that to be remembered.
And the Gasman because he’s eight and young and they might want him since he’s Angel’s brother. This then beg’s the question, then why didn’t they take him when they took Angel?
Iggy says that Jeb would have never made them stay.
Max says that Jeb is dead. When did she get to that conclusion? The last we heard he was missing. Not dead. I would think that she’d be holding out some hope that Jeb wasn’t dead. There wasn’t any indication that she thought he was. It’s some sort of weird... missing things again thing. She relents however and agrees to let them go.
And this ends part one.
I don’t care about about Angel being stolen. I don’t care about anyone. I knew Angel for all of three pages and she didn’t make a mark on me personality wise. She didn’t do anything to endear her self to me. Max is an apparent heartless bitch. And I don’t care about anyone else either.
Having lost their beloved Angel, the others go home to cry and lick their wounds. I’m not sure exactly how badly they all are hurt, it looks more like cuts and bruises since Max is able to fix them up with a first aid kit. Max wishes that she was normal. At least that’s what I think she’s doing:
And every once in a while, like when I realize all over again that Jeb is gone forever, that we’re on our own, that the others depend on me and I can’t let them down, well, that’s when it all gets to me. Suddenly, I’m a little kid again, wishing Jeb were back - or even, hey, wishing I was normal! Or had parents!
Yeah, right.
What’s missing is the “as if that would ever happen”. Other wise it feels like, to me, that she’s saying like “yeah right, like I’d ever wish that would happen to me”.
It reminds me of a scene in the Fourth series of the New Doctor Who where the Master and the Doctor meet each other again for the first time and the Master is running off with the TARDIS.
There’s this brief snippet of conversation between the Master and the Doctor with this line:
The Master: Why don't we stop and have a nice little chat while I tell you all my plans and you can work out a way to stop me, I don't think!
See, the “I don’t think” at the end negates the beginning first part of the sentence. The “yeah right” negates the previous paragraph. If that’s true, then she doesn’t wish she was normal, had parents or had Jeb back again. Without any qualifiers, that is.
They yell at each other some and cry and Iggy wants to know what happened out there since, you know, he couldn’t see. And apparently helicopters don’t make noise, because they had to tell Iggy that Angel got taken away by a helicopter. He doesn’t give them a no duh in regards to there being a helicopter either, so clearly they are silent like the HOWLING WIND.
And apparently despite the person that Max loves the most has been kidnapped by EVIL PEOPLE OF EVIL WHO WILL DO EVIL TO HER EVILLY she is clearly un-upset enough to notice that the kitchen isn’t clean.
They then discuss the fact that the EVIL PEOPLE OF EVIL wanted Angel in particular and didn’t care if the others were dead or alive. And that they know where they took her. Even if the Gasman as to say “They could be anywhere by now”.
Because, you know, the EVIL PEOPLE OF EVIL aren’t going to go back to their EVIL LAIR OF EVIL. Which isn’t as obvious as the sun in the sky during the day time on a nice bright and sunny day.
The problem is that this is something that everyone knows. The scene is supposed to be dramatic. They’re worrying about her. They’ve figured out that she’s probably still alive, this scene has been done in movies and tv shows all over the place and then there’s the dramatic “INSERT NAME OF EVIL PLACE HERE” revelation as everyone winces.
But when the place is so obvious to EVERYONE then there shouldn’t even be a question of it. It should have been “Okay, we know they took Angel to the school (Why do I keep on thinking of the Buffy version of Angel and how much more awesome would that make this entire book?) how do we get in?”
This is not met well. Nudge gasps. The Gasman looks scared but pretends to try and not look it. Iggy’s spine tightens (how she knows that... I think he meant back stiffened) and his face is like ice and I have no idea what that means.
Then, randomly, we learn that Iggy wasn’t always blind. When he’d been at the School, they’d tried to surgically enhance his night vision. Now he was blind forever. Oops.
Oops? Who the hell says Oops in regards to something terrible happening to a family member that you care about?
My dad got hit by a car and broke his legs. Oops.
My best friend had to put her dog down because he got bit by a rabid raccoon. Oops.
My beloved accidentally got a bomb dropped on his head and is now a freaky mutant bagpipe creature doomed to play Stop Hammer Time as he breathes for the rest of his life. Oops.
Oops? Really. Oops. The oops after that is something that
OH is this that million dollar vase of yours that I shouldn’t touch? oops. Oh dear it broke. Gee. I’m so sorry.
I’m fairly certain that it is supposed to be sarcasm, but it’s not really coming off like that.
Never mind the fact that mentioning how Iggy got blind right there is in the most utterly and completely random of places.
Okay. We finally learn that they’ve been gone for four years.
Wow. This school sucks ass at finding things. Four years. Where is the immediacy in this? So, what do they do? They get a map.
Where did they get a map?
Well, apparently Jeb kept one in a manila envelope sealed with wax. And not only that Max knew about it.
Why the hell would he keep a map in an envelope sealed with wax? I mean, sure sealed is fine with me. But with wax? This isn’t some sort of fantasy novel. Who thinks about sealing things like this in wax?
But it is a map. Of the school. In California.
