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Assassinās Creed: Valhalla has a massive problem with its story, and whatās worse it kind of refuses to address it. I really like the mythology parts of the story, and the additions to the ongoing lore of the history of Assassins and Templars. But the historical story that makes up the main part of the gameās narrative isā¦ I mean itās about colonialism. And it doesnāt seem to know it?
I have been a BUSY BEE this Labor Day weekend because hereās a new Impish article.
Part two! Characters. Hopefully, I'll have the last part out before the week's up.
CHARACTERS
Atticus
Unsurprisingly, Atticus is still a garbage man. As I explained in the Plot section, he really has little reason to be invested in the story. You would think if he really was a guy who spent thousands of years traveling from place to place, avoiding attention, heād be more willing to pack up and move, but that requires more effort on his/Hearneās part, so we canāt have that.
This book has Hearne try a little harder to make us think heās sympathetic, but those attempts all fall flat. When Atticus finds out that Perry the Goth has died, he seems very upset, to the point that he briefly drops his cover as a stupid stoner in front of a detective; but weāve never seen them as being particularly close to each other, he hardly ever spared a thought towards Perry when the man was alive, and we only have a basic idea of his personality: he was a cheerful Goth, a nerd who likes Monty Python, and he is apparently easily distracted by attractive women (that last trait is only mentioned after he died)
Speaking of which, and getting back to Atticus: the man remains a massive pervert. Thereās a scene in which heās putting a protective amulet on Granuaileās neck and he keeps getting distracted by her collarbone of all things, and has to work to try to keep his mind off of sex. The man is apparently thousands of years old, and yet seeing bare skin on a womanās collar, with nothing elseāthat is enough to make him aroused and distracted. No one is saying or doing anything sexual in that scene, but the millenia-old man is just so turned on by the barest of skin. I know that Granuaile is the Love Interest, but we canāt chalk this up to, āHeās so in love with her, he gets turned on by every little thingā, because their relationship is nowhere near that developed yet. At this point, I canāt imagine his attachment to her is particularly deep.
I once again want to emphasize that this man does not care about anyone but himself. Atticus seems shocked that the leader of the local werewolf pack doesnāt want anything to do with him when he got a couple of the werewolves killed in the last book. He doesnāt actually care about people in or around his town getting killed by supernatural beings if it doesnāt affect himāhe has to be threatened into killing the demon thatās been munching on teenagers at a local school.
And heās still dumbāreally, really dumb. Atticus acts like heās manipulated whenever someone makes him do something. He constantly makes half-baked plans, or forgets that his cut-through-anything sword can cut through anything. He blows his cover in front of the police repeatedly, because he loses his temper over something or another. And yet throughout, weāre constantly meant to think that Atticus is the peak of human brilliance, because he knows all of Shakespeareās plays by heart.
So instead of having Atticus actually do clever or sympathetic things on the page, Hearne just has other characters tell us how brilliant he is, have him be immune to everyone elseās magic, or just tell the audience about cool things he did in the past. For instance, in explaining his backstory with the Nazi witches, he tells everyone that he met them while escorting Jewish refugees away from the Nazis, which he was much better at than anyone else doing it, and he did it because his conscience didnāt let him sit out this conflictādespite apparently never caring about or interfering in the pogroms against Jewish people during any other part of history, or heck, any other historical atrocity or genocide.
Iām sorry, but while Iām glad your protagonist didnāt sympathize with the Nazis, writing your protagonist to be the BEST, MOST AMAZING and TALENTED of the Righteous Among Nations feels really tacky.
One of the most frustrating things that proves how little he cares about anyone but himself is that at the end of the last book, Aenghus Og blighted a spot of land by summoning demons, and Atticus declares it his sacred duty as a Druid to heal that land. Except he doesnātāand it clearly doesnāt bother him at all throughout the book. He doesnāt do anything about it until the epilogue. He mentions it a fair number of times, but he has no explanation as to why he hasnāt fixed it other than vague notions that he hasnāt gotten around to it. If this really was his sacred duty, wouldnāt it be more of a priority than things like hiring a new person for his store, or buying a harem of poodles for his dog?
Speaking of his dogā¦
Oberon
Oberon remains a stupid dog.
