Dragonstone 35

**Chapter 35**

Arin, Samurai Chick, Egil, and the crew rush into the hold, trying to find the source of the screams. It proves to be Alos, who is shrieking about the bilges and trolls coming to get him, and clearly out of his mind with terror. He panics and tries to hide in the hold, and we get to YET ANOTHER FREAKING FLASHBACK!

Young Alos – he's 30 in the flashback – is the helmsman of the ship *Sostråle*, the crew of which has just figured out they're being followed by a mysterious black southern ship that refuses to answer their signals. Assuming it means them nothing good, they attempt to run for it, but it pursues. As night falls, they devise a plan to slip away sideways, but the black ship suddenly lights up with a greenish glow, and immediately afterward, so does the *Sostråle.* The crew begins to panic at this evidence that the enemy ship has a wizard aboard, and at the realization that it's crewed by goblins and the like.

As the enemy ship closes with them and ogres prepare to board, Alos freaks out and abandons his post, fleeing to hide in the bilges. In a bit that takes about two pages, the Rupt take the ship, everyone is horribly killed, and a bit of ogre blood drips between the decking into Alos's eye, blinding it. Alos remains hiding in the bilges, nearly out of his mind with fear, but the enemies do not find him. They take the cargo, then ram the ship and sail merrily away, leaving Alos to cling to the wreckage until he's found and rescued by a passing Dragonship. For whatever reason he doesn't explain the situation, only saying that his ship foundered.

“*He began drinking that way – 'To forget,' he said – and he stayed that way for thirty-three years.”*

I'm about to get angry.

Do you remember how McKiernan kept beating us over the head with what a pathetic drunk Alos was, and emphasizing how he's disgusting and vile? Do you remember Alos's drunkenness being played for laughs?

It turns out Alos isn't just a Comical Drunk in the tradition of Otis of Mayberry, or Homer Simpson. Alos started drinking *“to forget”* in response to a horrifying experience that nearly killed him, and did kill many people he knew. This experience so severely traumatized him that his only source of solace was oblivion – he drank to make the pain of the memories go away. In short, Alos has post-traumatic stress disorder.

PTSD is not just a disorder of combat veterans; it can be caused by many kinds of trauma, and no two people handle the same trauma exactly the same way. Some combat veterans return home from a warzone none the worse; sometimes people develop PTSD from an automobile accident. An experience like Alos's could absolutely cause this, and in a pre-industrial world without any knowledge of psychology, and with Alos having no friends, family, or other support group to turn to, I could easily see him spiraling down into drink and despair.

I didn't realize this at first – I thought McKiernan just wanted a “comical” cowardly drunkard. But no; McKiernan knew full well why Alos was drinking: in a desperate attempt to escape the horrifically painful memories of the horrifying event he had endured.

And that's why I'm angry. Because McKiernan presented Alos as a comical, cowardly, drunken old sot, made fun of him, and invited the readers to do so as well. Alos was not treated sympathetically by the narrative, or by the characters. His terror and his addiction were treated *comically,* as personal failings rather than what they are: symptoms of a disease.

Remember Samurai Chick insulting him? Remember her physically assaulting him? Remember Egil and Thar and others laughing at her abuse of a frail old man? That old man has PTSD. That old man is still mentally trapped in a nightmare scenario that he can only escape through heavy drinking. That old man has been going through hell every single day and night for thirty-three years, and now we readers are expected to laugh at his abuse, mockery, shame, and assault.

Fuck you, Dennis McKiernan. This is despicable. Fuck you, and shame on you for doing this. Shame on you for mocking, insulting, and physically assaulting a sick old man and playing it for comedy.

I'm not taking any drinks for this, because I don't think it's appropriate to even indirectly derive humor from it. Also, I am genuinely angry now. I think I need something cute to calm down.

That's better.

The *Gyllen Flyndre's* first mate comes rushing in, demanding to know why Our Heroes are terrorizing a passenger, and Arin explains that they came in response to the screaming. Arin wonders why Alos is on the ship at all, and Egil reveals that he got him drunk and brought him aboard the previous night because Arin indicated that they might need him.

So, to put that in more accurate terms, Egil drugged Alos and kidnapped him. Egil, you are an asshole and I hope you die. \~/\~/

Arin asks Samurai Chick if she approves, and Samurai Chick reveals that not only does she approve, she helped. Well, fuck you too, you hypocritical racist caricature. \~/

I now actively hate 50% of our protagonists. Awesome.

Arin directs the crew to haul Alos back to his cabin as she goes to get some medicine to calm him, and the chapter ends.

Drinks: 3

<Previous Chapter  -  Next Chapter>