Reading Runes: There’s No Sex in Your Violence

[bossk]

Nice post wayfriend - very thorough reasoning. I agree there is a definite distancing in Runes - not just in the telling of it but also around Linden and the consequences of her actions. However I don't agree that the demondim encounter was in the same boat - in fact I found this burst of ancient black evil under green ill a move away from this distance. It is as though the dulling effect of Kevin's dirt has parted and some of the coming threat has burst through. As for the Demondim in particular, I found them frightening - part corporeal and part pure twitching dark lore. Much more unsettling than those blind old wedges of ur-viles! Their part is yet to come and i found it cohesive that SRB left it to th next book - this book was all about the confused calm before the storm - for linden and the land. Oh, and speaking of anti-climaxes - did anyone else find the grim in TWL like this - lotsa black burning flakes? Not a patch on the vortex of trepidation in TIW IMHO!

I actually loved the Grim. The way it was deployed and the way it had to be fought (inventive use of grass by the Haruchai! Love it!) was very enjoyable to me. In fact, the Sunbane and Grim, etc were very real to me, whereas I find it difficult to feel a real sense of menace from "Kevin's Dirt" and "caesures" - where's the immediate peril of death or dismemberment? So far our heroes have passed through caesures twice with nothing more than some psychic pain and nausea. Maybe I'm a simple man, but I like my danger to be a bit more... dangerous.

[bossk]

At the end of the day everybody makes their own choices and emotional identifications, but failing to emotionally identify at all with such a major character either practically casts doubt on the craft/spirit of SRD or the emotional receptivity of the reader - while SRD is far from perfect, my money has to be on the failings of the reader in this case.

I have to take issue with that concept "failings of the reader". If you were talking to people who had never read SRD and didn't "get" him, I could see your point, but we are all veterans of the first and second Chrons. And, in general, I don't think it's up to the reader to forge an emotional connection to the character, and I don't think SRD believes that either - from what he's written in the gradual interview, he feels it's his job as the writer to make a charcter interesting and believeable.

However, in his defense, I think the best is yet to come. I really, really think he was just setting us up this whole time, and things are going to take off now that the pieces are in place. This is really the kind of thing you can't judge until you've seen the entire thing, though it will be fun to dissect each book, predict a little, and then see how things play out.