Oh, I'm fine with her winning, my issue is that this is what we saw. In Calamity II, Sabah kicks the Champions fucking ass; by the time we look at them, Sabah hasn't used an Aspect, hasn't taken a hit, and is just one-sidedly smacking the Champion around until she uses her second Aspect and pulls out her Domain, putting Sabah in a position where she can cut loose. Fair enough, and as we find out later, the Bard has been building up to this, to the Monster Slayer and the Monster.

Okay, so here's what happens. We start of with this:

So from the start, Sabah's not really in control, she's just guiding it--as we see throughout the chapter, there's really no point where this changes; at the end, when she watches, she does so because the Beast is doing exactly what she wants. In the meantime, things go really bad for the Champion. The Champion hits her and she doesn't even feel it; instead she crushes her shield utterly and tosses her to the side; what little damage the Champion had even managed to do healed in less than a second. The Beast turns on the Champion when she's trying to get up and smashes her through a wall, shattering stone and breaking the Champion's bones. The Champion runs up into the stands of her Domain to try to buy a moment to not die and the Beast jumps up to follow, at which point the Champion tries to blind her with the sun.

Since Sabah's a giant wolf, that goes about as well as you'd think, and she flat-out shatters the stands and the Champion's running away. Sabah proceeds to throw 'chunks of rocks the size of houses' at her, one of which hits the Champion, and the Beast jumps on it, crushing her straight through the stands.

The Champion uses Rally, another aspect, to bolster her strength, because by this point, she's on the ground. The Beast doesn't give a shit, hits her once, and throws her to the edge of the arena. By this point, the Champion's domain is already weakening, but while Sabah crushes her armor and breaks some more bones by bowling her over, she manages to hit back, cutting off one of Sabah's legs. You'd think that was a big deal, right? It's really not at all; the leg grows back three sentences and two seconds later, and the wound has absolutely no effect.

Sabah proceeds to grab her and use a motherfucker (the Champion) to hit a metaphorical motherfucker (the Champion's domain), lifting her up and smashing her through the stands, and I quote, 'Again and again and again, until there were a dozen gaping holes in the stone and only then did she toss the girl up in the air.' She proceeds to smash the Champion through the roof of her own Domain and back into Reality. Then we end the scene with Sabah going for the kill.

That's the part of the fight we saw and here's my issue with it. I liked the Bard's plan, putting aside the fact that it was completely impossible for me to have guessed what she was doing ahead of time or known it could work, and since she's supposed to be the huge narrative guy, I can swallow that. I like the set up, the idea that she rigged the fight for the Champion to win, the concept of borrowing narrative weight, I think it's all cool.

But when you read that fight, there's not even a hint of it. There is not so much as a moment where the Champion has an edge; she is Sabah's goddamn chew-toy from start to finish, getting her equipment torn apart, her bones broken, and being used to play fucking whack-a-mole through solid fucking stone. Sabah hits her so hard, she slams into nothing and breaks it. The whole situation is set up for a heroic turnaround, which is nice in theory, but Sabah made the Champion her fucking bitch.

I don't feel like it's too much to ask for to want to see, you know, some evidence that the Champion had even the slightest hope of winning, that she was able to stand up to the Beast for even a second, even if she was at a huge disadvantage--just some kind of clue about what the hell could have happened, because seriously, apart from the Bard sitting down to explain quirks of the Levantine language and story structure, there's nothing even implying Sabah was going to break a nail in that fight, much less lose, in much the same way that if Chicago was playing New York and had 200-to-0 in the middle of the second half, and I came back from a bathroom break to hear that New York had won, I'd wonder what the fuck I missed.

Now, in theory, Heroes getting huge boosts in emergencies or against long odds is fine, because it's an establish facet of the setting, if not one that we ever seem to actually get a chance to see--but holy fuck, that must have been one hell of a boost and a huge-ass fucking turn around, because that fight was not going great for the Champion. As is, what happened is a huge question mark, because, what? Did one of the Gods come down from Heaven to tag the Champion out after all her bones got broken or what?

