Blood 21

**Chapter 21**

I have decided to enlist the aid of a co-sporker. As awful as this series is, I have recruited the most happy, joyous being I could find to help me get through it.

Say hello to the people, Pinkie Pie.

Pinkie will be keeping my spirits up and trying to keep me sane as I slog through this . . . um . . . literature.

We return to the Big Stone Witch House where Verna is being condescended to by one of her subordinates, Sister Philippa. Verna, it seems, has repealed the “test of pain” that all young wizards were previously forced to endure, and Philippa is of the opinion that this is a Bad Idea. There's an uninteresting conversation where Verna tells Philippa “Too bad; I'm the Popette,” and explains that, in 3,000+ years, the Nuns should have come up with a better test than *freaking torture.*

Also, we randomly learn that Richard is *“twenty-odd years”* of age. On page 208 of Book 3.

Both Verna and Philippa rhapsodize about how awesome Richard was for a while, \~/ and then Philippa leaves. Verna's secretaries, Phoebe and Dulcina, present her with a stack of paperwork, and Verna thinks about how Phoebe in particular produces reams of it *“almost as if by magic.”*

Allow me to be petty for a moment.

While I know this book isn't anything so crass as fantasy (sure it isn't), it is set in a world with magical creatures, magical people, magical devices . . . magic. Magic is everywhere. Verna and Phoebe are both sorceresses, with a high command of magic-by-any-other-name. They can fire lightning bolts, use telekinesis, and who knows what else.

Thus, Verna thinking that Phoebe produces paperwork *“almost as if by magic”* sounds . . . stupid. It would be like me, a product of 21st Century America, referring to something being created “almost as if by technology.” The reason we refer to things as being created/accomplished “as if by magic” is because they happen unusually *fast* – fast enough that mundane explanations seem insufficient. But magic, in Dickland, **is** a mundane explanation. Magic exists. It can be learned and quantified.

Is this a major point? No. It's a minor slip, but that doesn't make it any less dumb. And I'm taking a drink for it, since “Terry Goodkind is too good for fantasy” makes him an objectively worse writer **of** fantasy. \~/

Verna tells Dulcina that she has a task for her; specifically, she wants her to interview the wizard and the young woman he got pregnant from a few chapters ago, along with the woman's parents. Cue three pages of strawman politics, as Terry Goodkind rails against unwed mothers on welfare.

\~/\~/\~/ A drink per page seems fair, don't you think?

Dulcina finally says she'll take care of it, after clearing the matter with Sister Leoma. Verna shoots down that bit of insubordination quickly enough, so good for her.

Phoebe and Dulcina leave, and Verna has a lengthy conversation with Millie the cleaning woman. Millie also says how super-duper-amazing Richard was, and over the next three pages we eventually learn that it was Millie who placed Ann's ring and letter on the pedestal where Verna found it, and that she gave them to Millie a good three weeks before her death.

Millie also passes on a message to Verna from Ann: don't work too hard. Har har. She also recommends that Verna use the “sanctuary,” which is a tiny building in the Popette's private garden, where not even Millie ever allowed to go.

And our chapter ends with Millie departing and Verna heading out to the garden.

Well Pinkie, what did you think of that chapter?

I agree completely.

Drinks: 5

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