"The Time Machine" by H. G. Wells

I don't know why, but, I thought this had Martians in it. It doesn't. I also thought it had evil humans who think the main character's time machine should have a poison gas button, which it also doesn't. I have no idea where I got the Martians from, but I did some poking around and it turns out there are evil humans with poison gas button opinions. Just not in the original.

Basically, for whatever reason, the abridged version I read when I was like seven (which absolutely terrified me, by the way) decided it was going to add a Cold War-esque dystopian future section featuring the main character (who's never named; he's only ever called the Time Traveller) getting interrogated about his time machine. Which includes the very memorable line from one of the interrogators, "Where's the poison gas button?!" (to which the Time Traveller inwardly speculates that, had the guy been building his own time machine, he would have included a poison gas button.) Why the adaptation people decided to do that I honestly can't fathom, but they did.

And it's not like the story isn't unsettling enough on its own. First there's the whole thing with the Eloi and the Morlocks: the Eloi are a race of childlike humanoids who live peacefully in the ruins of a previous society. The narrator surmises that they're |the descendants of humanity (H. G. Wells was pretty clearly an evolutionist), who've had medical and horticultural science advance so far that they've lost all need for things like "physical labor" or "intelligence". They're dubiously sentient and very afraid of the dark|. Meanwhile, the Morlocks are |cannibalistic, subterranean humanoids who seem to be using the Eloi as livestock, may or may not have some kind of fascination with machinery, and steal the time machine for a bit|. There's all kinds of disturbing subtext in there.

And after that, |the narrator goes to the really far future. As in, far enough that the sun has turned into a red giant, plant life is now mostly green slime, and the only animal life visible is giant screaming butterflies and some kind of giant spidery antenna-y crab thing. Then he goes even farther, to an era were the sole living being aside from himself (that we know about) is a bizarre football-shaped tentacle being, which seems to act as an ambush predator of a sort|.

The story is fully sufficiently unnerving and complete without having the Time Traveller drop into a Cold War analogue, and I decry whoever abridged the story and decided making up new parts was a good idea. For shame. If you're abridging a work, your job is to make what there is shorter and easier to understand, not to add new bits.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T for spookiness and |cannibalism|.

3 stars. Too evolutiony for my taste.

(Endnote: I think this is the first time travel story, and yet it managed not to be all tropey. Maybe because the guy didn't go into the past?)

"The Diamond Lens" by Fitz-James O'Brien

Protag's a madman? Let me count the ways.

He's clinically obsessed with microscopes

On getting better ones bend all his hopes

He spent all his money on the blasted things.

Believes assurances a medium says--

Believes contact with Leeuwenhoek, the dope.

Was tasked to make a diamond microscope.

(With electricity, the magic rays.)

Friend's stuff he needs for his goal to succeed in,

So with a knife he murderized the man.

With microscope he found a micro-Eden

And got a crush on microscopic Eve

She dies, and he despairs, his will is beaten;

The story ends, a weird one, I believe.

Were this a game, I'd rate it E ten plus,

For seances, occult, and all that fuss.

Three stars shall I hand out, no more, no less,

In all, the story's somewhat of a mess.

(Endnote: Yes, I did just rewrite Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "How Do I Love Thee?" about a science fiction short story from 1858 by someone no-one's ever heard of.)

Mini-Reviews 13: It's Not Even Friday!

Playing with Fire by Derek Landy

Book 2 of Skulduggery Pleasant. (Book 1 is here.) In this one, some new (or possibly not so new?) bad guys show up and try to resurrect an evil giant monster thing. |They succeed, and the heroes have to fight it.|

It's been like a year since I read the last one, so I don't remember how many of the villains in this were mentioned in the first one.

Oh, and the Spring-Heeled Jack shows up, which was interesting.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T for violence and giant spiders.

4 stars. However, as previously mentioned, there are giant spiders; I can read past them, but if you hate giant spiders, you probably shouldn't read this.

