This chapter was more interesting then the ones prior to it, in large part because the dwarves are more interesting than the drow, but I feel like Cat choosing to directly confront the dwarves, before tell them her name, status, and country of origin, while also insisting on matters of pride directly to high-ranking members of a country that considered the Kingdom of Callow ignorant nobodies when they were at their height to be, uh...playing it fast and loose with her entire Kingdom. If we're abandoning the whole 'recruit the drow' plotline, I'm fine with that, and it at least seems headed in interesting directions, but I continue to question Cat's decision-making skills. Malicia once gave Cat an important lesson on how it was possible to negotiate even from a position of weakness, but I think it's still worth remembering that dwarves literally do not consider humans people, in the sense that only people (meaning dwarves) can own property or bind to deals.

It's a step up from the drow, who don't believe even that much, but it's questionable footing regarding beings of great power she has no knowledge of.

 

It's shaky but fuck is it interesting. The Dwarves become more and more interesting as we learn about them. The Herald never sat on the dias so I'm assuming he's not the tip top of the Dwarven structure. Either someone else is ahead of him or they have a tradition of carrying a royal throne everywhere. Personally I thought Cat revealing who she was and doing a few displays of power was the best reaction. Regular humans probably would have been killed, at least robbed and left somewhere inconvenient. Cat's power play, however little it means to them, at least had some benefits. Akua playing along probably helped a bit too. This arc started weak but it's finally starting to pick up and whatever happens with the Dwarves will be a game changer. Whether it's a good or bad one will be seen. The last two lines give me a lot of hope though.

My money's on the Dwarves giving Cat some insane task as part of their invasion or them getting pissy that Malicia unleashed the Dead King and them wanting to knock a few heads because of it. Either way I'm down.

 

As expected, the dwarves are interesting as all hell and we found out plenty of neat background stuff. Cat seems to officially be on a path to kill the Sve which is at least a vastly more interesting course than her previous one*, and we get some background on the drow from an outside party; namely, they used to actually be somebodies, if six dwarven expansions ago. Sve killed the Twilight Sages and made them all into the Night after the drow were forced to retreat behind the Gloom, and the dwarves--who actually willingly spared the Goblins of all people--pity and hate what she's done so much that no one voted to spare them. We get some more background on the dwarves as well and the confirmation of the obvious in that the Herald of the Deeps is a Name. Pretty cool and enjoyable talk, all told.

*At least if you ignore the fact that Cat's plan here is effectively to tear down and completely relocate an immensely fucked up problem by making it her mess to deal with.

 

The upside here for the Drow is incredible. The dwarves have shipped in an incredible amount of technical knowledge sitting there for the taking.

 

*Terms and conditions may apply.

 

Yeah from what we've seen I really don't see them being even remotely capable of taking any of that knowledge.

 

Seeing the other nations in Erraticerrata's world remains one of the strongest points of the story. The dwarves are fascinating and have dropped some great juicy lore.

PGtE is still a story about Stories though. And Roles. I'm surprised no one's mentioned the Sve and Cat parallels. Powerful Names of formerly great Nations. Beset on all sides by enemies they kill their way to positions of sole leadership, becoming demigods in the process. Sve then hides her kingdom behind a great illusion enchantment that is directly countered by the element of the Sun.

Then we have the fact that Cat is clearly able to interact with Night and Sve's desire to meet.. I'm suspecting Sve is eyeing up Cat as a new host. Or a merging of essence to drop the demi from the god.

 

Gonna throw my theories out there. Cat will meet Sve and terms about throwing the Dwarves out will test her, possibly even using winter against her in a control way but her own stubbornness won't let her throw away the Drawven deal.
In this scenario Cat kills Sve and returns to the surface with an even bigger power up. So far this book has been Errat explaining how Cat needs to realise she's near God level if she bent her mortal mind around it. In this scenario she's lost Masego for a while.

Scenario 2 is Cat siding with Sve for some bullshit and ending up making more enemies and she has Drow, Masego would arrive late to help and they pull one over on the Dwarves thus increasing her legend.

Just kill the demigod, Cat. Please.