 

Okay @Ryuugi Shi in this instance I will agree with you. That fight made no fucking sense to me at the time.

I will say, however that I believe there's a meaning to it. Throughout the story Errat has repeated the notion that Heros win against the worst odds. Yeah there are times when the likes of Black, Cat or Neshemah can slightly work the game so they come out on top but by and large, they're rare cases.

Yeah I agree that we should have seen that shining sword moment where with the last remaining strength she has the Champion manages to impale Sabah's heart or some bullshit.

I can also step back and say that that goes against the spirit of this entire story. It's literally "The practical guide to evil."

I can sit back and appreciate the fact that the bluntness of Sabah's offscrren death after she was seemingly winning so handily fits the theme of the story. The dice are loaded and it's a struggle to reload them. The way the offscreen death hits you actually has a more theme fitting lasting effect then seeing a last minute miracle kill on screen.

It hammers home the point that no matter how great the advantage evil had, good is just one last minute bullshit moment away from winning. It's unfair, it sucks, we should have seen it. Yeah, yeah yeah.

We're just viewers, imagine how hard that sucks for villains? Suddenly the off screen death in all its bluntness hammers home the point Black makes about shit being blatantly unfair.

To me it makes Black more of a miracle worker because despite this degree of bullshit aimed against villains, he's lived.

Because he's practical at being evil.

You're judging this against a template of how you judge stories you enjoy in general but that was never the point of this and that's why I enjoy it so much.

Listen, I know you disagree completely but I hope you understand that while you don't like that kind of shit, others can find a sort of twisted beauty in it.

 

I can't agree. I honestly thought Bard was talking out of her ass when she explained her plan to Black. I wasn't upset that Captain died, I was just confused. Even with hindsight I didn't feel invested in her death because that same hindsight made me realize she was the disposable minion. She isn't important/useful like Black, Warlock, or Assassin, so of course she was the one to die.

Sure, bullshit heroic upsets are part of the world, but I don't feel like there was a prior example to set it up for her death to serve as the nail to hammer it home. Before Captain's death, the heroes we saw were William's band. None of them show a heroic upset. Bumbling Conjuror faces a completely superior Warlock and immediately dies. Hunter gets wrecked, and loses a hand. The Lone Swordsman's win in Liesse wasn't because he's a hero facing dire odds. He got his win because the pattern of three thing fated his victory, but we see it again with Akua, who makes it clear this isn't a hero phenomenon.

Captain's death would have defined the sort of bullshit heroics the world promises.

 

To be fair, guys, you have to have a very high level of genre savviness to understand A Practical Guide to Evil. The plot is extremely nuanced, and without a solid grasp of narrative tropes most of the plot will go over a typical reader's head. There's also Catherine's rational outlook, which is deftly woven into her characterization - her personal philosophy draws heavily from Nietzche writings, for instance. The fans understand this stuff; they have the intellectual capacity to truly appreciate the depths of these twists, to realize that they're not just entertaining- they say something deep about LIFE. As a consequence people who dislike the Guide truly ARE idiots- of course they wouldn't appreciate, for instance, the humour in the Woe's existential catchphrase "Lies and Violence," which itself is a cryptic reference to Machiavelli’s Italian treatise The Prince. I'm smirking right now just imagining one of those addlepated simpletons scratching their heads in confusion as Erratic Errata's genius unfolds itself on their computer screens. What fools... how I pity them.

 

@Stealthy I actually thought you were serious for the first half of that post.

 

New chapter is out. And...it's good, yeah. I can't say it's not; this was well done. I'm gonna bitch about a couple things here, because that's what I do, but it's a solid chapter with cool, meaningful implications.

