(SPOILERS) The Freedom Phalanx novel
By
Alloric,
Posted on: 2006-05-30 08:25 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
[ QUOTE ]
There are THREE Miss Liberty(s).
One is State's wife, Monica.
I suspect their daughter, Ms. Liberty, is Jessica.
Ms. Liberty's daughter, Miss Liberty, the Vindicator, is most likely Megan.
[/ QUOTE ]
Monica Ricter, married to Statesman is Maiden Justice.
Their daughter is MISS Liberty - retired but still around. Don't remember her name from the book...
Their granddaughter is MS. Liberty ('MIZ'), the Vindicator. According to the book, her name is Jessica.
Just finished it. I started off LOVING it, then liking it, and ending being very disappointed. Much of it was a fun compelling read and I had a hard time putting it down.
I understand in any given genre there are conventions and essential elements you must remain true to. Its based on comic book superheroes; so of course you are going to have certain traditions to uphold. Of course the super villain is going to want to take over and/or destroy the _______ (Insert: city, county, state country, continent, world, universe - in the blank) The pitfall is that it is very hard when dealing with such familiars to put a new spin on them so you dont fall into the trite or obvious. The challenge is to do something new with the same old ingredients.
The biggest problem I had with this novel me was the way Laws represented Sister Psyche. She was demoted from long standing full-fledged hero to helpless female hostage. The only woman on the team and she was scarcely allowed to do anything heroic. Almost immediately after her first appearance in the book, she is sidelined and incapacitated.
I kept waiting for Psyche to have the opportunity to redeem herself and do something heroic the further I got into the story and the more she was kept in helpless captive status, the bigger this heroics she would need to pull off to pull her own weight and for the author to win me back.
Even in her escape from the super villains, she was marginally competent and needed the aid of TWO male superheroes to rescue her.
I continued to wait it out as her hopeful redemption needed to grow to mammoth proportions to balance her out with the other male heroes and be justified in the story, but then I soon realized that such mega heroic save-the-day last minute reversals would be reserved for Statesman and they were.
When Psyche did face off with the Shadow Queen the only female hero squaring off with the only female villain (another tired cliché) the showdown was in a toilet for Petes sake! So finally Psyche does this pathetic smack down with her foe perched on the crapper. If thats not adding insult to injury, I dont know what is.
Laws pummeled Sister with the nerf bat and hung that poor gimped girl out to dry. What hero would want that loser like her on their team? According to Laws at best she can give foes a bad headache. Big deal. In fact one of her most powerful attacks in this whole story is when she --- scratches Proteans face with her fingernails and draws blood. I KID YOU NOT! If that isnt the most pathetic helpless female cliché in the world I dont know what is!
Yes, Im a Sister Psyche fan. But I would have felt equally outraged if the helpless female captive was a non-powered ordinary woman - still a tired old convention and needs to be avoided. Done to death! Think of something new! Or make the helpless female captive a man if you have to.
Yes, I understand the core of the villains plot was based on psyche manipulation and this required Psyche to be taken in by the villains, but that still does justify her substandard representation overall.
No, Im not a raging political activist screaming for equal rights for women. My charges of sexist in this novel are based not on social issues, but on being a reader who felt ripped off.
For the most part Laws did create some fresh new spins on superhero story telling. His story was well plotted and engaging. It grabbed me and pulled me right in which made the let down all the more disappointing because I LOVED the first half of the book and I wanted to keep liking the whole book, but the tired story convention nearly ruined it for me. The first half of the book led me to expect better. If the whole novel was crap and he used worn out clichés, I would not be so upset.
I would have given the book a B+, but for how he handled the whole Psyche thing I give it a C-.
No, Im not a raging political activist screaming for equal rights for women. My charges of sexist in this novel are based not on social issues, but on being a reader who felt ripped off.
Could have fooled me.
Psyche had to be in the book because she's in the Freedom Phalanx, but her powers would have pooched the plot so she had to be sidelined. Arguable Laws could have used a different plot, but he didn't.
FWIW I thought the book was mediocre at best. I just think that writers should be free to write without having to suffer the slings and arrows of political correctness.
Current Blog Post: "Why I am an Atheist..."
"And I say now these kittens, they do not get trained/As we did in the days when Victoria reigned!" -- T. S. Eliot, "Gus, the Theatre Cat"
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Just finished it. I started off LOVING it, then liking it, and ending being very disappointed. Much of it was a fun compelling read and I had a hard time putting it down.
