Did anyone else notice...

[quill-shadow.livejournal.com]

...that one of the deus ex machina's in the Merry Gentry series gets used to stifle the plot? I admit, I didn't at first, but I have the fourth book at home (sadly enough, I paid full price for it) and just leafed through a few pages at random recently. In book four, for those fortunate souls who haven't read it, there is a murder in the sithen and mortal police are actually called in to investigate. Merry, since she OF COURSE knows how mortal laws work AND is of the court, is all for trying to solve the murder herself - but the Chalice (or Goblet, or whatever LKH calls the thing) appears in the hallway and starts zapping her with you will have sex now beams until she gives up because she can't concentrate.

Seriously. LKH sabotaged her own plot with her own plot device. I now have an image of different areas of her subconscious battling it out, with 'plot', backed into a corner, throwing in the murder and going, "Hah! Drama! Tension! SOMETHING DIFFERENT!" and 'sex' glaring and saying, "But you will lose because she gave me THIS!" and shoving the Cup into the mix.

I think that 'plot' has since either died, or decided, "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em."

Comments

[ever-obsessed.livejournal.com]

I think it's like in that episode of the Simpsons, when we see that other parts of Lisa have caged her Libido.

The poor plot is rocking in a cage while a bunch of penises dance around the cage as it hangs suspended over a monstrous vagina.

Really.

[quill-shadow.livejournal.com]

That might have been a few books back, actually. By now, the poor plot has been lowered into (the representation of) the doomcrotch, and will never escape from it! [sobs]

[morriganscrow.livejournal.com]

The Chalice gets quite a workout in later books, which I'm sure thrills you.

Then it drops off the planet.

I guess that sticky note blew out the office window or something.

[everstar3.livejournal.com]

I've been reading medieval Grail stories (The Quest for the Holy Grail and Perceval among others), and it sort of cracks me up that THIS Grail comes to Earth and starts smacking Merry around with "Must sex now" beams for the purposes of porn rebuilding the Fae or whatever. The Grail in the Arthur myths was all about making the knights run around after it until the three purest, most abstinent knights manage to achieve it. I'm just imagining what would happen if that Grail approached Merry.

[easol.livejournal.com]

It would probably go off like a nuke, destroying everything for miles around.

[the-willow.insanejournal.com (from livejournal.com)]

Oh dear heavens, I read that as 'I guess the sticky note blew it's wad'. Clearly LKHism does craziness to fast reading.

[everstar3.livejournal.com]

It's a great mental image.

Has she had any other holy symbol show up? A big spear* or anything? I can't remember and I don't own the later books to find out.



*Other than Micah.

[pastygothchick.livejournal.com]

but the Chalice (or Goblet, or whatever LKH calls the thing) appears in the hallway and starts zapping her with you will have sex now beams until she gives up because she can't concentrate.

If she'd just grabbed the vessel with the pestle instead...

[longtail.livejournal.com]

I had to clear my monitor of orange juice for that one!

Though I doubt your far off the mark on that one!

I can just imagine little sticky notes all over LKH's office with notes on sex fetishes of the different harem members.

[wyrdmuse.livejournal.com]

Are you sure it's not the flagon with a dragon?

[quill-shadow.livejournal.com]

Either that, or LKH thought that the Chalice was getting to be too powerful in comparison to Merry-Sue. After all, Merry is the important one; the Chalice is just the sign of favoured by the Diety she is. [rolls eyes] I wouldn't put it past LKH to think that her heroine was being outshone by an inanimate object. Hell, I wouldn't put it past LKH to accidentally write her heroine being outshone by an object, and after realising what she'd done respond to that fact that pretending it never existed.

[quill-shadow.livejournal.com]

*how* favoured by the Diety. (At least the misspelling was intentional.)

[quill-shadow.livejournal.com]

Not quite shooting beams at them; it suddenly appears in Merry's arms while she's stood in the hall, and every time one of her harem touches her or someone suggests working on the whole 'get her pregnant' thing, it sends some kind of pulse through her that makes her gasp and glow. (Glowing is connected with having/wanting sex, btw.)

I think if it shot out beams to make people have sex, that might actually be more fun. In a bad '80s movie kind of way.