kippurbird | And don't forget your can opener

Part eight

Max wakes up and realizes oh noes they overslept. Which is an ohnoes because Angel has been in the hands of EVIL SCIENTISTS some more. Anyway after waking up Fang goes into the kitchen and starts taking food out of the cupboards to take with him. Things like tuna and trail mix and crackers. - No can opener though. Max tells him not to take the food because it will weigh them down and yet Fang does anyway.

Max gets Nudge up and they leave.

A few things here:

One. They’re going for speed. They need to rescue Angel and yet he takes the heavy food? It is, as Max says, heavy. It will slow them down. She says that Fang is stubborn for not listening to her, but she doesn’t even take the time to argue or try to enforce what she says. Speed is insanely important here and every little bit of weight will slow them down yet she doesn’t do anything about it. It’s just the one comment. She had to let us know that the food was heavy and that Fang was stubborn but nothing comes of it. If the weight is so important then she should force him to not take it. There could have been an argument. A chance for character development as they both offer their sides as to why they should or shouldn’t take the food with them.

Two. They take the food. This is done without comment, despite the fact that they’re basically stealing. It’s rather like the time Arya in Brisingr stole the clothes from the random NPC peasant woman’s washing. There’s no remorse or feeling guilty. She just did it and that’s that. The people who own this home are random NPCs. So it’s okay that Max and the others take the food and don’t leave any payment or even feel guilty about not being able to leave payment or don’t even mention the need to leave payment for the food they took. The people who own this home are non-existent.

To contrast this in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows, when Hermione and Harry are on the run they need to stop off in stores to get food and supplies. Whenever they did so they always left money at the till to pay for it, even though they were under the invisibility cloak and no one could see them. Why? Because Hermione felt guilty about just taking the food and didn’t want to get the people who worked in the stores in trouble. She cared about these nameless people who we never see and just hear about.

I wouldn’t mind it so much if it just got a mention of how they were taking the food. I don’t care if she thought she had a right to do it or she felt guilty about it or anything like that

Three; They didn’t take a can opener.

Can openers, I have learned, are important when you have cans that need to be opened.

Once they’re in the air Max feels better. Yay.

Fang wants to know how they’re going to rescue Angel. Max doesn’t say, but apparently secret Plan C is the old “I’ll rescue Angel but end up being captured myself” gambit, which we all know so well. And we always know those always go according to plan. That entire paragraph there? Was a chapter.

Yup.

So. We’re flying. We’re flying. We’re flying. Nudge is babbling. Max notices some kids walking on the ground. It’s a bunch of guys surrounding a younger girl. She thinks the guys look threatening. So, what does she do? Why goes to rescue the girl.

Because, you know, exposing yourself as a flying bird person while trying to rescue your beloved missing flock member who is being horribly tortured by EVIL SCIENTISTS is far less important than rescuing some random stranger.

Now, the point of this scene to show how wonderful Max is. To show some positive traits about how she’s willing to risk things to help people. But you know what, it doesn’t matter. It’s pointless. What it shows is Max being stupid and not caring about Angel as much as she says. Sure it shows she cares about some random stranger who she doesn’t know and doesn’t even know the situation the little girl is in. But it also stalls the plot.

See, because the School is only a day or two’s flight away, Patterson has to come up with a way to stretch out Angel’s time in there. How does he do it? By making the rescue take longer for stupid reasons. By handing the characters the idiot ball. It’s as if she’s suffering from Chronic Hero Syndrome but instead it’s really stupidity. The only reason why she thinks the bigger kids are threatening are because they’re boys. She’s up high and using her super bird vision and can tell that they are, from above, looking at their heads, that they’re dangerous. I’m not sure exactly how much body language you can tell from up high looking at a person’s head.

Max tells the others to go on ahead, thus causing more unnecessary complications becasuse now she’ll have to find them. When it would probably be smarter for them to all land and then her and Fang take a look into the situation since she and Fang are about the same age. The boys are also about her age, she thinks, because she can tell these things from the top of their heads. Or because the Author Wants Her to Know. Two would be better than one.

That would be intelligent. We can’t have that.

She dives down and goes after them.

We then go to Iggy and Pump. Iggy, the blind kid, has managed to fix the computer, the fan of which wasn’t working.

How the hell does a blind kid do that?

What does the text say?

“He had just fixed the computer, presto change-o”

That’s it.

Just he fixed the computer.

Somehow.

He fixed the computer.

With no explanation beyond something that sounds like he waved a magic wand and presto-change-o the computer is fixed.

Just.

ARgh.

ffffffght.

I’m sorry. But that is not an acceptable explanation. It’s not an explanation at all. It’s just not even dignifying the reader with the possibility for an explanation. We’re just supposed to accept that the blind kid was able to fix the computer.

Somehow.

nnngh...

Okay. I’m going away now before I hurt something. Or someone. Or somethings with someone.