pangolin20. (Reply)

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NRSG: Indeed. I would honestly compare this to Mists of Avalon in how hard it says to be feminist, and how deeply unfeminist it actually is.

There's no way in hell Douglass wasn't a huge fangirl of that book. In a lot of ways it's as if she's trying to write her own MoA.

Also, "cheerfullly waged war on him"? Enchanter and StarMan must be very bad indeed.

You have no idea. Book one is mostly just boring and inane, but books two and three get more and more absurd, not to mention more and more offensive, and the "heroes" with one exception all turn into irredeemable monsters.

Also this concerning Axis being raised from the dead because he will be "useful" in the last trilogy. IIRC, he is sidelined in favour of more capable characters, who manage to defuse the situation without much of his input.

That's about as far as I got before giving up on the series. In many ways it was the last straw. You bring back your most hideously awful character out of the blue and then he doesn't even do anything? Come on!

The best in-universe reason I can come up with is mind-control, which I doubt Axis would have much trouble with.

It's certainly sort of hinted at later on when his dad is able to "seduce" women just by looking at them, and at least one victim has to FORCE herself to look away and has an extremely obvious uncomfortable reaction. Given how incredibly abrasive both of them are, I can't really see any other plausible scenario in which they manage to get so many women into bed. Axis supposedly uses "charm", but... what charm? As you'll see later, he treats Faraday like complete shit. No "charm" to be seen - just bullying.

Also love how Ysgryff immediately thinks that it is good that Axis is a "strong man". What in the world?

Yeah, that bit is just disgusting. An actually strong man doesn't NEED to resort to violent threats to get his way, and it also exposes Axis' utter lack of anything resembling charisma. He's completely incapable or unwilling to use persuasion. Instead he just threatens and insults people, both of which are the mark of someone with very little self confidence.