Annotated 16-14
(sigggh) You were doing so well last chapter, E-Merl. But let’s see if I can throw you a couple of crumbs here.
To be fair, he is correct that Rachel is nervous about this confrontation, and hey! It is pretty damn brave to volunteer to fight Frigg one-on-one in any circumstances.
Unfortunately, he’s still getting caught in a classic young-man-in-love mistake, one I’ve definitely made myself: he’s so eager to prove himself useful to Rachel that he ends up implying she can’t handle the burden of her self-appointed mission, the one that now defines her life. She recognizes his clueless good intentions, but that only goes so far, especially when her aforementioned nervousness is rubbing her patience raw.
John Gray’s Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus is not a perfect book, but it does a great job of explaining certain differing, traditionally male and female perspectives and expectations. Had E-Merl read it, he might’ve realized that his correct role here was to sympathize with her nerves but to believe in her. After all, she’s being brave too.
What would have been the reaction if he’d said “I’m just here to watch Frigg get her ass kicked.”
This is E-merl… the words would come out of his mouth as “I just like to watch”.
Certainly would of been better than what he did say. But hopefully he would of been smart enough to also say it through an illusory copy of himself… just in case Frigg decides to “train” him.
I always found this mentor/disciple thing Rachel’s doing kinda weird. One moment she’s like “Bestow your divine wisdom upon me, o exalted one!”, the other she’s like “I’m gonna teach you some things about yourself because apparently you don’t know anything!”
Kind of like entitled fandoms.
I see no contradiction. Even geniuses and heroes can have glaring deficits, and that can be particularly painful to see in someone you idolize. And who wouldn’t jump at the opportunity to teach your idol something new?
How else to deal with a natural talent coupled with a mind unwilling to learn?
It’s the difference between raw power and discipline. Frigg has one and lacks the second, which is curtailing the potential of the other. Rachel doesn’t have as much of the former but can see how her discipline has brought her to a point where she can match Frigg’s apathetic power. And she /knows/ that that’s going to be a hard lesson to Frigg, to be beaten by someone who inherently is a lesser fighter. If there’s anything that can drive the importance of discipline into Frigg’s thick skull, that is it.
A lot of those ways of thinking things are neat ways to look at stuff but get bogged down in unnecessary male/female association and trying to draw a firm line down the middle. Useful to figure out your own mind, but they try to paint themselves as a way to understand others’ minds without going through the trouble of actually talking to them.