 

So it looks like Ivah's gonna be the first member of Cat's new fairy court. Wonder if she'll dub him Prince of Nightfall just to tweak Larat's nose. Regardless, that's treacherous lieutenant number three in the books.

 

Wait, what the hell? So after all this, Cat is finally willing to make a Court...and she's starting with the fucking drow? Yo, Cat--you've got some other guys who could use that power first and who's loyalties can actually be relied on.

Like, I'm not even protesting the decision itself--as I've said before, the idea of the Gods Above doing anything that matters has been laughable for awhile now, much as that annoys the hell out of me--but we're starting with Ivah and not, say, the Woe? Her Inner Circle? The Legions? I even kind of like Ivah, but why the fuck is he at the top of this list?

Other then that, the chapter was...okay. I actually like these introspective chapters, but the things discussed within them rarely seem to have much long term impact on any of the characters involved, and so they've kind of been losing weight in my eyes. Remember the chat that Cat and Archer had after the Battle of the Camps? It was full of great lines and stuff, but I'll forgive you if you don't; none of the realizations therein survived past the end of the chapter, sadly.

 

I'm guessing that because Ivah bound in service and full to the brim of leftover Night after Sve will be a wrecking ball.

 

That's...actually a pretty good fucking point. Cat certainly doesn't want to break the Overlord list herself and 'consume the energy field bigger than her head', but giving Ivah a title, binding her up in oaths as a faerie that she can't break and then pumping her full of Night would make for a hell of a fucking Named cudgel, as well as a figurehead to lead the remaining drow after she and the dwarves break them over their collective knee.

It doesn't excuse not doling out titles earlier, but it's actually pretty plausible what you're suggesting. It does up the evil lieutenant count as well as open her to 'chained monster' storylines, but shit, given the situation, that's not the worst trade-off in the universe compared to the other options on the table.

 

That's what I was thinking @Seratin. Honestly she should get a couple Drow to power up and lock down. Along with titles for her best supporters back home, gives Cat a scary army. Sure Above will get some counter, but it won't mean much after all.

 

New chapter's up.

...

You all know the fucking drill by now. Anyone who ever thought the Crusade wasn't a paper tiger was wrong, but that was obvious thirty chapters ago. After sitting around for two or three months doing nothing useful, Klaus has abandoned Callows borders, just as Malanza has abandoned the Northern pass, like everyone with a brain knew they would; note, this category does not include Cat, who's been doing stupid things for the last ten chapters, as everyone also knows.

Procer's armies have been completely incapable of dealing with Black, or even meaningfully hindering him, despite the logistical travesty of basically everything he's done thus far. For anyone who's still clinging to the idea that narratives fucking matter in this story when it might be inconvenient to Black or Cat, here's what he's been doing the last few months.

Yeah. And currently, he's aware that the Dead King is about to invade and he's still dead set on burning a swath through Procer that will not only shatter it militarily, but ruin it's ability to feed it's people through the winter. Black's committed fully to banditry, mass-murder, the destruction of entire villages, and has since moved on to directly subverting the only thing between the Dead King and the rest of Calernia. Thus far, absolutely nothing has even come close to hindering him despite several months of blatantly awful, old-school villainous behavior, and with everyone else too busy dealing with the Dead King, the only implication of anything even potentially stopping him is whatever plan this General Altraste has that involves first sacrificing Iserre. Does any one really believe this guy will be Black's undoing, though? Have we even heard of this guy before? I don't even remember, but this story tried to convince me Black was doomed with Akua and he waved a hand and escaped. It tried to convince me he was doomed with Hanno and he waved a hand and escaped. And that's not even getting into the fact that Cat's literally already promised Masego she'd save him if need be.

And let's be frank here, the only joke bigger than 'Proceran armies' in this story at this point is 'Heroes.' Am I even expected to believe that Klaus and Malanza are going to be able to hold the Dead King for a whole afternoon unless he humors them? Given the Saint fucked off, something like five of Malanza's heroes died, and Klaus is not only going to be late to the party but lost a bunch of heroes of his own, I think the Skein might honestly be able to take them on his own. Okay, okay, I'll give the Witch a fuckton of credit on this--the Skein and the Spellblade.

