Playing With Fire review

[alobear]

Playing With Fire is the second in the Skulduggery Pleasant series by Derek Landy.

As with the first one, I like the characters a lot, the story is fast-paced and exciting, and overall it's a good read.

However, also as with the first one, it's very violent, and the characters' attitude to the violence is very cavalier.  Multiple peripheral characters get killed throughout the book, and nobody really seems to care, not even the 13-year-old heroine.  The only being she really shows any concern for is her reflection, which is killed in her place at one point, but the reflection is ultimately unharmed by the experience, and the heroine only seems bothered because it looks like her.

This is an attitude that seems quite prevalent in kids' entertainment, these days.

Case in point: an episode of Merlin I watched the other day.  A swordswoman came to the castle and challenged Arthur to a duel.  When he deliberated over what to do, someone said to him, "She killed five guards on her way in, so she obviously knows what she's doing."  Later, during another discussion about what to do about the swordswoman, Arthur said, "She hasn't done us any harm, so..."  Ahem - what about the five guards she killed?  Don't they count as "harm"?

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

In that vein, I always liked the dedication at the front of Pratchett's Guards! Guards!:
"They may be called the Palace Guard, the City Guard, or the Patrol. Whatever their name, their purpoes in any work of heroic fantasy is identical: it is, round about Chapter Three (or ten minutes into the film) to rush into the room, attack the hero one at a time, and be slaughtered. No-one ever asks them if they wanted to."
-Lx

[alobear.livejournal.com]

Precisely! Leave it to Sir Terry to hit the nail on the head with humour and pathos.