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Let's Read: Vox Day's Arts of Dork and Spite, and Try to Make the Resulting Hurt Stop.

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A Throne of Bones: Lodi. Reader, meet yet another plotline, and this one is effing weird.
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    • LODI

    "Okay," we imagine our hypothetical casual reader saying, after the preceding chapter's done, "that was a bit of detour, but we needed to see what is going on back in Amorr--I mean, that was clearly supposed to be Amorr, wasn't it? So, this story is about Amorran politics--we've got the legions, we've got the church, we've got the Severans giving us some idea what's going on in the city... I've got it." And then our hypothetical casual reader will turn the page, and get that metaphorical gut punch I mentioned.

    We open on a mountain. It's cold. Beale tells us that, and he also tells us...

    The sun was nowhere to be found, hidden behind a thick mass of grey clouds piled one upon the other like stones.
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    One day, we may find a bit of scenery that Beale can't mutilate in a description. But I wouldn't bet on it. Anyway, Lodi's here. Remember Lodi? From Summa Elvetica (still on sale!)? Beale mentioned him a few chapters ago, briefly, so you better, because you're not getting much orientation here. Lodi isn't going to be much help, because he's not even quite sure where he is--the mountain is apparently nameless. Oh, but there's a black dragon hanging around. And Thorald's there too. Actually, wait--Lodi's sure it probably does have a name, just something in... bleh, troll. More recounting Lodi's background from Summa Elvetica (still on sale!) occurs, and we learn he's been recruited by the... King of the Underdeep, whoever that is--it may or may not be Hammerstone--to recover something from a dragon's hoard. The dragon is Aslaughyrna, who is a young one, by dragon standards... and somehow Lodi knows the dragon's name, but not the name of the mountain, because...

    Anyway, they're just waiting for Aslaughyrna to head out for some hunting, which is apparently tedious as hell for them. As reading about it is tedious as hell for us, we briefly sympathize. However, we've joined just as something happens--Aslaughyrna heads out to hunt--it's got venom sacs, so who knows just how Selenoth dragons work--and Lodi gets to work, telling Thorald to give him a shout if the dragon comes back. Lodi pokes around--Aslaughyrna has acid breath, so these are sort of kind of D&D dragon varieties. Apparently our lad Aslaughyrna mostly eats elsewhere--there are few orc bodies around, and then... Lodi gets very excited by the scent of GOLD! The hoard turns out to be pretty small--remember, Aslaughyrna's young, and he lives in the ass end of nowhere--but that's still enough for a dwarf to get all... dwarfish. Lodi picks up a couple coins, because screw Beowulf, and then locates the shield he's been hired to obtain. That's when Thorald sends him the dragon coming signal, so Lodi picks up the shield and am-scrays, just in time to see the drake flying about with a struggling dwarf-sized body in its claws.

    Let us mourn poor Thorald, who escaped from slavery to wind up like this, and move on. Goodbye, Thorald. Of all the characters in this series, you were one.
     
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    • Space Oddity said:
    Severa says she'd rather be executed than go through this, and she has a point, as we then watch the remaining woman "lose control of her bladder," following which the goblin strangles her to death. Over several paragraphs.

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    Vox Day, Vox Populi
    Theodore Beale said:
    Has Phony ever hit a woman? Has he ever seen a woman's head snap back, seen her knees buckle, and stood over her as she lays crumpled on the floor? Has he ever bloodied a woman's nose or blackened a woman's eyes? Has he ever toyed with a woman desperately trying to lay a hand on him before stepping forward and flattening her with a single jab?

    I have. It wasn't even amusing because it was so easy. I had a harder time fighting a well-trained eleven year old boy. I wasn't even throwing any combinations or throwing my strikes at more than half-force, and that was still enough to lay them out. If you are a man who hasn't ever hit a woman in the face, or if you are a woman who hasn't ever been beaten up by a man, your opinion on the subject is guaranteed to be irrelevant. The cumulative difference in speed, strength, and mass simply has to be experienced to be believed.

    I sincerely encourage anyone who wishes to write about women warriors to visit a full-contact dojo and ask to spar a few rounds with the opposite sex. They will accommodate you and it will be an eye-opening experience.
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    Edit:

    I got into an argument about conveying tone through text recently. I think it was in the unpopular opinions thread, but it might have been the RWBY thread.