I understand in any given genre there are conventions and essential elements you must remain true to. Its based on comic book superheroes; so of course you are going to have certain traditions to uphold. Of course the super villain is going to want to take over and/or destroy the _______ (Insert: city, county, state country, continent, world, universe - in the blank) The pitfall is that it is very hard when dealing with such familiars to put a new spin on them so you dont fall into the trite or obvious. The challenge is to do something new with the same old ingredients.
The biggest problem I had with this novel me was the way Laws represented Sister Psyche. She was demoted from long standing full-fledged hero to helpless female hostage. The only woman on the team and she was scarcely allowed to do anything heroic. Almost immediately after her first appearance in the book, she is sidelined and incapacitated.
I kept waiting for Psyche to have the opportunity to redeem herself and do something heroic the further I got into the story and the more she was kept in helpless captive status, the bigger this heroics she would need to pull off to pull her own weight and for the author to win me back.
Even in her escape from the super villains, she was marginally competent and needed the aid of TWO male superheroes to rescue her.
I continued to wait it out as her hopeful redemption needed to grow to mammoth proportions to balance her out with the other male heroes and be justified in the story, but then I soon realized that such mega heroic save-the-day last minute reversals would be reserved for Statesman and they were.
When Psyche did face off with the Shadow Queen the only female hero squaring off with the only female villain (another tired cliché) the showdown was in a toilet for Petes sake! So finally Psyche does this pathetic smack down with her foe perched on the crapper. If thats not adding insult to injury, I dont know what is.
Laws pummeled Sister with the nerf bat and hung that poor gimped girl out to dry. What hero would want that loser like her on their team? According to Laws at best she can give foes a bad headache. Big deal. In fact one of her most powerful attacks in this whole story is when she --- scratches Proteans face with her fingernails and draws blood. I KID YOU NOT! If that isnt the most pathetic helpless female cliché in the world I dont know what is!
Yes, Im a Sister Psyche fan. But I would have felt equally outraged if the helpless female captive was a non-powered ordinary woman - still a tired old convention and needs to be avoided. Done to death! Think of something new! Or make the helpless female captive a man if you have to.
Yes, I understand the core of the villains plot was based on psyche manipulation and this required Psyche to be taken in by the villains, but that still does justify her substandard representation overall.
No, Im not a raging political activist screaming for equal rights for women. My charges of sexist in this novel are based not on social issues, but on being a reader who felt ripped off.
For the most part Laws did create some fresh new spins on superhero story telling. His story was well plotted and engaging. It grabbed me and pulled me right in which made the let down all the more disappointing because I LOVED the first half of the book and I wanted to keep liking the whole book, but the tired story convention nearly ruined it for me. The first half of the book led me to expect better. If the whole novel was crap and he used worn out clichés, I would not be so upset.
I would have given the book a B+, but for how he handled the whole Psyche thing I give it a C-.
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Laws also had to work within her powers and abilities. She's an incredibly powerful psychic, the only way to neutralize is to neutralize her brain (and hence her ability to react.)
I think the very strange fight she had to go through to "overcome" the Shadow Queen and device was very intriguing to say the least.
That mind control device was in there quite a bit. I think they even mentioned that it was unbalancing Statesman a bit, making him more depressed than normal.
Still here, even after all this time!
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Psyche had to be in the book because she's in the Freedom Phalanx, but her powers would have pooched the plot so she had to be sidelined. Arguable Laws could have used a different plot, but he didn't.
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As I explained in my post, I understand this was part of the plot, however she NEVER was able to truly redeem herself after the villains plot was foiled and prove she could be a real hero.
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FWIW I thought the book was mediocre at best. I just think that writers should be free to write without having to suffer the slings and arrows of political correctness.
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It has nothing to do with political correctness. I hate PC BS. It has everything to do with being creative enough to tell a story without falling prey to tired trite clichés we've seen a million times before. For me it's not about offending my political sensibilities, but my sensibilities as a reader who expect something more than a tired wore out plot device handled in a stale uninteresting way.
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There are THREE Miss Liberty(s).
One is State's wife, Monica.
I suspect their daughter, Ms. Liberty, is Jessica.
Ms. Liberty's daughter, Miss Liberty, the Vindicator, is most likely Megan.
[/ QUOTE ]
Monica Ricter, married to Statesman is Maiden Justice.
Their daughter is MISS Liberty - retired but still around. Don't remember her name from the book...
Their granddaughter is MS. Liberty ('MIZ'), the Vindicator. According to the book, her name is Jessica.
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According to the book, Miss Liberty's real name is Alexis Cole.
