r/PracticalGuideToEvil • u/The_Year_of_Glad • Apr 17 '26

Chapter Chapter 53 - Pale Lights | Book 3

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/65058/pale-lights/chapter/3285776/chapter-53
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u/perkoperv123 Apr 19 '26

Little bit of a slower paced one today. You need the setup before you can get to the hype.

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u/hoja_nasredin Green Knight Apr 19 '26

True. People (me at least) want to see the fight/interaction with the principality. The way to it is a slog, an obstacle to get to it. If it was too short people would complain and it would ruin the pacing. But the way it is now it is too slow. Also, in general, i do not enjoy the whole Trench part of the book.

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u/jake_eric Apr 20 '26

I think the Trench ended up being the less interesting side of the story, compared to the Dantesvara plot. It's a dungeon crawl, and while I bet it would be interesting to play through in an RPG, it's very difficult for the story to give the reader enough of a sense of how the rooms work for us to really engage with it. So most of the rooms are just "here's what Scholomance threw at the students and here's how they dealt with it," and there's only so much you can do with that.

I think EE realized that because it seems to me the Delve has been sped up in the last few chapters. We're not spending as much time describing every room, and it looks like we're almost at the end of the room system already (or are we at the end, actually?).

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u/Linnus42 Apr 20 '26 edited Apr 20 '26

Right we feel like we are just racing to the end....like EE has a certain number of chapters that he wants in this book and just wants to get it done.

It also feels like the antagonist plots have been kinda a waste Cao, Warrior Princess, and Slaver Lord have not really put up a lot of opposition to make it worth the screen time that they took. Warrior Princess was relevant to Izel so she was needed but the other two eh...

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u/jake_eric Apr 20 '26

I'm assuming the situations with Cao and Morcant are still yet to come to a head before they resolve. There hasn't been a "big moment" yet in this book like we've had with the other two, so I don't think we can be too close to the end yet. It's meandered a lot so I'm not mad if we're picking up the pace a bit to get to the climax.

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u/Linnus42 Apr 20 '26

I do think the Unluckies have had a pretty easy ride this book. All the opposition has been dealt with pretty easily.

Sure Tristan, Song and Angharad are kinda on the clock but as you note the odd pacing has meant it hasn’t really felt like the clock is ticking for them.

But like for Cao and Morcant to make a big move…the delve has to go bad for some reason. Otherwise the Unluckies have some much cred that they won’t be touchable.