osprey_archer | The Dark is Rising

One other thing I did on the camping trip is finally finish The Dark is Rising sequence, which was great fun even if it did take the series a few books to get going. I liked the first book’s jolly English adventure story air, thought the second and third were rather a slog, and quite enjoyed the final two even though Will Stanton remains as dull as two posts.

And even though the ending is the worst ending ever, OMG, disapprove times a million, I intend to pretend the last two pages never occurred.

How can Merriman possibly believe that it’s kind to make them forget about how they saved the world! I could almost see it if saving the world had been unbearably traumatic - although even then, obviously the kind thing to do would be to ask if they wanted their memories taken away, not to just take them -

But given that it wasn’t, they’re simply going to lose the memories of one of the most exciting and interesting and important periods of their lives! And I don’t agree at all that they’ll be better off that way because their lives afterward will feel anticlimactic or whatever. None of them seem like such adrenaline junkies that they’ll be unable to cope with going back to ordinary life.

And it’s extra bad for Bran, because it’s going to wreck his friendship with Will! Seriously, he’s going to forget almost everything they did together, because almost all of it was related to magical world-saving, so he’s going to basically lose his only friend because all he’ll remember is a few scattered moments when they weren’t too fond of each other.

Of course that will be dreadful for Will too, but at least he has his big happy family to take care of him, whereas Bran has only his curmudgeonly father and no friends.

So if Will goes back to Wales and sees Bran again, he would be like, “So remember when - or that time we - how about that moment when - no, all the building blocks of our friendship have been erased from your brain. God damn it.”

And Bran would be all, “Why are you acting like you know me (because of course he can’t remember any of their magical exploits and thus thinks they’ve barely spoken to each other), and also it seems like you actually do know me, oh God, maybe you are a creepy stalker.”

So yeah. I’m glad I finally read the Dark is Rising sequence, if only because I’ve been meaning to for lo these many years, but they aren’t a patch on The Boggart or King of Shadows for my favorite Susan Cooper books.