A Review Proper: Murky Number Seven, by Fuzzy · 9:41pm Jul 6th, 2013
Earlier, I made a post of my first impressions of Fuzzy’s Murky Number Seven, my experience of the first ten thousand words or so. In that much time, I had quite a bit to say; though, like I said, that opinion should not be regarded in any way complete.
It took me this long to read five chapters of Murky Number Seven (I told you I was a slow reader), which is 148,367 words; which is, at time of writing is a little over a fifth of the novel. Thus, I feel that I can form a opinion that is well thought-out and complete.
Synopsis of Chapters One to Five: Murky Number Seven was born a slave and has been traded from master to master for the entirety of his life. Having never known freedom, having always been told what to do his entire life, he neither desires freedom nor has any will to desire anything. In addition, he’s a crippled pegasus pony and is forced to wear rags to cover his wings lest he subject himself to bigotry. On the cusp of adulthood, he gets traded to the industrialized Fillydelphia, where he toils day in and day out in smog, fighting to stay alive each day, watching his fellow slaves dying around him. After watching a unicorn slave fly out of the city with nothing but her magic alone, he is enraptured by the sight, acquires a mind, thinks of her every day, and gets a will to survive. He makes a fail escaped attempt but is saved by a slaver Protégé. Protégé explains that he saved him from being enslaved by someone named Chainlink Shackles, a slaver who utterly terrifies Murky. Nevertheless, Murky is thrown to a crowd who wants nothing better than to tear him apart, but he’s saved by a large earth pony named Brimstone Blitz. Brimstone explains that he needs Murky to save Glimmerlight, a mare under his protection, by getting her medicine. After a long fetch-quest, he does.
Oh, Murky. You and your “greys” and your “foetuses” and your “centres” and your “armours” and your “favourites” and your “amongsts” and your fervid disdain of the oxford comma; you’re so consistently English. I’m waiting for you to write “a herb”; when it happens, I’ll squee from the overload of Englishness. If they ever made a radio drama out of Murky Number Seven, I wouldn’t be able to take it seriously if all the characters didn’t have some kind of British accent. Murky would sound like Oliver from Oliver Twist. Wicked Slit would sound like Helen Bonham Carter. Make this happen. Now.
Now, the review proper:
Just by this synopsis, some quick questions are raised, namely with the world-building:
Why are pegasi so rare in the wasteland? Just because neither of the parents are pegasi doesn’t mean that they can’t have a pegasus. How does no one know that Murky is a pegasus? You’d think that whatever slaver sold him would use that as a selling point. Why can’t healing potions fix his crippled wings? Why can’t healing potions fix his terminal illness?
In addition, the city of Fillydelphia strikes me as a position that is incredibly untenable. Murky sees his fellow slaves dying every day. They’re treated very poorly and they live in filth. Fillydelphia is depicted as a thriving, productive, city compared to the rest of the wasteland, but I can’t see how they can get anything done. How can they when they’re losing slaves left and right? Slaves are expensive; how could you just kill them without a second thought like that? The truth is is that slavery is a terrible way of getting stuff done, especially when it comes to industry. It may be free labor, but you really get what you pay for. Observe early 19th century America, and compare the industrial free North with the rural slave South; the North had a GDP double that of the South and was a much more prosperous society as a whole. Slavery may work for individual farms which require unskilled labor, but the greater the project, the more complex the stuff you have to do (and I imagine what Fillydelphia is doing is quite complex, judging by all the machinery around the place), the less effective it’ll be. I was recently told by a collector of firearms that you shouldn’t by Karabiner 98ks after a certain date (1942 I believe) since Germany was using slave labor at that point and the quality of the guns are not as good as the earlier makes. Also, the pyramids weren’t built by slave labor. Come on, working in the African sun and getting whipped any time you fell down? You’d get heat stroke in, like, ten seconds and then be useless. Nothing would get done.
Lastly, unicorns can fly now? We see in the show that they levitate slightly off the ground now and then, but fly into the heavens? If that’s the case, why don’t all slave unicorns just fly away?
But that’s fine, really. These actually don’t bother me. As long as they’re there simply for the sake of telling a story that could not otherwise be told and as long as they’re not really drawn attention to, I can overlook these. And I’m not one to complain that Murky’s a pegasus; if it makes it harder for him to live on earth, then I’m not one to complain about introducing more conflict possibilities. Let’s move on to the meat of the story and review.
I really do like the serial nature of the work. This is how a serial novel should be: each chapter is a novel or a story in its own right, its own conflicts, its own characters, and each chapter pushes the main characters slightly toward a different point. In one chapter, they’ll encounter a certain situation and react in a certain way; in another chapter, another story, they may encounter a similar situation, but they’ll react in a slightly different way because of their past experiences. It’s interesting to see how things like this develop.
Now, this may be just me, but I found that once Murky got his free will, the quality of the writing . . . while it didn’t decline strictly speaking, Murky starts to focus more on his own thoughts; and, to be fair, rightly so. After all, once his free will kicks in, it becomes a much more personal story. But his own thoughts aren’t really as . . . eloquent as his observations of things that are happening around him (how does he have such a great eye for architecture?). In true Fallout: Equestria style, he seems to like. To think in. Sentence. Fragments. It’s not nearly as irritating as in the original, nor as common, but it happens every so often, though not really enough to make the story a deal-breaker. It does kind of makes my eye twitch when I see two sentence fragments that would’ve been better served. As a single sentence.
I learned of the story mostly from people telling me how sad and tragic it is, how it can warm your heart and break it at the same time. When I first started reading, the moment I realized the character had no free will, I was appalled. How could you write a story about that? Reading it would be like reading the code to a computer program. Here you have a character whose soul purpose in life is to get hurt. It was starting to look more and more to me like sadist porn.