In the book, Ms. Liberty's name is Jessica (which was also her name when her original background came out), but here on the forums Manticore - who is in charge of everything backstory - has said that her name is Megan.
Storm Summoning is great because it makes you better than everyone else in the game. - Camma
Knockback is mitigation. It won't be removed just because meleers ***** and moan. - Chaos Creator
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If the suit malfunctioned and infused Ray with anti-matter, it wouldn't transform him into an anti-matter being. It would destroy him in a nuclear fireball.
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You sure about that? Being 'infused with anti-matter' sounds like a classic superhero origin story to me.
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This is what I like to call "Comic Book Radiation." It is not the cancer-causing, environment-destroying radiation of the real world. CBR basically is a form of intense heat and light (in a variety of colors), and often has a concussive force to it when used to blast something. It also often has the ability to give superpowers under the right circumstances.
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[ QUOTE ]
There are THREE Miss Liberty(s).
One is State's wife, Monica.
I suspect their daughter, Ms. Liberty, is Jessica.
Ms. Liberty's daughter, Miss Liberty, the Vindicator, is most likely Megan.
[/ QUOTE ]
Monica Ricter, married to Statesman is Maiden Justice.
Their daughter is MISS Liberty - retired but still around. Don't remember her name from the book...
Their granddaughter is MS. Liberty ('MIZ'), the Vindicator. According to the book, her name is Jessica.
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According to the book, Miss Liberty's real name is Alexis Cole.
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Was it stated her last name is still Cole? I can't recall, and I just finished reading the book. Her last name might be different, given that she has a daughter. She may have been married at some point, though she clearly wasn't at the time of the FP novel. Divorced mother of one?
The first reference I can find - I may have missed an earlier one - is the paragraph at the bottom of page 369. Miss Liberty's name is given as "Alexis Cole".
The backstory gods have been largely ambiguous about who (if anyone) Ms. Liberty's father is - all that's been said about him is that we wouldn't believe it if/when his identity was revealed. Also ambiguous is if Miss Liberty married him and kept her own name, or married and divorced him, or is a widow, or didn't marry her daughter's father at all. His surname may be "Duncan", since that is supposedly the name that Ms. Liberty carries.
To be honest, I really thought that it was going to turn out to be Jonathan St. John-Smythe, given how he broke down at Maiden Justice's funeral and had that scene with Miss Liberty/Alexis. But they seem to just be acquaintances whose parents were friends.
Storm Summoning is great because it makes you better than everyone else in the game. - Camma
Knockback is mitigation. It won't be removed just because meleers ***** and moan. - Chaos Creator
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The backstory gods have been largely ambiguous about who (if anyone) Ms. Liberty's father is - all that's been said about him is that we wouldn't believe it if/when his identity was revealed.
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Personally, that sounds to me like her father was/is possibly a villain of some kind. Would be a typical comic book mythos twist.
"Ben is short for Frank."
-Baffling Beer-Man, The Tenacious 3: The Movie
[IMG]http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/aa10/BafflingBeerman/teamjackface1.jpg[/IMG]
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Psyche had to be in the book because she's in the Freedom Phalanx, but her powers would have pooched the plot so she had to be sidelined. Arguable Laws could have used a different plot, but he didn't.
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Blah, blah, blah! There are still hundreds of ways to keep on the sidelines without demoting her to some pathetic bondage fantasy. 
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The biggest problem I had with this novel me was the way Laws represented Sister Psyche. She was demoted from long standing full-fledged hero to helpless female hostage. The only woman on the team and she was scarcely allowed to do anything heroic. Almost immediately after her first appearance in the book, she is sidelined and incapacitated.
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The thing I appreciated about the way he wrote it was that it gave us a ton of insight into how Sister Psyche's powers work. I suppose it could've been done in a different way though. Then again, the whole thing with her being a hostage was very integral to the book's plot. Remove that and a lot of stuff would've needed to have been rewritten.
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When Psyche did face off with the Shadow Queen the only female hero squaring off with the only female villain (another tired cliché) the showdown was in a toilet for Petes sake!
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I definitely agree with that being a cliched. One female hero and one female villain, so of course, they have to be rivals! Then again, aside from Protean and Manticore, all the other rivals had the same juxtaposition. Lord Recluse and Statesman got their powers from the place, as did Synapse and Revenant (torture), and even Positron and Dr. Bein.
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Yes, Im a Sister Psyche fan. But I would have felt equally outraged if the helpless female captive was a non-powered ordinary woman - still a tired old convention and needs to be avoided.
