Dear Janna Nickerson: I will leave you alone soon. I promise.
But not today.
I’m not here to poke fun at the death of a parent.
I don’t think losing both parents in the same day is funny.
I do think in many stories it’s unnecessary and only serves to up the angst quotient.
In today’s passage, Mat’s mom dies off-screen (off-page?), hit by a rogui arrow.
When Janevra tells him to focus, Mat calms down faster than Davis in Digimon: The Movie. “Okay, my mom just died. No big. You’re right.”
His dad goes next, due to…I’m not actually sure. He used too much magic? His aforementioned illness returned? Heart attack? Plot necessity? He goes from “perfectly healthy and alive” to “almost dead” in less than a sentence.
To be fair, the deaths of Mat’s parents up the stakes and give Mat a reason to fight the dark forces by making it personal.
It just seems excessive. Both parents and one of his best friends?
Oh, well. Congratulations, Mat. Now that your parents are gone, you could be the subject of a Disney movie.
Narrative Paradise 