[Dragaera] two words about _Good Guys_ (spoilers)

[Scott Schultz]

As the subject says, spoilers ahead:

>
>
 >
> G
> 
> O
> 
> O
> 
> D
> 
> 
> G
> 
> U
> 
> Y
> 
> S
> 
> 

I'm giving _Good Guys_ a second read-through before I decide too much about
it. It almost seems like an experiment in writing as much as anything. Can
we mix perspectives? Can we mix-up expectations about who is "good" and who
is "bad"? Can we run four different stories at once and have them all come
together in a single conclusion? 

_Good Guys_ is the kind of story that could spawn a Netflix original series.


Even with a spoiler tag, I don't want to give too much away, so it's tough
to talk too much about it. I'll say that the magical combat scenes seemed
odd to me in that there wasn't a whole lot of combat. It was as if we got
the preliminary and the aftermath but the actual battle was all confusion.
Don won the first fight via Deus Ex Machina, IMO, and I didn't understand at
all how that resulted in Susan's fate. The second one was a fight they
should have lost except that in full super-villain fashion, Svetya walked in
assuming  that she was untouchable. Instead, she was taken down by another
Deus Ex Machina.

I did think Marci's attack on William was an interesting way to fight him,
though I would have liked to see her more conflicted. In a lot of ways,
despite the "good guys" contempt for the Mystici, they weren't all that
morally pure themselves. But, of course, that's part of the central question
of the story - where's the line between "good guys" and "bad guys"?

Basically, _Good Guys_ was all about how machines trump people. The
"machines" in this case being magical artifacts with a pre-loaded spell in
them. Nick performed his missions entirely using legendary artifacts. Don
won the day (to varying degrees of won) against overwhelming odds in each of
his battles using artifacts. Apparently, if you want an edge, you have
plenty of gizmos in your pocket. 

My issue with Susan's fate was that it seemed like it only happened to make
room on the team for Matt. Basically, Matt was the proxy for the reader -
the guy who discovers that, hey, magic is real and there's a conflict
brewing and what are you going to do about it?

My biggest issue with the story what that I didn't get Don helping Charles
escape while giving Nick freely to Becker once he had milked all of the info
out of him.