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Mar. 17th, 2006 09:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
enteleinI just finished the Dark is Rising series, by Susan Cooper.
I stuck with this series despite my extreme irritation over the concept of the Dark and the Light, and all of the fundamentalist bullshit dragged along behind it like rusty tin cans on strings. There was some really lovely writing, and some of the adventure & journey was really well-done. I like stories with magic.
But oh MAN, the sanctimonious posturing by Merriman. Good GOLLY, the smugness of Will Stanton and his ever-loving ageless wisdom in a 12 year old's body. For want of a kettle, they labeled everything around them with flat, broad brushes, thick strokes of EVIL and BAD and NOT LIGHT. Ugh.
I get to the final book in the series, Silver on the Tree, and I find relief in John Rowlands, a character who seems to know the nature of Will, and even questions him at some point. I had hope for him, in some weird way, and at the final battle, I was proven right. He faces a very bitter betrayal (his wife, who he loved so very much, was actually of the Dark all along), and then is called upon to pass judgment on a dispute between the Dark and the Light, and he chooses well. He is asked to decide whether one of the allies of the Light is qualified to help with their side of the battle, and during the deliberations, his wife pleads and begs with him to help her, to take her back. The Dark bargains with John and they tell him that if he decides in the Dark's favor, they will remove themselves from his wife's mind. She becomes more eager here, claiming she is "possessed."
Well, he lays the smack down on THAT, and tells her, basically, to fuck off, for free will is where it's AT, baby.
I nearly let out a cheer on the train when I got to this part. I also got a bit teary-eyed. FINALLY, a character I could give a crap about.
But then. Then he is standing before one of the people of the Light, and he is asked to make one more decision before returning to his regular life. He can either: remember everything he knows of the Light and Dark, including his own wife's betrayal, or, he can have his memory cleaned free of such things, coming back to a world where his loving and loyal wife died of something tragic, instead, leaving him with a grief based on a lie.
At this point, after being betrayed by the person dearest to his heart, after acting as judge in an Xtreme Tribunal, after assisting in the final battle between the Dark and the Light, I'd be pretty tired. So, despite his own character strength and sense of moral guidance, he leaves that decision to one of the Light.
!!!! Understandable (sort of?), but ay yi yi.
And as he walks off and fades back into his own time, the Light reveals that he will indeed forget everything that has transpired. He will not remember the true nature of his wife, and of the people around him. In fact, most of the ordinary mortals at this point are given Ye Olde Memory wipe, to return to a world where magic may as well never have set down in the first place, for all the good it did them.
How infuriating. Free will, my ass. Free will to make the same damned mistakes again, to forget what was learned, to forget about magic and wonder and hope. Fuck that noise.
Man. Smug, selfish agents of the Light. I kick them in the shins!
(there are definite shades of thought about Eternal Sunshine for the Spotless Mind floating around in my head, now.)
I stuck with this series despite my extreme irritation over the concept of the Dark and the Light, and all of the fundamentalist bullshit dragged along behind it like rusty tin cans on strings. There was some really lovely writing, and some of the adventure & journey was really well-done. I like stories with magic.
But oh MAN, the sanctimonious posturing by Merriman. Good GOLLY, the smugness of Will Stanton and his ever-loving ageless wisdom in a 12 year old's body. For want of a kettle, they labeled everything around them with flat, broad brushes, thick strokes of EVIL and BAD and NOT LIGHT. Ugh.
I get to the final book in the series, Silver on the Tree, and I find relief in John Rowlands, a character who seems to know the nature of Will, and even questions him at some point. I had hope for him, in some weird way, and at the final battle, I was proven right. He faces a very bitter betrayal (his wife, who he loved so very much, was actually of the Dark all along), and then is called upon to pass judgment on a dispute between the Dark and the Light, and he chooses well. He is asked to decide whether one of the allies of the Light is qualified to help with their side of the battle, and during the deliberations, his wife pleads and begs with him to help her, to take her back. The Dark bargains with John and they tell him that if he decides in the Dark's favor, they will remove themselves from his wife's mind. She becomes more eager here, claiming she is "possessed."
Well, he lays the smack down on THAT, and tells her, basically, to fuck off, for free will is where it's AT, baby.
I nearly let out a cheer on the train when I got to this part. I also got a bit teary-eyed. FINALLY, a character I could give a crap about.
But then. Then he is standing before one of the people of the Light, and he is asked to make one more decision before returning to his regular life. He can either: remember everything he knows of the Light and Dark, including his own wife's betrayal, or, he can have his memory cleaned free of such things, coming back to a world where his loving and loyal wife died of something tragic, instead, leaving him with a grief based on a lie.
At this point, after being betrayed by the person dearest to his heart, after acting as judge in an Xtreme Tribunal, after assisting in the final battle between the Dark and the Light, I'd be pretty tired. So, despite his own character strength and sense of moral guidance, he leaves that decision to one of the Light.
!!!! Understandable (sort of?), but ay yi yi.
And as he walks off and fades back into his own time, the Light reveals that he will indeed forget everything that has transpired. He will not remember the true nature of his wife, and of the people around him. In fact, most of the ordinary mortals at this point are given Ye Olde Memory wipe, to return to a world where magic may as well never have set down in the first place, for all the good it did them.
How infuriating. Free will, my ass. Free will to make the same damned mistakes again, to forget what was learned, to forget about magic and wonder and hope. Fuck that noise.
Man. Smug, selfish agents of the Light. I kick them in the shins!
(there are definite shades of thought about Eternal Sunshine for the Spotless Mind floating around in my head, now.)
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Date: 2006-03-17 06:13 pm (UTC)The search for the symbols. Hey...that could be a good ARG. :)
all it needs is an AI.
And a kickoff on AIM.
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Date: 2006-03-18 09:41 pm (UTC)also, lol on the ARG aspect. Srsly.
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Date: 2006-03-17 06:48 pm (UTC)Have you read Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy? It has its flaws, but in some ways it's a more mature and sophisticated version of the Cooper series.
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Date: 2006-03-18 09:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-18 02:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-18 09:42 pm (UTC)Also, the Light is so feverishly following these verses to get clues and all -- who wrote these verses? Why didn't they just go back in time to when they were written and get the real answers? Durrr.
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Date: 2006-03-29 03:03 am (UTC)