Eruditorum Press

The bodies on the gears of the culture industry

Elizabeth Sandifer

About Elizabeth Sandifer

http://www.eruditorumpress.com

Elizabeth Sandifer created Eruditorum Press. She’s not really sure why she did that, and she apologizes for the inconvenience. She currently writes Last War in Albion, a history of the magical war between Alan Moore and Grant Morrison. She used to write TARDIS Eruditorum, a history of Britain told through the lens of a ropey sci-fi series. She also wrote Neoreaction a Basilisk, writes comics these days, and has ADHD so will probably just randomly write some other shit sooner or later. Support Elizabeth on Patreon.

Posts by Elizabeth Sandifer:

The Letters and the Law, The Meaning and the Cause (Super Mario World)

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The Super Nintendo Project, a sequel to my first major blog, The Nintendo Project, is made possible by my backers on Patreon. If you enjoy this project and want to support my work, please consider backing.

There are two ways to begin this.

I am, of course, talking about Super Mario World here and not The Super Nintendo Project, where there were an infinitude of ways I could have gone. No, I’m referring to the start of Super Mario World, where you are presented with a straightforward choice between going left to Yoshi’s Island 1 or right to Yoshi’s Island 2.

(Here’s a secret history for you.

The 1986 wide release of the Nintendo Entertainment System was one of the great marketing successes of 1980s American capitalism, a period with no shortage of contenders for that title. At the heart of the success is simply the sheer degree to which Nintendo triumphed over conventional wisdom. Following the shocking collapse of the Atari-led American video game industry in 1983, the American market was enormously wary of the entire idea of video games.

Indeed, it was in some ways surprising that Nintendo even had the opportunity to try, given that they very nearly allied themselves with Atari in 1983, just before the crash, an alternate history prevented only by a staggeringly unforced error in which Atari executives mistook a Coleco Adam running Donkey Kong at a 1983 trade show as evidence that Nintendo was making a deal with Coleco (formerly the Connecticut Leather Company), when in fact the Adam was simply playing the Colecovision release of the game via its backward compatibility. This resulted in Atari abruptly pulling out of its deal with Nintendo to distribute their successful Famicom console in the US.

Nintendo thus went it alone, initially trying to release the system as a personal computer akin to the still popular Commodore 64 or the Apple IIe, and, when this faltered, regearing the product as a straight video game console, and creating R.O.B., a console peripheral/toy robot that allowed Nintendo to situate the system not as a video game system in the mould of the failed Atari 2600, but rather as a toy.)

It’s more of a choice than it might first appear. The sense of linear progression would obviously lean towards starting with Yoshi’s Island 1, but this undersells the degree to which movement from left to right is a fundamental part of the conceptual grammar of the side-scrolling platformer genre that Super Mario World is in many senses the apex of. Likewise, the world map as visible at the start of the game emphasizes the importance of going right – the path extending forth from Yoshi’s Island 2 has two nodes that are visible markers for where Yoshi’s Islands 3 and 4 will appear, as well as a castle, recognizable as the end-of-world objective.

Funnily enough, I don’t remember the exact circumstances of getting the system. It would have been somewhere in the vicinity of my ninth birthday, which was the official release date, although systems arrived in stores a couple weeks earlier.…

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The House of Black and White

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This review exists because of my backers on Patreon. Reviews of the full season of Game of Thrones are contingent on the Patreon reaching $300 a week, but I’ll do “High Sparrow” next week if it gets up to $290 by the time the episode airs, which is only a $5 increase. So if you want more reviews, please consider backing.

State of Play

The choir goes off. The board is laid out thusly:

The Lion, Tyrion Lannister
Lions of King’s Landing: Jaime Lannister, Cersei Lannister
Dragons of Mereen: Daenerys Targaryen
Direwolves of the Wall: Jon Snow
Mockingbirds of the Eyrie: Petyr Baelish
Burning Hearts of the Wall: Stannis Baratheon,
Ships of the Wall: Davos Seaworth
The Snake, Elaria Sand
Archers of the Wall: Samwell Tarly
Direwolves the Eyrie: Sansa Stark
Direwolves of Braavos: Arya Stark
Flowers of the Wall: Gilly
The Spider, Varys
The Chain, Bronn
Swords of Mereen: Daario Noharis
Butterflies of Mereen: Missandrei
Shields of the Eyrie: Brienne of Tarth
Coins of Braavos: No one

Winterfell is abandoned.

