#its gonna have motifs of People Who Live At The Edge Of Society

[coldresolve]

the most surprising result from the poll for me is that 4-5 people voted on copenhagen crybaby knowing absolutely nothing about it?? yall brave souls

fun fact, the main guy from cphc (his name is claes) is such a weirdo freak that i feel like i have to start out with some character introduction stuff instead of going the route of in medias res. so thats gonna be interesting to try out

[misstrashchan]

Since @im-the-king-of-the-ocean did a post about what TMA fear entities the RWBY characters are aligned/avatars of, I’ve been itching to do one myself because as a result of overlapping hyper fixations I think about this A LOT

The basic concept is that avatars in TMA become what they fear most or embrace a fear they have developed the most complex relationship with that plays into their motivations and drive as a character. What negative impulses they have to constantly fight themselves on, the shape of the monster that lives in their heart.

To quote the RWBY song Fear, “But our greatest fear will be realised, if we fall and lose ourselves to fear, we’ll become what we’ve feared all our lives” yeah that’s a very loose definition of what becoming an avatar is.

Since MAG s5 has proven that you can be an avatar of more than one fear, (Like Martin serving both the Eye and the Lonely) some of the RWBY characters might have more than one, but I’ll try to limit it to two to avoid getting complicated, but at the end of the day it’s all fear soup, we might categorise them according to Robert Smirke’s 14, but they all bleed into one another, like Gerard’s colour analogy in 111:

GERARD

I always think it helps to imagine them like colours. The edges bleed together, and you can talk about little differences: “oh, that’s indigo, that’s more lilac”, but they’re both purple. I mean, I guess there are technically infinite colours, but you group them together into a few big ones. A lot of it’s kind of arbitrary. I mean, why are navy blue and sky blue both called blue, when pink’s an entirely different colour from red? Y’know? I don’t know, that’s just how it works.

And like colours, some of these powers, they feed into or balance each other. Some really clash, and you just can’t put them together. I mean, you could see them all as just one thing, I guess, but it would be pretty much meaningless, y’know, like… like trying to describe a… shirt by talking about the concept of colour.

O-Of course, with these things it’s not a simple spectrum, y’know, it’s more like –

ARCHIVIST

An infinite amorphous blob of terror bleeding out in every direction at once.

GERARD

Now you’re getting it.

ARCHIVIST

Like colours, but if colours hated me. Got it. 

Ruby Rose: The End. The fear of death itself, uncaring and unstoppable. Man this was hard to think about but I have a lot of Big Feelings about this one. Initially I really, really wanted to give Ruby the Eye simply because “can laser beam monsters with their eyeballs once they become powerful enough” and there is a fascinating overlap in how the Beholding powers and Silver Eyes function in the same way, (especially in how Cinder being exposed to the Silver Eyes fills her with an overpowering fear and reopens old wounds from trauma that have never properly healed; which is VERY similar in the psychological affect Jon’s has on his victims when he Beholds them) they’re both direct enemies/opposites to the Dark that expose their enemies/victims true nature and destroying them in the process at times. Only one feeds on fear and the trauma of others while the other feeds off of hope and love (Gerard says there’s no such thing as an avatar of hope and love, clearly he’s never heard of Ruby). 

But nope! The fear and nature of the Beholding just doesn’t really match with Ruby at all. She isn’t driven by a need of knowledge, nor does she fear being watched, followed or having her secrets exposed. The End though? Death itself? Ruby outright states that’s her biggest fear in volume 5 to Oscar “It doesn’t matter if you’re standing in Salem’s way or not. She’ll kill anyone. And that, scares me most of all” to me Ruby’s fear of death itself is projected onto Salem here, I think. It’s uncaring, unstoppable, it doesn’t discriminate, and it could come for the people she cares about at any time. What matters though is the context she says this is in explaining her motives to Oscar. Her whole life has been shaped by her inability to process death, her relationship with grief, all starting with the tragic and abrupt death of her mother Summer as a child. She’s also surrounded by a lot of death motif too, the hooded cape, mostly wearing black, the giant grim reaper scythe. She’s the End. 

