Blood Reaver

[Trel]

Finally, though I disagree with your analysis, it did remind me of this Penny Arcade comic, which I think we can all agree is wonderful and life-affirming*! :)

 

Very good call. ;)

 

I hate to use the term "Mary Sue" because this isn't fanfiction...well, not really. :P However, the way the Night Lords were presented in "Blood Reaver" really does make the legion (or at least First Claw) on a whole a little M.S.-esque.

 

Talos is a seer, but apparently not a psychic or corrupted at all. Unlike everyone else, he seemingly has no desire for authority but he's just so awesome he winds up in positions of authority. He's good to his slaves. He never puts a foot wrong. He has an awesome nickname given to him by the Primarch (but he doesn't like to use it.)

He was the smartest kid in the room in school, but he wasn't popular and everyone thought he was a dullard, but he sure showed them. He's a space marine now. He's even fighting to reject his own gene-seed? Wouldn't that kill him a week after implantation?

Where's the character flaw? A real flaw, not "he saw the best and brightest aspects of his tortured primarch, willfully ignoring his madness".

 

Moreover, it almost seems like the Night Lords in this book were written to appeal to the typical 40K player as much as possible. They're not the good guys, because the good guys just blindly worship the Emprah. They're ostensibly the bad guys, but they're not slavering cultists worshiping different gods. They are their own dogs, fighting their war their way, not for Chaos, but to prove an (ill-defined) point and for humanity's benefit. To top it off, they're making-do with what they've got because they're poor; without re-supply or a homeworld or anything. (This last one seems particularly aimed at 40K players: how many times have you heard, "Sure, if I had the money to just up and buy an X army, I'd win all the time too, but I can't afford that, so I'm going to whup you with my sub-optimal footsloggers.")

 

I remember when the Night Lords were primarily defined by being a legion of bullies, not a legion of Wolverine.

 

Bottom line: I still like A D-B's writing and his style, but I think he needs to put this series to rest for a little bit because he's fallen in love with his characters and had given them power like Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts, but only two books into the series...

[Khestra the Unbeheld]

You do realize that by the standards you've just laid down, it's impossible to even have a protagonist in a multi-part story that wouldn't be classified as a Mary Sue, right? :)

[Trel]

Not my standards: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_sue (I'm going by that one, since there are a lot of definitions out there.)

 

The parallel I would like to draw is to Anthony Reynolds's "Dark [X]" Word Bearers series. That is another series where there are no truly good guys. The protagonist, Marduk, has plenty of flaws and it is left to the reader whether to cheer for him or hope he gets his what-fer in the end. Marduk is a bad guy. Sure, he's doing wrong to other bad guys, but he generally does it in such a fashion that the reader can't feel good about enjoying his triumphs.

 

With Talos, on the other hand, it feels very much like you're being forced to cheer for him. Moreso, it makes

the reward that Talos gets in the end: Vandred gone, and now he has his own ship

seem like a hollow reward. By the end of the book, I honestly wanted Talos or someone he really cared about dead just to balance the saccharine taste.

 

I can't remember who said it (Vonnegut, maybe?) but an author should never fall in love with his or her characters because then, much like a loving parent, the author will be loath to put his or her characters in situations where they will suffer.

[A D-B]

I can't remember who said it (Vonnegut, maybe?) but an author should never fall in love with his or her characters because then, much like a loving parent, the author will be loath to put his or her characters in situations where they will suffer.

 

In a move that will shock no one, I can't reeeeally say I agree. See, my pet hate with fiction is characters whose flaws do nothing but make them more badass. I loathe Blade, I think Wolverine is awful, and I can't stand Drizzt Do'Urden. They're all characters whose curses and flaws do nothing but make them cool, attractive, and more badass than anyone else. It's literally the one thing I hate most in fiction, designed purely to appeal to the basest, most shallow engagements with a story.

 

And I don't really see First Claw like that. Talos is a seer that only ever sees bad stuff, and it doesn't always come true. He's not a particularly great leader. He's not brilliant at controlling his own squad, let alone (as we'll see) a battle company. He's deluded, which earns him more enemies than friends. He's good to his slaves, which will come back to bite him on the arse soon enough, like all of his "nobler" decisions. He has practically no friends, no comfort, and he's pretty much living with a dull sense of maudlin spite colouring everything he does. His one plan to get the Legion two ships and increase the warband's supplies exponentially ended up losing them the

Covenant of Blood

, and their commander, because Talos's "great" find in another Navigator is pretty bad at her job a lot of the time.

