Darkest Hour?

[Dire Moose]

I believe at one point that The Giant told us there would be three books left after Blood Runs in the Family. With Utterly Dwarfed now finished, this now puts us on the second-to-last book.

And let’s look at the track record for second-to-last installments. Particularly in fantasy series.

The Lord of the Rings: Actually divided into six “books” with each part of the trilogy containing two “books.” Book Five ends with the characters at a hopeless assault on Mordor to buy Frodo time, only to find that Frodo has already been captured by Sauron and everything falls apart.

Harry Potter: Book 6 of 7 ends with Dumbledore dead and Snape apparently revealed to have been Voldemort’s right-hand man all along. Harry decides he has to leave Hogwarts and hunt down Voldemort’s Horcruxes himself.

Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back ends with the rebels on the run and without a main base, Han frozen in carbonite and on his way to the hands of an angry crime lord, and Luke thoroughly defeated by Darth Vader, missing his hand and now knowing the terrible family secret. In the sequels, The Last Jedi ends with Luke dead and the Resistance homeless and decimated. The prequels don’t really count though as they were written specifically to set up the situation in the OT rather than being their own separate story.

I’m sure other examples can be found, but the result is the same. The penultimate installment always seems to end on the darkest hour, the absolute low point in the series, where plans have failed, the worst has happened, and the future is absolutely grim. Even in self-contained stories, you often see the same darkest-hour moment right before the final act. Given the story thus far, I doubt it will be any different in Order or the Stick.

And within the series, there is already a precedent to work from as to how this darkest hour is going to arrive. We have seen a consistent pattern in which one of the Gates is destroyed every other book. Dorukan’s in Dungeon Crawlin’ Fools, Soon’s in War and XPs, and Girard’s in Blood Runs in the Family. Also retroactively done with Lirien’s in Start of Darkness. So the most likely outcome is that the quest to preserve the fabric of reality will fail here and Serini’s Gate will fall. The next book will deal with somehow trying to salvage something in the aftermath, where we will finally find out what the deal is with the planet seen in Soon’s Rift and the ocean in Girard’s, and what has truly become of the Snarl.

What are your thoughts on this?

[Fyraltari]

I believe at one point that The Giant told us there would be three books left after Blood Runs in the Family. With Utterly Dwarfed now finished, this now puts us on the second-to-last book.

That doesn't seem right:

Yeah, it'll be seven, even if the last one looks like a phone book.

For the record:
1) Dungeon crawling Fools
2) No Cure for the Paladin Blues
3) War and XP
4) Don't Split the Party
5) Blood Runs in the Family
6) Utterly Dwarfed
7) A clever title for the one we're on now.

And let’s look at the track record for second-to-last installments. Particularly in fantasy series.

The Lord of the Rings: Actually divided into six “books” with each part of the trilogy containing two “books.” Book Five ends with the characters at a hopeless assault on Mordor to buy Frodo time, only to find that Frodo has already been captured by Sauron and everything falls apart.

Harry Potter: Book 6 of 7 ends with Dumbledore dead and Snape apparently revealed to have been his right-hand man all along. Harry decides he has to leave Hogwarts and hunt down Voldemort’s Horcruxes himself.

Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back ends with the rebels on the run and without a main base, Han frozen in carbonite and on his way to the hands of an angry crime lord, and Luke thoroughly defeated by Darth Vader, missing his hand and now knowing the terrible family secret. In the sequels, The Last Jedi ends with Luke dead and the Resistance homeless and decimated. The prequels don’t really count though as they were written specifically to set up the situation in the OT rather than being their own separate story.

I’m sure other examples can be found, but the result is the same. The penultimate installment always seems to end on the darkest hour, the absolute low point in the series, where plans have failed, the worst has happened, and the future is absolutely grim. Even in self-contained stories, you often see the same darkest-hour moment right before the final act. Given the story thus far, I doubt it will be any different in Order or the Stick.

I believe the technical terms are "the belly of the whale" (the hero is at their lowest point) and "eucatastrophe" (something terrible is on the verge of happeneing, i.e. the villains almost won).

And within the series, there is already a precedent to work from as to how this darkest hour is going to arrive. We have seen a consistent pattern in which one of the Gates is destroyed every other book. Dorukan’s in Dungeon Crawlin’ Fools, Soon’s in War and XPs, and Girard’s in Blood Runs in the Family. Also retroactively done with Lirien’s in Start of Darkness. So the most likely outcome is that the quest to preserve the fabric of reality will fail here and Serini’s Gate will fall. The next book will deal with somehow trying to salvage something in the aftermath, where we will finally find out what the deal is with the planet seen in Soon’s Rift and the ocean in Girard’s, and what has truly become of the Snarl.