Of course, her being an Avatar of the End means having to imagine the worst version of Ruby, one that is fully consumed by that fear. Avatars of the End are not malicious or destructive in nature but instead are… very apathetic. They don’t need to seek out victims to feed off of, nor do they have a ritual, because the End comes for all. And that fits with what Ruby would be like if that fear fully consumed her. It’s more or less established in vol6 during the apathy arc when she tries so hard to fight against their influence and how horrified she is when everyone around her falls prey to it. Giving up, not caring, accepting the inevitable demise of everyone and yourself? Ruby was terrified of that. And when looking at the vol8 opening where we see Ruby being dragged down by what looks like the arms of the apathy? She fights the hardest against it because it’s what she’s most afraid of, but because of her inability to process her grief properly is ultimately what will make her the most vulnerable to it when she’s pushed to her limit. All Salem needs to do to break Ruby is to remind her of Summer’s death. Not even what actually happened to her or how she died, just the death itself. Hell, the first time we see Ruby in the Red trailer, she’s at her mother’s grave, the first verse in Red like Roses that’s about Ruby “Red like Roses fills my dreams and brings me to the place you rest” in which we come to understand that the “Red like roses” lyrics in both part one and two of the song is referring to Summer’s abrupt death which Ruby apparently dreams about, which brings to mind Oliver Banks, our most prominent Avatar of the End, whose first statement to The Magnus Institute in 011 (underneath the fake alias of “Antonio Blake”) is concerning how he started dreaming about the deaths of others, which he didn’t begin to take seriously- until it was his father that he saw in his dream. Upon which Oliver realised how terrifying death really was and that fear began to consume him. 

Okay I’ve probably gone off long enough about this but yeah. Ruby is the End. I mean, she also just got a song in the v7 soundtrack called Until the End 

Weiss Schnee: The Lonely. The fear of isolation, of being completely cut off and alone or disconnected from the rest of society. I don’t really have to go too deeply into this one. It’s pretty cut and dry. “The loneliest of all”? And the Schnees basically are the Lukas family. Actually thinking about it the Lukas’ are actually somewhat better? They were the only ones in the whole of TMA that understood to raise a child to be an heir/avatar of their fear they needed room to reject it or actively choose it, even if that had an 80% success rate. Both are still awful though. (Damn, I can’t believe Jaques is an actively worse parent than an eldritch fear avatar)

When Weiss comes back to Atlas in v4 she’s more aware of her loneliness than ever, feels more aware of how she and atlas high society as a whole is disconnected from the rest of the world and its struggles. Whitley commenting on her being in her room for months implies she’s purposefully been isolating herself during this time as well, in order to avoid her family members “A pleasure to see you out of your room for a change” (sidenote; the fact that whenever Whitley shows up it always catches Weiss off guard, like she didn’t even notice his presence until he wanted her too. That’s. That’s a BIG Lonely thing. Given Peter’s siblings eventually ran away and he was the only heir I can imagine Peter being what Whitley would end up like if no one intervenes)

I’d say they might also be an possibility of the Stranger due to her struggling to find her own identity and inability to recognise oneself, but that can be an aspect of the Lonely too, as we see when Martin is in a house that is a domain of the Lonely in s5, and is unable to recognise himself in the mirror or recall who he is.

What I do have to say about this is it’s pretty interesting considering at this point in the show Weiss’ relationship with loneliness is actually somewhat healthy and something she can use to relate to and help others. She understands other people’s loneliness, that Blake in v5 needed space and in time she’d come back, and Weiss would be ready to be there for her when she did. And she also understands Yang’s loneliness in the same volume and that she needed someone there to support her.

“But you’re right. I don’t know loneliness like you do. I have my own version. And I bet  Blake has her own version too.” 

Speaking of Blake…

 Blake Belladonna: The Stranger, I Do Not Know You. The fear that you cannot trust the perception of yourself or of others. The creeping sense that something isn’t right. I considered the Spiral, but the Stranger and the Spiral overlap more than any other two entities so I’m just gonna go with the Stranger. Especially with her semblance being a metaphor for disassociation, a coping mechanism for the abuse and gaslighting from her relationship with Adam being kind of the biggest thing here, since the Stranger and Spiral deal with that a lot. She literally creates false copies of herself, shadow clones which she uses to feint, distract and evade. As well as statues/mannequins when dust is involved, which the Stranger is known for manifesting. Her fighting style centres around misdirection, stealth and fooling people’s senses. She also used to be part of the White Fang, known within Sienna and Adam’s faction to wear the masks of monsters, appearing anonymous. And she literally disguises her identity as a Faunus in order to escape the White Fang and enroll at Beacon. Blake at first was hesitant to trust and rely on the others in the earlier volumes, to let her guard down, and when she finally did, the worst happened and her fears were proven right. In s2 Jonathan becomes more paranoid due to being marked and in close daily proximity to the Stranger (as Not-Sasha), much like how Blake in v2 becomes far more paranoid and less trusting of her team. She also does seek knowledge or answers even at the cost of her wellbeing, which is an Eye thing, but Blake’s desire for knowledge and answers isn’t really consistent or important enough with her character and motives beyond vol2 for me personally to consider her an Avatar of it, but I do think she is Eye aligned. 

