Tolstoy, "Family Happiness," and types

Having left behind the matter of their age difference, Tolstoy returns to writing Masha as more of a young woman in part two of "Family Happiness."

However, as this is the part of the story where their marriage begins to break apart and is rife with emotional conflict, I'm back to questioning Tolstoy's choice of writing in the female voice.

Because Masha is significantly younger than Sergei, it's understandable that she's bored by the dull country life they lead in Nikolskoe. There's also nothing really particularly wrong with Tolstoy's use of Masha's introduction into society life in Petersburg as the catalyst for their conflict. Yet, I'm not sure he really captures the feminine voice in the same way that the female English Victorian authors did.

But I also don't think that's what he was attempting.

In taking on a voice that is not at all his own, Tolstoy's stretching himself out into humanity. As such, rather than presenting a single female voice that represents a generation of women's hidden thoughts and feelings, he makes Masha and Sergei into types. In very broad strokes they are the young and inexperienced, and the old and experienced respectively.

But those are broad strokes.

Though, even with such generalizations (maybe moreso on my part, who knows what Tolstoy was trying to do with "Family Happiness"), I think the reason I'm enjoying "Family Happiness" more than any of the Victorian novels I've read is because he seems to be striving more directly towards expressing human issues rather than happening to do so through self-expression.

Though, there's also something in Tolstoy's indirect way of going about his direct project.

In choosing to write in a female voice, the voice of the Other, Tolstoy is trying to show that the Other is still relatable despite surface differences.

Writing for myself, I definitely relate to Masha and can see why she stands where she does in her marriage to Sergei. After all, at the heart of her concerns is the matter of how much you can really truly know another person and their motivations, thoughts, and feelings.

Story as distraction from combat

Dragon Quest IX is actually pretty compelling when the plot's happening as you play. It feels much more like you're making actual progress rather than just wandering around.

That's not to say wandering around the game's world map isn't fun or interesting in and of itself, but there's definitely a sense of things moving forward when you keep running into cutscenes. And when the prices of weapons and armor pass into the 10,000+ gold range.

Part of why I'm grateful for the game's story having kicked in again is that it distracts from the grind of combat.

Dragon Quest IX isn't really an RPG that requires a lot of strategy when it comes to battles. Attack the enemy hard, watch your party members' HP and heal them when it's low. During boss battles, do the same, but throw in some stat-boosting spells to hit harder and to be able to take more hits.

So far elemental weaknesses are minimal and the benefits of exploiting them seem limited. Grouping the monsters into families (demons, dragons, insects, etc.) is definitely neat, but basing weaknesses on those families is meaningless.

Hiding this information in the game's bestiary (accessed through a sequence of menus) doesn't help matters either.

I would make a comparison to Pokemon and how easy it is to guess type and then know weaknesses, but it's hard to say just what all demons are weak to (crackle magic, since it's ice and they're fire?).

At any rate, the route to Upover winds around and around so much you'd think it were the last town in the game. All this talk of the Gittish Empire suggests otherwise, though. I know I've sailed past a mountain-locked land before, and that must've been it.

Well, onward and upward.

Torrent Peak complete

If you were to graph out the difficulty of Torrent Peak as a whole you'd get a sine wave.

The first two chain anchors can be tricky to get to because of the water wheel puzzle. The third chain's a snap. But then the master is a brute.

Basically the lower half of a Tentacruel with shell plates over its body, this boss is nothing more than a "guess-where-the-flesh-is" minigame. At least before you pull off the first plate of armour. If you miss the master flesh and reveal a tentacle or a node, then you've just added patience into the equation. Reveal a few more non-flesh areas and you've initialized the game's "dodge-while-handling-the-chain" tutorial. It's a bit too little too late, though.

However, at least in my experience, having fought all of the enemies in this tower's main room bulked up Aeron and the chain so much that a fully powered yank at the master flesh took out nearly 1/4 of the master's health bar. If it hadn't been for all the tentacles and defense-draining water orbs I'd have made squid bits of this boss in minutes. Instead Aeron died at its watery extremities before I managed to take it out.

Honestly, on reflection, this boss was once more completely new and innovative within the scope of the game itself. This game's being a continual parade of such challenges is something for which I commend the people at Ganbarion.

But, if it hadn't been for all of the stuff you need to dodge while trying to power up your chain, I never would've known about dodging while the chain is active. I'm sure this was mentioned in one of the game's early tutorials, but actually being forced to use it early on would have made it stick in my memory.

Anyway, aside from the game's generally increasing difficulty level, something else is on the rise in it. The horror factor.

Every master howls or roars once its HP reaches the halfway mark. Underneath the Torrent Peak master's howl, though you can hear a human cry of pain. A cry that sounds like it's coming from a child.

