Artemis Fowl And That One Time Opal Koboi Went Full Disney Villain

Artemis Fowl and That One Time Opal Koboi Went Full Disney Villain

Ah yes, the book that explores the aftermath of trying to mind-wipe Artemis Fowl and the consequences of assuming that just because your archnemesis is in a coma, they're not plotting their revenge. It's no secret that we stan Opal Koboi in this house, but uhhh...not gonna lie, she makes that REALLY DIFFICULT in the early chapters of this book. Let's talk Artemis Fowl: The Opal Deception.

*As per usual with sequels and books that aren't the first in the series, spoilers abound below the break.*

Opal Koboi being hated by her entire engineering class in college--Foaly included--is most easily and canonically chalked up to systemic fairy sexism. I'm not here to dispute that charge, because there was absolutely airy sexism involved, but I submit to you, dear reader, that the fact that Opal had matered cleansing comas by age 14 and could literally study in her sleep might have also had something to do with it. Although if it had, Foaly might not have been so lackadaisical about letting Opal rot in the J. Argon clinic.

Let's just take a minute to appreciate that cloning herself and plotting a breakout from a stupid secure mental health facility with ADDED LEP SECURITY is the BACKUP plan. Because hot damn honey, replacing yourself with a clone requires a level of planning that is like, fourth-level chess master with a flair for the dramatic--and we'll get back to that flair for the dramatic in a second, because it is fully on display for every single one of Opal's three main plots in this book.

Her first main plan is to get revenge on Holly and Root for disrupting her plan to become Empress of Haven by framing Holly for Root's murder by tricking Holly into taking a practically impossible shot to disarm an explosive device that was strapped to the Commander's chest and broadcasting video but not audio of the whole event to the LEP. Like, Opal. My girl. That is simultaneously brutal and dramatic of you.

And the thing about the entire scene is that it's really, really damn well written. I got this book on release day, and bawled all the way through this and I think the next couple of chapters. The extra cruel thing that Opal did here was choose a murder weapon that there was precisely ZERO hope of coming back from. Holly may have managed a four-minute healing for Butler in the last book, but as (I'm pretty sure) Foaly says, "magic doesn't work on melted slop." The bomb Opal strapped to Root's chest doesn't just kill him, it collapses the chute tunnel behind Holly as she makes a desperate bid to escape in time to rescue Artemis from another bomb. There was no way to bring Root back from this, and because Opal is a high-drama nemesis, Root is of course suffering the whole way down. The bomb is strapped to his chest using octo-bonds, and Opal spends the entire scene remotely tightening them, slowly crushing Root's chest while Holly stands six feet away to stop the proximity sensor from blowing them both to kingdom come. Root's death is brutal, painful, and Holly spends the entire rest of the book mourning him. It is HEARTBREAKING for a middle grade death scene, and really hella extra for a middle grade villain.

Opal's plan for revenge on Artemis is a bit less moustache-twirling, but not by much. She has clocked that Artemis is really into art theft since his mind wipe, so she gets to The Fairy Thief before he does and plants a bio-bomb tracker in the painting tube that will activate once the tube is opened. So her plan was for Artemis to die in a moment of ironic triumph while Holly looked on. Because oh yeah, Holly bails on the explosion in the Haven chute just barely in time on the hope and prayer of saving Artemis. Unfortunately, Holly gets to the hotel just in time to see the bomb go off. Artemis is fine because Butler is just that damn good, but Holly is having arguably the worst day if her life.

As she collapses to the roof of the hotel trying to process the fact that three of the most important people in her life have just been murdered in front of her--and the niggling worry that the sweet spot might not have been real and she might have just flat-out killed Root herself--who shows up to gloat? Opal goddamn Koboi. In tow Opal has a second bio-bomb for Holly that she barely escapes by containing it with her helmet. As a bonus side effect, Ark Sool and everyone in the lower elements thinks Holly is dead now, because all her vitals flattened simultaneously as the bomb fried her helmet. So now Foaly is also having a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day.