Yang Xiao Long- The Eye. The Ceaseless Watcher, It Knows You, as well as The Hunt. For the Eye, the first time we see Yang is her trying to find information on her mother, and we see Raven in bird form at the beginning too, as she has followed Yang her whole life, never actually interacting or doing anything for her, just… watching her. We learn in vol2 that her search for answers surrounding her mother has been a part of her entire life, almost overwhelmingly so to the point where in her childhood she and Ruby nearly lost their lives to the Grimm when she decided to journey to a shack in the woods she thought would lead to clues in finding her mother. She is adamant because of that experience to never let her need for the truth and answers control her, but it is a need that is always there. When she finally meets Raven, she’s encouraged to “start questioning everything she knows” which, she does. Questioning and knowledge is a big part of Yang’s character, even now. She’s the one who questions Ozpin the most, as well as Raven herself, and in the recent volumes is the one who challenges and questions Ruby’s leadership the most. There’s also a moment in vol7 of her drawing parallels between herself and Robyn and relating to her when she says “I won’t stop until I find out the truth” Her being the one to take the relic of knowledge is hugely significant in this too, especially given the context that she acquires it right after confronting her mother, getting the answers she’s searched for her whole life, holding an artefact possessing infinite knowledge, and she sinks to her knees and cries because there is no sense of closure, that anything is better because of her knowing who and what her mother is, and that her choosing this path might have cost her ever having a relationship with Raven (which is more Raven’s fault of course, and Yang knows that, but that’s not how she’s feeling at that exact moment). 

For the Hunt, this one’s a bit simpler. The thrill seeker aspect to Yang’s character and motives in becoming a huntress and enjoying the chase and fighting in of itself. There’s another element in that as most Avatars of the Hunt start out as monster hunters who then develop the need to hunt and kill monsters, and gradually what qualifies as “monster” starts to blur more and more as they become consumed by the need and thrill of the chase and hunt itself. I bring this up because in vol3 Blake draws parallels between Yang and Adam after she is disqualified for attacking and injuring Mercury, worries with how familiar this all feels and that Yang might turn out the same as him (and just for the record Adam is a full blown Avatar of the Hunt, and the Slaughter too most like) 

 “I had someone very dear to me change. It wasn’t in an instant, it was gradual. Little choices that began to pile up. He told me not to worry. At first they were accidents, then it was self-defence. Before long, even I began to think he was right. This is all just… very familiar.” What Blake describes is… kind of similar to Basira’s relationship with Daisy with how Daisy, an Avatar of the Hunt, would justify to Basira and explain away how the violence and murders she committed as being for the greater good. 

Also just one more, because I have to

 Pyrrha Nikos: WebwebWEBWEB. Hoo boi Pyrrha is the Webbiest of Web Avatars as they come. Her whole character’s themes surrounding destiny, control and agency, feeling like her whole life had been decided for her, the fact she’d been blessed with incredible talents and opportunities meant she was supposed to be a huntress, the fact her talent as a world champion meant she was placed on a pedestal without her realising, becoming separate from the people who placed her there in the first place, that Ozpin and his inner circle tell her she has been chosen as the next Fall Maiden, but the method in which she must become so might result in the loss of her identity, that though they ultimately leave the choice to her do pressure and manipulate her into it. The idea of destiny being a predetermined fate you can’t escape is Pyrrha’s greatest fear, and rejects that idea in that she will not let her life be manipulated but will be the one to take control it instead, which is manifested in her having a semblance that she uses to subtly control and manipulate her surroundings. As Cinder puts it, “People assume she’s fated for victory when really she’s really taken fate into her own hands”.  