He has the same role as the last book: a stupid dog to make stupid quips that arenāt funny, often padding out scenes with ājokesā that throw off the momentum of dialogue and scenes. In the last book, he actually had some involvement in the Plot; here, heās just there. He doesnāt do anything. He exists to have Hearne insert the dialogue that he wish he could say in those scenes, but canāt think of anyone else saying because it wouldnāt make sense.
Granuaile
Granuaile (or āGranny/Grannieā as I like to call her) is Atticusās apprentice Druid. In the previous book, she was the host for the ghost of Laksha, an Indian witch. That doesnāt sound like much, and itās notāshe only really does anything towards the end, where she says she wants to be a Druid, and Laksha goes and finds a new body. In this book, Granuaile acts as Atticusās alibi for the most partāAtticus can say he was with his girlfriend, and Granuaile will cover for him if sheās questioned by the police.
Occasionally, she acts as a sounding board for Atticus to explain things to. Which isnāt bad in theory, I suppose, but it leads to moments like Granny suggesting that the maenads can be reasoned with because āthey make love, not warā, when sheās supposed to be an intelligent, well-educated person. This just makes her come across as very stupid, thinking that if they leave the insane drunken nymphs alone, theyāll just mind their own business?
And so Granuaile exists to be ogled at and have things explained to her, as well as provide an alibi for Atticus. Thatās not a great recipe for a character.
Malina
As in the first book, the problem with Malina is that sheās supposed to come across as a character that we donāt know if we can trust, but in reality for the most part she doesnāt act in any way that comes across as suspicious. So the entire story has Atticus telling us that he doesnāt know if he can trust her (while trusting her anyway, because heās an idiot), and talking as if sheās going to betray him at the drop of a hat, when she does nothing the audience finds unreasonable.Ā
Like, okay, thereās the fact that her apartment automatically takes hair samples from anyone who entersāwhich is pretty sketchy even if youāre not a witch, but Atticus doesnāt care because his magic blocks it from happening to him. And keep in mind that this is a world in which Nazi witches exist, so that she has some precautions to protect herself doesnāt seem so bad in context.
A character who is nothing but helpful to Atticus, and yet weāre meant to find her unsavory and sketch becauseā¦ reasons. Go figure.
Coyote
So Coyote was mentioned in the previous novel as basically the only god in the American southwest (which is stupid, but thatās what Hearne wrote). Here he actually appears as a character, in which he has an overdone accent, and threatens Atticus into killing a demon. Weāre supposed to think heās a clever trickster who āmanipulatesā Atticus, while ultimately being benevolent, but it doesnāt really add up. The only thing he lies about is why he wants Atticus to kill the demon: he tells him that the demon is eating kids from his tribe (the Navajo), when in reality he only realizes that itās a matter of time before the demon does that, and so he wants to stop it now.Ā
Both Coyote and Atticus act like this is trickery somehow.
I donāt get it.
I strongly suspect that this subplot is meant to set up something later on, though I havenāt the slightest idea what.
Leif
Yes, Atticusās literal bloodsucking lawyer is more prominent in this one. Heās got a major grudge against Thor, which will be explained in the next book, and basically cuts off his friendship with Atticus until he agrees to help him kill the Norse thunder god. Weāre supposed to think of him as incredibly old-fashioned and out-of-touch with the modern world, but considering that Hearne seems so disconnected from how actual people act, it doesnāt really work.Ā
Also, he apparently hates Thor so much that he sometimes kills carpenters for using hammers, as explained in the last book. Somehow, weāre supposed to overlook this.
Heās also horribly overpoweredānothing really threatens him, not even hellfireāyeah, it can burn him, but evidently not anymore than normal fire does?Ā
The Widow McDonagh
I still call her the Leprechaun because of her stupid accent. Sheās not in this book that much, except to give stupid jokes and for Atticus to save her from evil witches. She still openly lusts after Atticus, and rather inconsistently, other characters canāt decide if itās funny or gross.
I hate this character.
Laksha
The Indian witch who used to be in Grannyās head! Now she has another body. Atticus acts like sheās super sketchy, as he does with all witches, but sheās willing to fly across the country to talk to Atticus, and decide whether or not she wants to help him with the maenad problem. Laksha actually feels like a character, unlike most of the others, in that she has her own motivations that make sense. She also is another character who manages to sort of āget one overā on Atticus, but thatās only because he (predictably) did not think about the implications of his specific terms for her helping him.