For some reason though Max has to say it’s a map of a secret facility first. Because we didn’t know that the School was a secret facility in the first place. It wasn’t obvious that the place where they did HORRIBLE EVIL EXPERIMENTS ON KIDS wasn’t a SECRET FACILITY in the first place.
Iggy, the Gassman and Nudge are all oHMiGAWD!! And then Nudge starts to babble.
”Oh,” said Nudge, her brain hitting overdrive. “Yeah. We have to get Angel back. We can’t let her stay there - with them. They’re - monsters. They’re going to do bad things to her. And put her in a cage. Hurt her. But there’s five of us. So the rest of us have to go get Hmph-”
I had wrapped my hand across her mouth. She peeled my fingers apart. “Uh, how far is it?”
Peeled her fingers apart? Like bananas?
But anyway, that was dumb and annoying and … birdbrained.
It’s about six hundred miles from where they are. I’m assuming they’re not in California. A seven hour flight not including breaks.
Iggy doesn’t want to go because they’re out numbered. Max insists that they are going. But not Iggy or the Gasman. Because Iggy is blind.
So nice of that to be remembered.
And the Gasman because he’s eight and young and they might want him since he’s Angel’s brother. This then beg’s the question, then why didn’t they take him when they took Angel?
Iggy says that Jeb would have never made them stay.
Max says that Jeb is dead. When did she get to that conclusion? The last we heard he was missing. Not dead. I would think that she’d be holding out some hope that Jeb wasn’t dead. There wasn’t any indication that she thought he was. It’s some sort of weird... missing things again thing. She relents however and agrees to let them go.
And this ends part one.
I don’t care about about Angel being stolen. I don’t care about anyone. I knew Angel for all of three pages and she didn’t make a mark on me personality wise. She didn’t do anything to endear her self to me. Max is an apparent heartless bitch. And I don’t care about anyone else either.
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no subject
Date: 2011-03-03 10:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-03 10:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-04 05:45 pm (UTC)Wow. This school sucks ass at finding things. Four years. Where is the immediacy in this?
... *facepalm* No kidding.
Wait a minute! Then how old were Angel and Gasman when they were rescued? Isn't she four or something? Was Angel a fucking baby when she was rescued? Shit, most of these kids may not even remember their time in the School.
For that matter, how long has Jeb been missing? Two of those four years or am I mis-remembering? O_o
You know what? I don't think Patterson had an editor on this one. At all. That's the only explanation I can think of. That actually explains why some things seem to be missing and the story is so out of order too. I wonder if he didn't write various scenes depending on which ones were most interesting and then write others later because they were less so, leaving things rather spliced and explaining things that only need to be explained when first reading an individual scene. Then he just didn't bother cleaning it up that well, had no one else to go over it with him to add clarification and consistency for anyone who wasn't the author and didn't already have the whole story in their head, thus leading to this weirdness and lack of logical order and several missing details.
I'm talking about stuff beyond Patterson forgetting that helicopters make noise (it's also possible Iggy never saw a helicopter when he had sight and had never heard a helicopter before, so he couldn't put two and two together. But he still should have been asking what was going on the whole time things were happening so... not entirely a good excuse.) More along the lines of Ari's speech and the deductive reasoning behind the statement that Jeb is dead. It also would've made more sense if someone besides Max had suggested that Jeb was dead.
Then, randomly, we learn that Iggy wasn’t always blind. When he’d been at the School, they’d tried to surgically enhance his night vision. Now he was blind forever. Oops.
I'm sorry. Ignoring the whole "Oops" part, something else strikes me. WHY NOT MAKE THE KID'S BIRD DNA COME FROM AN OWL IN THE FIRST PLACE! OR MAKING HIM PART BAT WITH SONAR! Not to mention, WHAT? This would be, you know, a good time to explain what the purpose for their experiment was. As it is, I can't help but laugh at the notion they're just something for the beginners to get some experience off of. Because, I'm sorry, who the hell fucks with a working experiment instead of creating a SECOND EXPERIMENT, to achieve this new fucking goal? This School has to be funded by someone and even if they have idiots in management, someone had to get a hand-slap for fucking up some hard work. Possibly fired.
Maybe it was Jeb and he felt bad for fucking up Iggy's eyes...
Also, you know what? This might be a good time to describe Iggy's eyes. Are they horrifying to see or does he have them covered with a blind-fold/sunglasses/two eye-patches for maximum awesomeness? Or did they just make a mistake with some laser surgery and his eyes look normal? :P
It would help to set the tone of what these EVIL EXPERIMENTERS are like, you know? HOW exactly did they fuck up and does it have an actual impact on--wait, what am I thinking? Of course it won't mar a protagonist superficially. That would build character!
no subject
Date: 2011-03-04 06:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-05 03:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-05 04:43 am (UTC)I know it's possible to intentionally pass on eggs currently but I'm on the East Coast and, based on previous experience with such things, I know setting up a time and then making the attempt can sometimes be very frustrating. And the egg can get lost, which isn't that big of a deal, but I just imagine that teleport will make everything much easier. XD
no subject
Date: 2011-03-06 12:33 am (UTC)