Tags for this one: 4-star, cool magic, modern setting, rated T, urban fantasy

The Wondrous World of Violet Barnaby by Jenny Lundquist

This is about a twelve-ish-year-old girl, Violet Barnaby, whose mom is dead and whose dad has recently remarried. She spends most of the book grieving for her mom and railing against the injustice of change.

She also spends most of the book repressing the urge to just snap and start shouting at everything. I, too, have repressed that urge, as probably have we all.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: E.

4 stars.

Tags for this one: 4-star, DRAMA!, modern setting, rated E

The Wolf of Cape Fen by Juliana Brandt

This book has a very twisty plot, and one that holds together in light of the new plot twists (I'm looking at you, Maximum Ride). Plus they're actually well-executed enough that I don't see them coming, which... either I've been reading books with untwisty plots or I've just gotten really good at spotting the plot twist.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: E10+ for "deal-with-the-devil"-style magic (though not with the actual devil).

3 stars.

Tags for this one: 3-star, magical realism, modern setting, rated E10+

(Endnote: HALT IN THE NAME OF THE FRIDAY KNIGHT! Man, I really need to review Dragons at Crumbling Castle...)

"The Silver Dream" by Neil Gaiman and Michael Reaves and Mallory Reaves

Most of the body of this post will be spoiler tagged, if only because pretty much everything related to Acacia "Don't ever call me Casey" Jones is a spoiler.

Speaking of whom. Acacia "Don't ever call me Casey" Jones is a member of |TimeWatch, which is basically InterWorld on time travel. It fights some ancient nigh-omnipotent beings called Techmaturges who are apparently able to just casually unexist entire universes. She also knows the original Joe Harker, somehow.|

She and Joseph "Joey" "Joe" Harker also sort of |start a bit of romance based on them annoying each other but getting stuck together in a variety of dangerous situations. As romance subplots go, it's pretty understated and not bad (in my admittedly limited experience with romance in YA books)|.

 

Oh, and we also learn (mostly) what FrostNight is? |It's some sort of magical-technological ritual that requires HEX and the Binary to collaborate using the distilled essences of a bunch of interdimensional walkers, and it's supposed to... uh, destroy the multiverse or something. I think it's the Techmaturges' fault.|

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T for fantasy violence. It's remarkably clean.

 

4 stars.

Favorite lines:

    I hurled the thing [something he found in the trippiness dimension] à la Captain America, silently thanking my Alternative Phys Ed teacher for training us in the dubiously useful art of discus throwing.

    Pages 157-158.

    "The council decided."

    "Are you on the council?"

    "No."

    "Who is?"

    "Councilors."

    Page 187.

 

(Endnote: I think I've figured out a plot twist. |Our main character travels back in time and becomes the leader of InterWorld. I infer this from his newfound insistence on being called Joe, the existence of a picture of a younger InterWorld leader and an older Acacia together, and the fact that he sets out to gather up fellow interdimensional travelers at the end of this one|.)

"Cleopatra In Space" by Mike Maihack

This series was made known to me by one of my classmates in a literature class, who wrote one of her essays on the first book. (Yes, it's the same literature class for which I've been doing essays on things like A Tale of Two Cities and All Quiet on the Western Front. There aren't any actual rules about how highbrow your essay subjects have to be, I just feel silly doing literary analysis on unserious things.)

Anyway, on to the series! I'm not going to bother blacking out the spoilers; ye be warned. There's ending spoilers in the book 6 review, so if you don't want to know how it ends, maybe don't read that one.

Book One: Target Practice 

Fifteen-year-old Cleopatra VIII Philopator (the only Cleopatra most people ever know about) gets isekai'd into the future when she finds a mysterious tablet, leaving her friend Gozi behind. Despite this being middle-grade fiction, she isn't twelve, so I afford the author some extra points for that.

 

Could have done without the "you're in the future... but you still have to go to school" bit, but it does serve to introduce some characters who'll be important later (namely her history professor, Khensu the cat, as well as her classmates Brian, Zaid, and Akila). Also, apparently she's the prophesied "person who will save us from the evil overlord Xaius Octavian".

