The Quest for the Legends

Chapter 53: Away (commentary)

All right, here's the actual chapter 53 commentary. Read to see me ramble about how much I love my characters as they suffer, the way I dropped the ball on Spirit, the bits that I edited after the initial publication thanks to Negrek, my original amazingly mood-whiplashy effort at That Scene as I wrote it in probably 2004 or 2005, my regrets about not doing better justice to Tyranitar here, and the delightful line "Everything is going to be fine, and then we can just forget this ever happened."

We are now caught up with the amount of commentary I've actually done so far, so I'll have to get going doing some more reading this week. Chapter 54's pretty short, though, so I don't expect that'll be a problem.

Not sure if it's my favourite chapter anymore after reading the grand finale, but it was for a long time. My new favourite chapters that exceed this one are still a *consequence* of this one, tying into the same emotional thread. I guess I've said a few times now that May's arc and May & Mark's friendship is the core of the whole book for me.

Wow, I never *did* notice that she was almost vulnerable enough, in this instance, to go to the police. Mark could have and maybe would have tipped the scales here if Chaletwo hadn't stepped in. Yet more of the "for want of a nail, the morally disastrous thing occurred" theme of this book.

(Chaletwo was *right*, I suppose, from a utilitarian moral viewpoint. But ironically given his issues, Chaletwo fails them as a parental figure–par for course, though, for May's life. It takes until Sparky for someone to step back and look at this whole mess with love and empathy, without the unhealthy veneer of blame–with May's best interest, personal growth, and ultimately psychological health in mind.

And not to get too tangential here, but it's exactly his position as an adult looking at a child that allows Sparky to do that. Robin, for example, views her as a peer and an equal, which makes it more natural to put a lot of blame on her.)

Thanks for a beautiful and gut-wrenching chapter! I'm also excited to see how you change it in the revision. I'm also super thrilled to see us move into the third act, where things really *really* get good.

Reopened a late chapter to check of Chaletwo was dealing with this by the end, and to make sure I got Robin's name right. I don't think I appreciated, while reading finishing the book at two AM on a train, how fucking delightful Leah is. 😂

Spin-off / Extra / NaNoWriMo idea: Leah's adventures. Everything about her screams "is definitely off being a protagonist an epic story of her own).

Or, perhaps a series of one-shot vignettes from the perspective of all the legendary-hunting children/party. Just a thought!

Oh, man, I love your comments. I would totally like to write more Leah at some point, particularly Leah with Chaletwo in her head. Chaletwo's kind of resigned to needing to keep the peace with his legendary hunters by the time he gets to Mark, but I suspect Leah's how he learned that.

If you want to keep Spirit's powers but tone down the chosen one stuff, have you thought about making an Ouen regional form for Ninetales? I suppose she's supposed to be from Johto though.

Keeping Spirit's powers but toning down the chosen one stuff? Not sure how you got the impression that was something I wanted to do; that's kind of the opposite of what I'd like to do with Spirit. Being chosen by Entei, in this way where she feels very self-important about it but is obviously simply being used, is actually interesting and relevant, whereas her powers are kind of OP, arbitrary and kind of tenuously justified. The Ghost moves are probably fine, the spirit form is OP but used for narrative convenience a couple of times and I'm somewhat nostalgic about it so ehhh, but I know I mentioned in the commentary that I'd definitely like to get rid of the speaking literal human bit because that's poorly justified and also never relevant to anything whatsoever.