After the fight, when Aeron offered the flesh to Elena, she didn't meekly take it but pulled it from Aeron and then tore into it like a starved wolf.

Two towers remain now, and I have to say that I'm looking forward to what they have in store. Frustrations, feelings of horror/disgust, and all.

More on Poland'd be nice

Kohn's tour of countries that became nations takes him to Eastern Europe in the latest lag of his book (pages 518-543). Having some Polish heritage, but knowing next to nothing about the country, this has made these pages of Kohn's some of the most interesting for me.

However, by Kohn's assessment, things didn't really work out for Poland. Unlike nations like Italy or Greece or Sweden, it didn't quite awaken as a nation just yet. Instead, it weakened itself through its stirring and was ultimately swallowed up by Russia and Prussia only to emerge again later on.

Through implication while he's discussing Hungary, Kohn notes that things didn't work out for that country either because its nobility regarded itself as the nation and discounted those of lesser rank. But as far as I can tell that wasn't the case with Poland. If anything, actually, Poland's problem during this century of national awakenings was trying too hard and aiming too high.

Again, while discussing Hungary, Kohn mentions that the reason that nation and Poland failed to launch into a true era of nationalism in the eighteenth century is that they both put too much stock in past achievements.

Sure, I can see why trying to revive the past could lead to ruin. Conditions and variables change and more often than not can't be reset to just where they were when great things were done. But what bothers me is that Kohn doesn't give these two countries more depth of coverage.

Concentrating on Poland or Hungary's not his purpose in writing about nationalism so broadly, but a close study of some failures might have made all of the successes he's written about truly stand out.

An attack of plot

True to form, Dragon Quest IX plays on like all classic JRPGs. As soon as you've gathered the MacGuffins they're stolen away and you need to go retrieve them. In this instance, as you return to the Observatory with your seven fyggs you're hijacked, give them all up, and then are completely devastated.

Well, for the sake of the plot at least. 

Thankfully, the game doesn't force you to restart your party after you come crashing down from above. Nor does it force you into an entirely different class all the way back at level one. You wind up in Wormwood Creek and the game just resumes. 

Though that's how Dragon Quest IX rolls. The story comes in whenever you're at the connective parts of it, but there's far more game than is encompassed by its plot. The game's story asserts itself every now and then, but in a way that makes it appear as remote from the actual goings on in the physical earth as that planet is from the Observatory. 

But back to Wormwood Creek. 

There's a lot of talk of dragons around that town. This topic's so popular because of the dragon involved in your incident, sure, but I think there's more to it than that. 

While sailing around Dragon Quest IX's big ol' world I noticed a few places that were inaccessible without some way to travel through the air. 

The big plot point right now is that Wormwood Creek is the town meant to keep the town of Upover and its Hero of the Heavens safe. Said hero rode on a dragon in the legends about him. As something of a legendary hero myself, perhaps a dragon will come my way in the game, too?

All a matter of experience

Masha and Sergey are now married. But such was not a psychologically easy undertaking for Masha. 

I feel that Tolstoy's handling of the female psyche took a bit of a dive once it turned to the matter of marriage. He had a lot to work with because of the age and experience gap, but Masha's worry and concern over feeling things that she'd not felt before when with and thinking of Sergey seem slightly overwrought to me. 

I've lost the impression that Masha is particularly a woman being written by a man. This sense has since been replaced with knowledge of a person with very little experience of the world entering into a commitment with another who has a great deal of experience of the world. 

However, some of Masha and Sergey's talks circle around Masha's fears about their marriage. And, in doing so, it's possible that some of her anxieties were implanted, or perhaps just encouraged, by Sergey's questions to her. 

I imagine that part two (where my bookmark currently sits) of this story will be much like act two in a play. We'll rejoin the characters after some time has passed and see just what their marriage has come to.

Two chains broken, one chain lost

At last, the second chain in Torrent Peak is broken. Just one more of them and then I never have to return to this dungeon again (except maybe to get through the mysterious door that needs a key).

Trouble is, I'm not exactly sure where that last chain is anchored. The first two were obvious. You can see them with ease on the second and third floor of the room with the water wheel. But the third chain is nowhere to be seen. And unless I'm misreading the map, there's nowhere left to go in the tower - except through that locked door.

But that can't be it because I haven't come across a key yet.

Yet, on close inspection of the map, there is a red mark indicating a door that I haven't passed through before. But that mark is layered underneath the marker for a chest I've already opened. It could be that there's a door somewhere around there (maybe just below it) but getting to it could be tricky.

Well, whatever I have to do, I've turned the whole too-many-monsters-in-the-main-room thing mentioned in past entries on its ear.

To keep from drawing more than one to me I've taken to using the chain to slam them into walls. They take a few more hits with this method than when they're given consecutive tastes of scythe, but seeing them crash into a wall and still come running back for more is truly satisfying.