Ancient's Smashing Reviews

Mademoiselle Noir by Borbityborb

This story was quite short, so I will pass on rating it.

The idea for the story is an interesting one. Cendre (Rapunzel), instead of being a bringer of life, is a bringer of death that could kill millions. Two kingdoms are at war and Maelle wants to employ her aid in protecting his kingdom, the same one that caged her in the tower.

This works surprisingly well as a concept because it combines a number of things cleverly. It reverses the fairy tales into something quite dark, it turns the knight's story into a 'making a deal with the devil' archtype, and it makes her story and narrative a question of safety and security vs human rights, not merely for herself but for everyone she would affect. Similar to a person with a disease being quarantined, making it relatable to the recent times, and any time period where people have been riddled with plagues and diseases.

However, it is the execution that could use work because you have two very different, yet interconnected story types and narratives.

Maelle's trope: Deal with the Devil (also called a Faustian bargain or Mephistophelian bargain) requires a devil that can grant a wish for someone in need in return for a price. The bargain is a dangerous one, as the price of the devil's service is usually the wagerer's soul or the soul of other victims to take the wager's place. 

This is similar to an aladdin wish with Djinns, but has a couple striking differences. 1. Djinn are bound by a higher power to rules. Devils are not. 2. Djinn's can vary between good and trickster, but never evil. Devil's only seek your destruction or control of you. 3. Djinn's dont have a price to pay, its all free. Devil's have a price.

Cendre, in Mademoiselle Noir, is not a devil so far as intent goes but still fills in the role having a dangerous power he wants to make a deal for. She, whether better or worse for the story, is not interested in hurting or controlling people, but still fails to fill in the role because there is no price for her aid. Its glossed over. He just goes "yeah we need help" and she goes "okay sure."

Cendre's trope: Typhoid Mary, is a plague master type that spreads plague easily while being immune to it themselves. Good ones seek a cure for others from the plague they spread themselves and sometimes may be Patient Zero, acting as the cure because they are immune to their own plague. Bad ones revel in the destruction they cause. Exploited ones are used as tools by a villain unknowingly. So when not being the villain themselves they are a bringer of chaos seeking order, acting as a hero journey.

In this we have that from the start as she is quarantined willingly. She has seen the damage she can do and chose quarantine over death to herself and to others. This brings order from her chaos through containment. This is good. It is also a completed storyline.

However, the problem comes in as Maelle's trope intersects with hers. They are both villains and bringers of chaos in practice, while trying to create order, and also ignoring their own narrative needs. 

Cendre had already gone through the narrative in her prologue and flashbacks of creating order from chaos, and reverses this for no reason.

Maelle wants order, but goes about it by bringing chaos. Not temporarily as if "yeah lets fix you when its done" and no price like "yeah ill vouch for you, and if you hurt anyone i will personally drag you back here and kill myself." but permanent chaos with "yeah who cares just spread your plague to our enemy, this cant possibly backfire, and when the war is over you are free to to roam about spreading it further because im a dumbass"

If her storyline and goal of creating order from chaos was not already completed in the prologue, and instead was a completely different Typhoid Mary type (like being ignorant or selfish-villain) then it could work. If either one of them was a villain with the intent to bring chaos, then it could work. If Maelle was sent by someone else acting as the villain to retrieve her and thereby bring chaos, as the Exploited Typhoid Mary type, then it could work. If there was a price and conditions to keep chaos contained inside order, and thereby create tension from the balance and delicacy needed on both of their parts, then it could work. But there is none of this. Its just two people whose method of reaching their intended goals is to do the exact opposite.

As characters I did not mind them. They acted random and contrary to their own agenda, to the point of being completely different people from scene to scene, but I take this more as a confused execution of two advanced narratives being interwoven without success. The author doesn't seem to know what he wants, and so the character's dont seem to know how to act to achieve that.

The way the story was written was rather long-winded. It spent almost all of its word-space on exploring her environment and what I see as useless small-talk, and while this exploring the environment could work if we were staying, we aren't staying. And useless small talk is good in slice-of-life, not this. Many chapters happened with nothing happening to push the story forward. You could easily condense these 8-9 chapters into 3 just based on the story beats. And while the prologue succeeds in setting the scene a bit, it is made pointless because basically all of it is just repeated with substantially more word-space and exhausting exploration later. There is a difference between tension because readers know what the characters don't, and a mystery being revealed from the start but we still have to sit and watch the detective figure it out, which is boring as shit. The prologue also completes her storyline before it begins.