 

Uzas can barely string a sentence together, and no one likes him. He genuinely gets his brothers in trouble and causes them inconvenience in their night-to-night lives. Xarl is a badass, sure, but his brothers can barely relate to him - he's a sentient weapon, and disagrees with Talos all the time. They work together because they're brothers, and that's all. And basically, they survive against immense odds because they usually run away from them. They're not even that lucky, when it comes to the crunch. They hardly ever even win. They just run away.

 

And lastly, Talos had one major vision in Blood Reaver, and that was of everyone

dying, beaten up up by the Eldar

.

 

So... Nah, I don't really see it. They never triumph. They always just survive. It's not tale of them rising to power and being amazing. It's a tale of them getting through by the skin of their teeth, losing things on the way, and leading to their inevitable decline.

[Khestra the Unbeheld]

So I'll assume when they all die horribly messy and fruitless deaths in Void Stalker, as has been prophesied, they officially get to come out of the Mary Sue definition?

 

Using the Word Bearers trilogy was a poor choice. If anything, Marduk was a weak pseudocharacter railroaded into the protagonist position, especially in Dark Creed, and never changed from that except to be more condescending than he was in each succeeding book. The only character from that series that wasn't a walking cliche was Kol Badar, and he got nothing that he wanted. The Ultramarines books would have served as a better example of a work where Mary Sue is applicable over any and all reason or logic, combined with worthless characters no one really could give a fig about (at least, no one possessing of a rational mind, but that's Ultramarines for you :rolleyes: ).

 

Painting Mary Sue over protagonism is a mistake, and Mary Sue is used entirely too often as an excuse to accuse perfectly good characterization with some sort of preemptively plot-armored charm that doesn't exist, especially if the story isn't done with yet. There's nothing in literature that stipulates the readership must cheer for the good guys, or that the "good guys" even need to be cheered for. Blood Reaver balanced out whatever victories Talos & Co had with dire portents, the loss of an irreplaceable ship, a haunted Navigator, a duplicitous Tech-Adept, the undying enmity of the Red Corsairs in addition to the undying enmity of Abaddon's Black Legion, a pack of crazy Raptors whose motives are as variable as their loyalties, an Apothecary whose only motive seems to be whether or not something is/is not boring him, and internal political backstabbing to undermine the "leader"'s position, a leader whom, I may add, keeps being burdened with responsibilities he may not even be prepared for and whose "gift" may either kill him or at least render him incapable of that leadership, and the only people he can trust despise him. There's prices being paid all over the place for how First Claw has managed to survive and even, sort of, prosper given their circumstances, but the real bill hasn't even come due yet and as the Exalted and Ruven both got to find out, some deals come with a very steep cost. If Talos is coming out the winner in this, I'm not seeing much in the way of it.

 

Blood Reaver did exactly what it was meant to: set everyone up for the finale, one that more likely than not will see them all ended and with all their erstwhile victories left forgotten, because that's Grimdarksville. Dark Disciple didn't even grant that much, it just put Marduk in a better position to be a pawn in the Erebus-Kor Phaeron game, but without costing him anything but being promoted to balance the scale.

[A D-B]

With Talos, on the other hand, it feels very much like you're being forced to cheer for him. Moreso, it makes

the reward that Talos gets in the end: Vandred gone, and now he has his own ship

seem like a hollow reward.

 

It is a hollow reward. That went badly. It all went wrong; it was barely even a reward, it was just survival. Talos

getting his own ship wasn't a flag-waving moment of "YEAH!", it was a moment where they'd - yet again - tried to run away, but this time, the farmer stood on the fox's tail, and stabbed it in the spine for killing the chickens and trying to run away.

It was the very definition of a hollow victory, and that was the point.

 

 

They lost their flagship, their talented commander when he was finally lightening up, Talos has been lied to by Malek - one of the few warriors he actually trusted - and he sees a vision that his first mission with his own ship will kill all of his brothers.

 

 

I think the fact you considered the ending to Blood Reaver to be saccharine shows more what you're reading into authorial intent, rather than what's there.

[ninja6fett]

I actually think it is a great strength of the writing to be able to sympathize with Talos so easily. it's very easy to ignore how deluded he is and overlook some of his actions and I loved when he was called out on it in Blood Reaver, how Talos wishes for a return to the glorious history of the Legion, too bad the history he wants to return to never existed.

 

Talos traded one ship for another and earned probably the unending hatred of Huron, one of the most powerful Chaos warlords, if Huron didn't want him dead already, he sure does now.

 

I had been wondering similar things about Talos myself, and how he seems like such a "good guy" a lot of the time. But reading just a little bit deeper shows how broken and deluded he really is.