 

She gets sent on a training mission to retrieve a magic sword, which will be important later.

Book Two: The Thief and the Sword

Remember how I told you that magic sword would be important later? A guy steals it in this one and delivers it to Xaius Octavian. Said guy turns out to be named Antony, so we all know where this will go. Eventually. They spend a lot of time trying to kill each other first.

 

Did I mention the future world Cleopatra is now in (called the Nile Galaxy) is ruled by a pharaoh, and below her, a bunch of cats? I love the cats. They're awesome. [EDIT: Fixed a there/their/they're mistake.]

 

Also, it turns out the magic sword wasn't actually a real magic sword. Xaius Octavian breaks it in half when he finally receives it at the end of this one. (According to Wikipedia's summary it's actually also the same sword Cleopatra and Gozi found at the very beginning of book 1 right before Cleopatra gets isekai'd. I don't remember that bit at all.)

Book Three: Secret of the Time Tablets

In which Cleopatra acquires a fedora, only to lose it again before the next book starts. Also in which our heroes (Cleopatra, Zaid, Brian, Akila, and Khensu) travel to the planet Hykosis, a wretched hive of scum and villainy. Antony is also here, as is a bartender named Fod Franze who Cleopatra ticks off. He'll be mildly important later.

 

This is where the permanent consequences start to set in, courtesy of Xaius Octavian finally confronting our heroes. Cleopatra develops mysterious pink energy powers. Akila loses an arm. Zaid takes a laser from Xaius Octavian (who, by the way, can shoot lasers) and sort of disintegrates.

 

Y'know how that sword would be important later? It still is. Xaius Octavian has the real one, which has kept him alive for... I think several millenia. He's also actually her friend Gozi, who's been kept alive for I think several millenia by the magic sword. And is very mad at her. And can shoot lasers.

 

Book Four: The Golden Lion

In which Antony and Cleopatra (yes, I know) traverse the ice planet of Hoth Cada'Duun to try to find the Golden Lion, which is not an actual lion. It's a sort of plasma thing, which apparently renders the area around it habitable no matter what said area used to be like. On the ice planet, it manifests as a village of people who talk in math; they're apparently total jokesters to anyone who can understand their math, which Cleopatra doesn't.

 

The Cleo-Antony romance starts happening. Also, Xaius Octavian is revealed to have a mysterious patron who manifests as a giant, vaguely humanoid patch of darkness with glowing red eyes, and Cleopatra's pink energy is revealed to be able to heal her.

 

Cleopatra also gets a pet in this one: Mihos the snow otter. He's adorable but doesn't do much other than "be adorable". He won't even be important later. Plus Akila has a robot arm that can shoot lasers; that will be important later.

Book Five: Fallen Empires

The Empire Strikes Back (Cleopatra in Space edition). Also known as, everything goes to heck.

 

The book opens with a flashback of Gozi/Octavian's tragic backstory: he got imprisoned for losing Cleopatra. Then Egypt was destroyed by space pirates. Gozi activated the self-destruct on the space pirate ships in retaliation, but survived thanks to the immortality-granting sword. He was rescued by aliens who gave him prosthetic tentacle legs; he had a normal happy life with them, but then those aliens were attacked by different space pirates, and he was the only survivor.

 

Also Administrant Khepra, one of the cat council, is secretly a traitor working for Octavian. And is Khensu's mom. Plus we learn what Xaius Octavian wanted the plasma for: he made a budget Death Star. Or several.

Book Six: Queen of the Nile

[ENDING SPOILERS IN THIS ONE]

Cleo has acquired a tan over the course of the series. Cleo has also acquired depression over the course of the series. It's understandable, given all the destruction Xaius Octavian has been wreaking and the fact that she's been stuck in the future for at least a year and a half.