Fortunately, that wasn’t the case. And, to be fair, there are times where I have gotten emotional. In all that time, there were three moments that got me right in the feels.
First, the whole “drawing himself with wings outspread and smiling,” for reasons I said in my first impressions post.
Second, Murky’s description of how his wings were mutilated. Something about a shed, an anvil, a hammer . . . and that’s it. Fuzzy doesn’t go into intimate details and instead has the reader fill in the blanks for himself. A wonderful, horrible (in a good way), choice. Fuzzy correctly realizes that the details aren’t important; and, besides, any details he could have given would’ve been no worse than anything else that the reader’s already seen. No, rather, what’s important is the implication of the event. Murky’s grounding not only puts him in sticky situations that would otherwise be solved with the ability of flight, but the presence of his lame wings is a constant reminder to him and the reader of the horrible injustice of slavery. The act of dragging him into a barn and crippling his wings is symbolic of Murky’s choice and mastery of himself being taken away from him as a slave (all the more horrible now that he has free will; revealing that he was a pegasus before he had free will would’ve taken most of the impact of it away). One word comes to my mind every time I think of that—unfair. It’s just not fair! As such, it’s just enough for Murky to remind me of what happened to him to prod my heartstrings—every single time. If the act were described, it would have put more emphasis on the details of the act rather than the act itself, the former not important while the latter overwhelmingly is.
Third, when Murky is being paraded around the city for the point of being humiliated and the mare from earlier stands right up to the scary Chainlink Shackles, the latter probably being four times larger and taller than the former, and says without a stammer, without a second’s hesitation, without a shred of doubt, despite knowing completely what’s going to happen to her afterward: “He has a name!” If nothing in this story is deserving of my feels, it’s this moment. No matter how big and scary evil looks, no matter how terrible and inhospitable the world looks, no matter how much the bullies and strongmen of the world try—the goodness of the world, no matter how small, will never be able to be put down. The feels. The feels.
Note that it’s the unfairness that gives me the feels in the second example, not the mutilation itself. Note that it’s the mare standing up to Chainlink Shackles per se, not her getting hurt afterward, that gives me feels. I do get the feeling that Fuzzy tries to get the reader in the feels by just describing pain. And not once has it worked on me. Why? Pain is an involuntary, irrational response. It requires no thinking to understand. Sorrow is a much more complex cognitive process than pain; pain can barely even be called a cognitive process. When he gets hit and says that it hurts, I say: “Well, that generally what happens when you get hit. What else did you expect to happen?” What could potentially be sad are the reasons per se why he’s getting beaten up.
There many moments when the story is clearly set-up to get me in the feels, but I didn’t—most of Murky’s getting-beat-up scenes. He keeps going on about “oh, this hurts” and “Oh, this really really hurts,” and “oh, this really hurts,” and “now, it was the worst pain I’ve ever felt.” After a while, it gets hard to buy. Murky has gotten beaten up his entire life, and he has yet to convince me that a certain beating is unique, despite how hard he tries. This is one of the problems I have with the character Chainlink Shackles, in that Murky says that he’s so horrible and he’d rather die than go into his servitude—but I have a hard time buying that anything that Chainlink Shackles does to him was any worse than anything Whiplash or Wicked Slit used to do to him.
This story also suffers from what I call Deus e Machina syndrome. Murky is always in some unsolvable pickle and he always looks like he’s about to die!—and then he’s saved by some unexpected event. Never before have I ever seen more irritating applications of this literary device. To be fair, it’s annoying in general. It’s the ultimate cop-out. To name a few: a unicorn flies away in a burst of light to save Murky from being killed in the arena. Unicorn out of the arena. Unicornis ex arena. Murky is about to get killed by the machine but is saved at the last second because a pony was in the way of him. A pony out of the machine—or rather, a pony into the death-machine so that Murky Number Seven may not have to. Caballio in machinam mortis ut Ater Numerus Septem non requirat. Murky has his torso blown open at the foot of the wall and should, by all rights, be dead—but is saved by Protégé. Protégé out of administration. Discipulus ex administratione. Murky is being torn apart by the crowd but Brimstone saves him. Brimstone out of the crowd. Sulfur e turba. This is not interesting! Hoc attractivum non est!
The problem is that Murky needs to get into sticky situations for the sake of the plot but doesn’t really have the prowess to get out of said situations. He needs someone to save him. But it really is cop-out story telling.
Yes, this story has technical problems. But I don’t despise the story. My personal barometer when it comes to telling whether I despise something or not is whether I start picking on little things. If I hated Murky Number Seven, this would be the point where I would criticize it for being calligraphically inconsistent with quotation marks. But I don’t. Every time that happened, I ignored it, because there were enough interesting themes in the story to make me judge such little errors as irrelevant.
Much to my surprise, not only does Murky get free will but also gets the ability to desire. Fuzzy seems to be saying, blatantly, that value-choosing and free will are inextricably tied, that one can’t live without the other. This is a quintessential idea of romanticism, i.e., the greatest artistic movement in the history of mankind, and to have Fuzzy put it so blatantly is wonderful, something that not even most professional writers realize.
Oh, what am I saying? I’m looking too much into it. Fuzzy probably doesn’t even know what romanticism is, much less know how to apply—
Protégé raised an eyebrow, looking up from the book of interest.
