#spoilers for the most recent quests saving Anne

[nyxraex]

Guess what I bought! (*SPOILERS*)

+ my two cents on it.

Ok, so I read this thing in about an hour or so, maybe half or even less, can't tell since I didn't pay any attention to the clock.

OVERALL:

Overall I think it's...meh. Not amazing but not horrible either. It's an ok book with a simple, easy-to-understand storyline and great art. I especially liked how the girls' powers were shown, since, y'know, it's something that's barely shown in-game.

It's pretty clear while reading as someone in my early 20s that it's meant for younger audiences, with how Alex is constantly going like "BUT WHAT ABOUT FOOD?!" even if they're on a mission (or maybe I'm just too serious of a person, idk. I d o u b t it.). The book also tries it's best to not get too serious by putting jokes and humour that can be either a hit or miss depending on what you find funny. Personally, while not funny enough to make be laugh, it did make the atmosphere more light-hearted.

The pacing in my opinion is a bit too fast, not giving the reader enough time to breathe so to say, meaning that there's a lot of dialogue instead of scenes where the characters are having a break from travelling (ok there is but they're a rarity).

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In my opinion the Soul Riders act how you'd expect them to based on how they speak and act in-game.

Surprisingly enough, while no one character is given the lead role, Lisa was the one with more relevancy, but considering that the plot revolves around a sickness/plague/withering, having the healer of the group more front-side makes sense.

Linda and Alex were the next most relevant, with Linda having a vision about what would more-or-less happen & figuring out what the creature chasing them is, with Alex mostly serving as comic(ayo)-relief until the end fight. Both of them being the more vocal ones (Alex especially) of the group also contributed to why they were more relevant.

Anne on the other hand was kind of just...there. She didn't really have much else to do other than tag along to unravel the mystery with the others and have her angsty moments about having been stuck in Pandoria and having (almost) lost Concorde. Like Alex, Anne had her time to shine during the end fight since their powers are more suited for combat than Lisa and Linda's.

The Guardian horses also are kinda just there, doing what horses do, except with more sentience. Heck they didn't even speak in the book.

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Bryann, one of the Keepers, serves as the main antagonist of the book and is the one who caused the sickness-plague thing, although accidentally, having tried to get back her horse after he was turned into a Lignos by her desperate attempt to save the dying horse.

Although I get where she was coming from, I have a hard time forgiving her. Not only did she willingly sacrifice Kora for the tree, she also almost killed the Soul Riders in an attempt to also sacrifice them AND their horses for the same tree to get her own horse back.

The biggest reason why I dislike Bryann is the same reason I disliked Anne after she was saved from Pandoria (up until the most recent quests). Selfishness. While it's easy to understand that both were/are in pain over the loss of they beloved horses and that it's going to cause trauma, it's the fact that they both were like 'I'M in pain. I want my best friend back.' and seemingly never thought about how their horses feel about what happened that drives me up the wall!

However the biggest gripe I have about the books ending in regards to Bryann is that while she does admit that she was wrong for not letting go & seemingly sacrifices herself to the tree so that Caliban (Bryann's horse) can be free, she never actually receives any consequences for her actions that put not only the Soul Riders but all of Jorvik in serious danger. The Soul Riders IMMEDIATELY forgive her (except Alex, but she doesn't really reprimand Bryann either...) and are like:

( Direct fin to eng translations by me; all 4 quotes are in succession in the book. )

"Bryann? I...We understand. You only tried to save your horse. Right?" - Lisa

"We understand, how it feels...Desperation is familiar to me too." - Anne

"The loss must have hurt, and it's okay. We are the only ones, who can understand that." - Linda, with tears in her eyes. (*bish W H A T???)

"Tell that to KORA." - Alex, looking annoyed. (*T H A N K Y O U!)

Like, I get that they want to say that 'Not all bad people are bad for no good reason' or something along those lines, and even I myself tend to be very forgiving to the point where all I need to hear is someone say sorry and visbly feel guilty to make me forgive, but what Bryann did warrants more than just a 'sorry' with the Soul Riders saying that they would have done the exact same thing. We needed more than a self-sacrifice.

If the Soul Riders had been rightfully mad at her whilst remaining understanding, telling Bryann just how majorly she screwed up, followed by her apology and self-sacrifice, THAT would have been enough for me to be happy with how the story ended. But no.

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Well, that's that. My brain can't handle anymore thinking.

[centeris2]

the more I think about the saving Anne quests the more dissatisfied I get

why weren’t we armed to the teeth with every magical item we have to protect ourselves? we knew thought Dark Core wasn’t going to give up Anne without a fight, we knew thought they’d be waiting, so why didn’t we have our rune wand and fragment of Aideen’s light? Why did we go into Pandoria unprepared?

But more importantly, we did have our horse. Which brings up why wasn’t our horse with us when we went back in to get Alex? the only reason we didn’t get back up on our horse was because we had to be helpless to watch Elizabeth die and frankly...?

that’s so...

Like canonically the druids and soul riders are tragically underprepared for anything and everything, us going in without any supplies and without us receiving any offensive or defensive training just lines up with the druids being awful at fighting a war or training their agents or using anything effectively (if you’re gonna have child soldiers commit to it, don’t half heartedly train them and let them nearly murder people because you neglected to train them)

So I’ll let that part slide with just a grumble and a

But our horse? Our horse backs us up. Our horse does whatever it needs to do for us, be it sneak into Dark Core for us or jump off an oil rig into the ocean and sprout wings. It comes when we need it.

So why didn’t we jump up on our horse when Elizabeth charged back in to get Alex? Why didn’t our horse follow us? What stopped our horse from going “that’s my human I’m protecting my human get out of my way” and running after us? Because for some reason Elizabeth had to die, so we had to be powerless to stop it.

and the hilarious thing is, I wasn’t even sad when Elizabeth died because I immediately thought of the clover. I know that quest affected a lot of people but I just... “oh we’ve got a wish granting clover that we haven’t used on Fripp or Concorde, I guess we’ll be using it on Elizabeth, because why else would we hold off on using a wish granting clover that could have healed Fripp???”

especially since “we’ll bring her back” is a dialogue option with Alex. 

and yet I have a feeling SSO will keep the clover for something else and Elizabeth will be perma-dead. idk maybe this is so they can introduce a new druid leader (why Elizabeth has to be out of the way idk???)

in all of this I can only hope that getting Anne back hurts us. If Dark Core let her go and Anne doesn’t end up hurting the soul riders/druids in some way then 

I want the villains in sso to be competent. Letting go of Anne with a distraction fight either means they are 1 - setting us up with Anne somehow or 2 - really that incompetent as an enemy.

I also want there to be a reason why we couldn’t save Elizabeth. Tell me why my horse didn’t come with me. Tell me why the game made me powerless.

I acknowledge there is no way for SSO to win with me in this scenario, if they don’t use the clover for Elizabeth I’ll be frustrated they made us powerless to save her then gave us a wish granting object and still made us unable to save her. If SSO does use the clover to save Elizabeth great she’s back I still don’t trust her and we just wasted an incredibly valuable object on someone we should have been able to save in the first place but were unable to save because of Alex Suffering Plot Reasons I guess idk.