Here we are, halfway through the series, and we now have two of the six stars identified. We only have 5 books left for our heroes to find four more stars, defeat Taishakuten (I have no doubts that this will happen - there's not enough sophistication in the story for there to be a neutral or bad ending), and for Ashura to kill Yasha. That's not a lot of time, and it's one reason why I'm not happy with what happened in RG Veda volume 5.
This volume focused almost entirely on Karura, only by the end, I found her losing her initial appeal. Once a powerful warrior, she's shown here to be wishy-washy and indecisive, impulsive in the worst way possible, and generally weak-willed. She spends the days after her sister's death in her sister's room, crying and refusing to eat or sleep. Kendappa, the harpist who may or may not be Yasha's half-sister, comes to revive Karura by playing the song that Karoubinga sang as she died.
Upon hearing the song, Karura is revived and vows to seek revenge against Taishakuten. If things had stopped here, I would have been happy. She had her grief, it's time to move on, and we can get going with the story. Unfortunately, Kendappa convinces Karura that what Karoubinga really would have wanted is for her to keep on living instead of throwing away her life for vengeance. So Karura changes her mind in the space of a single conversation and decides to keep working for Taishakuten like she always has.
Kendappa is a bit of an enigma here. She speaks to Taishakuten as if she is completely loyal to him and convinces Karura not to fight against him, but in the past, she helped Yasha. So many of the characters are this way - only serving Taishakuten because it's easier - that it seems like rebellion has been brewing for years.
Only Taishakuten proceeds to behave in the worst possible way imaginable for someone who is trying to keep the loyalty of a barely-willing populace. He calls Karura to his castle and reveals that he fed her sister's body to his pet beasts. Let me repeat that: We have a king so cruel that he takes his fourth-strongest general, kills her sister, lets his pets eat her body, and then rubs it in her face -- this despite the fact that she was willingly serving him for hundreds of years. There's never any indication that he has any idea that Karura has helped Yasha and Ashura. She doesn't put any outward sign that she's not willing to serve him. And he still feeds her sister to his pets. It's not exactly the smartest political move.
Again: How is this guy still in power? No one likes him. This can't be the worst thing he's done in the last 300 years. Even with 300,000 warriors, someone at some point has to have wanted to slip some poison into his food or something. It's completely unbelievable. His actions don't show him as a strong leader, and so there's no tension about whether or not he will be defeated. I half think that as soon as Ashura shows up, everyone in the castle will turn their back on Taishakuten, who will somehow be allowed to escape and live a life in exile.
So Karura, finding that her sister was pet food, lashes out at Taishakuten in rage. One would think that would be the end of her and her people, yet somehow King So-Cruel-He-Feeds-Girls-To-Pets is convinced by Zouchouten to let her go. This is so stupid that I have to say it again: The king, knowing that his fourth-strongest general is now never going to follow him again, and has indeed attacked him in the middle of his own castle, decides to let her go with a simple demotion.
Karura returns to her air castle, makes her people promise not to act against Taishakuten, and fakes her own death so that he won't decide to attack her tribe. That being done, we flash over to Ashura, who sees Karura's image in his sword: she's the second of the six stars, and we've wasted an entire book and a whole lot of brain cells to get her to make a decision she should have been able to make back when Taishakuten had simply just killed the beloved sister whose protection was the only reason why she served him.
Is it over yet? I really just want it to be over.
No comments:
Post a Comment