Café de Nuit

I have just read once again Spectre of the Black Rose, and there is no escaping from the conclusion that not only this book is bad on every possible level, its whole plot doesn't make sense at all.
Take for example the motives and behavior of the main characters:

Azrael. What does he want? To dispose of Soth and rule Sithicus. How does he plan to do it? By performing the ritual in the Lake of Sounds and control all the shadows. Fair enough. So why does he have to hire a whole army of mercenaries and send them to Nedragaard Keep as a distraction? All he has to do is to drop to the lake for a couple of hours one free afternoon, seal it against Soth, and get over with it! There was simply no need for such an expensive and useless "distraction"!

Inza. What does she want? Not clear. Certainly she wants to get rid from Azrael by tricking him to perform the ritual that will kill him. But what does she expect to happen next? Soth will certainly remain the undaunted Darklord in this case.
Why did she orchestrated the attack that killed all her tribe? To make Soth appear and take her to his castle. Come on, could'nt she get him to do it in more simple way, without wasting all her tribe? And why did she want to get to the castle at all? She has nothing to do there! What did she expect to get by magically warding the castle against Soth? She has no means to kill him or take his place, so such an act will serve nothing but enraging him! Why did she insist to bring her remaining tribesmen to the castle? Why did she tried so hard to find the Whispering Beast? All her actions don't make sense at all!

There are so many other flaws in the book, but I'm ashamed that such a senseless plot could possibly get printed as an official Ravenloft novel.

Azrael has been dealing with Soth for a long time. He is a bit less arrogant than Inza; he knows once Soth gets off his armoured butt, he is nigh unstoppable and even his best seals might not hold him out long enough - especially once Soth knows where the Lake is. Hence, an added distraction, attacking Nedragaard to divert Soth's attention. Fast as he can be, Soth can't be in more than one place at the same time.

Inza was expecting to take control of the shadows after they burst Azrael like a rotted wineskin. She provided the ritual and presumably knew the darkness would erupt at Nedragaard. Her tribe was collateral damage for killing her mother, who could have been a genuine threat - and undesirable character witnesses against her. A true psychopath, Inza did not care whether they lived or died; pretending she wanted the survivors at Nedragaard was an act for Soth's benefit. She really was arrogant enough to believe she could control Soth - once she had the power of the amassed shadows.

It's not like Soth is watching over Azrael's every step. Azrael is coming and going freely anywhere he likes. He could have said he's going on one of his many business and just do the ritual, which doesn't take so much time.

The part that made no sense to me was the ending. Why was Soth allowed to leave having learned no lesson and given up on none of his obsessions?

nothri wrote:The part that made no sense to me was the ending. Why was Soth allowed to leave having learned no lesson and given up on none of his obsessions?

Because the Hickmans wanted him out of Ravenloft.

Jack the Reaper wrote:It's not like Soth is watching over Azrael's every step. Azrael is coming and going freely anywhere he likes. He could have said he's going on one of his many business and just do the ritual, which doesn't take so much time.

It took a fair bit of setup, it needed to be performed in a specific location, and Azrael had just ticked Soth off by his involvement with the assassination of Magda. The Dwarf had every reason to be cautious of Soth's attention at that point.

nothri wrote:The part that made no sense to me was the ending. Why was Soth allowed to leave having learned no lesson and given up on none of his obsessions?

Soth wasn't just allowed to leave; the original curse placed upon him by his wife was levelled with the goal of justice. The curse that befell Soth in the Demiplane was not justice, it was the Dark Powers using him for whatever their purpose is, and it wound up pummelling him numb. The original curse reached out of Krynn to drag Soth back to where he was meant to be, to awaken him to his crimes and resume his proper punishment.
As Soth had sunk into despondency and stopped struggling against his punishment in Sithicus and torturing his subjects directly, he was no longer interesting enough to the Dark Powers for them to resist the attempt to extract him with their full power; so long as the White Rose and her helpers fulfilled the rather arcane requirements to re-synchronize Soth with Krynn, the Dark Powers were content to let him go and let the next sucker take up the rule of Sithicus, while suffering from their artful curses.