[cometcrystal]

descendants game theory - how clothes reflect conformity

ok while i was in the shower, i was thinking up a storm about the character/costume design in the descendants franchise. let’s look at it by movie and then i’ll get to my point

descendants 1 is where we first meet most of the characters, and each VK has their own distinct looks. mal’s got her collar that looks like a cape, evie has a shawl thing, carlos has a fur collar, etc etc. the important thing here is: if you looked at only the outlines of these characters, if they were just silhouettes, you’d be able to tell which VK is which. 

note that the auradon kids are less distinct: you wouldn’t be able to tell ben, chad, and doug’s silhouette’s apart here if doug wasn’t doing his tie-straightening thing. and i love audrey, but if you put her shadow up against later-movie jane and lonnie, it’d be hard to tell them apart, too

descendants 2, ofc, brings us new costumes for the main VKs, and introduces some new ones in the form of pirates. some things to note:

as the VKs spend more time on auradon, their clothes become more subdued and less outrageous. the outfits theyre wearing at the start of the movie while theyre in auradon (which i could only get tiny screencaps of from gifs for now - i dont own the movie sorry. sources: x x x x) are very plain in comparison to their original outfits.

when the VKs revisit the isle of the lost with ben, they still have their character motifs, but they’re basically in fancy, patchwork shirts/pants or shirt/skirts, as opposed to their original isle outfits. even when theyre going back to the isle, they dont have the same defining costume elements they had in d1: their hair is straight, their edges are all smoothed out, and theres nothing too garish here (by this movie’s standards). 

ben, who was born and raised in auradon, has a little bit of an edgier outfit, but not by much. there’s just some studs on his clothes now and he’s wearing a beanie. his isle clothes are still very much subdued and not extravagant

contrast all this with the pirates, who each have their own distinct silhouette. uma has her magnificent braids and hat, harry has HIS hat and his trademark hook, and gil...is also a pirate. the pirates’ clothes are more in line with what the main VKs wore in the first descendants movie.

by descendants 3, even in their isle clothes, everyone’s just kind of wearing... leather. there’s nothing special about any of the main VKs’ costumes, it’s just different colors of leather. the only reason you’d be able to tell them apart by silhouette at this point is because evie has long hair/a skirt and mal has short hair (same for the boys). 

the pirates aren’t quite at this point yet, but their clothes are a lot less out-there than they were in d2. uma and harry have lost the hats. gil looks pretty much the same(but its fine because literally who cares about gil) but the point here is their outfits look more like what the main vks wore in descendants 2. there’s still elements of their original individualism, but, again, it’s more subdued than before: uma still has some braids, but theyre at the top of her head, and the rest of it is unbraided and hanging loose. harry’s got some creepy hook motifs, but his cool pirate jacket is but a ghost of what it was. its notable that we saw from the trailers that, whether genuinely or not, the pirates are going to be helping the heroes/the people of auradon in d3. weird that the toning-down of their clothes goes w this

descendants 3 also introduces us to celia, who, again, following the trend of new VKs, looks like she’d fit more with the main VKs from descendants 1. she’s got a lot of unique elements to her costume, and you know exactly who she’s the daughter of just by looking at her.

also, as the leak revealed, audrey’s clearly gonna do something evil in this movie. as she strays further from what is Good And Light, she changes to a more thorny, less unassuming outfit

so heres my game theory:

the longer the main VKs stay on auradon, the more homogenous and generic their clothes become, which is a result of auradon’s society’s emphasis on conformity. this costume change is symbolic of these characters becoming less and less connected to the suffering of their own people, and more and more a part of the privileged auradon elite

every time we have been introduced to a VK, their outfit has been more outlandish and cartoony. which is fine, since this is a franchise based on disney characters, and making their costumes cartoony only makes sense. but it’s only the villain children who dress like this: the children of GOOD disney characters are all wearing inoffensive suits and dresses, and any disney motifs/elements in their clothes are downplayed. 

the main VKs go through the most change to their wardrobe, but we see it in the pirates too: since they have a new connection to auradon in d3, their clothes get toned down as a result. 

the people on the isle suffer and exist in poverty and fear, but they’re allowed to express themselves freely. the people of auradon are able to live without being afraid of going hungry, but anyone who speaks against the status quo and looks “different” is suspect, possibly EVIL.

im not gonna speak too much about d3 yet, since it’s not out, but it’s not looking good. 