 

@Yogi

 

Oh really is that all there is to it? :rolleyes:

[Zincite]

I wish I could resist reading quote tags...

[Trel]

...See, my pet hate with fiction is characters whose flaws do nothing but make them more badass.

 

...And I don't really see First Claw like that. Talos is a seer that only ever sees bad stuff, and it doesn't always come true. He's not a particularly great leader...

 

With all due respect (and I know this is a fight I can't possibly win :P ):

 

I see Talos as exactly like that. Talos is as grimdark as it gets and is probably one of the most 'good' characters I've ever read in 40k fic. He's from the scariest of the scary legions, he's spend millennia torturing his way across the galaxy yadda yadda. Why then, does he come off as such a cool guy who doesn't afraid of anything?

 

Talos' flaws? Lack of ambition? Not a bad thing, because in the books, the ones presented as 'authority' figures are Vandred/the Exalted, Abbadon, and Huron. Talos always comes off as the better option. He's a seer, sure, but he's not warp-corrupted at all. All the other Space Marine psykers worry about corruption and even some of the traitor sorcerors do. He saw the good in the Night Haunter? Not a flaw. He's a poor leader? Sure, but the Night Lords can't be effectively led at all. If they can, it's yet to be written in any canon or fiction. ...And what was the point of the "he's rejecting his Space Marine organs bit?"

 

You've probably got eight books' worth of half-thought of stories and anecdotes about Talos in your head and that irrevocably colors your impression of him. I've got two books. In those two books, he went from seriously engaging and interesting to relatively flat because all his flaws were mitigated so conveniently.

 

You'll pardon me when I don't know what you mean regarding "reading into authorial intent". What I got out of the ending was

1. Everyone important survived. 2. Vandred died, but got awesome right at the end and Talos didn't have to take him down, thus robbing the reader of the most anticipated showdown building over two books. 3. The Covenant was destroyed...but oh, look a new ship...just like the Covenant...and this one isn't corrupted and actually seems to like Octavia.

Maybe it's just me, but I find that to be a little syrupy-sweet.

 

What's written is written and I'm not going back and delete-editing any of my posts, but maybe I should have withheld final judgement until the third book is written. After all, I'm going to spend nine of my dollars on it when it comes out. In that respect, the second book was a success. I will be reading, however, to find out about what happens to the best characters in the series (and the best you've ever written, in my opinion) Septimus and Octavia.

[A D-B]

"Mary Sue" is one of those keyword insults that gets slung around a lot, and is very, very good soundbite ammunition. It's a great way to make something seem trivial and poorly-written, and we see it used all the time, all over nerd fandom.

 

It's all good. I can't agree; Mary Sue characters achieve great things and are beloved by all - Talos barely manages to succeed in anything, and his own brothers call him deluded, with tensions rising about it as the series goes on, serving together only out of habit and mutual need (like a real army - plenty of soldiers have contacted me to say they see a real armed forces-style brotherhood in the way First Claw behave with each other). He's nothing like Blade, Wolverine or Drizzt (or even Sahaal) in that he's nothing like as skilled or beloved as them, and his flaws don't really boost him at all, since he fails so often and gets through by the skin of his teeth. Even in an ending where they lost half of their resources and salvaged a victory, it all came down to Talos's plan not working the way he hoped. He runs away unless there's literally no other choice, and even then, his squad's managed to lose three limbs, a commander, and a warship in the course of three stories. The reason his flaws don't cripple him is because they're like his virtues: understated. They're not what defines him. The same way his flaws don't affect him much, his virtues don't make much difference, either. Narratively, he's a foil as well as a character. Everything plays off him. That's another reason the Mary Sue accusation holds no water. He's too understated and subtle for it to stick as a valid accusation at all. Compared to most Black Library protagonists, he achieves practically nothing. Compared to Rafen? Ventris? Marduk? Dak'ir? Gaunt? Eisenhorn? Ravenor? Alaric? Talos is nothing in comparison to what they regularly achieve, novel after novel after novel.

 

I also think it's pretty obvious that things are continuing to deteriorate and get worse for Talos and co., so that's hardly a plus, either.

 

I just can't see it, really. Two books or not. Thankfully, that perception seems to be shared by most people that read it. I've never even seen the idea of Talos being a Mary Sue before; and I've read a bajillion forums posts and reviews about it. I just don't really believe it's there, either. It seems more like something the reader is bringing to the novel.

