Team Registration - The Whole Glory

[Ataraxis]

As judged by Ataraxis, with scores and comments discussed and agreed upon by Ebivoulya and Tristam, the members of Panel B.

Trial Judging
Team 'The Whole Glory'

Hello to the both of you! I’ll be your judge this evening. This trial was short (relatively) and sweet, and quite enjoyable to read. Just a little bit over 2000 words also, so obviously no penalties. I’ll let the rubric do the rest of the talking!

Story –3.75/5

I know that Honuse was sent to kill and reap the souls of worthy warriors to fill Vallhalla, and that Till, after being defeated by Honuse, was obligated to follow him on this endeavour. While I expected to learn a bit more about their unlikely association (perhaps a short reference to the trial that occurred in Logopolis’ profile history), I think you both did well enough for a trial. Their identities and motivations for coming to the tournament were clear, though Till was a bit more of a mystery than Honuse. Still, you both wrote a very engaging prelude to the actual tournament battles.

The setting was accurately described in the earlier posts, though it became a vast stretch of emptiness during the battle itself. No one is asking you to stop mid-swing and smell a rose, of course, but incorporating key elements of the setting into the battle are good ways to retain the reader’s awareness of your character’s surroundings. You both managed to write fairly evocative descriptions that contained a lot of their culture: for example, when Till saw the landscape shift and could not feel the solidity and permanence of the earth, or when Shadowed wrote a description of the rising sun that incorporated a certain amount of mystique by mention of Sol having wandered astray or of different, foreign celestial being tasked with a similar role. As far as interaction with the setting goes, however, there wasn’t much. I expect that in future battles, your use of magic will give you more opportunities to have your characters interact with their surroundings.

Pacing wasn’t a problem in the later posts, though there are times when you both could cut a sentence in two distinct ones to avoid run-ons and an excessive number of commas. A good example of where this did occur is Shadowed’s first post and paragraph. I suggested a few alternate formulations in the joint notes below.

Character –3.875/5

The dialogue in this thread was used very shrewdly. Not only does the formal, borderline archaic language help us understand what kind of world and era they came from, but there was also a lot of good exposition. It didn’t feel tacked on or exaggerated to the point of being comedic, Ã* la Eye of Argon. What parts may have felt exaggerated are mitigated by the context and your characters’ personalities, which were appropriately shown in this battle. Vicious but honor-bound Honuse, cunning and efficient Till: they would make perfect complements for a two-man army if they didn’t dislike each other that much. Till’s refusal to let Honuse go on a rampage, as well as Honuse being surprisingly reasonable after being defeated and subsequently agreeing – although rudely – to fight as equals and abstain from slaughtering anyone outside of an official battle. The reference to Sol will probably be lost to anyone who didn’t read your character’s history, Logopolis, but it was admittedly very good. So was the ending line, which was also fraught with Norse culture.

The action was also interesting here, because even though the strikes were simple, they were complemented by insightful analyses and introspections. Till’s observation that Honuse never learned and that his beast-like rage in battle is only an advantage to those who did not expect it showed he had keen battle senses that contrasted with the Lawmaker’s battle instincts. That made his successful prediction of Honuse’s next move that much more interesting to read. Shadowed showed less depth in Honuse’s thoughts during this battle, but in a way, that was within his character. I would have better enjoyed reading the battle on Honuse’s side if there had been an extra layer to his thoughts: maybe not a characterized analysis like Logopolis (as that wouldn’t be in character), but something more raw and that shows his ruthlessness. Moreover, when reading this battle, it didn’t feel like he saw the world through a colorless fog, and the reader wouldn’t even know that he didn’t have any eyes if you hadn’t said so in the first post. Letting the reader see glimpses of the battle from that fog-vision would have been interesting – as would have been a short mention of his platypus-senses.

Writing Style –4/5

You’re both very skilled, and your use of technique was more than adequate in this trial. From the cultural allegories to the circumlocutions, or the more basic metaphors and similes, I believe you’ve displayed quite a panel of efficient devices. The writing was fluid and easy to read during the battle, though as I’ve said before, a number of run-ons and excessive commas did affect it negatively.

As far as mechanics go, though, I don’t remember seeing a typo anywhere, and both the grammar and syntax were nigh-flawless. As such, your clarity score is also quite high, although Shadowed did thicken the text a bit with the play-by-plays, as seen in post #3. Otherwise, there were no issues with the story’s clarity.

Final Score –11.625/15!