TL;DR the more unique a costume in descendants, the more likely that character is to be seen as Evil, because it means they haven’t internalized auradon’s homogeneity, which is seen as Good.

or maybe the descendants costume department just ran out of ideas. who knows

[preserving-ferretbrain]

Not Quite a Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

by Wardog

Friday, 26 December 2008

Wardog would have been impressed with The Pearls That Were His Eyes if she hadn't paid for it.~

The Pearls That Were His Eyes - a yarn of mythology and politics set in a baroque fantasy world, partly inspired by Shakespeare and partly by T.S. Eliot - is vanity published, which should have warned off any sensible person but since it's Xmas and I was feeling generous and it's creating something of a small-scale stir on LJ, I decided to give it a go, just on the off chance it was a heartbreaking work of staggering genius. Sigh. When I am I going to learn?

The thing is ... it's not ... bad ... actually. It's just the problem arises in that I paid money for it (and, yes, I know I that did voluntarily). It's probably symptomatic of my conventional nature or something, but I actually believe that books that don't get published don't get published for a reason. The Pearls That Were His Eyes is not a work of undiscovered genius that the publishing world is just too hidebound to recognise/appreciate - it's a promising book that needs a lot of work and a good editor. If someone (by which I mean the author, friend of the author, me - not a pirate, if you even get literature pirates) should ever giveyou this, then I heartily suggest you read it. It's well-written, imaginative, original and atmospheric. Do not, however, think about buying it because, in its current state, it's an amateur work with nothing to recommend it but potential.

The Pearls That Were His Eyes is set in the partially drowned, fog-wreathed city of Cittavecchio, which is, like most fantasy cities, a little bit of this, a little bit of that (in this case, London and Venice). It's a city with a dark, legend-shrouded past, suppressed and half-forgotten in the current Age of Reason. Needless to say the mythology of the city doesn't stay suppressed for long and rises up to consume the lives of, well, some dudes. I can't really summarise the plot much beyond that because ... it's not so much that it's incoherent as it's rather muted: there's a web of intrigue, there's a conclusion to the web of intrigue, but it's hard to really get a grip on what's going on.

Oh for God's sake: spoiler-time, let's try to untangle this:

So the City of Cittavecchio was drowned by the Old Gods for reasons not entirely specified except that they evidently didn't like it much. And The Tattered King, the Last King of the City, wanders around the edges of reality waiting for a moment to reclaim the city for himself again. And all the rich people go to parties and gossip all the time and wear masks and have masquerade balls and festivals. And all the poor people live in the Rookeries and are beggars and get killed. God knows how this city supports itself. And the Duca who rules the city is mad and corrupt - except we never really see this, so it's a bit hard to see why people are so down on the guy. And there's also a secret senate who are supposed to be the true power in the city. And there's a dude going around killing people in a particularly gruesome way. And there's this deck of tarot cards, right, called the Re Stracciati (the Tattered King) deck, that had been originally created to contain and control the spirit of the very city itself and was capable of drawing forth the spirit of the Tattered King. Wrap this all up in a motley of Shakespeare and T.S. Eliot and you get, if you'll forgive me, a heap of broken images: in short A Big Pile of Awesome with no actual structure to it.

What works about the Web o' Intrigue that leads, as you may suppose, to the very-near resurrection of the Tattered King is that it's a genuinely intriguing blending of huge political plots, personal vendettas, cruel coincidences and base human pettiness. It all comes together very satisfyingly indeed, except the journey to the point where it does is just a little bit tedious. For fantasy, it's a remarkably slim volume (weighing in at a mere 300 pages), so really you'd think, with all the necessary world and character building, it wouldn't have space to be dull. But somehow it manages. Part of the problem lies with the need to acquaint the reader with an already complicated personal/political background that has been created long before the story itself begins; therefore the book kicks off with an awful lots of "as you know your father the king" style exposition, which is both blatant and extraordinarily clumsily executed. Characters can tell other characters information they presumably already know for pages at a time. Let me quote you a chunk to demonstrate the magnitude of the problem:

'Is it worth taking [this quite significant information we've just gathered] to the Lord Seneschal yet?' 'No. Cittavecchi society is riddled with secret societies, clubs, political movements and the like. Masks breed them like flies. For the moment we have nothing more than my disquiet and a series of coincidences that seem too convenient to go on - that is not enough for any kind of legal process. If we have nothing but innuendo and we take it to the Seneschal, then he will take it to the Duca, and the first thing the Duca will do is order another round of hangings and gibbetings for no better reason than it is you and I who raise the matter. And if he executes any more members of the nobility on our say, it will probably trigger the very open revolt we seek to avoid at the moment and, worse, it will make our own position untenable. Everything is finely and I do not want to try and provoke and other of the Duca's funny turns. They are inevitably bloody in consequence.'