 

You're totally entitled to your opinions, natch, but if you think Talos is a Mary Sue, I don't recommend you read, uh... anything else by the Black Library. Ever. Or indeed, most Fantasy and Sci-Fi. The genres are filled with characters that achieve a great deal more, with a great deal less effort, without their own army laughing at them behind their backs, lying to them, and without all their plans going badly and depleting their force's resources in staggering ways.

 

Either way, I'm done justifying it. I think the novel speaks for itself well enough.

[Commissar Joe]

I see Talos as exactly like that. Talos is as grimdark as it gets and is probably one of the most 'good' characters I've ever read in 40k fic. He's from the scariest of the scary legions, he's spend millennia torturing his way across the galaxy yadda yadda. Why then, does he come off as such a cool guy who doesn't afraid of anything?

 

He's a Space Marine, they shall know no fear, remember? Also, given this is 40k, shouldn't all the characters be influenced by the 'grimdark' setting which they inhabit?

[Brother Ambroz]

Uzas can barely string a sentence together, and no one likes him.

 

 

Hey! I like him! :lol:

[Jonas Stromclaw]

See, my pet hate with fiction is characters whose flaws do nothing but make them more badass. I loathe Blade, I think Wolverine is awful, and I can't stand Drizzt Do'Urden. They're all characters whose curses and flaws do nothing but make them cool, attractive, and more badass than anyone else. It's literally the one thing I hate most in fiction, designed purely to appeal to the basest, most shallow engagements with a story.

Amen. The thing about first claw, and in fact most of the characters in A D-B's books is that they are so chock full of flaws, they seem more human. As was already said, Talos is a poor seer who only ever sees bad things, isn't the best leader, and all his 'accomplishments' end up as two steps backward for every step forward. He is also an extremely poor communicator who just hacks his minions off, and he is extremely prideful, unable to back down or even conceive that he might be wrong. The other characters are the same, with multiple facets and flaws, just like real people. Stuff like this make A D-B's novels a relief from the largely one dimensional characters of most scifi/fantasy books these days.

[Zincite]

Uzas can barely string a sentence together, and no one likes him.

Hey! I like him! :huh:

Seconded!

[Walter Payton]

Using this test: Test

 

Talos scored 17. Not a Mary Sue in my books.

[BertyBottyBiter]

I don't see how the ending of Blood Reaver is positive. Didn't they just lose all of their geneseed stocks?

[Khestra the Unbeheld]

I don't see how the ending of Blood Reaver is positive. Didn't they just lose all of their geneseed stocks?

 

 

It's possible that the geneseed on the Covenant got out with Deltrian in his turret-happy Death Caddy, but it isn't expressly mentioned so you may be on to something here.

 

 

^_^

[Trel]

"Happy ending" is a facetious term. (There is no sarcasm on the internet.)

 

The part that I didn't like, the part that disappointed me was that the primary conflict of the series thus far: Vandred v. Talos, was a non-issue. There was all sorts of great politicking between the two, especially in "Soul Hunter", over the very nature of the Legion and its place in the Long War. A conflict like that was just bound to come to awesome fruition in part III and instead...

 

So what is left for the Space Marines? In part III now, some other conflict has to be given center stage that will, unfortunately, probably not have the same heft as Talos v. Vandred because it will either be a minor thing from the first two books now given undue weight or it will be an all-new enemy...I dunno, Talos v. Eldrad. Maybe some other Chaos Lord. Is Honsou available?

 

In "Star Wars" terms: "A New Hope" stands very well on its own. "The Empire Strikes Back", while the best of the movies, is still heavily dependent on the preceding movie for context and the subsequent film for closure. This is the reason "Empire" can get away with such a bleak and abrupt ending. "Blood Reaver"s ending feels dissatisfying because it neither ends with finality, nor does it suitably hang from a cliff. There is no looming question on the same scale as "will Luke finally defeat Vader?" The remaining questions are therefore relatively minor ones.

 

But that's all pertaining to the Space Marines. The Good News: the 'human' storyline alone is worth the price of admission!

Septimus and Octavia end on a massive cliffhanger with all sorts of portents and good stuff. I would have no problem at all if the Night Lords themselves take a backseat to the Septimus/Octavia plotline in part III.

[Brother Ambroz]

"Happy ending" is a facetious term. (There is no sarcasm on the internet.)

 

The part that I didn't like, the part that disappointed me was that the primary conflict of the series thus far: Vandred v. Talos, was a non-issue. There was all sorts of great politicking between the two, especially in "Soul Hunter", over the very nature of the Legion and its place in the Long War. A conflict like that was just bound to come to awesome fruition in part III and instead...