The episode is in eleven parts. The first part runs five minutes and is set in Braavos. The opening shot is of Arya’s face, staring up at the Titan of Braavos.

The second runs eight minutes and is set in the Vale of Arryn. The transition is by hard cut, from Arya walking away after throwing her coin in the canal to an establishing shot of an inn.

The third runs two minutes and is set in King’s Landing. The transition is by hard cut, from Podrick standing as Brienne rides off to Cersei.

The fourth runs three minutes and is set at Castle Stokeworth. The transition is by dialogue, from Jaime talking about Bronn to Bronn.

The fifth runs two minutes and is set in Dorne. The transition is by dialogue from Jaime and Bronn talking about going to Dorne to Dorne.

The sixth runs five minute and is set in Mereen. The transition is by hard cut, from Doran Martell to Unsullied marching through the streets.

The seventh runs two minutes and is set on the road to Volantis. The transition is by hard cut, from Daenerys to an establishing shot of Varys and Tyrion’s carriage.

The eighth runs four minutes and is set in King’s Landing. The transition is by dialogue, from Tyrion rhetorically asking if Cersei will be killing all the dwarfs in the world to her appraising the head of a dead dwarf.

The ninth runs eleven minutes and is in two section; it is set on the Wall. The first section is three minutes long; the transition is by hard cut, from Kevan Lannister storming off to the letter S in a book. The other is eight minutes long; the transition is by dialogue, from Shireen and Selyse talking about Stannis’s execution of Mance Rayder to Jon and Stannis talking about the same.

The tenth part runs two minutes and is set in Braavos; the transition is by family, from Jon Snow to Arya Stark.…

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Saturday Waffling (April 18th, 2015)

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Right, so, we did get over $280 on the Patreon, first of all. That means that there will be a Game of Thrones review going up tomorrow around when “The House of Black and White” airs. “High Sparrow” will go up next week if it can cross $290.

Then on Monday starts the Super Nintendo Project, my magical ritual to destroy Gamergate, for which I’m very excited. And probably on Tuesday, though it might take until Thursday will be a related one-off that I wrote for my own pleasure, as opposed to for money. It’s called “Guided by the Beauty of Their Weapons: An Analysis of Theodore Beale and His Supporters,” and is about fifteen thousand words long. So that’ll be fun too.

Obviously, it’s about the Hugos, which raises our question for the weekend: of the many worthy things kept off the Hugo Ballot by Theodore Beale and his supporters, what are you saddest didn’t make it? What did you nominate, or would you have nominated if you’d had a ballot?…

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All Coppers Are Rascals (The Last War in Albion Part 92: Raoul’s Night Out, and Later Tales)

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This is the fourth of eleven parts of The Last War in Albion Chapter Ten, focusing on Alan Moore’s Bojeffries Saga. An omnibus of all eleven parts is available on Smashwords. If you are a Kickstarter backer or a Patreon backer at $2 or higher per week, instructions on how to get your complimentary copy have been sent to you.

The Bojeffries Saga is available in a collected edition that can be purchased in the US or in the UK.

Previously in The Last War in Albion: Following their initial two-part story, Moore and Parkhouse wrote a second two-part Bojeffries Saga strip for Warrior entitled “Raoul’s Night Out.”