“No 'master', for me? How unusual amongst slaves, usually they would be afraid of being punished for ignorance. But then...you are unusual to begin with, Murk, in more than one way as well. The pegasus who tried to get over the Wall to win the freedom he was denied by birth...there is a certain romanticism to it, don't you agree?”
gasp
I just came.
Holy hell, this comment is win in a million different ways. Where to begin!
Quick explanation: I touched on this earlier in my first impressions post, but for those not in the know, simply put, romanticism is the category of art dealing with the ideal, not the trivial, with what ought to be rather than what is. A picture of Murky smiling with wings outspread could be considered in the romantic vein, because he’s not being depicted as how he is but how he ought to be. Generally, though not a hard and fast rule, if a character is described as “larger than life,” he usually is from a romantic story—a hero how person ought to be.
So, this comment is infinite win. Number one, using the word “romanticism” in this context establishes Protégé as the erudite scholar that he is. Two, he correctly identifies the essence of the plot that had taken place beforehand. Three, he gives his opinion on the matter shortly afterward, shedding some more light on the character. Four, this was a very meta-moment for me, a point where it felt like Protégé was speaking directly toward me, a moment where it clicked and I thought I understood him.
Unfortunately, despite the overwhelming awesomeness of this comment, it doesn’t augur well for the future of the story.
Ayn Rand once said that “every writer is a moral philosopher.” What she meant was that by the way a writer chooses his subject matter, by the way he chooses to present it, by the words he uses to convey the emotions he wants to be conveyed with such a subject matter, he makes a point, a sort of argument, stating how he views the world.
In the rest of the conversation that follows, Protégé says, in essence: “Yes, that was a very romantic thought you had, Murky. But you’re in the real world now, and such romantic thoughts have no place in the real world.” It seems to me that Protégé doesn’t consider romanticism an art form worthy of attention, that he considers such ideas to be an escape from the real world. But this draws a hypocrisy on the character: He says that Murky needs to face what’s in front of him and not run away, yet Protégé makes a deliberate effort to not say the word “slave” and instead uses the word “worker.” He says he wants to see Murky free, but then why doesn’t he just let him go? He’s his slave, after all.
How does Protégé strike me? I would say he’s exactly like the character Discord: he has this cool, smooth voice that wraps around his victims, lulling them into a sense of security necessary for his purposes. His sentences go on and on, going from one point to the next; and it sounds really good, but disinterested bystanders will see that his words really go nowhere. I would say that Protégé is like Discord—the only difference is Discord doesn’t actually believe any of the stuff that he says. Discord knows that what he says is nonsense, but he says it because he knows that it’s how to get the things he wants. Protégé actually believes the rubbish that he says. Unlike Discord, Protégé strikes me as very earnest. If I needed to sum up Protégé in one sentence, I’d say: “A man who truly believes that good can be obtained by the application of evil.”
Now, if this were a character depicted as a straight-up villain, such irrationality is to be expected and would only push the argument of romanticism. But Protégé is depicted in a very sympathetic light. Murky even comes close to calling him “good.”
This is very strange for me. What is Murky Number Seven and Fuzzy trying to say? At the end of Chapter One, I thought that Fuzzy was saying that slavery is bad and romantic ideals are necessary to prepare people for the battles that they’ll encounter, but with the introduction of the character Protégé, a slaver (by depicting the character in a good light), Fuzzy seems to be saying that, perhaps, romanticism isn’t relevant, that romantic ideals can’t exist in the real world. And, perhaps, slavery isn't a bad thing.
Be it remembered that I wasn’t interested in Murky Number Seven until Murky drew himself as a romantic character and he saw the unicorn rise from the battle arena in a flash of light, i.e., until the romantic elements were introduced. I don’t read novels to read about slaves in dirt and grime being whipped. I can read about that in newspapers.
One of the great things given to Murky after the whole event at the Pit was the image imprinted in his head of a heroine, watching her rise into the heavens through her own volition, bound to nothing. Such image gives him strength and is quite uplifting to read about.
Imagine my dismay when I was told that that unicorn was Littlepip!
Murky is madly in love with Littlepip—oh, pardon me, the Stable Dweller. He’s in love with the Stable Dweller. Because, you see, he’s not actually in love with Littlepip herself. How could he be? He’s never met her. It’s made very clear that what Murky is in love with is the image of an ascendant heroine. In love with the exceptional in humanity.
This is an interesting device, in that it gives Murky all the benefits and the strive that come with hero worship, but also makes the story yet more tragic. Because we, as the reader, know that Littlepip is not a hero. In Fallout: Equestria, Littlepip is presented as an unexceptional, average person. The reader, presumably, knows that Littlepip is not the divine being that Murky thinks she is, that she’s merely a drug-addicted, horny teenager at her worst and nothing more than a rampaging antihero at best.
It would’ve been no stretch of the imagination for Fuzzy to create his own heroine, a symbol more than a character. He could’ve had her make a moving speech on top of a rampart during the slave rebellion, had the wind filling her hair with the light behind her, had her incredibly beautiful despite living the in the dirt and mud, and he could have had her leave herself in Murky’s memory with her own image of her ascent to freedom.
But he didn’t. Instead, we have Littlepip.
This choice of Littlepip as Murky’s image of the exceptional is not an accidental one. There are many tongue-in-cheek moments when Murky fantasizes about Littlepip. He’ll say stuff like: “Oh, this is what the Stable Dweller would do! I shouldn’t do this, because the Stable Dweller wouldn’t do this in so-and-so a situation!”
And when this happens, when Murky recalls her in a way we know not to be true, the tone is one of humor or pity.
Such hero worship gives Murky strength, empowers him. And the reader is supposed to laugh at the fact that Murky has Littlepip all wrong or shake his head with a knowing, smug smile and say: “Oh, Murky. If you only knew.”
