I feel sorry for Arhys (Astonishing story discussion)

[Heavens_Cove777]

Who else feels kinda sorry for Arhys in The Astonishing?

I mean, his whole dilemma was centered around Gabriel and Xander. He decides he's rather die and lose everything than to turn on his brother. BUT...Gabriel seems indifferent as if he didn't really care about Arhys. Gabriel acts like Faythe meant more to him than Arhys. Little did Gabriel know that his brother was divided and torn morally. Little did Gabriel know that Arhys had his life in his hands and could have easily gave him up...lol

[fischermasamune]

I don't really agree. I think Arhys was very well treated as a brother, and also as a revolution partner.

And about meaning more, what does it mean to mean more? Assuming we have a proper meaning for what 'to mean' means, who should mean more, a spouse or a brother?

[MirrorMask]

Well, actually in the lyrics Gabriel's despair for his brother's death, while clearly stated, it's basically mentioned only once, while it takes 10 minutes of the album (imagine this as a stage production running in real time) to despair over Faythe.

Anyway, Arhys was dead but Faythe was (mortally) wounded, so once you go through the shock of seeing your brother already dead, it's only logical to cling desperately to your love who hasn't died yet. Not much use to cry over a dead body when the other most important person of your life is laying wounded.

[TAC]

Why would the OP think that Gabriel was indifferent to Aryhs' death?

[Skeever]

I don't really feel like there's enough going on in the Astonishing for me to really feel cathartic about any of it. It's like listening to a musical, without the visual aspect or spoken scenes. Now that I know what's going on, I feel I understand a little bit better what the band were going for, but overall I still don't connect with anything about the plot, Arhys included.

[TAC]

I don't really feel like there's enough going on in the Astonishing for me to really feel cathartic about any of it. It's like listening to a musical, without the visual aspect or spoken scenes. Now that I know what's going on, I feel I understand a little bit better what the band were going for, but overall I still don't connect with anything about the plot, Arhys included.

That's too bad. It's really cool.

[rumborak]

I'm with Skeever in the sense that TA has too many characters, and at the same time too few lyrics, to get any kind of listener's emotional involvement going. To use the obvious point of comparison, 2112, it worked because it had one central character that you identified with. TA on the other hand wasted precious time on dead-end plot elements such as the militia (which had no discernible function in the story) or tropes (Evangeline's death serving as motivator for Arhys). I mean, there's a total of 8 characters. JP could easily have cut Evangeline, Daryus and Xander and end up with a much more compelling story. I think JP just got too excited at the creation of his own Game Thrones that he couldn't see the liability such a big cast introduces.

EDIT: 2112 obviously, not 2012.

[Adami]

To use the obvious point of comparison, 2012, it worked because it had one central character that you identified with.

John Cusack?

[rumborak]

Yeah, 2112.

[IDontNotDoThings]

I was just thinking about this earlier today, if Gabriel & the rest of the townsfolk could save Faythe with the power of music, why couldn't they do the same with Arhys?

[Mosh]

Faythe had ear protection which made the stabbing less severe.

[TheCountOfNYC]

I was just thinking about this earlier today, if Gabriel & the rest of the townsfolk could save Faythe with the power of music, why couldn't they do the same with Arhys?

Arhys was dead while Faythe was dying.

[devieira73]

Faythe had ear protection which made the stabbing less severe.

Good one!

[bosk1]

I was just thinking about this earlier today, if Gabriel & the rest of the townsfolk could save Faythe with the power of music, why couldn't they do the same with Arhys?

Arhys was dead while Faythe was dying mostly dead.

Fixed.