    This is a great example of possibly subconscious tone conveyed through text. The Author thinks he's making a substantive point, but is actually typing with one hand.
     
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    krinsbez said:
    What. The. Actual. FUCK?
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    Remember, this is the same guy who says that we should throw acid in the faces of women who date outside their race. He's also the jackass who keeps ruining the Hugo's

    About the only good thing he's done is to inspire this thread which makes me feel better about my writing ability.
     
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    Arawn_Emrys said:
    Remember, this is the same guy who says that we should throw acid in the faces of women who date outside their race.
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    Yes but that doesn't explain why he's bragging about beating a woman to a pulp.

    I'm reasonably certain that even the kind of so-called "traditionalists" who think men should be allowed to "discipline" their wives like to pretend that they're doing so "gently", not...this.

    What is the context where he thinks this is within the Overton Window?
     
    krinsbez said:
    Yes but that doesn't explain why he's bragging about beating a woman to a pulp.

    I'm reasonably certain that even the kind of so-called "traditionalists" who think men should be allowed to "discipline" their wives like to pretend that they're doing so "gently", not...this.

    What is the context where he thinks this is within the Overton Window?
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    You are talking about a man who suggests that we legalize rape on private property. He doesn't give a fuck about the overton window.

    He just insists that anyone who is offended by the shit he says is an SJW special snowflake.
     
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    Arawn_Emrys said:
    You are talking about a man who suggests that we legalize rape on private property. He doesn't give a fuck about the overton window.

    He just insists that anyone who is offended by the shit he says is an SJW special snowflake.
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    To be fair to Beale (ugh), I think that was Roosh. I wouldn't be surprised if Vox Day endorsed it, though
     
    Arawn_Emrys said:
    He is, but he's more anti-feminism than he is pro-anything. He thinks all the evils (from their point of view) that the alt-right rail against spring from women not being slaves anymore.
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    There's also the racism, the conspiracy theories, the anti-semitism, and the Trump worship.

    Basically, Beale's a fascist troll, especially in his "Vox Day" persona. How much of it's real belief, and how much is just bluster to rile people up and get the rubes to applaud is impossible to tell--and remember Vonnegut's maxim, "You are what you pretend to be, so you must be very careful what you pretend to be." There's definitely some issues there, under all the posing.
     
    Space Oddity said:
    There's also the racism, the conspiracy theories, the anti-semitism, and the Trump worship.

    Basically, Beale's a fascist troll, especially in his "Vox Day" persona. How much of it's real belief, and how much is just bluster to rile people up and get the rubes to applaud is impossible to tell--and remember Vonnegut's maxim, "You are what you pretend to be, so you must be very careful what you pretend to be." There's definitely some issues there, under all the posing.
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    Blecch.

    That's not even funny, it's just unpleasant.
     
    Arawn_Emrys said:
    Iirc he even tried to start his own game review site (with blackjack and hookers?) during that mess, and failed badly.
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    Doesn't surprise me.

    But I still want to know what the context is that led him to doing something so opposed to traditional masculinity as to brag about about beating women to a pulp.:jackiechan: If only out of morbid curiosity.
     
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    Outside of gamergate, I'd imagine Vox Day writing a screed about how playing video games is a sign of the pussification of the western male or something like that.
     
    A Throne of Bones: Theuderic. Reader, meet YET another plotline.
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    • THEUDERIC

    Right. Our hypothetical reader is now scratching their head, and asking themselves "Wait, what... how does that connect to anything?" I mean, sure Lodi knows Marcus, but it was briefly, and it's quite clear that Marcus was more affected by that relationship than Lodi, who has quite rightly moved on with his life. With that chapter, the story just took a sudden veer towards... well, it's tough to say. Still, a reader might hope for clarification in the next chapter.

    Any hope for clarity is going to go completely to hell with this chapter.

    Theuderic is watching five royal mages prepare an exceptionally large pentacle pattern, to use on a red dragon. They've had to wait for it to go to sleep, but it's obliged, and now, if all goes as planned, when it awakes it will be under the control of the... haut mage.

    Oh, dear. I sense deformed French and Savondir/Savonderum coming.