 

We get some background on Octavian's mysterious patron: it's Anubis, who went mad with power/grief and tried to destroy everything. The rest of the Egyptian pantheon stopped him, sort of. It takes the combined power of Cleo's pink magic and Pharaoh Yosira's pink magic (Pharaoh Yosira is apparently a distant descendant of Cleo herself, who gets sent back to the past near the end) to get rid of him.

 

Fod Franze shows back up and is mildly important. He causes some problems and tries to get Xaius Octavian to pay him for doing so, then gets obliterated by a laser from Octavian.

 

All things considered, I think this series ended pretty well.

Overall Notes

Don't be like Kittens and start on book 2. It didn't make much sense to her.

 

Cleopatra in Space is a fun series, and not one I'd have qualms about recommending to kids. If you want a promotional quote from me, use that.

 

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: E10+ for sequences of stylized sci-fi violence. Nothing untoward. It would probably be a pretty good videogame in the right hands (something action-adventure-y).

 

4 stars. It's pretty similar to Five Worlds, though not quite on that level. The art is good, and as I've mentioned before, art quality is an important factor in my enjoyment of a graphic novel.

Favorite lines:

    Fod Franze: NO ONE SHOOTS FOD FRANZE'S HAT!!

    Cleopatra: Well, I just did so... not true?

    Akila (in background): Yeah. I'm gonna hide.

    Book 3 pages 44-45.

(Endnote: There seems to have been a short-lived TV show of this. It apparently made some pretty weird changes and looked absolutely nothing like the original, so I'm in no hurry to seek it out.)

"Superliminal" by Pillow Castle

This game is like Portal on dream logic. It was all a dream, but since that's the premise of the game, that doesn't bother me.

Superliminal is a puzzle game based around the concept that "perception is reality" (as you see very helpfully scrawled on walls and motivational posters and stuff throughout the game).

The basic mechanic, used in most of the game's puzzles, relies on forced perspective. Say you pick up a wedge of cheese, for example, and hold it up so it looks like it's the same size as a desk lamp. When you move away let go of the wedge of cheese, instead of being the same size as it was and being near you, it will be next to the desk lamp and proportionally as big. Such is the premise of the game, and it's a pretty fun one.

There's also other perception-based puzzles, like viewing 2D images from just the right angle so they look 3D (producing 3D objects) or taking a door off a wall and putting it somewhere else to make a doorway. And more, as well, though explaining most of the later ones would be kind of spoilery.

Really, Superliminal has two themes: the aforementioned "perception is reality" (which it doesn't really try to apply to real life, though it does make the point that how we view our problems can make a difference) and another one that boils down to "think outside the box" (which it does apply to real life). 

And now for the plot!

 

Basically, you the unnamed protagonist have signed up for SomnaSculpt, an innovative therapy technique that uses semilucid dreaming techniques. You're guided through your dream orientation by the Standard Orientation Protocol, a computer mind who I'm pretty sure the devs intentionally made to resemble GLaDOS (the antagonist of Portal).

 

Except the dream starts breaking down, and you eventually get lost inside your own head. This is when Dr. Glenn Pierce shows up (well, not in person; he talks to you pretty much exclusively through radios you randomly find). He has a lovely Scottish accent and, according to Plumy and Kittens (some pseudonymous relatives), sounds like he's narrating a documentary.

This is a videogame, and it's rated: E. I'd personally have maybe pushed it up to E10+, but "scariness" isn't actually one of the qualities the ESRB rates things on.

4 stars.

 

Favorite lines:

    People beyond this point with objects will be fined

    [one sign]

    People without items beyond this point will be fine

    [another sign right next to it]

    "Hello. My name is Dr. Glenn Pierce."

    [How Dr. Glenn Pierce always introduces himself.]

    "Hello. My introductions are redundant."

    [The Standard Orientation Protocol making fun of him.]

    Why are you like this?

    Clone an object way too many times

    [One of the achievement descriptions, obtained for cloning an object way too many times.]

(Endnote: The achievement for beating the game in under 30 minutes is called "Superluminal", which means "faster than the speed of light". I think it's hilarious.)