I suppose I also like that sheās competentāwhen Atticus is getting overwhelmed by lust in the maenadās presence, Laksha calls him out on it and makes him wait outside while she deals with the problem.
Whatās weird is that weāre definitely supposed to view her as someone lesser than Atticus: she follows her terms to the letter, which is what youād expect from a witch that Atticus tells us repeatedly not to trust, but he still acts offended when it happens and he has to finish cleaning up the mess. When she makes a crude joke and laughs about it, Atticus acts stony-faced, as if this was an inappropriate timeāwhich is downright weird because he cracks those sorts of jokes all the time.
In short, sheās fine as a character, but itās obvious that Hearne doesnāt like her, so it wouldnāt surprise me if she turns out to be omnicidal down the line somewhere.
Perry the Goth
Lo, poor Perry. The guy never had much character, but in this book he is murdered by the evil witches in this book. Itās meant to be a sad moment when Atticus finds out and mourns for him, though Atticus never seemed particularly attached to him before this point, and we still donāt know much about him other than that he was cheerful, friendly, evidently easily distracted by beautiful women, and a Goth.
Why Hearne thought āGothā, the subculture, was supposed to be capitalized, I donāt know? So on the sporking, we all imagine him as one of the Goths, the Germanic folk who pillaged Rome. Which makes his scenes much more fun to picture. But woe is we, for he shall no longer grace this story with his pillaging ways.
Goodbye, Perry. You will be missed.
The Nazi Witches
Or, as theyāre officially called: āDie Tochter des dritten Hausesā.
The good coven explains that theyāre not *technically* Nazis, theyāre just a German coven of witches that manipulated Nazi Germany to their own ends and have a fanatical hatred of Jewish wizards, but, uhā¦ I feel like thatās splitting hairs, so Iām calling them Nazis. Theyāre Nazis.Ā
Now itās not that I want the Nazi witches to have complex character developmentāNazis are bastards, thatās kind of all you need in terms of characterization for them. But they come right the fudge out of nowhere to be antagonists in this book. They do have a longstanding enmity with the good coven in Tempe, sure, but why they think coming to Tempe and killing the people there will do anything for them? Why do supernatural factions want this territory?
Also, I kept changing the German name throughout the sporking, and no one mentioned that in the comments, which is a bit disappointing.
Morrigan
Atticusās vicious patron in the Irish pantheon graduates to a rapist in this book! She heals Atticusās ear by raping him. Which, narratively, isnāt necessarily a bad idea, but itās not treated as rape, itās treated as, āWell, itās rough, uncomfortable sex, Iāll get over itā, despite him saying he doesnāt want to, he just canāt say ānoā to the Morrigan. If the narrative actually acted like it was rape, or even that Atticus was in denial about it, I wouldnāt like it, though Iād understand what weāre going for. As it is, it feels like Hearne just didnāt realize that it was rape, because it was a woman doing it to a man.
This whole thing also doesnāt make much senseāas someone pointed out in the context, the Morrigan isnāt a healing goddess, and being with her is more a rite of kingship than of healing? In mythology, I believe Dagda, the king of the Irish gods, had a thing with her? Itās just an odd sequence, and I strongly suspect that itās Hearneās attempt to copy a similar scene from American Gods in which Shadow has rough, questionably consenting dream sex with the Egyptian goddess Bast, and wakes up healed.
Unlike the previous book, in which Morrigan repeatedly appears to help fix Atticusās problems, here sheās only in one sequence, really.
Brighid
The queen of the Irish gods also has one notable scene hereāand itās to demand Atticus marry her. When Atticus doesnāt, and he realizes that heās been with Morrigan, she tries to burninate him. Luckily, Atticus is able to get around her attack, immobilize her, and then lecture her about how sheās being entitled and selfish.
Atticus does this to the queen of a pantheon. Supposedly the one he worships, but that feels impossible.
Also, the reason Atticus turns her down is because āheās just so interested in the mortal world,ā which is a BS explanation considering what he does with his immortality: hang out in a college town and live a boring routine.
Mr. Semerdjian
Mr. Semerdjian is Atticusās nosy, elderly, Lebanese neighbor, who heās always screwing with because the man doesnāt like Atticus, so I say he has good taste. Because Reasons (a demon fighting a giant cactus, the coolest thing to happen in the book), early on itās revealed that he has an RPG in his garage? Later in the book the āheroesā raid his supplies and find out that he has a ton of military-grade weapons. Why, you may ask? Well, because he sells weapons to gangsters going across the border with Mexico!