Why this choice, then? In his head, Murky has the image of a romantic ideal. But by Fuzzy making this image in his head that of Littlepip, the reader is inclined to agree with Protégé when he says that such images that Murky has are irrelevant and not pertinent to reality. Murky Number Seven seems to be saying that heroes don’t exist and perceptions of heroes are falsities.
I must say when I was told that that was Littlepip, my enjoyment of the novel slackened somewhat. Hope, freedom, passion, love, Murky! No, actually, Littlepip. Huh . . . this is disappointing. I wonder if the novel would be more enjoyable or less enjoyable if you didn’t know that the unicorn was Littlepip. But, clearly, Fuzzy intended you to know, because there’s too much irony in the things that Murky says in regard to her for it to be an accident.
The story begins to peter out around Chapter Four as I got more confused as to what the story is saying. At first, it looked like it was saying slavery is bad and freedom is good, that hope and idealism are necessary tools for conflicts you face in reality. But then Protégé, a slaver, comes along, and it doesn’t look like it’s that clear cut. By the way Protégé talks, it seems like, hey, maybe slavery isn’t such a bad thing after all. The novel doesn’t seem to want to take a stance. Brimstone saves Murky and is caring for a convalescing mare; but he’s also a raider—one of the worst. Protégé is a slaver, but he’s played up to have Murky’s best interests in mind.
Is it a terrible story? No. Is it good? When it wants to be good, it’s really good; when it doesn’t, it’s bad. Is it well said? At times. Does it bring up themes worth discussing? Hell yes! Murky Number Seven has brought up some really complex themes and some really good feel moments. It’s a bit lacking in some aspects of the character department, but I’ll be keeping a sharp eye out to see how these people develop.
And now the gloves come off.
I was nice before when I was talking about stuff that was bad in the earlier chapters, because there were enough things that were good, really good, to make it seem petty to rip on the bad things. But the bad that comes next has nothing good in it to make me not want to restrain myself.
I’m talking about Chapter Five; or, the Chapter That Killed My Desire to Continue Reading
Chapter Five is when Murky and Brimstone go on a lengthy fetch-quest for anti-radiation poison for Glimmerlight. Which would be fine, really, if something happened in that chapter. If something went forward in that chapter.
Nothing goes forward. If anything, things go backward as character traits regress, making it seem like things that had happened before never actually happened.
Murky, throughout the chapter, goes about blindly obeying anyone who tells him what to do, whether it be a doctor, Brimstone, a guard, a slaver anyone. This would’ve been appropriate in Chapter One; it’s not appropriate in Chapter Five. Murky, throughout the chapter, seems to slowly lose his free-will—i.e., he starts to lose the only reason why Murky Number Seven is worth reading in the first place. And I’m not even looking too much into this. He even has this quick aside as he wonders if he’s losing his free will.
Thus, the chapter is boring. Utterly, utterly boring. Insipid.
Brimstone said something so profoundly stupid, so contradictory to anything he’s ever said, that I was actually appalled. When Murky is trying to cut off his wing and asks Brimstone for help, Brimstone says:
“Wrong. Well...you are a coward, but only from standing up to what they think. You're a pegasus, wings don't change that, Murk. You'll always be one. Something inside you, your soul, magic centre or whatever. It's always going to be a pegasus. Born for the clouds, bound to the open sky and all that other airy nonsense. It's who you are.”
He leaned closer. I could have sworn I saw a knowing rise of an eyebrow.
“You don't just turn your back on stuff like that. It doesn't work that way.”
You heard correctly, folks: This, coming from the guy—who sold himself into slavery because he wanted to turn his back on whoever he was before. This, coming from the guy who’s dedicated his life, quite literally in a sense, to changing who he is. What. What? What!
This is stupid! You’re stupid, Brimstone! If you can’t change who you are, why are you here? Why the hell are you here, in Fillydelphia? Why the hell do you have such a close bond to Murky? Why do you protect him? Why are you helping Glimmerlight? What are you, you . . . you . . . stupid person!
I mean . . . fu . . . fu . . . fudge!
(I realize now that this takes place in Chapter Four, not Chapter Five. It still doesn’t make it any less stupid. If anything, it’s worse because the decline in the quality of the narrative started well before Chapter Four).
Now, it’s completely believable that Brimstone would call Murky a coward for wanting to tear off his wings. I was expecting the conversation to play out like: “I don’t help cowards.” “I’m sorry, Brimstone, but I really do want to tear off my own wings!” “Yes, and that is what makes you a coward.”
That would’ve been fine! It would’ve been shorter, it would’ve been poignant, and it would’ve said the exact same thing! But no, the conversation drags on until we get it kind of reluctantly said, and this stupid character contradiction tacked on at the end.
You want to know how I know that this chapter is bad? Because it was at this point that I started to get angry about the inconsistency of quotation marks. Either use smart quotes, or don’t use them. Don’t pick and choose when smart quotes or regular quotes will suit you. Pick one or the other at the beginning and stick with it. If you don’t know how to use smart quotes, don’t use them. Also don’t pick and choose when you’ll use single quotation marks or double quotation marks; there are rules for when to use what and why. If Fallout: Equestria had any saving grace, it is because Kkat, either because she didn’t know how to use them or because she didn’t want to have to deal with them, didn’t use smart quotes. Either reason is a perfectly acceptable one to not using smart quotes. The Fallout: Equestria book printing project tried to make the quotes smart when they reformatted the thing; and because they didn’t know how to use them, they ended up fudging up the smart quotes (specifically, the smart apostrophes) completely. And now people have spent money to receive these books with bad quotes, because the publishers didn’t know how to use them. See? You are hurting other people when you mess up smart quotes.