What, the Dead King has at least a million undead from the last Crusade alone? At least fifty known Named and clearly more in stock? A castle full of Demons? Guys, be reasonable.

Anyway, Procer and the Crusade have failed utterly to live up to any of the hype given to them whatsoever and clearly aren't going to, but you know who got a passing mention?

I love you two. I especially love how Kairos swears eternal friendship to literally everyone he has correspondences with.

 

So what's the over under of Thief transitioning into a new name? She's coming apart at the seems because she finds herself too useless in combat situations. She's being a little too hard on herself about it though. Assassin isn't really a straight fight type of name, and it's the most terrifying evil name. Also interesting that she is still so nervous around Hakram. They're on the same side but she knows that he'd crush if she stepped out of line. Thief not getting that his only motivation is Cat is kinda weird though. He gained his name to help her, and that is his life goal. I'm hoping she has some type of transition though, it'd be interesting and bring a new dynamic for The Woe. Cat bringing back a bunch more people with alien morals who can throw a punch might be the final push.

Poor Cordelia though. Every time she wins some type of victory she gets knocked down a peg. Saint wanting to burn it all to the ground around her is probably too much for her. She knows that every card is stacked against her, even the ones supposedly on her side. Any plans she has to get through this are gonna have to be bonkers. Hopefully it makes her more agreeable to working with Cat sometime in the future. I'm not going to hold my breath though.

 

I think Thief's deal has to do with her Role, and how she's expanding way beyond it. She's far more than a thief nowadays, and to an extent that pulling off heists is no longer her primary purpose. Sure, Cat sent her to go plunder the foodstuffs of a whole army, but Thief's usually deployed for general spywork. But it's only recent developments that pushed her over the edge. Thieves aren't Regents. There's something so very contradictory about that, and it's showing in her suffering. Her role does not come with an element of authority, yet she's been given one anyway.

Defying your Role has consequences, as we've seen before. Black's power level is far lower than a Villain of his stature should be, because he defies both Classical Praesi Villainy and the traditional Role of Black Knight. A Black Knight isn't supposed to be the level headed ruler of a country, if one happens to exert authority over territory they conquered it should be brutal, tyrannical, and short-lived. A Black Knight shouldn't be half a king. Sure, he fulfills the role of Evil's Champion and breaker of heroes, and is great at both, but he's not what he's supposed to be. A clearer example comes from William back in Book 2. He ignored the Lone in Lone Swordsman, and became the leader of a band of heroes. Thief took him to task for that very thing. When he later goes to free Akua's slave soldiers, he exchanges the enameled white armor for his old chainmail and leather jacket and remarks on how much more natural it feels. He went back to being what a Lone Swordsman is supposed to be.

A Thief can be a crime kingpin. A spymistress in conjunction with that can also work. A Thief can even be royalty; a highborn defying their station and the standards expected of them (hell, Vivienne is this). But if that Thief of noble blood comes back, settles down, and starts acting like a noble again? And does less thieving? That Thief is transitioning out of the Name. I think she's accidentally stumbled into a story here. It's not one she can't escape from (there are stories where she would literally do that), and maybe she'll get a new Name out of the deal, but for now she's weakening.

And again, Cordelia shows that as capable as she is, she sucks at namelore. Procer just doesn't have the exposure to it, because they rarely spawn the nation-shaking Named that other nations do. She saw a Crusade as a tool to force a coalition war. Saint very rightfully pointed out that a Crusade is much more than that. It's a holy war, with a story to it. A Crusade isn't her vs Malicia, it's Good vs Evil, and the Gods Above don't give a fuck about her or her plans. They just want to beat Below's forces. Break an Evil Nation or two while they're at it. That said, it's pretty funny how confident Saint is. Not because of how much of a lead Evil clearly has right now (this is somewhat standard), but because Good hasn't won a Crusade since the Second. 'Course Saint is a self-righteous cunt, so it fits.