Notes for Team ‘The Whole Glory’

Numbers between parentheses are post numbers. Even-numbered posts are Logopolis, odd-numbered posts are Shadowed.

Shadowed, after reading your first paragraph, I noticed a somewhat jarring number of commas that slowed my pace of reading down a lot. Just by tinkering with the punctuation, it reads less like an Inspector Gadget mission statement: “Far beyond the seemingly infinite nothingness sat a bastion of life – a crossroads to the universe, flourishing in the abyss. Untold multitudes of people of all forms and species, even beyond the vast knowledge of the Lawmaker, went about their business in preparation for the events to come. It was here that Thor, lord of warfare to the northern people, had commanded his servants to the Whole Glory the reaping of worthy souls unto the great halls of Valhalla.” To improve it stylistically, it’d need either to be reformulated or expanded upon.

For it was with the barest trace of a smile visible from under his executioner’s mask, that he pulled a pair of short swords (1) Starting a sentence with a coordinating conjunction makes the reading awkward, and this isn’t one of the a few cases where it’s acceptable.

(1) Few people know how the singular and plural work in Norse, so seeing ‘dvergr’ and ‘dvergar’ used can elicit a few double takes. I don’t know of any viable, IC way to resolve this, as I don’t expect your characters or narrators to go into an etymological explanation at any given time. Just thought I’d point it out. Just in case you’re wondering, no points were docked here.

Turning to the dwarf, Honuse Relaiyent shrugged off the touch, bringing himself nose to nose with the one he saw as an unnecessary weight to bear, despite having a firsthand knowledge of the being’s martial prowess, having defeated him in single combat at the behest of his lord. (1) Quite a run-on sentence, with a similarly large number of commas as in the first paragraph. “Turning to the dwarf, Honuse Relaiyent shrugged off the touch. He brought himself nose to nose with the one he saw as an unnecessary weight to bear, despite having a firsthand knowledge of the being’s martial prowess after having defeated him in single combat at the behest of his lord.” Or, alternatively: “Turning to the dwarf, Honuse Relaiyent shrugged off the touch, bringing himself nose to nose with the one he saw as an unnecessary weight to bear - despite having a firsthand knowledge of the being’s martial prowess after having defeated him in single combat at the behest of his lord.”

Ginnungagap (2) More of a comprehension matter. You can’t take for granted your readers’ knowledge of the finer points of Norse Mythology. Names like Thor and to some extent Sol are okay, but knowledge of terms present in the cosmogony of a mythology probably aren’t. You did imply that it was a void in the parenthesis that ended your paragraph, but the association felt incomplete. A more direct link would have helped. I’m not going to dock points here, though. Just remember to be slightly more informative in the future and it’ll be fine. I had to look for Yngvi, too, and it’s apparently an older name for Freyr. Then again, that one was at least in a context that helped the reader understand it was a god.

And this is more of a pet peeve, but parentheses rarely are seen as aesthetical in writing. I’ve seen occasions in which their use was effective, but in these cases dashes or simple commas can be used to good effect. Just be wary of not having too many of either, though you’ve been rather good at balancing your punctuation so I’m not worried.

placing enough of his decay (2) I was confused here when I first read, and I had to read your profile to understand. The mention of his racial ability was too subtle here, but something akin to “placing in it enough of his aura of decay to grab some attention’. Otherwise the decay makes it sound like he himself is decaying, and the putrescence of his touch would be enough to attract attention and possibly harm by infection. You could then use ‘inherent’, ‘innate’, ‘natural’, or even ‘racial’ to make it clear that the aura is a racial ability.

“Very well. Best me with steel alone, and your qualms will be justified in my eyes.” (2) I’ve also mentioned in other judgments that it’s not necessary to take someone’s dialogue in whole and insert it into your own post. It’s even a bit jarring, actually. Referencing that line of dialogue in the narrative is one way. In your case, I can understand that it was put there to emphasize that they were the only words he heard before the swords came swooping. Instead of simply plugging it into your post, you could for example dismantle it into the two most important parts: “Best me with steel alone,” the dwarf heard with rising apprehension, “and your qualms will be justified in my eyes.”Of course, the interpolated clause can be replaced by anything you think would fit better. It looks less like the author blatantly reminding the reader of that line of dialogue, and more like an emphasis on what words alerted Till to the danger of an impending battle.

aiming a deft knuckle-punch up past the polearm, aiming his strike for the chin of his opponent (3) it didn’t sound like you repeated ‘aiming’ for style. In this case, replacing the first one by ‘throwing’ might have been more adequate.