Alexandra Quick and the Lands Below: Author's Notes (Chapter 12 — Crucio)

[inverarity]

Chapter 12 — Crucio

In this chapter, Alexandra demonstrates again that she really is quite formidable — but as usual, not quite as formidable as she thinks she is. Although that's not really a fair criticism. It's not that she overestimates herself, but rather she underestimates what she's up against.

“Stupefy!” Alexandra shouted, not even slowing down. A red beam shot out of her wand and caught the surprised lookout full in the chest. He collapsed against the wall behind him and slid to the ground, legs splayed out at an awkward angle. She stepped over him and kept going.

She heard gasps and cries of alarm as she stormed through the doorway, and found herself facing over a dozen Mors Mortis Society members. John and Sue were in the center of the room. Alexandra felt sick fury when she saw that John was holding a knife, and Honey was lying on the ground at his feet.

“You psycho!” she shouted, pointing her wand at him. “Expelliarmus!” The knife spun away with a flash of light.

However, at age twelve, Alexandra has not quite realized her limits. (Okay, I know you're thinking "Well, she hasn't really learned them by age fifteen either." That's true.) She's used to being able to intimidate people with the force of her personality, and even physically dominate boys her own age. (This is the last year she'll get away with that — recall what happens when she tries it with Billy Boggleston in AQATDR. Puberty can be remarkably unfair that way.)

Now she's facing a boy who is not only older and stronger than her in every way, but just plain evil in a way she has yet to confront.

John's other hand lashed out and caught her by the throat, and she was so startled she almost dropped her wand.

John squeezed, and growled, “Turn around, walk out of here, and never come back, or –”

Memories from last year were flashing through Alexandra's mind, when Ben Journey had seized her by the throat while she was bound and helpless, just before his final attempt to kill her. It wasn't something she thought about often, though she had relived it more than once in her dreams. She felt a flash of rage, and John cried out and let go of her, thrown back by an invisible force. He shook his hand as if it had been burned, while she gagged and staggered away from him, clutching her neck with one hand and pointing her wand at him with the other.

Being a witch is a bit of an equalizer when it comes to physical confrontations, but she still loses the subsequent brief duel with John. And he proceeds to Crucio her.



Yuck. That's a pretty horrible picture. I spent a lot of time getting the poses and the facial expressions just right, but the clothing and textures look like plastic shrink wrap. The prop John is wearing was originally a kimono, which I simply retextured with a plaid flannel pattern. I've gotten a little bit better with clothing props, but it's kind of embarrassing to look at now.

Anyway, John gets a little too carried away, evidently enjoying torturing Alexandra. She has a very strong will and refuses to beg.

At last it stopped, and she heard John say, “Why don't you beg?” He leaned over her. “Or would you like us to bring your little Chinese friend down here, too?”

Her response was defiant and profane, as she rolled over and punched him in the face. He jerked back, rubbed his nose, and pointed his wand again. “Crucio!”

It was even worse the third time. Alexandra cried out once, then flipped over onto her belly, and then rolled back over, as if there were some way to escape it, and the torment just went on and on. She remembered Nigel twitching and writhing around, and she felt like her poor snake, thrashing and twisting in agony.

I'll never beg, she thought, but hot tears were blinding her and it was becoming hard to think about anything but the pain, and the thought of John doing this to Anna made her want to throw up as much as the pain did –

“That's enough!” someone yelled, and the pain stopped. Blinking, Alexandra lifted her head, to see that Maximilian had stepped into the center of the circle. His hand had grabbed John's wrist and yanked his wand away.

One of my earlier betas, miles2go, thought Alexandra was approaching Mary Sue territory here with her resisting Crucio and punching John. I disagreed, since I think a strong will (really, the hard steel core beneath her "stubbornness") is one of her defining character traits, and it's not as if she's defiantly laughing off the torture. I leave it a bit open-ended as to whether she'd have broken eventually, since Max intervenes, but I do think she would have gone down like the Longbottoms, resisting to the very end.

“I don't think you can break her. All you can do is drive her out of her mind, or kill her.” And as Alexandra shuddered, Maximilian told John, “I'll take care of her.”

There was a long pause. Alexandra was dragging herself to her hands and knees, but she was all out of heroic acts of defiance – it felt like it would take a heroic effort just to stand. She was aware of tears running down her face, and couldn't do anything about it.

Max saves her, and in so doing demonstrates all the moral equivocation we discussed earlier. He saved her, yes, but he let her be Crucioed three times. Was it cold tactical calculation, or lack of empathy? He expresses guilt to her afterward, but he let it happen. Surely he would not have hesitated if someone had been doing that to Julia. And he only saves Honey because Alexandra begs him to.

He walks her out of the MMS meeting, gives her a tongue-lashing for being such an idiot, and then drops the Big Reveal on her.

“The Mors Mortis Society invited me for the same reason they invited you. Because Abraham Thorn is my father.”

Her mouth opened, but she couldn't find words. Having endured one shock after another tonight, she could only listen wide-eyed as Maximilian said, “I'm your brother, Alexandra.”

