12A猫で学んだこと-Memoir-

...What are you learning now?

Review of Spy School Goes to North.

Note that this submission includes a spoiler about Spy School series up to Spy School Goes To North.

I think Spy School is one of great novels.
English is not my mother language, but I can recommend this series to many people with confidence.

This month, the latest book of the series Spy School Goes To North was published. Is this a good book? "Not bad, but not great." is my comment just after I've finished reading it.
I feel both of excitements and disappointments in this story.
The idea comes to me that it would be beneficial to sort out my ideas why I could not enjoy Spy School Goes To North thoroughly.

In my reviews, I would like to focus on 2 perspectives, contrasting the contents of the latest volume Spy School Goes To North against the previous books.

The abrupt development of relationship between Zoe and Svetlana and rebellion of Svetlana

I am sure that the author succeeded to describe a large part of relationship between agent-in-trainings unless they are related to Zoe up to Spy School Goes to North.

I immersed myself in development of relationship between Ben and Erica. At the first part of Spy School, it was one directional admire from Ben to Erica, although Erica found Ben's remarkable personalities in the latter part of this book.
After the first book, their multiple missions continued. They nurtured their trust while they dealt with the various problems and they confronted the difference of their vision of lives in the middle of these processes.
For example,
"Cooperation with other people is required or not?"
"Friends are weakness or assets in espionage?"
Their ideas conflicted while they succeed to solve missions.
Via their interactions, their mind changed a little by little. Especially, Erica's interpersonal policy had changed clearly. It is clear that mutual trust was very firmly established in Spy School Revolution, in which Ben believed her innocence no matter what happened and Erica determined to regard this trust as a romantic love in Spy School at Sea, where she kissed Ben at the last scene. I enjoyed these evolutions of relationship very much.

In contrast, description of some relationship of Zoe was not good.

In Spy School at Sea, it was revealed that Murray had unrequited love toward Zoe.
I assumed there was no foreshadowing about this fact. This plot was not necessary for remembering the password for stopping the detonator.
Though, this point is not closely related to the pivot of the story, so it is not so critical. It may be useful to support the situation where Zoe felt disappointment in romantic relationship between boys and girls, though.

In Spy School Goes to North, both of Svetlana and Zoe fell for each other at first encounter. I do not deny the romantic relationship between girls, rather than that, I have a good impression for introducing romance between girls after Zoe was upset about bitter relationship with boys. I also do not criticize the relationship which starts from crushes of first sight, though there was some opportunism that both of Zoe and Svetlana fell for each other without their interaction.

What I could not understand is that Svetlana betrayed her grandfather, colleagues, and country because of only the crushes toward Zoe, which is not typically sufficient motivation. Other factors or interactions with Zoe are required to justify this development. For example, I would have understood her action if she had embraced very deep negative emotions toward their family and country in prior to betrayal. Or, I would be intrigued by the plot if the mutual trust had been established between Svetlana and Zoe and it had surpassed Svetlana's loyalty to her family and country at the moment when Svetlana had to decide her side.
However, these processes were not described. This made the character of Svetlana very flippant and I felt she was just a machine to proceed the story, not a human or a respectable character.

If Svetlana disposes her family and country only for emotional desire toward one person, she needs the extraordinary profound feeling similar to the one between Ben and Erica, which was nurtured with 10 volumes of series. I would be very glad if the author used at least a part of one book to establish the mutual trust between Svetlana and Zoe.
Or, though it is sub-optimal, the author could provide the reason of mutual feelings and trust between Svetlana and Zoe by introducing the past events prior to the story as the author did for chivalry and trust between Mike and Ben. (For example, Zoe and Svetlana were childhood friends when they were little. ) I could not understand motivation of Svetlana at all since there was not this kind of contrivances.

Unsophisticated correspondence of Ivan and submarine crew and break of the structure of concise binary opposition

Typically, the plot of Spy School is splendid, however, the plot of Spy School Goes to North was somewhat sloppy for the events related to Ivan, the grandfather of Svetlana.

There is lack of reasons and motivations that Ivan betrayed Russia and his crew submarine crew members. Saving Svetlana was not sufficient motivation for Ivan to stop destroying Alaska since it seemed not difficult for achieving both objectives of rescuing Svetlana and destroying Alaska. He could pretend to accept the offer by Erica. Then, he could order the captain of the ship to detonate the oil reserve after securing the safety of Svetlana.
Ivan was a patriotic and competent spy of Russian and had obsessed grudge against United States. It required very strong reason for him to betray his country.