"All Quiet on the Western Front" by Erich Maria Remarque

This is my final essay for that literature class. Not in the sense of a final project, more in the sense of "it's ending after this year and I won't be writing essays for it anymore." So here goes.

All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

 

All Quiet on the Western Front is probably the world’s most famous war novel. Set during the First World War from the perspective of a German soldier, it shows the horror and brutality of war through that soldier’s experience.

The book’s setting is spread through almost all of the First World War, from the beginning to near the end. World War One is uniquely suited as the setting for a novel which aims to demonstrate just how terrible modern warfare can be. Though all wars are, by definition, violent, the First World War saw the introduction and refinement of modern weaponry such as machine guns, poison gas, flamethrowers, and tanks, as well as the first major example of trench warfare (though earlier wars such as the American Civil War displayed rudimentary forms). This, combined with the fact that it was waged on an unprecedented (though not unparalleled) scale and led to suffering in most of the European world for soldiers and civilians alike, makes it fit well with a message of “war is horrible.” In addition, the author served in this war and based the book on his experiences, lending it increased realism.

All Quiet on the Western Front is not particularly subtle with its message. It portrays the First World War and, by extension, war in general, as horrific, and through that hammers home the point that war is bad for people and shouldn’t happen. Erich Maria Remarque wrote it specifically as an anti-war novel, as well as to showcase the widespread disillusionment and trauma of the German people after the war. This is reflected in the character arc (what there is of it) of the main character, as well as the plot.

There is no real structure to the plot of this book. The main character and narrator, Paul Baumer, wanders through the war doing what he is told and internally philosophizing about it, and the plot wanders accordingly. There are no overarching story arcs, and even the main character’s arc is confined to being rendered increasingly emotionally unstable by the toll the war takes on him. It is the side characters who provide most of what narrative there is, as readers grow familiar with them and their actions; Paul Baumer himself either omits himself and his actions from the story or simply doesn’t have much of a personality (aside from the philosophizing, that is). Their deaths are thus an emotional blow to the reader, though the impact is dulled somewhat by the narrator’s detachment and stoicism. Notably, their absence has no real impact on the tone of the story, though this does serve to illustrate Paul Baumer’s attitude of “if you ignore the bad parts, they hurt less.”

In conclusion, All Quiet on the Western Front illustrates the horrors of war through the somewhat directionless journey of Paul Baumer, a German soldier, during the First World War.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: M. It's violent (often graphically), depressing, and occasionally obscene. That said, war is also all of those things.

3 stars. It's famous and respected and all, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.

(Endnote: This is the first book I've rated M in the entire time I've had this blog. There are nonfiction books [mostly history books about wars] who've gotten their subject matter rated M, but their content wasn't.)

"Area 51 Interns: Alien Summer" by James S. Murray and Carsen Smith

This book could have been good. I give it an A for premise. And once you've mastered the concept, all you need is to master the execution.

Unfortunately, these people didn't.

Now, bear in mind that I can't point out any specific instance of "this is lame," and it's not like there's bad stuff in it. It's just also not very good.

They're addicted to having people go like "I'm saying this IN ALL CAPS!". The prose is a bit (and occasionally more than just a bit) choppy and kinda lame. None of the characters have any real personality (more than just "I have a crush on this guy," "I'm scared of the aliens," "I'm nice to the person who has a crush on me," and "I'm brash and talk like a stereotypical Australian.") The one main plot twist is well-conceived but not well-executed.

There is one silver lining to this, though. It showed me that Mike Maihack's graphic novel series Cleopatra in Space, despite having arguably an even sillier premise, is actually pretty good. (There'll be a review of that coming as soon as I can get my hands on a copy of volume 6.)

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: E10+ for fantasy (well, sci-fi) violence (lasers and energy beams and such). Also some crude humor. And scared-of-the-aliens-guy defeats a laser turret by throwing his pants at it, then wanders around in his underwear without ever going and finding new pants for... I think the rest of the book.