Fun side note: The chapter quote for Fatalism III is by Edward VII, the same king who Cat talked to in Keter. The Sufficiently Paranoid. Huh. Not sufficient enough to avoid getting zombified and bound as the guardian of an empty palace for the past couple centuries.

 

So, stuff and things, Callows running into some issues due to the fact that two of the people running the country don't care about the people in it, but that's unlikely to matter, because it's nothing new. Similarly, the fact that they consider their soldiers and everyone else to be two different kinds of creatures is causing problems, but so what? Those without swords are gonna have a hard time arguing. One of the things that might matter, however, is that the fucking Marshall of Callow doesn't seem to understand why the farmers all hating you is bad, in a nation we're told was a bad winter away from famine to begin with, because between this and not understanding the military value of priests, I'm wondering about Juniper's sense for logistics.

Also:

Juniper, Thief is bad at killing people conventionally, but are you seriously threatening a Named that Assassin tried to recruit?

Thankfully, Hakram is the useful person in the room, as per usually,

Meanwhile, the third Extra Chapter for Fatalism is up. This is one of the few situations regarding Procer recently where I've been surprised, to be honest*--instead of the conclave being the Bard's work, the Saint was behind it all! She's apparently not working alone in this, either; she actually says the Grey Pilgrim has been running around skinning some of the cats making a mess in her backyard. Surprising, because it hasn't shown, even months down the line**!

Anyway, the Saint's here to go batshit crazy. Yeah, she's aware that the Dead King is coming out to play and she's still smacking Callow across the face so that they will invade to, such that Procer can fight the fuckmothering Dead King on one side and a teleporting army on the other. Cordelia rightly points out that they're not gonna win that fight, but Saint doesn't care. She's fine with the Kingdom burning*** and everyone--including herself--dying if it works out in the end, which she believes it will because it's lot of Evil to start off strong and the lot of Good to win in the end.

And here's the thing. I can see the logic. I could even accept this. Like, in a story where narrative tropes have power and the people in the world know that, I could actually accept this as a tactic, however horrible; win hard now to come from behind in a big way. Get overrun by unspeakable odds so you can pull something out of your ass in the eleventh hour or send in some scrappy young hero for a trench run or whatever the hell. I could maybe even see the Bard being involved--maybe this is what she meant by Eat the Baby! I could see it! I could accept it!

There's just one thing I'd need to swallow that--stuff like that being shown to work for the heroes in this story even fucking once, which it never has. No, Captain doesn't fucking count, and not just because the Bard explained her ass to death off-screen; that was not the narrative, that was the Bard, who flat-out sacrificed the Priestess somehow to steal her narrative weight and put it elsewhere; that was a win, but not thanks to the story. And if you put that aside and you have the Calamities killing every hero in Callow twenty years ago and killing every hero to come out of it in the following twenty years before they can accomplish anything. You have Cat putting down dozens of heroes off-screen. You have Hanno's initial band failing to accomplish anything until the Bard cheated, which she only did on that one occasion for some reason, and no other heroes amount to anything; we're told that Black and the Tyrant kill off a number of Ruler Named. The Crusade begins and it's a fucking joke on every level; the heroes lose in the North, the heroes lose in the South, the young heroes lose, the old heroes lose, and something like ten heroes flat-out die. Now, Black is running rampant in the Proceran country side and no one's so much as slowed him the fuck down.

And now the Saint or the Bard or the Gods Above or the fucking story expects me to believe that this time, oh, this time will be different. That setting the situation up such that making Procer the center of a villainous five-way, gargling down Evil cocks from every direction is going to work out? I said it before and I'll say it again; going off what we've seen, I think that in a battle between the Dead King and all of Good's armies, the Dead King could win with...the Skein. Seriously, that guy's probably enough on it's own, but I'll be super generous to the heroes and say maybe two hundred thousand soldiers and twenty Named might be enough to hurt a Horned Lord, so hey, throw in the fucking Spellblade. And if those two are there, he's good.