Aaaand breathe.

This problem is particularly marked at the beginning of the book, which is, you will agree, a particularly bad place for it to be marked. Although it eases off a bit as the plot (finally) picks up, the pacing as a whole remains awkward throughout. This isn't helped by shallow characterisation. The characters are painted in broad strokes but since they're all some variation on "courtier" (ruthless courtier, party courtier, naive courtier, hot courtier, woman courtier etc. etc.) and they all have extravagant Italianate titles, it's actually quite difficult to untangle them and their agendas. They all talk pretty much the same way and although they do have relationships with each other, it's hard to know why they think and act they way they do. Gawain, Lord d'Orlato and Xavier, Lord di Tuffatore are, apparently, in love but I never had any particular reason to believe in it or care about either the relationship or the inevitable shocking betrayal that accompanies it.

Actually since I've already spoilered this to oblivion and back, I may as well clarify. It turns that Gawain is the friendly neighbourhood serial killer, acting out of what he sees as being his "love" for Xavier, taking out those who threatened or inconvenienced his lover (handy). Their confrontation is genuinely arresting and dramatic, except it's got no context to it so it has no emotional resonance to it. Why does Gawain love Xavier enough to turn himself into a monster for the sake of it? And what on earth does Xavier see in Gawain?

This afflicts most of the characters in the book, although it seems less important for the others since they don't carry as much of the story. Essentially they're all cool but not interesting: little more than a parcel of bon mots and extravagant costuming. I know they're probably meant to be like that but it does leave the novel without any kind of emotional dimension. I think Xavier is meant to be the least psychotic of them and that we're maybe meant to like him, or at least be sufficiently invested him that his eventual fate is tragic ... but although I was sensible of the mechanics of said tragedy I didn't actually feel it.

This is not to say there's nothing to like about TPTWHE. There is good stuff in there. The city of Cittavecchio is trying very hard to be cool and, well, I have to admit it is pretty cool:

It's said ... that every night the Tattered King throws his cloak over the ancient and crumbling city, his constant lover and royal consort. Centuries ago ... the old Gods tried and failed to wash her iniquities away with the great deluge; she endured, half-drowned, half-dead, knee deep in silt water and floodwater, a sunken shadow of her Imperial past.

The whole brooding atmosphere of the book is excellent. And, despite having more than a whisper pretension about it, the Shakespeare / Eliot / tarot card motifs really contribute to it. Also Andrews writes well. I was rather taken with: "in his eyes, hysteria hovered like a solicitous relative, ready to take him by the arm and guide him into the gentle uplands of shrieking madness." And when it isn't bogging down in exposition, the rhythms of his dialogue are equally stylish:

'I have given a commitment to my brother ... and matters of policy must come before my own amusement.' 'It gratifies me nonetheless that you regard me as an amusement and not as a matter of policy...'

Unfortunately this isn't quite enough to pull TPTWHE together. It's a shame but a book I'd be willing to pay for is more than flair and imagination.Themes:

Books

,

Sci-fi / Fantasy

,

Self-Published

~

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Michal

at 00:52 on 2013-09-18This is an old article, but I'm gonna comment anyway 'cause that's how I roll.

I'm not sure if this restores my faith in conventional publishing as the article implies it should, since the book is, despite a shoddy cover and wandering plot, still apparently "well-written, imaginative, original and atmospheric." And this strikes me as a lot better than certain other debut novels that publishers have paid an advance for. I guess I'd want to know what the history behind this book was, if it was self-pubbed or vanity-pubbed from the get-go or if no one was interested in it or what, in that it obviously could have benefited from a professional editor or even the opinion of a good friend with an editing mind and the potential was there to make it a whole lot better. Or, in simpler terms: did Andrews simply release this book too early and should've worked on it more until he eventually found an agent, or should it have stayed in the trunk since no publisher would ever pick it up at all?

Mostly, it's a bit harsh to say "read this book if you don't pay for it" which seems to imply there some worth to the thing being printed in the first place, whereas large publishing houses have put out books where I really do wonder "what did any editor ever see in this thing?"