We start off with a debate on two fronts, one of them being who the hell will deal with Callow. Cat wants to send Thief, because she's Callowan. Thief wants to send Hakram, because he actually knows what to do when ruling a country. Unfortunately, they say, Hakram's an orc and if he's put in charge, that means matters both civil and military are controlled by greenskins. Which the Callowans care about now, supposedly.

...Well, if you say so. This feels right, but also a bit late. But whatever.

Thief replies, fairly, that Callow's a shitshow and everything is on fire right now with the leading government and all politically acceptable successors dead, martial law abounding, farms abandoned, food issues, resource issues, money issues, etc.

On the other hand, shit's also about to get real, because all the fires at Callow's borders are starting to light and shit's getting real:

There's an obvious solution, if a horrible one, and Cat puts it on the table--send both of them. That would put Hakram and Thief in Callow putting out fires, while Masego goes back to Praes, leaving Cat to venture into completely unknown and treacherous territory with the most reliable companions she has, Archer and Akua. Everyone rightly points out that that's a horrible idea, and while I'm still not clear on why they're going to the Drow or what they have to offer them right now, I appreciate that. Hakram actually disagrees with Cat outright on the matter in public, for the first time. Thief rightly points out that that leaves Cat, Archer, and Akua to do international diplomacy. Hakram rightly points out that it leaves them wandering into terribly danger with very little to their name and that the Drow aren't worth it.

Cat says they have no choice, because Malicia dealt with the Dead King on unknown terms here, and is all but guaranteed to have fucked them hard. She actually brings up a point I've wanted someone to mention for awhile now, the cost to Callow's farmers and it's people. As for the diplomacy, yeah, she's gonna have Akua serve as Callow's face.

It's a tough sell but also a tough hand all around and in the end, they agree. Thief and Hakram breaking from the group is the only way Callow doesn't spontaneously combust and that's an issue. It leaves Cat to address Masego instead.

His father called. He's going.

So.

Not gonna lie, though I'll cover it in smarm, I actually really liked this chapter; I felt that certain parts of it were long in the coming to the point of being overdue, but they got here in a big way and I'm happy about that. There are things I felt should have come up before now, but fuck it--I'll give this one a pass and say it was the narrative lining things up. This opinion, I will admit, may change depending on what comes of this; it's my hope that difficulties arise for the Woe as a whole while they're separated, but that's not a certainty. I felt that the choices for who was split up were solid ones, because they were kind of the ones that needed to step aside.

I love Hakram, but he falls into the yes man at times and into the guy who can do whatever Cat can't most of the rest--and yeah, that's his role, but gets problematic at times. Thief is fun, but the point they bring up here was a valid one; her loyalty being to Callow never actually got in the way of whatever Cat wanted and she would set aside her morals basically indefinitely. In addition, her Aspects, while inherently plot devices, have gotten a little too plot devicey, without any major comebacks; she stole the sun, and a fleet, and Akua's spells, and hid from future sight, and presumably is the source of all the knowledge the Woe shouldn't have had last arc.

And, of course, Masego. You knew I would bitch about this, because it was warranted. I went back recently to have a look and Masego bends reality into knots at will--too much so. He copies the Summer Sun, he copies Aspects, he makes pocket realities, he bends time and space, he's the guy who has every magic solution they need until the plot needs them to not have one. A whole bunch of issues in this story stem from this, because I have no idea what Masego can or cannot do at any given time and neither does the story, seemingly. I went back recently, and against the final Duke they fought, Masego says a few words and makes it so that fire burns fire. He used that to make a conflagration snuff itself out. That's a thing Masego can just fucking do, apparently. He needs to not be here for awhile so I don't have to wonder why he doesn't resolve every problem.