But just fighting the Dead King, the oldest and most successful villain on the continent, with at least fifty Named and millions of soldiers--that's easy mode. If you're not a fucking pussy, you should be able to have that fight while the Black Knight is going full-villain in your country, pillaging your villages, burning your granaries, etc. Sure, all the actual armies are too busy to deal with him, but that fucking nobody general from the previous chapter who's name I've already fucking forgot--surely he will be the bane of the Black fucking Knight, with the help of an army of unwashed peasants and maybe the Levantines if they give a shit.

But see, that's just Normal Mode, I guess; you want to fight Hard Mode, because again, you're not a pussy. Add in fucking Callow, with a Winter Queen who's now handing out Winter Titles, a Wild Hunt, the drow, and also fucking Masego when he gets back. Why the fuck not, right? What, they can teleport their armies around and you fucking can't? And all your armies are needed in places that won't let them defend your people? And the dwarves stopped selling you weapons? Have you tried not sucking, maybe?

But fighting the Dead King with Black's Legion burning your country side and a teleporting Nightmare Army making things worse and it's Queen explicitly abandoning you to your fate for no fucking reason--that's just Hard Mode, and Hard Mode is the new Easy Mode. While all that's happening, just have the fucking Tyrant attack! It's fine, Procer's left an army of twenty thousand soldiers to stop him! It's not like the Tyrant fucking slaughtered the last army of twenty thousand soldiers he fought single-handedly; no, the army down in Tenerife is surely going to stop him. How many heroes does it have? None? How many of your best generals? None? Huh...

Eh, it'll probably be fine.

Is that what I'm supposed to take away from this? Is that what I'm supposed to believe, for even a second? Based on fucking what? The closest any hero in this story has come to accomplishing anything, outside of the Bard explaining people out of existences, is still with fucking Will. The Crusade was a bad joke that went on so long it almost became funny and has now settled on laughably stupid. Everything said about Good in this story was obviously a fucking joke. This is arguably an interesting idea, arguably something that should work, but how the fuck am I supposed to believe the narrative will matter for the heroes this time when it never did anywhere else.

And even with all of that, do you know what pisses me off the most? It's that if the Saint was on board with this lameass fucking bullshit, whether it was her own idea, the Bard's, or the Gods Above behind it--why the fuck didn't she kill Cat? At the end of the Battle of the Camps, she had Cat in a position where she could have ended her--and sure, it would have meant disobeying Malanza, but she didn't give a shit about that even then, and if she's outright preparing to throw the whole of Procer away, then even the toothless argument of her being concerned for the men doesn't fly.

If this is just how Saint's going to be characterized or what she thinks or whatever, fine. But then why the hell Cat walked away from the Battle of the Camp's alive!?

TL;DR: This plan seems kind of stupid.

*Because 'Procer is losing' is kind of the winning bet lately.

**Though something petty I want to quote; the Saint confirms that Procer only, at least officially, invaded Callow once before:

And we know this was the one after the Third Crusade, something like a thousand years ago. Seriously, Callowans are whiny bitches.

***Which I'm not okay with, though which would be a more bitter pill to swallow if I at all believed that Procer wasn't doomed when it was just fighting the Dead King.

 

Like, I can understand Saint's Gambit here. Her belief that the worse everything seems to be going will ultimately mean a win for heroes is in line with what's supposed to happen.

I think I'm starting to see the reason for all the bullshit hero losses and stories not working as we're told they should.

The heroes aren't actually acting like heroes. They're not going to be saved by heavenly bullshit like they should be if they're not acting like heroes.

Saint's whole angle in this is downright villainous.

Someone pointed out that Arcadia is a reflection of creation. There are no more conflicting courts in Arcadia and in parallel werew seeing Villains acting less downright evil and Heroes being less than heroic.

Will was shady, Thief turned to below, Saint and Pilgrim are handwaving millions of innocent deaths for the greater good.

No wonder Bard is getting pissy.

Also fuck Thief for making me work deer about Hakram for even half a second. I'm not about that. I don't like where that is going at all.

 

What are you talking about? Cordelia was open to working with Cat the moment the Dead King got mentioned--Cat was the dumb bitch that walked away from that and all her problems in Callow so we could have the constant blathering idiocy of the drow arc so she could scavenge the soldiers to fight the Proceran armies that have already left.