You see? I didn’t mind the bad quotes before, because there were good things to make me overlook them. But Chapter Five has me picking on smart quotes. It also has me picking on stuff like:
Bloodbank was standing outside a room separated by a clear perspex viewing window.
First of all, the “p” should be capitalized. It’s “Perspex.” It’s a trademark. I’m not even British, and I still know that. Secondly, why does the Perspex trademark exist in Equestria? Calling the material “Perspex” is exactly the equivalent as if Murky were to call a piece of tissue paper “Kleenex.” Out-of-universe. Immersion-breaking. There was no reason why you couldn’t have invented your own company.
I was crawling through this desert of bad, boring story telling, reading about mindless action regarding characters who are taking actions unrelated to any of their personal values, parched, dehydrated, my vision going blurry—and then I saw a pool of water! A pool of water in the wasteland! And I was given enough energy to continue toward it, because it just looked too good!
Murky is in the hospital. There’s only one bag of anti-radiation medicine left. But a doctor takes it. The doctor is about to hook it up to a dying patient, but then he leaves. Murky is left alone with the patient, and he has to decide whether to take it and presumably kill her or leave it and incur the wrath of Brimstone and lose Glimmerlight and her plans for escape.
This is a great set-up! This is an amazing conflict! And to top it all off, who’s the patient? A weak, dying slave, who reminds Murky of Glimmerlight. A lesser writer would’ve made the patient Wicked Slit or another evil slaver, thereby influencing Murky, making it clear that one decision is bad and the other is good, making any conflict that Murky would experience unbelievable. But no, she’s a dying, fellow slave, who looks like she’s a good person. The only way this could’ve been set up better is if the patient were that mare from earlier whom Murky keeps running into every so often; but, at this point, I was thirsty and I really couldn’t complain. And the set up is good enough as it is!
What a pivotal point for the character! Truly, he couldn’t be in a worse situation (only thing that could’ve made it worse is if the patient was the mare from earlier, but I can’t complain). So many questions are running through his mind, and he has to pick one, and whatever one he picks will define him forever for the rest of the story. I need it for my own protection, says Murky. But that would be stealing. How can I steal from this mare, who never did anything to hurt me, who looks like she’s suffering just as much as I am. But this is the wasteland, and she’d do the same to me if given the opportunity! But, no, that doesn’t justify it. It would be selfish to take it away. But taking it away wouldn’t be selfish, because I’m doing it to help Glimmerlight. But do I really care about Glimmerlight? Do I care about her or about escaping? Glimmerlight is a good person, Brimstone said so. But this mare looks like a good person too. Maybe she’s not! Maybe she’s a horrible person! Glimmerlight’s a better person, so kind, and she deserves it more! But how do I know that? I only have Brimstone’s word to go on that. Whom do I choose? Who am I? Can I condemn this mare to slavery? Pretend I do not see her agony? This innocent who bears my face, who goes to judgment in my place! Who am I? Can I conceal myself for evermore? Pretend I’m not the man I was before? And must my name until I die be no more than an alibi? Must I lie? How can I ever face my fellow man? How can I ever face myself again? My soul belongs to ’Pip, I know; I made that bargain long ago. She gave me hope when hope was gone! She gave me strength to journey on!
Who am I? Who am I? I’m . . .
Oh, wait, I forgot. The story is suffering from Deus e Machina Syndrome. Just when Murky has to make a choice. A nurse shows up. Oh, it’s okay, Murky! You don’t have to make a choice! You can have your cake and eat it too! You can get some more medicine by going on another boring, lengthy fetch-quest to find a doctor in a basement of some building, who in turn will send you on another boring, lengthy fetch quest.
Doctor out of the basement. Doctor e carpisculo. The water I saw earlier in the desert was only a mirage. Aqua quam in deserto antehac videbam spectrum tantummodo erat.
Or, in layman’s terms: cop-out. This is quite perhaps the greatest literary cop-out I’ve ever seen in my entire life.
Why? Why! The set-up was so excellent! And this was not the only one! There were many great set-ups, and they were all resolved more or less satisfactory! The contemplation of suicide, for example. Fuzzy, I know you can set up profound conflicts like this. Not many can do that. Why did you have to resolve this one in the worst way possible?
Murky goes back to the mall and gets humiliated by Chainlink Shackles in front of everyone. Chainlink Shackles likes to tease Murky that he’s his father. It sometimes pains me to see that Murky is so spineless. If it were up to me, Murky would say something like: “You know what’s genetic also? Dick size. You think my body is small? You ain’t seen nothing yet. And that’s inherited from the father’s side.”
Come to think of it, where’s Brimstone? He usually goes all rampaging when Murky gets beaten up. Why doesn’t he beat up Chainlink when he’s whipping Murky? It’s not like he wouldn’t be able to take him on, and it’s not like he wouldn’t have any help. The raiders would join in; they like blood after all. They’d be able to overwhelm the guards no problem.
And just when I think the stupidity in this chapter would end, Murky proves me wrong:
One last desperate idea formed as I reached into my saddlebag for the mine I'd hidden in there. I heard the Magister scream something as he saw it from outside. Well...better dead than enslaved!
“Better dead than enslaved”? What? But isn’t the entire point of the story that it’s better to be enslaved than dead? Where the hell did he get this “better dead than enslaved”? If he truly thought this, why hasn’t he killed himself years ago? What! What! What!
Ugh. And so the chapter ends.