Those were good choices and, I hope, give a little more focus to what Cat can, and also cannot, do. I also really like the issue that's seemingly coming to ahead with Akua, where in Cat says she's wary and hasn't forgotten what she's done, but functionally relies on her to do basically everything lately. Like, sure, she says:

But functionally speaking, Akua's now crafted much of her political outreaching for awhile, has masterminded her plans, assists with magic, and is now going to be what she forges alliances on. Akua said, during the Battle of the Camps, that a useful tool never rested for long, and boy howdy has she been right. I'm hoping there's some fun pay off there. This is Cat basically without her support base and I'm really kind of looking forward to it.

 

Well, Cat's as skilled with diplomacy as ever. Mixed feelings on that, for pretty much the usual reasons--namely, for someone who got taught by Black, Cat's really bad at the whole 'Don't abuse your bound monsters' thing. While her reasons for using the methods she does might make sense in a vacuum, because the Fae are assholes at the best of times, when she realized the only way to keep her new minions in line was with abuse and humiliation, you'd figure alarm bells would have started ringing. We literally got a Heroic Maxim about this as a chapter quote, in fact. And killing her minions off, to say nothing of making them kill each other with threats of torture, well...

Also, I was unsure why the Wild Hunt joined Cat at the end of Book 3 and, seeing their lot in life now, I'm still not really sure. Particularly under Larat. But whatever.

Other then the fact that you'd figure Cat would have spontaneously combusted under her poor narrative decisions by now, not much to say about this chapter--except to note that they are literally gossiping with Akua now. Like, Thief says this:

But Cat was literally talking about sex and boys with Akua around a fire, while drinking, like an hour later. Like, I appreciate the effort of Thief's part, but I think this ship has sailed; hell, Archer flat-out said she thought Akua was part of the crew now and we know Masego doesn't care how many Callowans Akua killed. Archer calls Akua the Ghost of Bad Decisions, but keep in mind who she's haunting.

Other than that, just some nice character interactions, with a send off to the guys who are leaving. Archer and Masego came up, which wasn't so much surprising as oddly timed, and the drow were mentioned. We finally got an explanation for something I've wondered, namely how the drow and elves are related--they aren't, though there may be some similarities in appearance. The drow are from Calernia, the elves are foreigners. Ironically, not being the goth-elves might be a mark against them here, since the elves in this series are fucking crazy, but on the other hand, given how Cat knows barely anything about the drow, who knows what they can do? Of course, since Cat knows basically nothing about the drow, you kind of have to wonder why she's there, too.

 

I liked what they did with Black's strategy of basically destabilizing Cordelia's political base - it's an extremely Black move to do, and is basically effective whether the First Prince or the country knows what he is doing or not.

@Ryuugi: Cashing in a 'called it' here for Black's aspect letting him beef the Legions up, apparently into giving them all fucking turbo, because 3 days march in one night is fucking ridiculous. I suspect that's his aspects feeding into each other, however - I doubt Lead would be as effective if Conquer wasn't buffing him.

I'm just deeply impressed Black could keep that kind of power in his pocket for x number of years since the Conquest. He's effectively been murdering heroes for how long, and we learn now that in every instance besides the Conquest back in the Callow he's essentially been doing it with one hand tied behind his back.

 

I'm not sure what you're calling here? Like, we've known what Lead and Conquer do since Black explained it to us repeatedly and used it several times. It's the same Aspect he used to keep all his guys from getting murdered by Akua's mages, remember?

In the sense that Conquer wasn't on, you mean? Not...really? Black actually brought Conquer up way back in Book one--in fact, I think it was the first Aspect we ever got told about, and if it wasn't, it was probably the second; Conquer is, in fact, a standard Aspect for Black Knights, making them stronger the more they try to attack and invade other countries, namely Callow. The issue is, that well only runs so deep and it's a narrative trap, because for every Aspect of Conquer, there's an Aspect of Protect, and when Black Knight's go on the march, it ends almost exclusively badly for them.

...In fact, I think it literally always ends badly to them, unless Black makes an exception. It's important to remember that Praes has attacked Callow at least once a generation for a minimum of 1300 years (based of the After Declaration time-stamp we got), and in that time has succeeded meaningfully all of twice, and once was Triumphant, who was arguably worse to her own people than her enemies. By the time she went on the march, it was because everyone who could argue with her was either dead or had a demon bound to them that she could unleash at will, which she later did.