Not...really? None of her mistakes seem to have much to do with namelore honestly--though the story has gone out of it's way to make that argument dumb as fuck besides, though I'll get to that. See, the thing is, Cordelia was already warring with all the Evil nations that were active, she just wanted to go about it in a way that was, you know, intelligent and strategic and didn't utterly wreck her own country for no purpose, which is the course of action everyone familiar with namelore seems set on.

But putting that aside, and just because it bothers me--how the motherfuck can Procer not be used to Namelore. Like, there was a time when it actually seemed to make sense; Cordelia herself pointed out that the Proceran contempt for Callow's reliance on Named is outright silly, because Callow is the one that has to deal with crazy fucking Dread Emperors and such, not Procer.

And then they started telling us what Procer did have to deal with, and it's so much worse it's not even funny. Like, you bring up the fact that they 'rarely spawn the nation-shaking Named that other nations do', but even putting aside the fact that, say, all but three Dread Emperors are considered actual jokes on Calernia, here's what we're told of them dealing with. They made personal enemies of the Giants by virtue of the fact that they fucking conquered them. Yeah, these motherfuckers:

???

Then they made personal enemies of Levant, by virtue of the fact that they fucking conquered them. Yeah, the guys who's priests go around murdering monsters with their bare hands and who have literal, elaborate bloodlines of Named.

???

Also, they've held back the ratlings since forever. The heads of the Ratlings, the Hornlords, are some of the most ridiculous bullshit we've seen and we know that they produce classic, cliched villains. We've even heard of Klaus fighting the Longtooth Lord with a small pack of riders, and even assuming those guys attack only rarely, the fucking Ancient Ones are described as fucking Kaiju and these guys are fighting with shitty middle-age weapons.

???

Also, they do literally anything at all whatsoever to hold back the Dead King.

???

Seriously, how are these guys ignorant of Namelore, when they are apparently surrounded on all side by the most terrifying people on the continent? How the hell do they functioned without constant major Named--fuck, without highly trained, well-equipped armies. They idea that they just get by is as dumb as fuck as the idea that the nation that Cat says has warred more times than anyone else in all of Calernia doesn't have specialized forces, hasn't used mages in centuries, only just involved the priests in battle, and doesn't manufacture it's own weapons, which we've also been told is all true..

How the fuck Procer works off-screen is a gaping fucking plothole in this series, because it's apparently the Procer everyone acts like they're dealing with outside of battle, when Malicia is driven to waking the Dead King and Black spends twenty years preparing for a fight and such not bullshit--and apparently, in that version of Procer, every soldier in the country is from Dark Souls or Bloodbourne or some shit.

Meanwhile, there's the Procer we actually get, which is a laughable paper tiger.

Seriously, how the fuck does the history of Procer work?

See, I might have clung to hope on this--that this was just the Saint being stupid or something, a problem with our current batch of heroes, and that a better bunch might be rounded up to be a meaningful threat. But someone pointed out something important to me:

Nope, the Bard's involved. The Saint is, by all accounts, marching based on her orders. The Gods Above, or at least the Bard, are onboard with this, whatever this is. And to that, I really have to ask one thing.

Is that better? I mean, I guess in theory the Bard probably has a plan and she is our most effective hero, if we can call her that--most effective meaning one victory and another that's arguably a victory. She and the Dead King are up to something, so maybe there's an actual point to all this. Maybe she'll explain a few more villains out of existence, even? Maybe this is going to be a super large scale version of the Priestess and she's sacrificing a shit ton of Heroes and people to make someone actually matter? Her involvement at least adds the distant possibility that something could come from this.

But it also means this dumb fucking plan is literally the best we're going to get. Holy fucking shit, I don't even know what to do with that. Procer is worthless, our heroes are worth, and literally the biggest remaining threat of the antagonist the story spent three years building up is that Bard might sacrifice them all to make someone an actual threat. What the hell, really?

This was not what I expected from the battle of Practical Evil vs. Good. Partially because the latter apparently got drunk last night and forgot to show up.