That chapter was awful, just god-awful. It’s nearly as bad Chapter 4 of Fallout: Equestria, i.e., action for action’s sake, action that brings no character development, no explanations, nothing. I was actually told I could skip this chapter. Perhaps I should have. This killed all my interest in the story, and it’ll be a while before I pick it up again.
The review ends here. Thanks for reading!
As opposed to the words before, what follows next is extremely subjective, personal opinions, and should not be construed to be held against the story by any standards. My personal feelings on the matter in no way say whether the story and the characters are good or not. You can stop reading here if it pleases.
I don’t like a single person. I hate Protégé, Brimstone, Chainlink Shackles. What I feel toward Murky is pity, and that’s not a good, fulfilling feeling. I could potentially like the mare whom Murky keeps running into, but she hasn’t had enough scenes to make me comment. Much like the show House of Cards, though it’s good when it wants to be, it’s hard to keep me engaged, since everyone in it is either evil, horrible, or abject.
Heroes? Are there any? I get the feeling that Murky Number Seven says that there are no heroes. There’s just a scale of victims to victimizers. It seems to be saying that you’re one or the other, or some shade in between. What a horrible concept!
Brimstone saves Murky and is trying to save Glimmerlight. Is he a good person? No, he can’t really be called good, since he still strongly identifies as a raider. Perhaps Protégé, is he a good person? Perhaps he could be. He seems to frown upon violence, brutality, and he’s quite smart and quick and persuasive. Is he a good person? No, he can’t really be called fully good, since he’s a slaver.
Why all these shades of gray? Why all this unopposed evil? Where’s the struggle that’s not totally one-sided? Where’s all these elements to keep me engaged? Why does good not stand a chance? Is Murky Number Seven saying that good is impotent?
To me, Murky seems to be the only character on the spectrum completely opposite of victimizer. But that means he’s merely a victim. I do feel I could really like the mare he keeps running into, but where is she? Three appearances in all this time?
What bothers me the most? Why is Fillydelphia depicted as industrial and productive? Murky Number Seven try to depict slavery as bad, but it undermines its own argument by saying that Fillydelphia and Red Eye have accomplished the more than anyone else have been able to. Is slavery evil or not? If yes, then why has more value been produced by it than free trade? How do you judge good? By how much progress it makes? If so, then slavery is good and lack of slavery is evil. Lack of slavery keeps the wasteland stagnant while slavery seems to push it forward. It seems to me that the tone is that people who would want to fight slavery would also fight progress. But still, Murky Number Seven goes out of its way to show how terrible slavery is.
What is it, people? Is slavery good or bad? Are Red Eye and Protégé good or bad? Enough with the gray! Take a stance!
Integral, your review is wonderful. Shame you stopped at chapter five. You see, everything is being set up for later chapters, There are some character flaws which are fixed, well not fixed rather pointed out to the characters later on. Everything pretty much has a purpose. I think you would find Wicked Slit to be a bit of a romantic character herself with how she carries on about Red Eye's vision. The whole speech about an hours delay for ten minutes of tardiness from Murk in Chapter 1 would lead one to believe she was more in it for her quotas. but why care if the other operations start to run behind when they don't affect her own quotas? You may be close to 150k words in, but there is more to the story as it spirals around.
I did read your review with a biased eye of knowing where Fuzzy is going with some of his nonsense. Some things had to happen a certain way for certain elements to come to light later on. Granted taking decisions away from the Protagonist is Deus ex Machina, but there is some more which comes later.
On with the Stable Dweller, I am not sure if you finished Fallout: Equestria, and in case you didn't Littlepip's presence in Filly was part of the original story. The reason the unicorn "flew" was because she has nigh unprecedented control over her telekinesis where she can both manipulate multiple objects and large masses simultaneously, Self Levitation is the Zenith of her ability. At the end of the story it is revealed Littlepip is the pony who acted as "the spark" which unites the Elements of Harmony. Everypony she influenced through her actions has a potential to be generosity or friendship (Magic) needed to get Gardens of Equestria to function. Ponies were galvanized by The Stable Dweller, and if there was a pony inspired by her, then let Murky Number Seven be one of them.
Believe me, if there was a dark time in the story it gets worse, Murky will lose more and more as the story is told. It does get better. Gah! spoilers.
I sense you are conflicted about the story when you say chapter 5 killed it for you, there is more to come. I implore you to continue on. I don't feel as if I wasted my time, then again I've read some of Kaidan's troll drivel knowing it is harmful to my perception of innocence, so my opinion loses weight there.
Get over my atrocious Grammar.
I feel that your natural slow reading really exaggerates the flaws of this story, because Murky Number Seven is already very, very slow-paced.
Take, for example, Murky retreating back into the mindset of being a slave in Chapter 5. From your perspective, this should not have happened as Murky has already developed beyond this. From Fuzzy's perspective, Murky's been conditioned into being a slave for his entire life, so of course he's going to be indecisive about being decisive. And because this story is extremely slow-paced, Murky constantly reverts back into a slave mindset, and then regains his independence, then reverts, then regains...for hundreds of thousands of words. There is eventually a decisive moment where Murky cements himself as being not a slave, but it doesn't come for a long, long time.
Most of your other criticisms are very similar—what you say should happen does happen...eventually. You're still so early in the story that the secondary main character (Glimmerlight) hasn't even been properly introduced yet. While I'm not going to defend the story for being way too long and slow-paced (which it very much is), I will at least say that the book is far more cohesive in theme than you seem to think right now.
In order:
1. Because in the world of Fallout: Equestria, nearly all pegasi are part of the Enclave. They live above the cloud cover and never come down.
