MS: The Path to Opulent

Lore forum

Posted on May 15, 2019, 12:35 p.m. by RicketyEng

In which we see the next few chapters of the novel once again from Rat's perspective. Today's story brings us up to the end of Act 1.

My excitement is growing now that it definitely looks like we're getting the entire book from Rat's perspective. She is easily one of my favourite characters.

RicketyEng says... #2

A couple of awesome things to note:

  • a viashino planeswalker! (no matter how short-lived) We did see his bit in the novel.

  • Kasmina! She wasn't even so much as mentioned (certainly not by name anyway) in the novel. This was exciting to see her in action for the first time.

May 15, 2019 12:38 p.m. Edited.

DemonDragonJ says... #3

In this week’s story, the frantic pacing continued, with numerous characters appearing but having little focus, although the brief mention of rat’s family was interesting, and I hope that WotC explores that further, in the future.

Before now, I had long suspected that Bolas recruited Domri well before invading Ravnica, as he did with Vraska, Kaya, and Dovin, but this story revealed that that was not the case; how could Domri change his allegiance on a whim? Did he seriously think that Bolas would treat him with respect and regard him as a valuable ally?

Also, I feel very sad for that viashino planeswalker, who was killed only moments after they appeared; what was the point of that? And how is it that none of the other planeswalkers were killed when they appeared? They cannot all have been aware of the situation, so they cannot all have been prepared, making it rather blatant that the viashino was only a nameless fodder who was killed to establish Bolas as a deadly threat.

Are these stories excerpts from the novel, or new to this column? I hope that they are the latter, because writing of this quality would never be acceptable in a book that was being published for money. Also, considering that Greg Weisman created Gargoyles, one of my favorite television series, ever, I would expect higher-quality writing from him than this.

WotC can claim that it is a coincidence, but the sheer number of characters all being involved in this battle and its pacing make it seem very similar to the final battle scene in Avengers: Endgame, so I do hope that, after this set, the story and conflict are much smaller in scale and more personal (i.e., the final arc of Rurouni Kenshin in comparison to the arc that immediately preceded it).

May 15, 2019 8:43 p.m.

RicketyEng says... #4

These stories are the novel from Rat's perspective. Each numbered section is a chapter she appeared in (usually from either Teyo or Kaya's perspective in the book). In the novel there are other chapters in between these chapters which show other events happening (such as Domri being the first to get harvested which was witnessed by others but not by Rat).

The novel is told in third person instead of first person as Rat's Tales are being told. She is a motor mouth so her narration is falling in step with her character.

There are actually many "red shirt" planeswalkers who appear on Ravnica and get harvested as the day goes on. Some get to fight a bit first and some are as unlucky as the viashino. Bolas hadn't cast the Elder Spell until Domri got harvested so the planeswalkers weren't in quite the same level of danger up until that moment.

Today's story brought us up to the end of Act 1.

May 16, 2019 midnight

DemonDragonJ says... #5

RicketyEng, in that case, I definitely shall read the novel, but I currently am actually reading Nemesis, so I need to finish that novel and then Prophecy before I can read any others.

May 16, 2019 3:03 p.m.

Please login to comment