Chapter eighteen: Showdown

[baeraad]

Name: Mansuur
Home: Ravenscar Hold
Caste: Mystic
Lifestyle: Ascetic
Character: Visionary
Tragic Flaw: Egotistical
Talents: Advanced Charm, Basic Discipline
Skills: Basic Fighting
Knowledge: Basic Administration, Basic Lore
Powers: Advanced Witchcraft

Comments

[sunlit_music]

I do apologise for the late reply, as I have been very busy lately. But thank you so much for writing this so quickly.

You've illustrated so well how charisma can be used or good (by Aseena) or evil (Mansuur). It's terrifying how Mansuur's charisma can enable him to wreck so much bloodshed and chaos.

That was absolutely chilling and horrifying how Mansuur had ruthlessly slaughtered all those people. I didn't like the unhallowed 66 who supported him, but I couldn't help pitying them for being killed so brutally. Nobody deserves that.

This chapter was simply amazing. It was heartwrenching, and sent chills down my spine.

I hope that Aseena, Dara, Kim and Rinabaar will make it out alive and that the Demesne's innocent citizens will be saved. I still stand by what I've said before. I think you've outdone yourself, and this is probably the besy story you've ever written.

[sunlit_music]

this is probably the besy story you've ever written.
*Sorry, I meant to say that this is probably the best story you've ever written.

[baeraad]

It's terrifying how Mansuur's charisma can enable him to wreck so much bloodshed and chaos.

I always pictured Mansuur very much like a Jim Jones type - he is insane, but being insane gives him an intensity that is hard to deny. If Mansuur told you that the sky was green, and your eyes told you that the sky was blue, you'd still be tempted to believe him, because he just seems so damn sure of himself.

I think you've outdone yourself, and this is probably the best story you've ever written.

:D Aw, thanks. I suppose I do feel that the characterisation benefits from me being slightly older and wiser than when I wrote Flesh of my Flesh.

[yahalomay]

I think I've said before that I enjoy your sparse description, and how it really emphaises the things you do choose to describe. In this chapter, the matter-of-fact, utterly utilitarian description of how Mansuur slaughtered the Unhallowed was really chilling. He just didn't even care about them at all, and that kind of description fits the atmosphere in that scene really well. All those poor people.

I also really like, narrative-wise, how you included some of the Unhallowed trying to run after their conviction failed them, the detail about how Mansuurs assistants were expecting a cooler ritual for themselves but he was like "Um...no." and how the thing that undid Aseena was no the horror that was coming for her but the fact that she wouldn't be with Jalon when it happened.

Poor Jalon. :( :(

[baeraad]

Mansuur is nothing if not practical, it is true. ^_^; Rereading this, I can kind of see why you hate him. As Rich Burlew (who writes Order of the Stick) once said of his own villain: "he's completely and wholly unapologetically evil, but more to the point, he's kind of a dick."