2. Because Fallout: Equestria was written with the very "Season 1-ish" assumption that the different types of ponies were essentially different species—two pegasus parents are needed to make one pegasus child, which allows for the whole Enclave thing to work. Murky Number Seven combines the original universe (where no pegasi live in the Wasteland) with the new canon that pony race is determined by genetics. Yes, it's self-contradictory; roll with it.
3. Red Eye does know. However, Murky being a pegasus isn't useful to him because Murky can't fly, so Red Eye doesn't care and never bothered to specifically it point out to everyone (he has better things to do. Beyond that, Murky just always kept his fleece on.
4. Because the bones are already set, and wings are too delicate to break-and-reheal without proper equipment, which the Wasteland lacks.
5. Because his mutation is caused by taint. Fallout: Equestria already established that taint can't be healed by normal means. This makes sense once the original story reveals what taint actually is, but for spoiler's sake I'll just leave DJ Pon3's explanation about it:
Anyway, that's about it. Great review!
Hey again man!
Given the length of the review, I'll comment as I go so I don't forget the tone or nature of the comments, because there's a whole ton that can be brought from this and it has been an immense pleasure to see where things have gone good or bad...especially given this is so long ago for me, last year in fact almost to the day in some cases.
First off, I just want to thank you sincerely for the effort, length and for reading further in to begin with at all.
The initial thing that stood out to me here that I could have defintely improved on was at first confusing. When you ask why his illness couldn't be cured by the potions, or his wings. Things like that made me initially think "But everyone knows why they wouldn't do that..."
Then I remembered, those things are common knowledge to the original story...something you didn't read. That alone made me see my own fault, that I had assumed knowledge. Side story or not, that shouldn't have been possible and while it was something I was aware of for many aspects of it (like Filly as an area, I had to treat it as my own, despite it being Kkat's environment from Chapter 25/26 of the original) it seems others slipped through. That's simply a fault of mine to not realise those elements. So thanks on pointing them out, a handy reminder to be vigilant!
The other one was the point on the efficiency or not of Filly's slavery. This is actually a huge problem for me as a writer...to a point. In the original, Kkat obviously looked to it as a morality thing. Pip only spent two chapters there after all, so it could be big, bombastic, more thematic than practical and a more abstract place. I couldn't so much break that and it was only later on as I was writing those questions started to arise. That actually led to some ideals that came in later, implying that Red Eye saw the slaves as a short burning resource not intended to be perpetual but to simply lay the foundations for the foals he keeps and properly treats and educates to later take over what thousands had died to create. But again, that relies on original story knowledge, something I suppose I shouldn't have assumed for readers in general.
Thinking back, Protégé would have been an excellent platform to discuss this, had I realised it later on rather than down the line. It's very interesting to hear the viewpoint of someone who's first experience of Filly is my own story. Very interesting indeed.
To sum up the entire "romanticism" thing, I should say I am an avid theatre goer and actor, so the concept of romanticism and its manner amongst larger than life characters is very close to me. I'm oh so very glad you spotted Protégé's notation of it. That actually made me beam like a madman to know someone saw it! The slightly condradictory response from Protégé on his outlook of "this is real life" is sort of intended to portray a duality on his character, one that is explored a lot more as the story goes on but should, for now, be just a little thing to let people not focus too much on exactly what he is. In early drafts, prereaders often took to him very negatively. "Just another slaver" with his goodwill just trying to "fool" Murky to hurt him later. Others saw him entirely as a "good guy" who would do anything to help Murky. The reality is somewhere in between and statements like that are little hints to the internal conflict he has on why he acts this way, hinted at in the way he always addresses a certain character.
Please note that, when I explain things like that, I am never ever saying "You just missed it!" or "Well nuh uh it's this!" I'm not being defensive, just explaining my thought process on it and whether how much of it worked or not is always in my mind. After all, a good author shouldn't have to explain himself, so just see this as me offering a little slice of my side of it for your consideration post feedback. :)
Early chapters, I absolutely agree played on the "pain" of it far too much. That's an early fault and something that died off as the chapters went on (other than a little hiccup around 14-16, I admit!) and I found that the real meat of what people enjoyed was the emotions and themes rather than feeling sorry for a hurt character to create, as they say, "the feels." Again, saying "it gets better!" is no excuse, just at least letting you know, I agree with that criticism and I went on to try and change it for the future. ^^
The element of it being Littlepip was definitely a choice for more than just humour and I find it really interesting coming from the view of someone who perhaps didn't like her as much as others. I like to think that it still works, given you are correct when you say that it's more about what he sees as her rather than it really mattering who she is. To him, she's a strong, brave, smart, sexy, heroic idol and to his naive little newly discovered free mind he lets himself fall for her out of sheer worship. The story does play around with what idol worship really eventually leads to, which is something else that on hindsight, requires post knowledge (something Pip does in the main story that gets reported on the radio that Murky hears, basically) that offers a little parallel theme to others met later on. I would genuinelly worry how that would go to you actually. It's very interesting to see things change depending on preknowledge or not. Very insightful for me!
As a note (given I write as I read here), I feel immensely happy that you are willing to be both incredibly praising and hardline critical without falling to a "singular opinion to love or hate." I can seriously respect that, which is why I'm interested to see this "Gloves off" element. Let's have a read...
Very interesting.
First off, just this little bit,
"This would’ve been appropriate in Chapter One; it’s not appropriate in Chapter Five. Murky, throughout the chapter, seems to slowly lose his free-will—i.e., he starts to lose the only reason why Murky Number Seven is worth reading in the first place."
