Thread:Balthus Dire/@comment-24828288-20160119154537/@comment-1969141-20160119164427

You're welcome.

I do like The Power of Five. Very much so. I discovered its "parent" series Pentagram in my teenage years and enjoyed it very much. Yes, I did enjoy the last one. A truly epic climax, bittersweet and sad, but with a beautiful ending.

You are right, it focuses more on the human side, but then again so did the entire story. To my mind, that's precisely what Horowitz meant to, and why this is a work of genius. I for one see the human side as the entire point of the series. Chaos and the Old Ones are the source/personification of everything wrong in our world, but the story focuses on its consequences and the struggle to make a better world.

Classical tales of Good versus Evil, like Star Wars or Lord of the Rings for instance ARE awesome, but if you ask me, they lack depth. They are to Black and White. They depict Evil as some kind of outside force that must be repelled. Defeat the Big Bad, rebuild society, the end. But here, it shows that humanity needs to struggle against itself if it wants to prevail against evil. The Power of Five wonderfully depicts such struggle.

Nightrise symbolises the worst of humanity: greed, corruption and so forth, while the Five and Nexus symbolizes its noblest aspects. Just see the contrast between Five leading in the front and the Old Ones leading from afar. The heroes are not paragon of virtues tempted by a demonic influence from without, they are relatable. They face their inner demons, with doubt, insecurity, loss of hope in one hand, optimism and trust on the other. Look at Chaos, he is not meant to be admired and enjoyed like many villains, Horowitz goes out of his way to show how evil is repulsive, petty and pathetic behind a mighty facade.

As such, the last book was a logical conclusion of it all. See the nightmarish world ruled by Chaos: there are less demons and evil forces than dictatorships, police states, rampant corruption, terrorism, excessive pollution, crumbling society, and even the freedom fighters became extremists. Exactly the troubles that might very well face, or are already facing. This story is entertainment AND a warning. The priest unable to face contradictions in his face, Scott overwhelmed by his trauma, who defects to evil hoping for the better life he wanted all along, before seeing the errors of his ways. The characters suffer real trauma due to the horrrors they face, they struggle physically and psychically. Like we all would. And Matt being a Christ-like figure, a betrayal from an ally that he expected and a sacrifice were to be expected. Sad but well-done.

Well, I was quite prolific. ^^ But you get the picture