I really enjoyed the reactions from the readers who'd already been predicting a Max/Alex ship. Not that the Big Reveal didn't stop some of you pervs. :P

This was one of the most important chapters in the book. Lots of plot and character development, no filler. I do see a lot of writing weaknesses in it, though — flaccid, wordy sentences and Alexandra "hissing" a lot. So, I give it high marks on plot, low marks on prose. I think (hope) I conveyed the drama and the tension pretty well, from Alexandra's realizing just what she was involved with, to her torture scene, to the revelations from Maximilian. This was meant to be an intense chapter. Did it work?

Comments

[shinygobonkers.livejournal.com]

Seems realistic to me and did on first read too. From all of that I've read about torture, a large part of the reason it isn't actually a great method for interrogation if you want the actual truth is because people innately react differently. Some will give in at the mere threat of pain, some may lie even after serious torture, some will end up dying without giving in to what torturer wants. People react to pain, even intense pain, in different ways. It might only be a small minority that would be as stubborn as Alex, but they do exist.

And yeah this chapter was awesome.

[graeme sutton (from livejournal.com)]

Yeah, none of this struck me as remotely unrealistic or mary-sueish. One thing I wondered re-reading this is if we're ever gonna see Sue Fox again. Somehow Johnny doesn't seem like the type that anyone would care about avenging, but any chance we see her with the Dark Convention later as a minor antagonist? Or even joining the Thorn Circle?

[inverarity.livejournal.com]

You never know when characters might show up again...

Conjuration

[maciek paprocki (from livejournal.com)]

I'm rereading AQATSA and I have a question about Conjuration. Rowling says it's a branch of Transfiguration, very difficult (animate conjuring more than inanimate), taught in NEWT level classes.
In AQATSA, Alex intimidates Johnny and Trish into following her by conjuring a beetle. Still, in chapter 35 we read:
"When she was tired of throwing hexes, she practiced transformations and even some elementary attempts at conjuring inanimate objects. Teachers at Charmbridge could conjure desks, chairs, and even doors at will, but that was something not taught until Advanced Charms I. So far, Alexandra had not even succeeded in conjuring a pencil.
If Alex can't conjure a pencil, why should she conjure a beetle? Did she study ahead with specific intent of conjuring insects? And why does Charmbridge cover Conjuration in Charms curriculum?

Re: Conjuration

[graeme sutton (from livejournal.com)]

And yet Malfoy is able to summon a large venemous snake in 2nd year.

Re: Conjuration

[maciek paprocki (from livejournal.com)]

The key word here is summon. I am not sure how exactly Serpensortia works (no one is, seeing that Rowling never left a spell manual...), but there must be a difference between straight-up conjuration and summoning animals. Rowling herself said that things conjured from thin air tend not to last long. They seem to exist, to exude scent, to have certain texture, to have weight, but are essentially an all-sense illusion. Nigel, 'conjured' by Manuelito, lived for two years and did not dissolve into thin air. He was not conjured per se, he was summoned, presumably from Australia.

Re: Conjuration

[inverarity.livejournal.com]

Perhaps the authorAlexandra was careless with her terminology. Or she's just really good at conjuring bugs. :)

[tealterror0.livejournal.com]

It's been a while since I read it, but I remember this being a very good chapter. I certainly found it intense.

I agree that Alex resisting the torture wasn't really Sue-ish, especially since it seems John was going relatively easy on her (until the 3rd Cruciatus, at least). I kind of think the term "Mary Sue" is thrown around too often anyway, and while I disagree that it's inherently sexist, it is notable that female characters get the label more often than male ones.

Alex is exceptional in a number of ways, but ever since the 1st book I think you've always done a good job of balancing her out with some massive character flaws that legitimately cause her huge amounts of trouble.

[shinygobonkers.livejournal.com]

I think female characters being called Mary Sues happens more for pretty simple reasons. Most of the time, the term is used in reference to characters in fanfiction. There are vastly more female writers of fanfiction than male. People have a tendency to write characters, especially OC characters, that are in some ways similar to themselves, and I think people are more like to sue/stu characters that in some way are basically 'me as I'd like to be if I was inserted in thus story' which there is a subset of writers that gravitate towards. Put that all together, and you got a whole bunch of sue characters and somewhat less stu ones.

[tealterror0.livejournal.com]

This is true to an extent, but I think it's much less true now than it was 10 or even 5 years ago. Nowadays, I get the impression that characters in original fiction get called "Mary Sues" almost as often, if not more often, as fanfic characters do. Moreover, even if you exclude fanfic altogether, I think a lot more female characters get accused of being Mary Sues than male characters get accused of being Gary Stus.

I admit this is all anecdotal, but back when I was involved in HP fandom I saw people complain about Ginny or Hermione being Mary Sues a lot more than they complained about Harry being a Gary Stu, despite the latter being more plausible. And of course, Batman and James Bond are huge Gary Stus, but the label rarely gets applied to them.

[cactuscommando.livejournal.com]

I don't think this makes her a Mary Sue at all, its in character. Alexandra marched to her death on a broken ankle when she was only 12 years old, she can withstand being crucioed.