“All Coppers are Rascals.” -Ol’ Bill, Dodgem Logic #3

Figure 702: Sheena, a clear parody
of Vyvyan Basterd. (Written by
Alan Moore, art by Steve Parkhouse,
from “Raoul’s Night Out,” in Warrior
#20, 1984)
The story also marks a subtle evolution to the underlying format of The Bojeffries Saga. The plot is still basically that of a farce, but instead of focusing on one character in a traditional “idiot” role, he layers together a set of absurd misunderstandings incorporating several characters, all of whom are, in their own ways, complete dunces. But what’s in many ways more important than the change in comedic structure is the nature of the characters involved.  The first story was, at the end of the day, essentially a Hogben story transplanted to working class Britain, with the focus firmly on the eccentric family and Trevor Inchmale as an intrusion from the mundane world. But “Raoul’s Night Out” is a story about working class Britain into which a single werewolf has been inserted. This allows Moore to engage in a fairly direct satire of the working class. For instance, among Raoul’s coworkers is Colin Council Estate, who introduces his girlfriend Sheena,to Raoul by saying “society’s rejected ‘er because she’s got ‘**** off’ tattooed on her forehead” (a fairly straightforward homage to Vyv of The Young Ones). 
Figure 703: Cops beating a black man. (Written by Alan Moore, art by
Steve Parkhouse, from “Raoul’s Night Out,” in Warrior #20, 1984)
The move to looking at the larger culture in which the Bojeffries exist allows Moore a considerably sharper sort of satire. The main thrust of “Raoul’s Night Out” is a night out with Raoul and his coworkers that goes wrong for a number of reasons, not least of which is that Colin consulted his diary to tell Raoul that it was a new moon without bothering to mention that, as Sheena puts it, his “***** diary is four ***** years old” and that he hasn’t “bought one since the *** Pistols disbanded.” This, rather awkwardly, results in Raoul turning into a wolf in the middle of dinner, which causes further deterioration in a situation already made fraught by Raoul’s passing on a pamphlet given to him by his coworker Stanley to another one of his coworkers, George, completely unaware of the fact that Stanley’s neo-Nazi propaganda (“Did Himmler Discover Radium,” one article asks) might go down poorly with George, who is black.
…

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Orphan Black

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This is the monthly bonus post voted on by my Patreon backers. Voting for next month’s post just opened on Patreon. Orphan Black Season 3 begins on BBC America this Saturday.

There’s an expectation, with these sorts of things, that I’m going to review the show. This is not entirely helpful for Orphan Black – leading with the question of its quality is putting the focus in the least interesting places, in some ways. This is because it’s not a great show. It is, to be sure, a good show. But greatness stubbornly eludes it, due, if we’re being honest, to the fact that the writing isn’t really all that. It’s been up for a Hugo in both 2014 and 2015 (in the latter case it, along with Doctor Who’s “Listen,” were the two non-Puppy nominees in the Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form) category), and in each case you look at the episode that was nominated and find yourself thinking “which one was that again?”

It’s better binged than serialized, I suspect. Certainly I found my desire to watch another episode to be quite intense following the cliffhanger, and relatively middling twenty-four hours later. It can spin its wheels frustratingly. There is not a clear sense that the overarching mythology has a point and is not being made up as the show goes along. Blah, blah, blah.

It would probably be happier on Netflix, where its compatibility with binge watching would be a strength instead of a problem. Likewise, I suspect I’ll pick up Season Three at the end of its run and marathon it instead of tuning in week to week, simply because I think my attention will wander. But the three nights over which I marathoned the existing twenty episodes were terribly fun.

What holds it together – what makes the show extraordinary, in fact, is Tatiana Masalany. It’s perhaps worth mentioning the show’s premise here. Basically, there are clones. Tatiana Masalany thus plays, over the course of the first two seasons, five major characters and an assortment of more minor ones. She acquits herself with the same sort of distinction that marks Patrick Troughton’s performance in Enemy of the World – one so good that you can go long stretches not thinking about the dual role. Each of her characters is bracingly distinct: British grifter, soccer mom, scientist, homicidal Ukrainian religious fanatic, CEO, and so on, and she makes them feel different.

The show is also pleasantly aware of its own best trick, which it hits upon early in its run and wisely never lets go of. It consistently crackles when it contrives to have Masalany play one of her characters pretending to be another. This, thankfully, is the early premise of the show – Sarah, the grifter, starts by impersonating Beth, a Canadian cop who commits suicide at the start of the first episode, and in the process gets pulled into the mystery Beth was investigating, namely “what’s up with all these clones?” Before long Sarah is impersonating other clones, and the show is having other clones get in on the impersonations (most notably, and, satisfyingly, the housewife Alison).…

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Comics Reviews (April 15th, 2015)

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The Legendary Star-Lord #11 (aka The Black Vortex #12)

There’s a metaphor here in Kitty’s reluctant but inevitable embrace of the Black Vortex and decision to become a cosmic entity despite the fact that the power will inevitably destroy her. I think it’s a metaphor for how I keep paying money for this fucking story.