 

So what is left for the Space Marines? In part III now, some other conflict has to be given center stage that will, unfortunately, probably not have the same heft as Talos v. Vandred because it will either be a minor thing from the first two books now given undue weight or it will be an all-new enemy...I dunno, Talos v. Eldrad. Maybe some other Chaos Lord. Is Honsou available?

 

In "Star Wars" terms: "A New Hope" stands very well on its own. "The Empire Strikes Back", while the best of the movies, is still heavily dependent on the preceding movie for context and the subsequent film for closure. This is the reason "Empire" can get away with such a bleak and abrupt ending. "Blood Reaver"s ending feels dissatisfying because it neither ends with finality, nor does it suitably hang from a cliff. There is no looming question on the same scale as "will Luke finally defeat Vader?" The remaining questions are therefore relatively minor ones.

 

But that's all pertaining to the Space Marines. The Good News: the 'human' storyline alone is worth the price of admission!

Septimus and Octavia end on a massive cliffhanger with all sorts of portents and good stuff. I would have no problem at all if the Night Lords themselves take a backseat to the Septimus/Octavia plotline in part III.

 

 

You never know what might happen in the next book. Who might come back or who might not really be dead. I am sure ADB has his reasons for everything he wrote in there and I for one really liked Blood Reaver's ending. It still makes me really want another book but at the same time it's not a cliffhanger to leave you writhing in agony till the next book :o . None of ADB's characters were just minor guys that were brought back for a plotline in the 2nd book. Each one has his own faults and flavors that make them unique.

[Trel]

I will grant that. Maybe the third book will nullify all my criticisms of the second book. In fact, I sincerely hope it does.

[Perrin]

I liked the book alot, but i agree with what i think Trel is saying about Talos having a new enemy in the 3rd novel, that it would weaken the storyline. Obviously Void Stalker is about the gang encountering Craftworld Ulthwé on their way back to the EoT. Hopefully though it will highlight Ulthwé struggling without Eldrad because he is very much dead, and Talos' vision of First Claw being destroyed be Eldar won't come true, because even though it would be suitable for at least some of them to die, all of them being destroyed would rob the 40k universe of a decent group of protaginists.

The Exalted was a daemon, so its possible it will come back and possess someone. but the chance of it happening to someone that is anywhere near Talos at any time out of everyone suitable for possession in the galaxy should be quite small.

 

Maybe Talos and his bunch of dirty space pirates will avoid death by eldar and manage to gather the remnants of the 8th Legion, only for them to tell Talos what everyone has been telling him already. That his vision of the Legion is a lie and they are quite happy to go on murdering and being chaosy for all time. But who knows, AD-B isnt going to give anything away on here, but all in all i enjoyed Blood Reaver. I have noticed after reading it that it doesnt have as much fighting as most other spacemarine novels, but not sure if thats a good or a bad thing. Probably my favourite part of the book was

when they attack the mining station and Septimus reveals himself and shoots the woman in control of the station, i didnt see that coming until it happened

 

[Chapter Master Ignis Domus]

I'm going to guess that most of First Claw will die, leaving only one or two alive for the second trilogy that had better come.

[Darkchild130]

I enjoyed it and didnt feel any of the characters were Mary Sue ish at all. Talos does nothing out of character for a traitor Astartes and just tries to make the best out of any situation.

 

He's no Uriel Ventris! (thankfully)

 

I enjoyed the book immensely, though the human parts were probably my least favourite sections of the book. I even cheered a little when that shotgun wielding freak got splattered.

 

Darkchild

[Ashe Darke]

To be honest wasn't the conflict between The Exalted and Talos pretty much put to bed at the end of Soul Hunter / beginning of Blood Reaver? Sure it built up in Soul Hunter but it wasn't really there in Blood Reaver, well not for me anyway. So the demise of The Exalted at the end didn't really make me think 'Ohhh no! The rivalry that has been building is gone!'

[minigun762]

To be honest wasn't the conflict between The Exalted and Talos pretty much put to bed at the end of Soul Hunter / beginning of Blood Reaver? Sure it built up in Soul Hunter but it wasn't really there in Blood Reaver, well not for me anyway. So the demise of The Exalted at the end didn't really make me think 'Ohhh no! The rivalry that has been building is gone!'

 

Thats how I felt. It seemed as if the Exalted and Talos has reached a level of understanding, if not outright trust on some issues. For traitors, thats saying a lot.

 

I'm still rather impressed by the sheer size of Huron's forces. It really looks like he is growing beyond the role of raider into something much more threatening.