And in a brief sidebar: Opal might be a dramatical cats villain, but we love her. We DO NOT love Ark Sool, because his ass made Foaly go over the footage of Root's death with a fine tooth comb to try to prove Holly's guilt, and even Foaly almost breaks because he literally has to slow-mo through the footage of Root being blown to hell multiple times. Like, Foaly just has PTSD now. That's just a thing that Ark Sool casually did to the centaur who is almost single-hoofedly standing between humans and the People. NICE GOING, ASSHOLE. We hate Ark Sool.

Now, Opal's track record for successful plans in this book seems to have begun and ended with cloning herself and having the Brill twins break her out of the Argon Clinic, because her revenge plan is 1 for 3, and her backup revenge plan just gets WILD. On discovering that Holly and Artemis suvived, Opal captures them and drops them in a defunct theme park that was human wonders of the world themed and is currently overrun by trolls. And the really wild thing is that Opal had to have either done this before or else has the best freaking team in the world, because the exits are newly blocked and there are little screens with gloats on them scattered throughout the whole park. Holly and Artemis do escape, but it would have definitely easier if the LEP hadn't mind-wiped Artemis, because he was definitely not working with a full deck and kept trying to just *wait out the delusion* instead of actively running from trolls with a taste for human flesh. None of that is ideal, but thanks once again to Butler and Mulch, Artemis and Holly live to foil Opal's big main plan.

The TLDR on this plan is to throw humans and fairies into a massive war by exposing the fairies when they try to sneakily scupper a human attempt to mine the mantle for power. This involves a lot of warheads and phsyics and attempts to direct a metric ton of molten metal eating through the earth's crust. For being the objectively highest stakes plot, the book doesn't spend a whole lot of time on this, and I can't blame them. Opal going full vengeful dramatic villain is WAY more interesting. Unfortunately, Holly and Artemis do manage to thwart Opal, who has the meltdown of all meltdowns right before she spends a week as a human child on a farm--for complicated reason that I cannot be bothered to explain here, because Opal Koboi is objectively too fantastic and dramatic to deserve that...except for how she kind does deserve that for what she did to Commander Root.

Ark Sool probably also deserves it, because he doesn't let Holly attend Root's funeral, and proceeds to bury her in internal affairs investigations. We really, REALLY hate Ark Sool.

So overall, this book really marks a turning point/new beginning for Artemis and Pals, and this book is where Opal Koboi arguably shines brightest because our girl is UNHINGED and we love to watch it happen. Even if we do start watching it through tears.

Drop in recommendation

I read the Heart Test by Helen Hoang tonight and it was really good.

Emotionally harrowing in some parts*, but I found the HFN/HEA conclusion extremely satisfying. I cried and cheered and urgently wished for a specific character to be launched into the sun

More detailed thoughts to come but! Another recommendation

Spoilers below for what made it harrowing (not detailed, just like in the form of content warnings)

Parental death. Ableism. Suicidal ideation. Austistic burnout following masking. Cancer (character had testicular cancer innpast year)

Oh and there are sex scenes! Those aren't harrowing but JSYK. They're nice sex scenes though.

Book shelf clean out: young wizards

I loved this series! I don't know where my copy of the 1st book went but the others are on their way to the library bookstore, and I hope they find a new home there

It was hard to say bye to these books (but I plan to get the new millennium editions in ebook soon... and i need the space). I read them when I was in high school and college.

They're really excellent, set in Our World (not fantasy whatever land). They remind me in some ways of Terry Pratchett's work--not the setting or voice, but in the underlying ethos of the work. Although the characters go through difficult things (big warning for A Wizard's Dilemma), the world overall feels... kind?

More things to love about this series

Hispanic & queer representation, if you pay attention. In other, more recently-written series, these aspects of the characters might have been played up. In this series, those aspects are still present but more subtly. I actually like this because it's more fitting with my experience of the world. It also serves the story itself better and allows the characters' choices and actions to be the focus of the story.

