Runebreaker (Spotlight on Dam Breach Analysis) (Part 2)
Hello, all. I hope you’re enjoying your week.
This post is Part 2 of my spotlight analysis of the dam breach scene in Chapter 6 of Mila Finch’s Runebreaker. It’s going to specifically focus on why I feel the “storm gate” that makes the scene possible doesn’t make any sense, and thus, makes the scene feel contrived. Full context, plus praise of the aspects of the scene that I feel Finch did well, please see Part 1. The full review of this book properly kicks off on this upcoming Sunday.
All right. Let’s dive in.
SPOILERS
This post will provide heavy spoilers for events up through the end of Chapter 6 of Runebreaker, as well as minor spoilers for details later in the book. None of these spoilers will be marked.
THE ENGINEERING OF CONTRIVANCE
What is this reservoir?
I combed through the book for any reference to lakes, ponds, reservoirs, or other bodies of surface water in, beside, or close to the city where the book begins. The only references I could find were to the reservoir, and even then, only in Chapter 6.
So, why is this body of water here, what is it for, and why is the city built right up against the embankment?
A reservoir implies a body of water being stored up for human (and, in this case, fae) usage. The water in it could be used for drinking, washing, irrigation, or whatever other purpose humanoids might need to have water on demand for. If nothing else, they might have a recreational usage for this body of water. Furthermore, the fact it is called a reservoir instead of a lake or pond implies a level of artificiality. So either this thing is some sort of artificial basin, or else a natural body of water was modified to serve this purpose.
But why, though?
This city isn’t established as being in a particularly arid climate. If anything, it’s described as a snowy place. This makes irrigation highly unlikely. If the reservoir is needed for irrigation of some water-intensive crops, why put it in the middle of the city, instead of putting it closer to agricultural areas or simply a location with the natural geography to retain the water? For example, Horsetooth Reservoir in Fort Collins, Colorado is a reservoir for irrigation that’s right next door to an urban area, but the two developed independently, with the reservoir being built for reasons linked to geography and the city being a university town that attracted relevant industries. (The embankment and outfall for Horsetooth also aren’t in the middle of town.)
The fey have abundant magic, and clearly are using it in their infrastructure, so why not dig wells and pump water up from the aquifer? Why not dig a cistern, like those that exist in Istanbul, thereby allowing them to have their water supply at the city while still retaining area on the surface that can be developed for other purposes? And on the subject of magic facilitating engineering, why not build the reservoir elsewhere and use a combination of aqueducts and magical pumps to supply water to the city as a safe rate?
Why build the embankments up so much higher than the surroundings cityscape that a dam breach would flood the city? Why not dig down? The adjacent quarter is where the humans live, so I can understand if the fae don’t care about the potential loss of life, but said quarter is also called the “merchant quarter”, implying that this is an economically important area. Why expose it to danger like this?
The reservoir can’t be used for stormwater management for the city, as again, it is higher than the adjacent cityscape, so runoff from the city can’t flow into it.
All this is to say that the reservoir is ridiculously impractical. The one saving grace is the potential for recreational usage. It is not impossible that the fae of this city really wanted to have a lake in the middle of town for some purpose that overruled practicality, such as some cultural function linked to the reservoir or simply as a flex of their power and wealth. The issue is that there’s absolutely nothing on the page to suggest this is the case. It’s purely headcanon.
Which brings us to …
What is the “storm gate”?
The name implies that this gate is intended to control the water level inside the reservoir during storm events. It’s likely in the form of a sluice gate, given this line of description when Aelie is approaching it:
The massive iron bars loomed ahead, crusted with ice where the reservoir seeped through.
This implies that there is hydrostatic pressure on the other side of the gate, meaning the water in the reservoir is pressed up against the gate.
But … why?
Even if we accept that the fae can’t engineer riser structures or outfall pipes (despite having the know-how and magic to engineer the far more complex option of this gate), why not just built a weir to function as a spillway? That would be a lot simpler than a sluice gate for controlling the water levels. It would limit the depth of the reservoir’s permanent pool and allow storm events to drain off in a controlled manner. It would also be a much less glaring weak point than a mechanical gate, one that wouldn’t require a rune to protect it.
