The Tyrant's Tomb - Sep 27

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Yes, them Americans try to be in the vanguard of the rest of Earth’s society – but this is not about them. …Okay, it is about one of them – Rick Riordan, and his latest YA novel, ‘THE TYRANT’S TOMB’, and we will be talking about it now.

What can be said about it? Unlike Ms. Cervantes’ series, or Ms. Chokshi’s for that matter, Mr. Riordan’s TTA series have brought back an LGBT character – a minor character named Lavinia, who is a legionnaire at the New Rome, and who’s in love (or in lust, it’s kind of hard to tell) with a dryad named Poison Oak.

…In real life, this is a close relative of the better-known poison ivy; another plant named poison sumac completes the infamous trio. Yes, real life is not clear-cut as people would like it to be; in reality, this plant genus – Toxicodendron – contains much more species than just three or four, (because ‘poison oak’ is actually a name of two plants of the above genus – one grows in the American west, the second – in the American south-west. They are relatives, and isn’t life just full of fun facts to learn about? God, I hate my life sometimes), but the point is, is just like the better-known poison ivy plant, (not the Poison Ivy character), poison oak sounds more like a villain’s name than a love interest’s… right, my bad. The two concepts are not mutually exclusive in literature, and frankly, Lavinia’s love interest is not really a character in TTT at all – yes, she gets to be mentioned several times, but this is largely the extent of her presence in the novel. After the first two novels of the ‘Apollo’ series, (and also the first two novels of the ‘Magnus Chase’ trilogy), this feels like a step down – but keep in mind that the third novel of ‘Apollo’ series has no LGBT/LGBTQ+ elements at all, so this may be some sort of a compromise instead.

…A compromise with whom, you may ask? Most likely – the House of Mouse, who is conspiring with RR himself, as it had been mentioned several times in the past. Yes, Disney in itself cares only for money, but they are very good at making it, (the SW miscalculation aside), and apparently they think that the abrupt dismissal of sexual minorities in the ‘Apollo’ series is one of those miscalculations after all. Therefore, now they are back in the person of Lavinia, even though she remains largely a secondary, episodic character in TTT after all. Anything else?

TTT does not feel rushed, unlike the last novel of the ‘Magnus Chase’ trilogy or its’ immediate predecessor. Looks like that in this instance, RR was able to recover from whatever mishap had affected those past two books, or his current ghostwriter did. It is hard to tell with authors sometimes; Patricia Briggs of the ‘Mercy Thompson and co.’ fame seems to have gone through a couple at least; this is part of the reason I have dropped her for good. Sometimes authors, English-speaking, Russian-speaking, or of other languages, of fiction and of non-fiction, allow their writings to reflect slash reveal too much of their personality, and in case of Ms. Briggs, that is not something that I can enjoy. Some of her later books had been decent, but these days? Not so much. What next?

Spider-Man is coming back to MCU, of course. Disney/Marvel have invested too much into him just to let him go, and so a new deal with Sony was made. Yay for him! Back to Mr. Riordan?

What about him? Yes, his own novels have a sense of personality, an identity that Mr. Lee’s ‘Dragon Pearl’ has lacked, that ‘Sal and Gabi’ certainly have, as do Ms. Cervantes’ series and Ms. Chokshi’s. It’s up to you to enjoy them – or not, but regardless, it certainly feels that the time of RR is coming past, his latest work – TTT – has sold for a flat-out 20 dollars, much less than his earlier novels were sold for. Yes, time waits for no man – or woman, for that matter, just ask J-Ro, whose own HP novels are sitting there alongside RR’s, not being bought and sold either. How will GM handle it now that HBO is done with his novels (for now) will be interesting to see.

Back to TTT? This time the focus was not just on Frank and Hazel, but also on Reyna, so this is good. Her role seemed to have been lost/removed/rebooted in the shuffle-pack of RR’s-verse, so bully for her, I say! RR’s novels also had been re-released again, this time with brand-new covers, but that is not the most successful marketing strategy.

…The same goes, of course, in real life for Ms. Greta and her backers slash allies – their timing is bad. The US government is concerned completely with the upcoming election and also the impeachment that will obviously affect it, so Ms. Greta’s proclamation, no matter how passionate, will be passed-over. ‘Across the pond’ it is the same thing with the upcoming Brexit, so there is that. In Canada, the society, all of its’ social strata, from top to bottom and back, can afford to be more interested/involved/invested in her proclamation, and so they put on a show, but, sadly, Canada does not play the primary fiddle in the world at this time.

Anything else? Yes, in TTT the novel Lavinia is supposed to be homosexual, but we never see actually be so, unlike, for example, Alex from the ‘Magnus Chase’ side of RR’s verso, who is openly gender-fluid, (even if his portrait does not reveal him as such). This… is not too different from Zara from the JW Fallen Kingdom film, who is also supposed to be homosexual, yet is never depicted as such – yet she is clearly friends with Franklin instead. Yes, Franklin is not as manly as Owen is, but still – he is a man, so just like the JW franchise, RR and Disney have figured out a way to keep a toe in the sexual minorities’ community safely… and that is it. Compared to the first two novels of the ‘Apollo’ series, as well as the ‘Magnus Chase’ trilogy, (yes, even the last novel), this is mild, lukewarm stuff. Ah well, Disney does not want to support a failing (or a fading) horse too much, but neither does it want to abandon a project completely, not when there is money still to be made from it. Case in point – SW, though now that GL has ‘uttered his word of gold’, it’s anyone guess again as to how it all will turn out – but that is a story for another time...

For now, though, this is it. See you all soon!