Even in the case of the antagonists, the characters are... They extend civility and understanding to the antagonists, but they don't veer into "all-forgiving hero" territory. The story doesn't get into really black-and-white good-and-evil morality, but it isn't that tiresome "everyone sucks enjoy your undifferentiated grey." The heroes are heroic because of how they choose to treat others.

I love it when stories say "the way you treat others does matter." Kindness is repaid with kindness.

The styles of magic are cool too! I think many people have read "this character has a connection with plants and growing things" magic before. One of the other characters has a connection with mechanical and technical things! There's a scene in one of the books where he communes with, I think it's an airplane? And he can feel its eagerness to be flying, its fierce joy in speed and movement. I think that's lovely.

There are some good jokes in there, like the pig!

If you love space and astronomy, you'll probably like this series :) Especially the later books.

If you like alien cultures (and more traditional fantasy other-cultures) you'll probably like this seriies

Overall I just really enjoy these books and recommend them okay byeeee

THE MURDERBOT DIARIES: A Fan Animation

Subtitles in English, Spanish, French, and German.

In early 2021, as talk of a Murderbot Diaries adaptation was underway, fans of the series started asking each other questions like, "What would we want to see from an adaptation of our favorite book series?" and "Wouldn't it be cool if this or that scene was animated?" and "Hey, don't YOU know some things about animation?" and "What if a bunch of fans got together to make a Murderbot fan animation?"

Two years of teamwork later, the Murderbot Diaries Fanimation Project presents our labor of love: a fully realized animation adapting scenes from the first four novellas into a trailer, dedicated to showcasing everything we love about the story of our favorite rogue SecUnit.

Make sure to leave a like and share the video if you enjoyed our animation! And tell us what you liked about the video on our social media:

Ask the team on Tumblr | Instagram | YouTube

CREDITS

TheSteelChimera @thesteelchimera - Voice of Murderbot, Production Coordination, Script

Alex from Mars @imaginariumgeographica - Voice of ART Kebi/SpiralofDragon @spiralofdragon - Voice of Mensah, Character Design

Verso - Voice of Ratthi, Social Media

Kes @kesbeacon - Voice of Gurathin

brokenRAmodule @broken-risk-assessment-module @contakaidigon - Production Coordination, Backgrounds, Animation, Script, Storyboard, Character Design, Editing, 3D, Sounds & Music

theash0 @theash0 - Production Coordination, Animation, Editing, 3D, Graphics & Effects

Cephei - Backgrounds

ChimaeraKitten @chimaerakitten - Backgrounds, Graphics & Effects

Jude - Backgrounds

Livyatan @groovyleviathan - Backgrounds, Character Design Lue - Backgrounds, Animation

Nirelaz @nirelaz - Backgrounds, Animation, Lighting, Sounds & Music

sometimesihaveideas @sometimesihaveideas - Backgrounds, 3D, Sounds & Music

TechnicalToad - Backgrounds

Vanessa - Backgrounds, 3D

Alex van Gore @alex-van-gore - Animation, Storyboard, Lighting, Sounds & Music

audzilla - Animation, Lighting, Graphics & Effects

Mar @souldagger - Character Design

Sound & Music References

obsessed with the era of historical fashion between the 1860s and 1870s where aniline dyes kept being invented. you can find some absolute fucking eyesores of dresses that were only made that way because “acid magenta” was invented last month and it was trendy.

like this iconic gown:

or this one from the 1870s in aniline purple and aniline black:

or a trendy yellow and black gown from c. 1865, perhaps?

feel free to reblog with additional eyesores (affectionate) that i might have missed

Oh Daine, sweet Daine. It is so so so perfectly and wonderfully 13 to be like “No but this universally terrible situation we’re all in upsets me in a way no one else has ever felt before or could possibly understand!!” bless her, bless all the 13 years feeling the unbearable pain of existence with complex emotions for the first time