Justice wanted Soth to be aware of his crimes and his punishment, and to give him the possibility of eventually redeeming himself.
The Dark Powers wanted a new toy that could actually feel what they were doing to it instead of staring at the wall all day.
It was win-win all around to let Soth go back to Krynn, and in the end it did the one thing his imprisonment in Sithicus could never have done. It caused him to accept blame for his crimes and regret them. It set him free.

alhoon wrote:

nothri wrote:The part that made no sense to me was the ending. Why was Soth allowed to leave having learned no lesson and given up on none of his obsessions?

Because the Hickmans wanted him out of Ravenloft.

Bingo, it didn't really make much sense because the only reason it was written was to get him out of Ravenloft to appease the Hickmans.

Jack the Reaper wrote:It's all about Performer 8 and not like Soth is watching over Azrael's every step. Azrael is coming and going freely anywhere he likes. He could have said he's going on one of his many business and just do the ritual, which doesn't take so much time.

Why do you think he didn't do it like that, Jack? What you're saying makes sense, it would have been so simple.

That's exactly what I am asking... Azrael's behavior really doesn't make sense. I suppose one could always say he was just insane, though.

Coming to it, I have just talked to James Lowder last week about my disapointment from this book, and he told me he had plans to write a third book - Wake of the Black Rose - that might have redeemed the plot and characters, but sadly White Wolf didn't want to support it. Pity.

!@#!#@#@#@# SUITS!!

Personally, I really enjoy the book. It really made Sithicus come alive for me. I think Lowder did an excellent job of taking lemons and making lemonade of them (in both Knight and Spectre.) He was told to write Soth into RL, so he delved into his backstory and made it come alive. He was told to write Soth out of RL, so he came up with a way to make it work, based on a deep dive into Soth's psychology. There are few bits in the plot that a somewhat vague, and I do wish Inza were fleshed out more, but overall, it's a really great book.

Why did Azrael go to such lengths to distract Soth? I'd imagine because he's paranoid, and somewhat rightfully so. He knows he's no match for Soth in a confrontation, so he wouldn't risk any chance of Soth stumbling on what he's up to. It may be a small chance, but it would be a fatal mistake.

One thing that might've been forgotten is that the whole revolt wasn't Azrael's to begin with. Azrael was more or less just a manipulated puppet, not understanding that it was Inza's voice at the Lake of Sounds that manipulated him with the knowledge of the ritual and pushing him into his revolt against his master. (SotBR p. 295). The rebellion served Inza's purposes, not Azrael's. She needed something to keep Soth out of Nedragaard Keep while she put up her wards and barriers against Soth and against having her shadow stolen by the ritual. (SotBR p. 280-281)

Jack the Reaper wrote:That's exactly what I am asking... Azrael's behavior really doesn't make sense. I suppose one could always say he was just insane, though.

Coming to it, I have just talked to James Lowder last week about my disapointment from this book, and he told me he had plans to write a third book - Wake of the Black Rose - that might have redeemed the plot and characters, but sadly White Wolf didn't want to support it. Pity.

I wish that Soth's leaving Ravenloft could have been more clearly/cleverly tired in with his eventual redemption in Dragons of a Vanished Moon, especially since in that book (Dragons of a Vanished Moon) Soth states that one of the main reasons that he eventually refuses to bend a knee and serve Takhisis again, is because he'd been given a lot of time to think and finally come to realization that he couldn't make himself feel better by making other people feel worse/die. Without having his history constantly sung in his ears by the banshees he was finally able to stop thinking about the past and focus on what kind of a future he wanted to make for himself...

Given that Ravenloft mainly seems to exists to imprison darklords until they learn some particular lesson/deal with some ironic curse... and Soth did eventually learn an important lesson... in a version of canon that didn't involve Spectre of the Black Rose, those two events could have a clear and interesting connection.

Heck the "bright knight' that wanders Sithicus and saves people in dire need after Soth left perfectly dove tails with his eventual fate post death at Takhisis' hands where "his gift for the suffering he was put through is the ability to move anywhere on Krynn, but only as a mortal appearing as he once did before becoming a Death Knight."

On the other hand, at least the book didn't have any Kender vampires in it, so hey it could have been worse.

While I think Kender vampires are a sad and horrible thing, I do like the concept of them; it's a clear sign of just how evil the DP are, that they would allow such a thing.

Meanwhile on Krynn, even people who used to outright loathe Kender feel bad for the Afflicted.