What are your thoughts on this?

I doubt the Giant would go with an ending where 99.9999% of the population dies. Also the Oracle is due to be killed by a customer and resurrected a few months after Belkar dies, which will probably happen at the climax of the story.

[Emanick]

What Fyraltari said is, for the most part, spot on, but I want to point out that "eucatastrophe," one of my favorite words, actually means something quite different than "something terrible is on the verge of happening." It literally means "good catastrophe," or "great crisis," and more or less describes a sudden, seemingly improbable twist that prevents certain doom and results instead in a much more favorable outcome. It has some similarities to a deus ex machina, but a eucatastrophe tends to follow thematically, if not predictably, from the preceding events, and it tends to feel sublime rather than contrived - in other words, it has none of the negative connotations that deus ex machinas have acquired over the years.

OOTS doesn't feel quite like the kind of story that will have a eucatastrophe - they're quite rare - but if one does occur, then yes, I expect that it will have something to do with the planet on the other side of the rifts.

[Dire Moose]

My bad. I was wrong about the number of books then.

Regarding 99.99% of the population dying, can we really be sure that will happen? The gods certainly believe that it will. However, they do not seem to be aware of the world within the rifts either. There has to be something more going on.

[KorvinStarmast]

I believe at one point that The Giant told us there would be three books left after Blood Runs in the Family. With Utterly Dwarfed now finished, this now puts us on the second-to-last book.

The Giant has already indicated that this will be the last book, however big he has to make it in order to tell the story he wants to tell.

The Darkest Hour will be, I suspect, something heavily involved with the IFCC and will be, as with any number of the Giant's surprises, a substantial surprise that's been slowly building over time. I suspect that Roy's "we don't know what's going on" from an earlier book will be expanded into "taking down Xykon has diverted us from the real threat" and the book will wrap up with that as the ultimate conflict to resolve.

That's my guess. Along the way, Belkar will die.

[elros]

The Giant has already indicated that this will be the last book, however big he has to make it in order to tell the story he wants to tell.

The Darkest Hour will be, I suspect, something heavily involved with the IFCC and will be, as with any number of the Giant's surprises, a substantial surprise that's been slowly building over time. I suspect that Roy's "we don't know what's going on" from an earlier book will be expanded into "taking down Xykon has diverted us from the real threat" and the book will wrap up with that as the ultimate conflict to resolve.

That's my guess. Along the way, Belkar will die.

Xykon has been set up as the big bad villain, so if he is taken out, I think he will re-emerge and threaten everyone, including IFCC, the Dark One, and everyone else. It would be weird to have six books of Xykon being the villain, only to have him relegated to a second stringer at the end.
Maybe I am basing that too much on Darth Vader, but Xykon have no redeeming act in the finale.

[KorvinStarmast]

Xykon has been set up as the big bad villain, so if he is taken out, I think he will re-emerge and threaten everyone, including IFCC, the Dark One, and everyone else. It would be weird to have six books of Xykon being the villain, only to have him relegated to a second stringer at the end.
Maybe I am basing that too much on Darth Vader, but Xykon have no redeeming act in the finale.

Then why did the Giant introduce the IFCC in book IV, which is about the middle of the series, and link Sabine to them - a secondary character who had been with the story since the 'twins meet' at 0047? When we finally learn that Sabine has a boss (whom she visits well before the introduction of IFCC) and we then learn that the IFCC is her boss, my idea on "these ones have been a profound threat since before the story had begun" seems a little firmer.

When I compare the power, or the potential power, of the IFCC to Xykon, I find that Xykon comes in second.

Yeah, we are speculating here, but that's kind of what the OP established in the OP: tossing spaghetti at the wall. I think some of my noodles will stick.

[hroþila]

Yeah, personally I don't think it's particularly likely that Xykon won't be the final boss, but "the actual final boss wasn't the guy we just defeated and who was presented as the big bad for 90% of the series, it was this other character that was right there the whole time!" is a super common trope. There'd be nothing weird about it.

[137beth]

Xykon has been set up as the big bad villain, so if he is taken out, I think he will re-emerge and threaten everyone, including IFCC, the Dark One, and everyone else. It would be weird to have six books of Xykon being the villain, only to have him relegated to a second stringer at the end.
Maybe I am basing that too much on Darth Vader, but Xykon have no redeeming act in the finale.

I could see Xykon following a similar path as the Emperor in Final Fantasy II (i.e., the Star Wars-like story that handled the ending better than Star Wars itself). We could see Xykon seemingly eliminated early or mid-way through this book, then see someone else appear to be the main villain until much later in the book. Then, suddenly, Xykon reappears somehow far more powerful than before, and reasserts his role as the true main villain.