In this series, the author utilizes the relation of the simplified binary opposition of good versus bad very effectively such as "CIA versus Spyder". The criminals or villains were completely bad. Their motivation for crimes are typically self-centered and very egoistic, which are straight-forward but persuasive so that readers can logically understand the actions of criminals. At the finale of the book, the good people such as Ben or Erica thwarted evil plans and the readers became satisfied that the evil perished and the good thrives. Readers could close the book very satisfactorily. This is the basic formula of the plot of Spy School. It is simple and effective. In Spy School Goes to North, the author destroyed this structure by betrayal of Ivan.

Demolition of structure itself is not bad, however, the development is too abrupt and unreasonable. If the author wants to destroy the fundamental structure of the story, sufficient preparations are required.
Ivan was depicted as the evil (for United States) till the last part of the book, which is similar to other villains of the series.
There was no reason for Ivan to convert from the villain for the United States. The author assumed that the family love was sufficient for Ivan's behavior, which was brought from Alexander's inspiring persuasion. The family love was used previously as one of factors to affect the villain's action. In Spy Ski School, Leo Shang could not escape from CIA because he could not take the plane alone, discarding his daughter Jessica Shang. However, Ivan was in the different situation from Leo Shang' case. He could solve independently the problems of his love to his daughter and his country. I felt the author failed to provide satisfying evidence to justify destroying the structure of the good and the evil. It was very sad that concise and beautiful structure is sullied at the finale of the story, abruptly and unreasonably.

Conclusion

I feel the author considers various ideas to introduce stimulating plots while he has to differentiate them from the previous ones in this very long series. The author succeeded in this point at Spy School Project X. The existence of internet conspiracy theorists made the structure of the plot more intriguing.
At Spy School Project X, the new element of the plot is attachment or addition to the existing binary opposition of the good versus the evil (CIA V.S. Murray), so enormous description or preparation in the story may not be necessary.

On the other hand, the author tried to change or destroy the existing binary opposition at Spy School Goes to North, which should require sufficient work to convince the readers about the justification of the change of plot.
I felt author's work was insufficient.

Spy School series is a very interesting story. I am sure that I will definitely buy the next book. The author has very high level of skills for describing the scenes and humors. I could not count how many times I laughed while reading this book. The development of relationships, especially the one between Ben and Erica are very splendid.

I think the author can create however complex story when he put the same enthusiasm into the steady processes of plots and change of emotions as he did as in depiction of Ben and Erica.

I am looking forward to reading the next book of Spy School. I wonder what kind of surprise or twists the author skillfully will prepare!

April 2023

自分が初めて12A猫に参加させていただいてから、大体9年ですか... 9年! 自分が小学校1年生の時に参加したとしたら、もう中学校を卒業ですね。

最初の3年間ぐらいと、その後で自分のプレイスタイルは結構変わった気がします。 参加し始めたころは皆様についていき、ゲームの勝利を目指して動くことに精一杯だったけれど、 慣れてきてからは、どのようにゲームを味わうかということに考え方がシフトしていったかな?

自分には人狼の強さとかはよくわからないけれど、 後からログをみたときに、「いいゲームだったな」と思える時間をたくさん作れたら、 それがきっと、"人狼ゲーム"の勝利なのだろうなーと思います。

人狼でも現実でも、 うまくいかないときもあるけれど、 明日も頑張っていきましょうー!

March 2023, ... prior to 3 days.

こんばんは、 StudentSです。
PCのファイルを整理していたら、
人狼の特殊村用と思われるメモがありました。

12月24日深夜。雪が綺麗に舞う中、ようやくバイト先から解放される。  
駅前はお祭り騒ぎの余韻が残り、カップルたちのイチャイチャが聞こえてくる。   
  
耳をふさいで帰路につく。  
誰もいない玄関のドアを開けて、自分に向けて「今日もお疲れ様。」と声を出す。  
  
...それは、こんな人でも、楽しめるものですか?  
ほええええ!  
それはクロウカードですか?  
雪兎さんへの気持ちはYESだったのかな  

(注: おそらくCNが"桜")

恋の残り香はまるで雪の結晶のように。  
雪華図説ですか?  
松阪牛じゃない。  
「高い食材」より、相手のことをちゃんと考えて料理をする、  
そんな気持ちが大事だと痛感できる料理ですか?  
それは、お姉ちゃんの元カレが高校の担任の先生になるのと同じぐらい気まずいことですか?  

どんな気分で上の文章書いていたんだろうなー

さてさて、まだ寒いですが気をつけていきましょうー
来月がいい1か月になりますようにー!

2023, Feb.

村に参加させていただきました。 下記の村は反省でですね・・・

No.504067「騙りに優しい12A猫」村

  • (強反省点)Nulさんから指摘されましたが、初日の狂人さんの投票要素には気がついておきたかった。
  • (検討点)初日のギドラCOは一考したけれど、狩人CO者狼を強めに見てしまいましたね...

情報整理の勘が鈍くなっていることは間違いないなー
次に本格的にやらせていただくときには観戦と村を数村させていただいてから・・・だな・・・