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Shadow Queen is a "non-powered ordinary woman" to the extent that Positron is in the novel. They get their power from an external source. Many heroes would fall into this catagory, and that doesn't make them not be superpowers.
To expand on this though, I was really annoyed with how much Shadow Queen's power origins had in common with Vanessa DeVore's. A porcelain mask from Europe that is possessed by a spirit? You would've thought that someone during when the book was being written would've noticed those links and made Shadow Queen's unique.
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[ QUOTE ]
There are THREE Miss Liberty(s).
One is State's wife, Monica.
I suspect their daughter, Ms. Liberty, is Jessica.
Ms. Liberty's daughter, Miss Liberty, the Vindicator, is most likely Megan.
[/ QUOTE ]
Monica Ricter, married to Statesman is Maiden Justice.
Their daughter is MISS Liberty - retired but still around. Don't remember her name from the book...
Their granddaughter is MS. Liberty ('MIZ'), the Vindicator. According to the book, her name is Jessica.
[/ QUOTE ]
According to the book, Miss Liberty's real name is Alexis Cole.
In the book, Ms. Liberty's name is Jessica (which was also her name when her original background came out), but here on the forums Manticore - who is in charge of everything backstory - has said that her name is Megan.
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That's true, which brings up a lot of questions: Does Miss Liberty later have another child? Are Jessica and Megan one in the same and just a name change? Did Law get the name wrong?
Personally, I was a little disappointed that they didn't get into that story more. I've been looking forward to finding out who Ms. Liberty's father is since Manticore taunted us with it, and it seemed like this book would've been the perfect place for it to come up. Now I'm wondering when we'll find out since the next book seems like it'll be another 20 year jump into the future.
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Personally, that sounds to me like her father was/is possibly a villain of some kind. Would be a typical comic book mythos twist.
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And possibly another cliche.
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The backstory gods have been largely ambiguous about who (if anyone) Ms. Liberty's father is - all that's been said about him is that we wouldn't believe it if/when his identity was revealed.
[/ QUOTE ]
Personally, that sounds to me like her father was/is possibly a villain of some kind. Would be a typical comic book mythos twist.
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Well, let's not forget Manticore's last offical words on the subject:
"I am not ready to reveal the identity of Ms. Liberty's father just yet but I can assure you it will be shocking!" (HoC chat)
In case it went over your head, Shadow Queen's mask IS Vanessa De Vore's mask. We can only assume in the 15 or so years between the book and the Rikti War Azuria lost it and it found it's way back to Italy to be found by Vanessa.
I must vehemetly disagree about Psyche's role in the book. The fact that the villains had to target her first proves how crucial she was to their plot - not only did they need a potential backup psychic, they also recognized that Psyche was powerful enough to completely ruin the plan. After all, the whole plan was manipulating an entire city psychically, and presumably, a non-nullified Sister Psyche could throw the whole thing into disarray.
Secondly, Sister Psyche set the entire chain of events in motion that ended the book. She broke herself out her mental and physical binds, took a key part of the villain's aresenal, and despite the fact her powers were severely weakened, still dispensed with an entire armed force. If she were even capable of flight at the time of the attack, she wouldn't have even needed the help of other heroes, men *or* women.
Sorry, but Psyche hardly needed men to help her. I think you're severely underselling her efforts.
Pillars of Virtue - Hope, Justice, Discretion, Courage, Help
Now seeking new volunteers!
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In case it went over your head, Shadow Queen's mask IS Vanessa De Vore's mask. We can only assume in the 15 or so years between the book and the Rikti War Azuria lost it and it found it's way back to Italy to be found by Vanessa.
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Although it seems like that, I don't remember anything stating that it was the case.
In either case, the presence of the mask really annoyed me. If it was the same mask Vanessa has, then it mucks up the backstory a heck of alot. And even if it isn't the same mask, it destroys the freshness of the Carnies and plops Vanessa into the same old returning villain catagory. 
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In case it went over your head, Shadow Queen's mask IS Vanessa De Vore's mask. We can only assume in the 15 or so years between the book and the Rikti War Azuria lost it and it found it's way back to Italy to be found by Vanessa.
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Looking at it now, I can see how that can be inferred. I still stick my my assertion that it was fairly redundant, however.
But Azuria losing something? Makes sense...
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In case it went over your head, Shadow Queen's mask IS Vanessa De Vore's mask. We can only assume in the 15 or so years between the book and the Rikti War Azuria lost it and it found it's way back to Italy to be found by Vanessa.
[/ QUOTE ]
Although it seems like that, I don't remember anything stating that it was the case.