But let’s say that calling it a “storm gate” was the mistake. Maybe it’s just a general sluice gate to control the reservoir levels for other purposes. That still begs the question of why. It’s not like there’s any mention of boats or ships moving through the canals and needing to be raised or lowered via locks, and even if there were, this gate isn’t described as being one half of a lock, so that doesn’t apply. Do the fae of this city have a particular reason they need to partially or completely drain the reservoir? If so, why not use magic to pump out the reservoir? Why have a permanent gate that is constantly burning magical power to hold back hydrostatic pressure? If the idea is instead that the gate would normally be open, and it begin closed her is due to some special circumstance, then what is that circumstance?
Oh, and that’s before we get to the size of this gate. It “loomed” over Aelie. We don’t get an exact height for Aelie in this book, but if she’s anywhere around the average height of a woman, that means the gate has to be at least five feet high. The canal is not described as being particularly narrow. Even if the canal is only five feet wide, that’s still an opening of 25 square feet. An opening that massive could potentially send hundreds, if not thousands, of cubic feet of water blasting into the canal every second. How many acre-feet of water is this reservoir supposed to hold? Is the goal to be able to drain the whole reservoir in minutes or hours instead of days? If so, why?
The Knock-On Effect
How did Aelie think that going into this canal would mean anything but death for her and her sister?
With how the gate is described, it sounds like it is at the end of the canal. If it were in the middle (i.e. the canal runs parallel to the toe of the embankment), that makes the decision of the fae to not just use a weir even more dumbfounding (since the weir could discharge evenly along a stretch of the canal rather than needing to dump out at a specific point). Plus, if it were in the middle, Aelie would have no reason to think that opening it would do anything to save her or her sister, since guards could simply come down the cannel from the other side to cut off their escape.
So … Aelie just walked herself and herself up to a gate, and thought she could open it and kill the guards chasing them without killing herself and her sister.
Bear in mind, this story is going into play into a power fantasy of Aelie being intelligent later on. Those attempts are something we’ll get into during the proper review. They don’t actually work, and make it seem like Finch can’t think of how to write smart characters, but at least they are an attempt. This suicidal escape plan really kicks the legs out from under that.
WHY DOES ANY OF THIS MATTER?
The reservoir and storm gate are a good example of a worldbuilding gaffe that doesn’t damage the narrative. Yes, it makes the entire sequence involving the breach into a contrivance, but it’s not the sort of detail that the majority of readers will notice. The concept here is the Aelie has a plan to help her and her sister escape, it spirals out of her control, and as a result, she is separated from her sister. Getting swept apart in a dam breach does make sense as a catastrophe to accomplish that goal.
It wouldn’t have been hard to tweak this scene to still get the dam breach while removing the gate. Just off the top of my head, maybe there could have been some defensive ward on the embankment to keep people from climbing it. Aelie’s escape plan could have been for her and Rheya to escape by climbing, forcing her to break the ward, leading to the same damage to the embankment and the same breach. So while the gate’s existence is a contrivance, it’s not one so severe that the scene would have been impossible without it.
The point I’m trying to make here is that we all make mistakes. No one can be an expert on literally every topic that has any relevance to our stories. The fact Finch managed to present a realistic dam breach scenario and only made a questionable decision in the design of an outfall structure puts her well ahead of a lot of other authors. Small errors like this are fun to dissect, but in the grand scheme of things, they shouldn’t factor into a book’s rating, not unless they are so densely packed into the narrative that the story completely breaks down.
I have a massive amount of criticism for Runebreaker. You will be hearing them before too long. Still, I think it’s important to call out that there is a difference between a mistake where there’s a lot to be said and a mistake that does a lot of damage to the narrative. This was the former. My dissection here was the personal indulgence of someone with a relevant background, nothing more.
Thank you all for going down this rabbit hole with me. Please remember to subscribe and share if you enjoy what you read here. Take care, everyone, and enjoy the rest of your week.
Volume I of my first serialized Romantasy novel, A Chime for These Hallowed Bones, is now available!
Kabarāhira is a city of necromancers, and among these necromancers, none are more honorable or respected than Master Japjot Baig. Yadleen has worked under him since she was a girl, learning how commune with bhūtas and how to bind these ancient spirits into wights. Her orderly world is disrupted, however, when a stranger appears with the skeleton of a dishonored woman, demanding that her master fabricate a wight for him.
To protect her master from scandal, Yadleen must take it upon herself to meet this stranger’s demands. Manipulating the dead is within her power, but can honor survive in the face of a man who has none?
Come for slow-burn tension, and Enemies-to-Lovers dynamic, and bone-based engineering! I hope to see you there. Volume II is in development!