2 stars. As before, it's not that there was bad stuff in it, the book was just lame.

(Endnote: There are at least two other books in this series. I will not be bothering with them.)

"What If? 2" by Randall Munroe

I liked the first What If? better, I think. My favorite hypotheticals from this one are:

"How many pigeons would it require in order to lift the average person and a launch chair to the height of Australia's Q1 skyscraper?" (|A few tens of thousands, or more than the mass of the galaxy, depending on how clever you get with your pigeon stacking.|)

"Can all the world's bananas fit inside all of the world's churches? My friends have had this argument for a little over 10 years now." (|Yes, they would fit.|)

"Dear Randall, what would happen if you shrunk Jupiter down to the size of a house and placed it in a neighborhood, say, replacing a house?" (|Jupiter is very hot and would violently explode.|)

"Why don't compasses point toward the nearest hospital because of the magnetic fields created by MRI machines?" (|They do, but you have to get pretty close.|)

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T for swearing, I think. Again, this would be a pretty fun videogame.

 

4 stars. I know I said I didn't like this one as much as the first, but that just means it's a less enthusiastic four stars.

Favorite lines:

    Decorating Tip

    The air in your house should be in gas form

    Page 14, from "Would there be any danger from standing next to a large object that was 0 Kelvin?"

    Q. What if your blood became liquid uranium? Would you die from radiation, lack of oxygen, or something else?

    A. [said by a stick figure in a lab coat] "You would die from what we in the medical profession call not-having-any-blood-and-being-full-of-molten-uranium syndrome. Or 'Jeff's disease' for short. Man, poor Jeff."

    Page 30. This is from one of the "short answer" sections.

    Q. What would happen if you microwaved a smaller microwave, while the smaller one was on as well?

    A. You would no longer be welcome in that IKEA.

    Page 91, from another short answer section. There's no "A." in the original text; I added it to forestall confusion.

    Congratulations to Australia, new rulers of the galaxy.

    Page 124, from "If every country's airspace extended up forever, which country would own the largest percentage of the galaxy at any given time?"

    "Can whoever is building these aqueducts everywhere please stop? We have enough!"

    "NEVER!"

    Page 158, from "How many people would it take to build Rome in a day?"

(Endnote: There's also one about "what if Nascar didn't have any rules and the only purpose was to get a car around the track as fast as possible", which ended up with building a particle accelerator the size and shape of the Nascar track.)

"Apocalypse Taco" by Nathan Hale

No, this Nathan Hale is not the one who regrets that he has but one life to lose for his country. This Nathan Hale is the one who wrote a hilarious series of history graphic novels featuring that Nathan Hale and various other recurring characters.

Apocalypse Taco is one of those books whose plots are so tangled and outlandish they get hard to explain. I'm going to try anyway, and not bother marking spoilers. It's also a pretty creepy book, so you've been warned.

Basically, a mad scientist (who is also a grad student) decided he could make a 3D printer out of radio-controlled bees. To do this, he had the bees 3D print smaller bees, then had the smaller bees 3D print even smaller bees, and so on until he had nanobot-sized bees that would 3D print things for him (using, as a 3D printer, a cardboard tube connected to his laptop). He also turned the bee queen into an eyeball, which he implanted in his head, and added DNA from about twelve other species until the nanobees no longer even remotely resemble bees.

The nanobees were contained inside the mad grad student's 3D printer (i.e. the cardboard tube). However, then they got out when his roommate broke the 3D printer fighting him off (when he tried to implant another bee-queen-eyeball into her head) and started copypasting everything. Except the mad grad student's laptop and his brain and the brains of all the copypasted clones of him don't have enough power to copy everything perfectly and paste it back, plus the nanobees only really 3D print with wax and everything they print is sort of alive. All of which ends up producing a nightmarish living pseudosentient city full of monsters that try to eat people.