The issue is not that Black doesn't have any advantages--Lead and Conquer were revealed a long time ago. This issue is that, as Black himself has repeatedly stated, using like this is supposed to end horribly for him. Remember, that was my complaint--Black has literally been raiding villages, slaughtering the innocent, and burning down cities while on the march in another country that has a bunch of heroes in it currently. Per the rules, he himself told us, this is only supposed to end one way.

Will it? Probably not; heroes really haven't lived up to the hype much at all. But it's supposed to. This is literally why Practical Evil is supposed to exist; because this kind of evil spontaneously combusts.

 

I, also, derive great enjoyment from watching Richard and Mortimer, my fellow conisseur.

 

- Book 3: Calamity II

Technically he does regularly tap into Conquer, just not in its full form like he is now. So yeah, he does fight with a handicap by not always conquering things, but we've known that all along. Black being story-smart and power-weak has been well established from the very start. No revelations here, just reaffirmations. Plus, as Ryuugi said, he literally introduces aspects by explaining why he can't constantly be Conquering things. Overuse spells out his own end.

Of course, the trick with saying using Conquer "almost always" backfires on Black Knights is that Amadeus is the almost, what with the Conquest of Callow and all that. He's hurting himself here story-wise by sacking and burning (which I don't believe he did in Callow), but it's not impossible for him to find a safe ending out of this. He's done it before, though fuck if I know what it is. I guess the Dead King's invasion could help by relegating him as a secondary character in the Crusade (thus opening up a new class of stories), but he sure as hell wasn't planning on that.

 

Akua, you're not supposed to be this fun. Seriously, I will admit that this particular messed-upcrew is fun.

Anyway, the adventure into Drowland continues, and also continues to be questionable. To quote:

None of which is really reassuring, since that means that, as far as Cat knows, she's searching for allies who are 1) murderers and slavers and 2) bad at both. To further emphasize this, they also aren't loyal or obedient to authority:

And then, to hammer it in even more:

So why are you after these guys, then?

Meanwhile, in the extra chapter, not that much of substance--beyond what we already knew, I should say--but a great deal of flavor in terms of history, politics, and the priesthood. A few things here seem odd in how they tie to Cordelia's recent interlude in the main story, wherein she didn't make this big a deal of the Arch-Heretic status and didn't seem to know that the Dead King was coming, but overall, it was interesting to read, if somewhat undermined by how current the events are. Most of the other Extra Chapters touched up blank spaces and things we didn't know, but we already know nothing Cordelia does is going to work because it's already failed.

There was one reveal that was interesting, however, and it was the fact that the conclave was called by one of the Chosen--and there's really only one Chosen we know that could have wielded influence on this kind of scale without anyone anyone in multiple countries knowing, and so I'm wondering what the Bard is up to in all this. Because the thing about the Bard that's sometimes good but more often bad is that, well...we never really know what she's up to until after the fact, which would be fine as she's an antagonist acting in secret, except there's also no real way to possible predict what she's doing, because the narrative in this story is so nebulous. Is being invaded by the Dead King while Black lights their country on fire from within while Malicia and Warlock plot to nuke Ashur while any diplomatic resolution with Callow is cut off and it's mustering it's forces supposed to have positive effects somehow? Is she aiming to sacrifice Procer for some reason? What's the point of all this and why is everyone going along with it?

No real way to even guess at it. Maybe it's meant to be some kind of underdog story? Except we've seen something like five heroic underdog stories so far and they all ended with the heroic underdog getting brutally murdered, so...?