Thor #7

I want to like this book, especially given the caliber of the people who hate it. But my underlying objection stands, not least as it becomes increasingly obvious that Roz Solomon is Thor, which was always the most obvious choice. I mean, they may yet subvert it, but at this point, if they subvert it, it’s going to be a cheap twist, and if they don’t, it’s going to be so obvious that it wasn’t worth doing a mystery. Either way, this is a yawn.

Captain America and the Mighty Avengers #7

Fun, although I feel like the two plot thread aspect of the book ended up being a bit of a weakness here, with each plot feeling like it wanted about four more pages. Still, it’s called “Kick ‘Splode,” and it does what it says on the tin.

Loki: Agent of Asgard #13

It’s always terribly fun looking at a creator across books, especially when you see the same basic themes and reflections on storytelling cropping up in Doctor Who and Loki. Not that those are two books that exist that far apart from each other in the grand conceptual scheme of things. In any case, a climax, and the point where Ewing finally moves the book completely out of Gillen’s shadow, which, to be fair, is the sort of thing that really should take thirteen or so issues to do, given the size of that shadow. Fun stuff, and a nice setup for Secret Wars. (A side comment – it’s genuinely weird to have Hickman’s lead-up to Secret Wars dry up at this point. I know there’s two more issues coming, and I’m sure they’ll be long on blood and thunder, but it’s still a strange gap, and one that casts an odd shadow over the rest of Marvel.)

Ms. Marvel #14

The twists here are predictable, but generally in the sense of “it’s a classic because it works.” Still, for this book that’s a middling issue, and it was a really good week of comics, so here in the rankings this lands.

Uncanny X-Men #33

There are moments where Bendis’s propensity for avoiding normatively “big” moments in favor of little ones really pay off, and a “Kitty Pryde and Illyana Rasputin go on a road trip to Monster Island” issue as the penultimate installment of his Uncanny X-Men run is a prime example. Completely and utterly delightful.

Crossed Badlands #75 (aka Homo Tortor #1)

As Moore does future Crossed, Gillen does prehistoric Crossed. There’s something more than a little Tales of the Black Freighter about this, with its parallel timeframes and sense of impending doom. It’s only a first issue, and there’s much that’s going to have to develop, but it’s a big, fascinating conceptual start that parallels both the latest WicDiv (with its idea of human civilization having had various failed starts in prehistory) and Moore’s Crossed work.…

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A Brief Treatise on the Rules of Thrones 1.10: Fire and Blood

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In case you missed it, I reviewed “The Wars to Come” last night.  I’ll do “The House of Black and White” if the Patreon is at $280 by the time it airs – it’s currently at $275.