Strangely enough, that also homes in on why I dislike my own Chapter 14-16 so much and why they marked a low point of the story's interest I feel from the readerbase. (Something that thankfully recovered later on) Because it revisits this in a big way that took far too long, something that I shouldn't have included in such a fashion in the first place. I believe (given this was a long time back) what I was thinking was to try and show that he still has subconscious shackles on his mind and while he has broken them, they still weigh him down and constantly remind him. (Cutie mark, etc) Whether this was the right thing is...very up for debate and I'm glad you kept that in mind to point out. On the long term I like to think it was the right move, but again, that doesn't mean I think your opinion and observations are invalid or not worth me very closely remembering and keeping in mind for future chapters or even future works!
On Brimstone's comment. "I mean . . . fu . . . fu . . . fudge!" I genuinelly laughed, love that you can harshly let the critique fall and still offer a little giggle. Very good, sir.
Brimstone's statement...hmm, how best to mention here. Really, his mindset is that you can't change who you are but that there's no reason to shun it. (This being something Brimstone himself has to be reminded of much later on) He sees the raider in himself, he doesn't feel he can ever not be one, he can only accept it, move on and make what he can of it. I liked to think Brim saw something of himself in Murky, a pony with traits he wishes he couldn't have, but pretending that taking away the surface level of it just wouldn't work. Perhaps I should have played more on the wings vs tattoos aspect of it a little back then...maybe that woulda worked better. Interesting to think on ,thanks for that observation.
Perspex Notation - You are absolutely right. My bad.
Smart Quotes, I'll certainly look into it more intently and refresh myself on it. No issues with it being pointed out, grammar has its laws for a reaso nand if I can get better with it then I'm all for it! :)
You're making me wanna go listen to the 10th Anniversary of Les Mis again, y'know? Just gonna throw that out there. That resolution in the Hospital does lead to something about it later on however I recognise now that forward knowledge of that as an author doesn't translate to how a reader might see it. I'm genuinelly at a loss to think how I mght have proceeded then given the mare there is actually a character for later (when Murky not having done that to her becomes an important aspect on why she remembers and cares for him in a time when he really needs it). Perhaps the better answer for me would be to not do that scene at all then. To not set up a choice when I know that it cannot be resolved at all without breaking the story. Maybe a lesson of writing maturity to learn, to not throw stuff in for the sake of it. To think about reader perspective. Excellent feedback there.
Next, this here:
"“Better dead than enslaved”? What? But isn’t the entire point of the story that it’s better to be enslaved than dead? Where the hell did he get this “better dead than enslaved”? If he truly thought this, why hasn’t he killed himself years ago? What! What! What!"
Genuinelly right callout on me there. I honestly hold up my hands to that one and admit I goofed up while writing that without realising the thematic conflict it made. Fair play on calling it out to me. :)
Lastly, I'll just say that stances certainly come later, my genuine intent was to set up a lot of flowing unknown. Of shaky loyalties to make their eventual bonding into something greater be a much more impactful element. Characters have a lot of problems with one another at times, others hold grudges longer than others. In a sense, the story of MN7 is the story of a group bonding over hardships and hopes that they know are almost impossible to achieve. Friendship in adversary over a dream they have to know will very likely not happen for them in the end. I like to think in some ways of how it compares to the musical Rent. That sense of foreboding about the future for you all and taking refuge despite all the problems.
Again, that's just what I wanted to portray. Whether it has or not...well that's reader opinion and they are all fully justified in their own thoughts. It's not on me to tell them what to think post reading after all, if I did then I'd hardly be worthy to call myself a storyteller.
Thank you so much for going through this. I'd be lying if I didn't say I hope you decide to read a little more (Chapters 6-8 are often cited as some very good ones) but I' m not one to beg or force. Readers gotta choose for their own enjoyment! Naturally, I'd be really interested to hear your thoughts on it if it goes on, the fact you think what you do about your good points makes me really feel much more confident as a writer and the problems spotted helps me feel so much more respected that you can do that politely even if harshly.
In a sense, I kinda feel like my story has gone through the wringer and despite the Chapter 5 issues I guess you could say I am happy with the result, especially from a critic who self admits that they can be very harsh!
Hope there's been things of interest in my own thoughts for you here, do let me know if you pick it back up again and if not, no harm done! You tried it out, that's the most I can ever ask of anyone. :3
- Fuzzy
Also, as a quick note on pacing. Chapters were "nothing much happens" despite the wordlength is perhaps the biggest failing of the story. (Chapters 14-16 especially)
But from about...17 onwards I think (Although there are some like 8, 10, 12, 13 that go at a higher pace character wise), I really had to sit back, accept the hard truth of my own stuff and really repace my planned story. As such the ones from 17 onwards have MUCH more happening per chapter and I'm consciously deciding on that now. So thanks for noting it out. It really helps reinforce my decision to reduce chapters and enhance plot pacing and helps me know I made the right choice there.
As such, while Act 1 and 2 were about 12ish chapters each, Act 3 is to be about 5-7 at most.
Just a little extra I thought of to mention!
- Fuzzy
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>mfw not only did you get my Les Misérables reference but also are consciously aware of the style of romanticism
nest.pi.x.int.ru/orig/2011-10/09/i-came-paper.jpg
If nothing vindicates or sanctions my review, it's that. Even if no one else understands what the hell I'm talking about or the Les Misérables reference, I don't care because you did.
I loved reading your reply. It was well thought out, understanding but not overly apologetic. And, to be honest, I feel a little bad about how harshly I put some things, because you just strike me as really, really good person.
Well, if it's any consolation, Chapter Five of Murky Number Seven is still better than Chapter Four of Fallout: Equestria.