And this is where our protagonists come in: two middle schoolers who were sent by their mom to get supper for the crew of their school's stage production of Brigadoon, the high schooler sister of one of them (she's driving them), and the mad grad student's original roommate (whose bee-queen-eyeball has gone insane and keeps copypasting more arms onto her whenever she lets it see anything). They get stuck in the nightmarish pseudosentient city when they try to go to the fictional taco restaurant Taco Bear for the supper they were sent to get.

Oh, and it turns out the nightmarish pseudosentient city is actually just simulated in the minds of the mad grad student and his copypasted clones (sounds like a rock band). It's basically their "clipboard", where anything they copy goes until they paste it into the real world.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T for some body horror (the mad grad student's roommate with the insane arm-copypasting eyeball comes to mind, as does the mad grad student's other roommate who's covered in spikes of dental enamel).

3 stars. The protagonists do escape the nightmarish pseudosentient clipboard city and confront the mad grad student, and if it had just ended there, I'd have given it 4; however, it actually ends with the mad grad student just copying everything back into the clipboard city again. Himself included this time.

(Endnote: My headcanon is that, right after the end of the book, someone from a Men-in-Black-like organization declared the mad grad student a threat to the world and killed his IRL version, dumping everyone back out of the clipboard. I have to have this headcanon because there isn't a sequel, so if I don't headcanon an ending, it's just left hanging unresolved forever.)

Asgore Dreemurr: The Second-Saddest Bossfight I've Ever Encountered

[Major, unmarked Undertale and Hollow Knight spoilers in this post, if you care about those.]

Of all the bossfights I've ever done, Asgore Dreemurr (the final and/or penultimate boss of Toby Fox's 2015 game Undertale) is the second-saddest. And by "sad" I don't mean "a disappointing pushover"; by "sad" I mean more of a sense of melancholy.

Asgore Dreemurr.

He, like his estranged wife Toriel (the first boss of the game), doesn't seem to actually want to kill you. He feels that he has to, and he's going to give it his best shot, but if it were up to him he'd really rather just adopt you. The entire fight carries a sense of "this is an inevitable confrontation that neither party really wants."

And like almost every other boss in the game, it's possible to get past him without killing him. Except then, just when you two are having a tearful reconciliation, he's murdered out of nowhere by a homicidal flower who takes his place as final boss.

So if Asgore Dreemurr is the second-saddest bossfight I've ever encountered, what's the saddest?

That honor goes to the Hollow Knight, the final and/or penultimate boss of Team Cherry's 2017 game Hollow Knight.

 

The Hollow Knight.

The Hollow Knight is the main character's sibling (their species, Vessels, are canonically genderless). By the time you meet it, it's been chained inside a dark, sealed temple for a very long time, probably decades or centuries. Its only companion is the angry moth goddess stuck inside it trying to get out. It, finally, encounters a friendly face (your character the Knight, and possibly your mutual half-sister Hornet), only for said friendly face(s) to try to murder it.

Oh, and possibly the worst bit? Each boss in Hollow Knight has a distinct "feel" to its bossfight. For example, the Gruz Mother fights like an herbivore, the Traitor Lord relies on overwhelming brute force, the False Knight is kind of flailing around, and Hornet (who is not a hornet) is testing you. But the Hollow Knight? It fights like it's in pain.

As the fight wears on, the Hollow Knight seems to be increasingly unable to contain the angry moth goddess it's supposed to be sealing away. There are also semi-frequent moments where it stabs itself, and I'm not exactly sure why it's doing that; my three theories are that A) the moth goddess is making it stab itself so she can escape; B) the moth goddess is the source of its pain and is mostly contained in its chest, and it thinks that stabbing itself in the chest might hit her; or C) all this has driven it to try to kill itself.

I just can't help feeling bad for the poor thing. None of this is its fault, it never really had a choice, and it's been stuck for who knows how long with only an angry goddess for company.

 

So... yeah. Second-saddest bossfight, Asgore Dreemurr. Saddest bossfight, the Hollow Knight.

 

(Endnote: I made myself sad by writing this. In hindsight, I should have realized that was going to happen.)