Dealing with Dragons - Chapters 9 to 12

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Prof. Sky Alton
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Dealing with Dragons - Chapters 9 to 12

Post by Prof. Sky Alton »

I’m much better at hopeless causes
Here we’ll be talking about chapters 9 through 12 of Dealing with Dragons.

Here the stakes of the story really start to reveal themselves and the plans afoot get a lot more serious and unpleasant. However, we also encounter a lot more of the whimsical, fairytale humour like a person called Jack only wanting to return home and grow beans and a prince destined to do a favour to a king having a serious oversubscription issue. Do you think marrying quite light-hearted and humorous fantasy with darker elements works? Why or why not? Would you have like to see even higher stakes?

One darker element that comes in handy is spoiler tags, use them.
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Prof. Tarma Amelia Black
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Re: Dealing with Dragons - Chapters 9 to 12

Post by Prof. Tarma Amelia Black »

As Sky says,
the plans afoot get a lot more serious and unpleasant
I was totally surprised at the apparent turn of the story! It had been all sort of fun and games, no serious stuff at all -- aside from the threat of being eaten and things like that.

I really don't like Antorell. I wonder what foul deeds he will do. <_< I enjoy the friendship that Kazul and Cimorene have developed. Cimorene seems to be really concerned about Kazul's health ...

Then Cimorene meets yet another person and this is sort of hilarious ... "I'm a prince," the man said in a gloomy tone, "and I'm reaping the rewards of my folly." Cimorene says right out that she doesn't want to be rescued from the dragons, and YAY, the prince responds "I have no interest whatever in dragons, I assure you". However, it turns out that he does have interest in something else. ....

As for Sky's question -- it's the story! This is how it unfolds, and having a quite "light-hearted and humorous fantasy" mix "with darker elements" is just how it is. This shifting of tone sort of reminds me of the Harry Potter books -- how book 1 is SO different, by the end of the saga, from book 7 -- and how the books sort of escalate in darkness from 1 to 7.
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Prof. Scarlet Leslie-Lewis
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Re: Dealing with Dragons - Chapters 9 to 12

Post by Prof. Scarlet Leslie-Lewis »

The combination of light-hearted and humorous fantasy with darker elements is part of the reason why I like this series so much. I enjoy mysteries in general, so I really liked how the story was unfolding. This was the first time that I came across the re-telling of familiar fairy tales, which I thought was so clever. Nowadays, though, it is almost commonplace with the entire Shrek franchise, Tangled, and The Lunar Chronicles to name a few.
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