State of Play

The choir goes off. The board is laid out thusly:
The Direwolves, Catelyn Stark, Robb Stark
The Lions, Jaime Lannister and Tyrion Lannister
Lions of King’s Landing: Cersei Lannister
Dragons of the Dothraki Sea: Daenerys Targaryen
Bears of the Dothraki Sea: Jorah Mormont
Mockingbirds of King’s Landing: Petyr Baelish
Direwolves of the Wall: Jon Snow
Direwolves of King’s Landing: Sansa Stark, Arya Stark
Kraken of Winterfell: Theon Greyjoy
Direwolves of Winterfell: Brandon Stark
Stags of King’s Landing: Joffrey Baratheon
Dogs of King’s Landing: Sandor Clegane
The episode is in fifteen parts. The first is one minute long and is set in King’s Landing. The opening shot is of Ice dripping with the blood of Lord Eddard Stark. 
The second is three minutes long and is set in Winterfell. The transition is by family, from Arya to Bran. 
The third is two minutes long and is set in the Stark camp. The transition is by family, from Bran to Catelyn and Robb. 
The fourth is five minutes long and is set in King’s Landing. The transition is by family and dialogue, from Catelyn telling Robb they have to get his sisters back to Sansa at Joffrey’s court. 
The fifth is five minutes long and is set in the Stark camp. The transition is by family, from Sansa to Robb. 
The sixth is seconds long and is set in King’s Landing. The transition is by family, from Jaime to Cersei. 
The seventh is three minutes long and is set in the Lannister camp. The transition is by family, from Cersei to Tywin and Tyrion. 
The eighth is five minutes long and is set in the Dothraki Sea. The transition is by hard cut, from Tyrion to an establishing shot of the Dothraki camp. 
The ninth is one minute long and is set on the Wall. The transition is by family, from Daenerys Targaryen to Jon Snow. 
The tenth is one minute long and is set in the Lannister camp. The transition is by hard cut, from the open gate of Castle Black to Shae helping Tyrion pack.
The eleventh is two minutes long and is set on the Wall. The transition is by hard cut, to Shae climbing onto Tyrion to Jon riding south.
The twelfth is three minutes long and is set in the Dothraki Sea. The transition is by family, from Jon Snow to Daenerys Targaryen. 
The thirteenth is eight minutes long and is in sections; it is set in King’s Landing. The first section is three minutes long; the transition is by image, from a shot through the door of Daenerys’s tent to a shot of Grandmaester Pycelle sitting in a doorway, and by dialogue, with Pycelle talking about the Mad King. The second is two minutes long; the transition is by hard cut, from Pycelle’s door to Littlefinger standing, staring at the Iron Throne.
…

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The Wars to Come

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This review exists because of the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Further eviews of Season Five of Game of Thrones are contingent on the Patreon reaching $300. However, since I suspect a $25 jump in one week is unlikely, I’ll do “The House of Black and White” if it’s at $280 by the time the episode airs. (I’ll then set a higher amount – probably $290 – for “High Sparrow,” and then stop if we’re not at $300 by “Sons of the Harpy.”) You can support this and the other work I do here (and, you know, my putting food on my table, what with this being my job and all) right here at this link.

State of Play

The choir goes off. The board is laid out thusly:

Lions of Pentos: Tyrion Lannister
Lions of King’s Landing: Jaime Lannister, Cersei Lannister
Dragons of Mereen: Daenerys Targaryen
Direwolves of the Wall: Jon Snow
Mockingbirds of the Eyrie: Petyr Baelish
Roses of King’s Landing: Margaery Tyrell
Burning Hearts of the Wall: Stannis Barratheon, Mellisandre
Ships of the Wall: Davos Seaworthy
Archers of the Wall: Samwell Tarly
Direwovles of the Eyrie: Sansa Stark
Paws of the Wall: Tormund Giantsbane
Flowers of the Wall: Gilly
Spiders of Pentos: Lord Varys
Shields of the Eyrie: Brienne of Tarth
Swords of Mereen: Dario Noharis
Butterflies of Mereen: Missandei
Stags of King’s Landing: Tommen Barratheon

Winterfell is abandoned (but has fallen to the Boltons).

The episode is in ten parts. The first runs four minutes and is set in the Westerlands. The first image is of a young Cersei and her unnamed friend walking through the mud.

The second runs three minutes and is set in King’s Landing; the transition is by character, from young Cersei to Cersei of the present day.

The third runs three minutes and is set in Pentos; the transition is by dialogue and family, from Jaime and Cersei talking about Tyrion to Tyrion.

The fourth runs five minutes and is set in Mereen; the transition is by implication, from Varys and Tyrion to where they’ll be heading. It features the death of White Rat, an Unsullied, whose throat is slit.

The fifth runs five minutes and is set at the Wall; the transition is by image, from the Unsullied armory, and specifically a wall of shields to Jon Snow training recruits in the yard at Castle Black, the first image being a sword striking a shield.

The sixth runs three minutes and is set in the Eyrie; it is in two sections. The first section runs one minute; the transition is by family, from Jon Snow to Sansa. The other runs two minutes; the transition is by contrast, from Robin and his inadequacy as a fighter to Brienne. At the episode’s halfway point, Sansa and Tyrion discuss strategy as their cart wheels past Brienne and Pod.