In either case, the presence of the mask really annoyed me. If it was the same mask Vanessa has, then it mucks up the backstory a heck of alot. And even if it isn't the same mask, it destroys the freshness of the Carnies and plops Vanessa into the same old returning villain catagory.
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C'mon, it talks about visions of 17th century carnival figures in Italy. They did everything but use Scaldi's name.
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To expand on this though, I was really annoyed with how much Shadow Queen's power origins had in common with Vanessa DeVore's. A porcelain mask from Europe that is possessed by a spirit? You would've thought that someone during when the book was being written would've noticed those links and made Shadow Queen's unique.
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This bothered me a bit too. It HAS to be the same mask. Having two that are exactly the same doesn't make any sense. But if it's the same mask, how does it end up back in Venice 15 years later, old and discolored? Did the mask will itself back?
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In case it went over your head, Shadow Queen's mask IS Vanessa De Vore's mask. We can only assume in the 15 or so years between the book and the Rikti War Azuria lost it and it found it's way back to Italy to be found by Vanessa.
[/ QUOTE ]
Although it seems like that, I don't remember anything stating that it was the case.
In either case, the presence of the mask really annoyed me. If it was the same mask Vanessa has, then it mucks up the backstory a heck of alot. And even if it isn't the same mask, it destroys the freshness of the Carnies and plops Vanessa into the same old returning villain catagory.
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C'mon, it talks about visions of 17th century carnival figures in Italy. They did everything but use Scaldi's name.
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And the Carnies only have one such mask? I think you need to go look up the Carnies in game. 
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In case it went over your head, Shadow Queen's mask IS Vanessa De Vore's mask. We can only assume in the 15 or so years between the book and the Rikti War Azuria lost it and it found it's way back to Italy to be found by Vanessa.
[/ QUOTE ]
Although it seems like that, I don't remember anything stating that it was the case.
In either case, the presence of the mask really annoyed me. If it was the same mask Vanessa has, then it mucks up the backstory a heck of alot. And even if it isn't the same mask, it destroys the freshness of the Carnies and plops Vanessa into the same old returning villain catagory.
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C'mon, it talks about visions of 17th century carnival figures in Italy. They did everything but use Scaldi's name.
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And the Carnies only have one such mask? I think you need to go look up the Carnies in game.
[/ QUOTE ]Shadow Queen could have been wearing one of those mask the Carnies Bosses wear. Those ladies were nasty...
In the Arena of Logic, I fight unarmed.
This bothered me a bit too. It HAS to be the same mask. Having two that are exactly the same doesn't make any sense. But if it's the same mask, how does it end up back in Venice 15 years later, old and discolored? Did the mask will itself back?
It is possible that Shadow Queen's mask belonged to another witch in Giovanna's coven. Even so, it would mean Paragon's heroes and MAGI would have to be pretty slow on the draw to not recognize the Carnival when they appeared after the war.
More likely they are the same mask. Laws was likely not given the full rundown on the mask's history, or the history was changed after he started writing. As I and others have noted in the past, it doesn't do Cryptic much good to crow about the umpty-ump thousands of pages of background they have when no one's bothering to consult it in advance or check new material against it for continuity.
The best way out is probably to assume the masks are different. Perhaps Azuria felt Shadow Queen's mask was too dangerous to study and had it destroyed before grokking the "17th century Italian carnival figures" references.
Current Blog Post: "Why I am an Atheist..."
"And I say now these kittens, they do not get trained/As we did in the days when Victoria reigned!" -- T. S. Eliot, "Gus, the Theatre Cat"
OR the mask was put on by some other patsy or two in this 15-year undocumented time span, and they took it back to Italy. Let's face it, Giovanna Scaldi can be quite persuasive in getting people to wear that mask, and not everyone has a hero's willpower to resist it.
Storm Summoning is great because it makes you better than everyone else in the game. - Camma
Knockback is mitigation. It won't be removed just because meleers ***** and moan. - Chaos Creator
Sorry, but anything involving rubber-banding the mask back to Italy where it can be lost in time for Vanessa DeVore to find it again is just lame.
Current Blog Post: "Why I am an Atheist..."
"And I say now these kittens, they do not get trained/As we did in the days when Victoria reigned!" -- T. S. Eliot, "Gus, the Theatre Cat"
There are THREE Miss Liberty(s).
One is State's wife, Monica.
I suspect their daughter, Ms. Liberty, is Jessica.
Ms. Liberty's daughter, Miss Liberty, the Vindicator, is most likely Megan.