#I still wish I had the time and energy to essay about the world enders

[tinylongwing]

I hope it's okay to ask Lord Huron questions on this blog.

Is Buck the narrator for all three most recent "lore albums" or something? I don't know how Lonesome Dreams fits into the storyline, but I might be wrong, and I'm pretty sure the movie soundtrack doesn't. I'm pretty sure he's the narrator for at least Vide Noir, but I'm not sure how he fits in with Long Lost.

If Buck is Strange Trails' narrator, he's not the only one, because Hurricane is from Johnnie's, and The World Ender is from Cobb Avery's. The Yawning Grave seems to be told by some malevolent, omniscient, ancient entity I don't really have a name for, but seems an awful lot like whatever Ender was summoned in Secrets of Life. It's almost like a camera pan effect with the transition to Frozen Pines, almost as if the focus is being shifted to a different character. I'm not entirely sure who that character is, and I'm not all up to date on the lore yet.

There's such a heavy focus on darkness being bad in Strange Trails, and then as far as I know, Vide Noir(the album) is about a guy, Buck Vernon, abusing a substance literally named Black Void, and trying to find his fiancee. Frozen Pines feels like Buck coming back to himself after taking Vide Noir, it basically references the Emerald Star without actually referencing it. It's like Buck talking to Lee; he'll be waiting for her, he's gonna look for her everywhere, etc.

Relistening to Strange Trails specifically looking for Vide Noir references, after Meet Me in the Woods there is SUCH a tone shift, and it starts referencing how he can't go back from the darkness, or how everything she touches turns to back.

This whole exposition has morphed into me actually asking if Vide Noir and Strange Trails are the same story from different perspectives or in different settings. Apologies for the rambling.

It is very okay! It is more than okay, it's great and I would answer Lord Huron questions every day all day if more people did this. ;)

I'm impressed with how much of this you've worked through pretty damn close to accurately without having checked the wiki or watched the movie, haha. I definitely recommend doing both as most of your questions here, the ones we have answers to anyway, will get answered.

But in short, without rewriting the entire wiki for you:

Strange Trails, Vide Noir, and Long Lost are all in the same universe with shared characters that weave in and out of those albums and there are many narrators among them. Buck Vernon is probably the closest thing to a main protagonist since his narration features heavily in Strange Trails and Vide Noir, but he's absent from Long Lost (well, as far as anyone can tell anyway).

Strange Trails is sort of like a loose connection of stories that establish a lot of the strange things and the characters in that universe and start us off learning about Buck and Lee and their relationship, but we also get a lot from Frankie Lou, the World Enders, and a handful of others. Some of the songs narrated by one character about their life in-universe tell stories that are shared in common with other characters (and the music video for The Night We Met in particular shows us this well - that song is by Frankie Lou and appears to be describing her doomed relationship with Z'Oiseau, but the video primarily focuses on Buck on his drive west toward California to find Lee).

Vide Noir is slightly more linear and slightly more focused on Buck specifically, except for where it's nonlinear and also has a whole bunch of World Enders/Phantom Riders narration which probably is doing the dual purpose thing again, describing what they're up to while also "coincidentally" helping describe Buck's confusion, anger, and anguish as he searches for Lee, gets black-brained and survives, and finds Lee only to learn that yes she did mean to leave him and she doesn't love him.

But you're absolutely right to dive back in to Strange Trails and look for references to vide noir because they're everywhere - Meet Me in the Woods is a great example of this, though it's primarily describing Frankie's experience with the drug in that case.

The Strange Trails album liner notes were very specific about which songs were performed by which characters and who the narration is supposed to be, so I recommend checking that out in the wiki as a starting point. Vide Noir didn't give us that so it has mostly been a matter of interpretation (though it's easy-ish to sort out which are performed by the Buck Vernon Band and which are performed by the Phantom Riders - but if there are other narrators in there it's still not totally clear and Moonbeam is sort of an odd track out in particular).

Long Lost mostly has told us which characters performed which songs again, which is nice and helpful! And the music/lyric videos have been a big help yet again, as has Alive from Whispering Pines, which obviously also deserves a watch if you haven't seen that series yet.

Anyway, hope this helps - I know some of it boils down to "time to read the wiki" but it just saves me from having to re-type the wiki, haha.

[advanced-procrastination]

Should have known it was coming eventually.

In Ender’s World, I was expecting an incredible collection of essays from reputable authors analyzing the Ender’s Game series, no more no less, and I very nearly got that wish. But then, a couple chapters from the end, OSC answers a reader question asking, “how did you write gifted children so believably?” And his answer was essentially:

“Well, I grew up as an incredibly gifted kid, but that was back when schools cared about raising smart kids to their full potential. These days you won’t see many bright kids in schools because they’re too busy pushing political correctness.”

Like, back in your day the adults surrounding schoolchildren every day weren’t constantly and intentionally showing them by example that it’s okay to treat other people like crap, to the point where teachers had to step in and try to reverse the damage. These days trying to keep adults from poisoning and destroying the next generation takes all the time and energy teachers have, because grown adults like yourself are so invested in turning them into monsters.

I should have known his ultra-conservativeness would come through at some point. I let my guard down because it hadn’t yet happened and I was so close to the end of the book. Oh well. All the essays are still incredibly insightful and illuminating, and the Enderverse is still amazing... I’d just prefer not to hear Card’s personal bullshit opinions. Makes it easier that way to separate the art from the artist.