The seventh part runs six minutes and is set in King’s Landing; it is in two sections. The first runs three minutes; the transition is by dialogue, from Littlefinger discussing Cersei to Cersei herself.…

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Saturday Waffling (April 12th, 2015)

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Today’s waffles are served up courtesy of Jacob Solstice, who makes music, which you can listen to here. The album is called Warrior Kid Meets the Fuzz, which is, if nothing else, entertaining.

If the Patreon, currently at $273, can get that extra $27 of momentum and get to $300 a week, I’ll do Game of Thrones Season Five reviews, much like the Doctor Who reviews that started the Patreon off. A “State of Play” for each episode, followed by a more traditional review, up as fast as I can after the episodes air. I’ll do “The Wars to Come” tomorrow night either way, as a preview, and then we’ll have until next Sunday to get up there, in which case I’ll do “The House of Black and White.”

Until then, between what we know about Season Five and A Feast for Crows/A Dance with Dragons (and let’s go with, as a level of spoiler, anything that is either in or deducible from things HBO or Martin have officially released is fair game in comments), what are you most looking forward to this season?

(For my part, I’ll go with the seemingly very real possibility that Tyrion will be meeting Daenerys instead of spending a book ostentatiously failing to find the plot.)…

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Alien Architecture (The Last War in Albion Part 91: Steve Parkhouse, Terraces)

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This is the third of eleven parts of The Last War in Albion Chapter Ten, focusing on Alan Moore’s Bojeffries Saga. An omnibus of all eleven parts is available on Smashwords. If you are a Kickstarter backer or a Patreon backer at $2 or higher per week, instructions on how to get your complimentary copy have been sent to you.

The Bojeffries Saga is available in a collected edition that can be purchased in the US or in the UK.

Previously in The Last War in Albion: The artist of The Bojeffries Saga, Steve Parkhouse, had a long and varied career in British comics, working, at various points, on Doctor Who, The Black Knight, and Night Raven.

“Alien architecture. Made by giants for a never-ending war. Perpetual war.” – Grant Morrison, Nameless

Parkhouse, like his fellow Steve Moore, is one of the great strange men of British comics. Both serve to give the subtle and unsettling sense of the British comics industry prior to 1979 as a sort of graveyard of strange magicians, a vast collection of visionary weirdos content to be near-completely overlooked. Although Parkhouse does not share the Moores’ or Morrison’s active and public identification as a magician, he is as self-evidently one as exists. This is perhaps most clear in his often overlooked fantasy strip for Warrior, The Spiral Path. Like his Black Knight and Doctor Who work, there is an oddly shamanistic quality to The Spiral Path – it is a comic that is based heavily on intense visuals, at times at the expense of entirely clear plotting.
Figure 692: The ancient hill where Ruad hides Galbrain, one of many
lush and mythic landscapes in The Spiral Path. (By Steve Parkhouse, in
Warrior #1, 1982)
The Spiral Path is, on one level, a fairly straightforward bit of sword-and-sorcery fantasy in the tradition of Conan the Barbarian, or, to pick something perhaps somewhat closer to its conceptual terrain, Elric of Melniboné. It opens with a bombastic narration about how “the land of Tairngir had been invaded by hostile forces… after many years of battle, King Galbrain was deposed, his armies destroyed by magic and madness. Sick and dispirited, the King and a handful of warriors took flight and now approached the furthermost borders…” and the first installment largely focuses on Galbrain’s travels as he meets a druid, Ruad, who shelters Galbrain in “an old hill dwelling” full “of mine-workings and tunnels.” Galbrain obligingly retreats, at which point it is revealed that the armies that have been pursuing Galbrain have followed, and there are thousands marching upon the hill. 
Figure 693: Caed must kill the druid who saved him. (By Steve Parkhouse,
from The Spiral Path, in Warrior #4, 1982)
But the story this seems to set up – of a King fighting to reclaim Tairngir against seemingly insurmountable odds – never quite materializes. Galbrain is essentially absent from the remainder of the tale. The next two chapters focus primarily on the twin sacrifices of the druid, Ruad, who first sends his crow, Caed, to fly forth, tying a message to his leg and telling him to “bear this spell with you, in the hope it may reach the ears of the one who dreams us all… the one who may some day awaken,” and the warrior Nuada, who dies facing a fearsome giant.
…

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