    Theuderic we learn, while completely confident in the... haut magicien, is watching things through a crystal ball, many leagues aways. So, he's only so confident. Yep, he's at L'Academie, with eleven fellow battlemages, three or four "immortels" whatever they are, and... an elven princess, one Lithriel Everbright, who apparently taught them the spell... Oh, it's Dashella. She's had a name change. And yes, a little backstory in the narration reveals that Theuderic is our... friend "Nicholas" from A Magic Broken (still on sale!), and he isn't worried about her finding out how he's behind all the horrible shit that's happened to her, because he's killed almost everyone who could tell her.

    Nice guy, Theuderic. So, now that we've all but had it revealed that we are hanging with Teddy's former RPG character, let's get back to the story. Lithriel is very happy Theuderic's staying back at L'Academie and avoiding the experiment, and she is... rather flirty, which causes a sinking feeling in the pit of one's stomach. It turns out that the spell that she taught them has only previously worked on... sparrows since then.

    Yeah, got a good feeling about this test.

    Lithriel is actually kind of surprised they think the "Tame Sparrow" spell can even work on a dragon, but one enthusiastic mage named Laurent says that no, no, birds, lizards, and dragons all share a single ancestor, as demonstrated by a previous Academy mage.

    Should I mention that Beale got his start at WorldNetDaily posting anti-evolutionary theory nonsense? Yeah, this is a guy who never lets go a single grudge, in'it?

    Laurent unleashes a word salad mutilation on evolutionary theory, and Lithriel laughs and tells him that as neither he nor the mage was actually there, they can't prove anything. But elves were there, and they know the dragons were intelligently designed by some group called "the ascendants", who the Witchkings apparently modeled themselves after. This ongoing infodump is ended by some fellow members of the audience telling them all to shut up. They've got a spell on a red dragon to watch.

    The spell seems to proceeding... rather dully. The crystal ball doesn't transmit sound, so they're just watching a guy chant silently, while five other guys stand around him. The dragon awakes. One mage says that, yeah, yeah, this is certainly going to work. The haut mage gets torn in two by the dragon. Litheriel claps and laughs, declaring that this proves dragons aren't birds. Nice folks, elves.

    The dragon tries to fly off, but the pentacle is still holding it in place. The mages are prepared--they've got big candles made of... human fat so they can keep this pentacle going for hours. Yeah, Savondir seems to really want to try and nudge Amorr out of its "Most Awful Major Human State" perch. This will give the mages time to cut and run, as long as they follow procedure and don't break the circle. The dragon watches for a while, then lunges at one of the mages. He breaks the circle, then gets burned. The dragon flies off--then burns another mage, who makes a fighting try to leave a mark on the dragon before he buys it.

    He fails.

    The dragon then proceeds to track down the other mages, and methodically kills them one by one.

    The fourth mage's death was by far the worst to watch, as he was seized in one huge clawed foot and shredded into bloody tatters by the repeated application of the other foot as the beast soared into the sky.
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    Yeah. I suppose he's fortunate that his death will be immortalized in Beale's... prose.

    Lithriel meanwhile, is laughing hysterically, because to an elf, this is Selenoth's Funniest Home Videos. Theoderic is starting to find it embarassing, especially as they're both getting stinkeye from his fellows. Lithriel interrupts her merriment to ask Theoderic if he knows how to turn off the crystal ball. He says he doesn't. Lithriel casts a few hints, and Theoderic realizes that heat is rather like light, and so apparently the heat of the dragon's flames might just travel through the link. The senior mage--ahh, that is apparently what an immortel is--who's running the crystal ball doesn't quite get this, and by the time he does it's too late. Still, Theuderic and most of the rest audience get their protection spells up, even though that poor guy gets toasted. Oh, and... it seems, yes, Savondir follows Amorran Crystal Dragon Jesus, which raises some interesting questions.

    With that debacle winding up, Theuderic starts focusing on the important things--protecting his own ass in what is going to go down as a historic disaster for the Academy. Still, he has enough time to quip at Laurent, showing that he and Lithriel are a match made in... well, not heaven.
     
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    • Yeangst said:
    That's a hell of a long range weapon and force multiplier for wizards they've got there.
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    Only if you plan on chucking your (presumably rare and expensive) crystal ball into the enemy camp. It doesn't project to where you are looking, it pulls from there to you. Unless he decides to change that because Consistency Bad!.
     
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