And really, this kind of plays into what I was talking about with the Champion earlier, about the downsides of how heroes have been portrayed. We're told they're lackluster in the Crusade because there are too many of them; too many different plotlines muddying the proverbial waters somehow. Okay, sure, fair enough; too many cooks spoil the pot. If that's the rule, fine--except we also saw two different Heroic Bands, Will's and Hanno's, where everyone was on the same track and built for a specific purpose, and they still got torn apart, even while actively defending the innocent, fighting for freedom, etc. And we saw individual heroes going it alone and...they also got the shit kicked out of them? Will admittedly did better than a lot of the heroes we've seen since, but I don't think anyone really believed he was going to overcome the Calamities. And that was with a Name defined by fighting alone, to say nothing of the two dozen heroes the Calamities had killed before then, or every hero in Callow during the Conquest.

So a gaggle of heroes is worthless, because they have too many plotlines. And a band of heroes focused towards a specific task also isn't up to the task unless the Bard literally sacrifices one of them for the needed narrative weight to egg out a win. And solo, well, good fucking luck.

So in what context are heroes actually dangerous in this series? Because it's clearly not when they're alone and it's clearly not when they're together and it's clearly not when they're protecting the innocent and it's clearly not when they're going on the attack. It's not when they're old and it's not when they're young, it's not when they're new and adaptable and it's not when they're experienced, it's not when they have a Name devoted to the specific task and it's not when they don't, it's not when they have the backing of nations and armies and it's not when they're lone wolves. It's not even when they have friends who can see the goddamn future or foresee the fucking narrative.

So what the hell does that leave? Because, as is, based on what we've seen, it's really hard to imagine this situation going at all well for Procer, or Good in general.

 

Well I've always thought of it as more a case of heroes and their narratives being far more successful in the past.

Then Black came along with his whole practical guide to being evil and they haven't had much luck because the villains just aren't playing by those rules anymore.

 

Except we repeatedly see the villains play by the same rules? Like, Black's currently murdering and pillaging his way across a countryside, Cat's basically thrown Black's rule-book out the window at this point, and Malicia just flat-out has, to say nothing of Kairos. None of this seems to have had any effect on the Heroes effectiveness.

To say nothing of the fact that Practical Evil was meant to be a way for the villains to deal with the absurdity of the Heroes, not a way of keeping it from happening at all. Every time Black talks about shit, he went into things like 'Yeah, she's dead--but wait until it could screw us over' and such, which has notably never actually happened.

 

Huh, drow level up by devouring the essence of their own people. Neat. Almost like a self contained version of the chain of hunger just without any idea at all what the upper limits are.

Still begs the question of how the hell they still exist? Trapped on all sides like they are their population should have collapsed. Missing something I'm guessing.

 

Really fast reproductive cycles? Drow split into more Drow when they've accumulated enough Night?

 

What's the odds we're getting a new member of the Woe out of this.

 

I kind of get the feeling Cat may have heard a whisper of some sort of the Sve, and that it may be more than just a priestess.

Spoiler

"You are what you take, a woman’s voice whispered in my ear, in no tongue I knew."

Looking forward to where this is heading.

 

There's a level between the Mighty and the exiled warbands that we haven't seen yet. It's probably much more regimented and controlled by the Mighty for this exact reason. I imagine anyone gets too murder happy, and the Mighty crush them and order more babies made to replace the losses. What I wonder is the origin of the Night. Was it around before the Tenets of Night ruined the empire, or did the Priestess somehow introduce it?

 

Yeah, but I'm really not seeing the appeal of the Drow as allies here, because even leaving aside the whole 'Murderers and slavers' thing and the 'completely untrustworthy and traitorous' thing, by all accounts if you want them on your side you have to breakdown and rebuild their society first. To say nothing of the fact that they're a group that has no unified government whatsoever or that they haven't fought any of the factions that Cat wants to deal with in millennia or the fact that internal strife and discrimination is heavy or the fact that--

Well, actually, what's the appeal here at all? Some cool shadow powers, I guess, though Cat didn't even know about those until ten minutes ago. It's odd.