Iām not kidding.
Itās just a bizarre character trait for the man who was previously established to hate Atticus because he suspected he was an illegal immigrant? And it felt like a weird anti-immigrant screed. Itās more transparently a method to give our heroes some guns for the final confrontation with the Nazi witches.
Russian Rabbi Fanatic Guy
Fudge, I donāt even remember this guyās name. Heās a religious zealot douchebag that Atticus hates because he hates Atticus and witches and all supernatural creatures, declaring them abominations. Which is a really weird direction to take the one explicitly Jewish character in the canon? As far as I know, the āfanatical witch hunterā stereotype is generally Christian, and this doesnāt conform to any antisemitic stereotypes, so credit for that, I guess? But itās still just bizarre, especially as he has a Catholic priest companion thatās depicted as the voice of reason, before he disappears entirely.
Also, his beard can strangle people??
---
So as you can tell--not a great cast of characters, eh? But how do the worldbuilding and themes hold up? We'll look at those in the final part.
WOOOOOOO! We are DONE with Hexed, itās over! I am sorry that it took so long, but also not too sorry because it wasnāt my fault the site went down. Like with Hounded, weāre going to take a look at the elements of the book, why I donāt think it works, and dip into what we can look forward to if this sporking lasts long enough for me to spork the next book, Hammered.
PLOT
Alright, the story wanders around a lot, so it might be difficult to track, but the actual Plot of Hexed is this:
Some witches come to Tempe and try to kill Atticus. He and his witch allies want to kill them first.
Thatās it.
There are some weird complications, such as his side quest to go kill a demon, the maenads in Scottsdale, but those arenāt the actual Main Plot; those exist to set up things that will be relevant in later books. The main storyline of this book is so weirdly done, itās easy to forget that itās there, and so itās especially jarring when Atticus awkwardly declares to the reader that heās encountered this coven of witches before during World War II, in an incident weāve never been told about in any capacity until a few chapters after this realization.
Itās horribly put together! The entire Plot occurs because a random thing happens to Atticus, and he just reacts to it. Once again, he rarely goes out of his way to do anything unless someone makes him, until we get to the end because Hearne wanted there to be a big battle with the witches as a climax. And itās super weird that basically right before the final battle, when things should be ramping up, the momentum halts so that we can get a lengthy explanation as to how Atticus knows the evil witches.Ā
And I should probably point out that these witches canāt even really kill him. Even if we move past how in the second chapter of the previous book, Atticus becomes essentially immune to death, in every confrontation with them, he always has the upper hand. His magic amulet blocks most of their hexes; if Atticus skipped town, heād be fine. Itās not that he is so attached to Tempe that he feels he must protect the place from the witches, itās that he canāt be bothered to move.
Once again, Atticus is not fighting because he wants or needs something, itās because he gets inconvenienced enough to go fight evil.
Yeah, that makes a great Plot. Not urgency, but convenience.
I said for the first book, Hounded, that the way to fix things would have been to make it into something like an urban fantasy take on John Wick. This one? Fudge, I donāt know. If Hearne absolutely had to make it so that the evil coven of Nazi witches and Atticus had history, that should be established as early as you can possibly do so, not right before the final confrontation. Maybe make it so that the Nazi witches had been trying to find him since World War II, and only now picked up his trail because his killing Aenghus Og and Bres sent up flares in the supernatural community? And then they actually pose a threat to him somehow, so he has to deal with it.
But nope! Once again, itās Atticus fighting to avoid any inconveniences.
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[Next part is characters. I wanted to do this all in one go, but the site isn't working with us, and I'm going to be busy, so I hoped to at least give you guys something to read.]
So I didnāt actuallyĀ do any drafting but I read through the next couple of chapters, and it looks like Chapters 6&7 will be combined into one sporking entry because Chapter 6 is just... Atticus giving Oberon a bath and telling him about 60ā²s counterculture.
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WHAT THE FUDGE IS THIS?!? Anything else? Are we going to learn that Leif was one of the raiders at Lindisfarne? That the bartender at the Irish pub had family in the Twin Towers? The Atlantic Slave Trade? The Armenian Genocide? The Tiananmen Square protests? All of these are sitting right there if Hearne wants to use them for cheap backstories.