[Fyraltari]

What Fyraltari said is, for the most part, spot on, but I want to point out that "eucatastrophe," one of my favorite words, actually means something quite different than "something terrible is on the verge of happening." It literally means "good catastrophe," or "great crisis," and more or less describes a sudden, seemingly improbable twist that prevents certain doom and results instead in a much more favorable outcome. It has some similarities to a deus ex machina, but a eucatastrophe tends to follow thematically, if not predictably, from the preceding events, and it tends to feel sublime rather than contrived - in other words, it has none of the negative connotations that deus ex machinas have acquired over the years.

Fair. Serves me right for thinking I can post just before bed without fact-checking myself.

Then why did the Giant introduce the IFCC in book IV, which is about the middle of the series, and link Sabine to them - a secondary character who had been with the story since the 'twins meet' at 0047? When we finally learn that Sabine has a boss (whom she visits well before the introduction of IFCC) and we then learn that the IFCC is her boss, my idea on "these ones have been a profound threat since before the story had begun" seems a little firmer.

When I compare the power, or the potential power, of the IFCC to Xykon, I find that Xykon comes in second.

Yeah, we are speculating here, but that's kind of what the OP established in the OP: tossing spaghetti at the wall. I think some of my noodles will stick.

Xykon is also much less powerful than Hel is. Yes the Directors are an important threat and will no doibt play an important part in this book, but I expect them to be defeated before Xykon who will, one way or another be the final obstacle our heroes have to face.

The Directors have so far been almost non-characters. I'm not sure beating them would make as satisfying a conclusion as beating Team Evil.

[RatElemental]

7) A clever title for the one we're on now.

No more halfling measures?

[Fyraltari]

No more halfling measures?

You! Take my admiration and get out!

[Ruck]

Well, two of the three examples you cited are trilogies, which are structured differently than a seven-book series, so I don't think it being the penultimate

But this being the last book I also think likely takes the Darkest Hour off the table, since I expect this to be the climax, the culmination of all the storylines and all the work the Order has done to become a better team of heroes.

Plus, in my opinion, the Darkest Hour was probably #880-881.

[Precure]

Darkest hour/right before eucatastrophe moments:

2/3 into the story if we treat it as a trilogy.
Second to the last book jf we treat it as a 7 books saga.

[brian 333]

There will be a darkest hour in this book. I don't think it will be as dark as the 'We won?' moment.

Right now, (1246,) it looks pretty bad for the home team, but I expect it will get worse in a page or two.

Having a second BBEG replace Xykon at this point would be as unsatisfying as having one of Serini's monsters defeat him off-page. The story has built toward an ultimate confrontation between Roy and Xykon since Roy threw him at a gate.

There are certainly threads that could be tied up before and after the climax, but that just means we get a 'Scouring of the Shire' type denoument, (that all of the movies leave out.)

[KorvinStarmast]

Plus, in my opinion, the Darkest Hour was probably #880-881.

That's where I placed it, but of course I forgot to include that in my answer! Thanks for the assist!

[SlashDash]

I completely agree - Xykon is the main villain and will remain so until the end.
Everyone else - even beings more powerful than him like the IFCC, Hel or the Snarl mean nothing.

The order are the protagonists, but it was always clear that the main character is Roy and a big part of the finish has to be Roy eliminating Xykon once and for all and (hopefully) getting the respect of his father who will finally be allowed to go to the afterlife.

There is no way this will be dropped somewhere in the middle of the story here. This will be in the ending.

I would have thought this was obvious, but since it seems it isn't, I'd also point out that the author noted himself that Xykon is the main antagonist in one of the books.


As for the IFCC, I think their role is pretty obvious here. In #1183, they pretty much spelled out that their plan is the same as Hel. They want the world to be unmade, they hoped the gods would do it for them. Probably they have a way of interfering with what will happen next.

So basically, their role is similar to Hel. They are raising the stakes here.
She turned it from "If bad guys win, some lich will get to harm a lot of people" to "the entire world destroyed, all dwarves are tortured forever and the new world will be ruled by an evil goddess"

So since the author played that card last book, he has to raise the stakes even higher for this one. So whatever it is they are going to do, should be worse than Hel's plan.
Possibly preventing a new world from being created at all leaving outsiders as the only ones around? Thus no more humans or gods (since nobody would worship them) allowing demons and devils to rule over everyone (#668 implies they are planning to destroy among other things the good gods)

[Skull the Troll]

Yeah, personally I don't think it's particularly likely that Xykon won't be the final boss, but "the actual final boss wasn't the guy we just defeated and who was presented as the big bad for 90% of the series, it was this other character that was right there the whole time!" is a super common trope. There'd be nothing weird about it.

Theres even Tropes for it. Demoted to Dragon or Greater Scope Villain.