At 01:18 PM 6/14/02 -0400, Thomas Yan wrote: >David Goldfarb <goldfarb at OCF.Berkeley.EDU> wrote on Fri, 14 Jun 2002 00:02:17 >> >> I read _TRiH_ first and thought it was mildly clever but mostly kind of >> pointless. (My apologies to those of you who like it, but I have to call >> them as I see them. > >When I first read it, I think I found it interesting, but was >frustrated at how stupid the characters were behaving. > >When I reread it recently, I liked it more. I was more sympathetic to >the characters; it read like a tragedy. > >> I especially disliked how you could tell which >> side a given character would end up on by their name.) > >That was true for about a handful of characters, but I guess for the >rest "ignorance is bliss": The names weren't familiar and didn't >strike me as obviously belonging to one side or the other... > >...Oh. Wait. > >*** (potential) Spoilers for To Reign in Hell *** > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >How did you know Abdiel's side from his name? Was it the "iel" suffix >-- did all such characters have the same allegiance? Abdiel literally means 'servant of God'. ;) It's been a while since I read _Paradise Lost_, though. I agree that TRIH comes off more as a tragedy, but it's epic material.