Part 29: SnakeFaust
Lazyfire posted:
I have to go and organize the last flurry of SnakeFist stuff and I think I'll be closing the thread soon. Thanks everyone for participating/posting/watching videos. I had fun doing this as always and was glad to have an active thread through a game I was worried, based on Cooked Auto and Kadorhal's attempts at LPing the game, was not going to turn out well.
If you missed the videos I put a playlist of all the videos together.
All these SnakeFist entries remind me of when Warner tried to cash in on the franchise by aping Seth Grahame-Smith's parody mash-up Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Like many SnakeFist cash-grabs, it was ill-advised and poorly executed. The end result was a disgraceful parody of Goethe's Faust simply titled SnakeFaust, and written by recent college graduate, Darren Levy.
The book's plot begins with a retired SnakeFist having difficulty adjusting to civilian life. Frustrated with his new existence, he attracts the attention of the Devil. Bizarrely, he is named MeFistTopheles in the novel, for seeming no other reason than to capitalize on a "Fist" pun in the character's name. The two decide on a wager, after MeFistTopheles bets SnakeFist that he can bring joy and satisfaction to his life. This joy arrives in the form of Major-General Huggles'n'Snuggles, a young tabby kitten. The Major-General and the SPCA that he is adopted from are destroyed in part due to MeFistTopheles' deception, but also due to SnakeFist's inability to deal with his anger when he is cut off by an aggressive driver in the SPCA's parking lot. The first act of this literary farce leaves SnakeFist to wallow in despair and grief.
The second part has SnakeFist being armed to the teeth by Helen of Troy, who urges him to wage a one-man war on MeFistTopheles and his Infernal Legions. The book makes a poor attempt at conveying a training montage before SnakeFist shoots his way to Hell using a rocket launcher mini-gun. The ensuing rampage ensures that all traces of Hell and MeFistTopheles are destroyed. Rather than being grateful for SnakeFist's actions, the Angels arrive from Heaven to chide and scold him for upsetting the balance of Heaven and Hell. SnakeFist's moment of celebration is ended when they inform him he will never be allowed into heaven to see Major-General Huggles'n'Snuggles. An enraged SnakeFist then uses the same rocket launcher mini-gun to "rocket jump" to Heaven where he defeats the Angelic Forces single-handedly and forces God to surrender the Kingdom Of Heaven. The books ends with SnakeFist sitting on God's Divine Throne while an angelic Major-General Huggles'n'Snuggles sleeps in his lap.
Entertainment Weekly reviewed SnakeFaust terribly, giving it a grade of F−. Library Journal recommended the novel "...for any person who wants to witness the death of literature". The AV Club gave the novel a grade of F, commenting that "(w)hat begins as a gimmick ends with the reader wishing to be lobotomized". The New Yorker's Macy Halford, however, called the book's estimated blend of eighty-five percent Goethe's words and fifteen percent Levy's "one hundred per cent fantastic"; while she admitted that the mash-up may have insulted anyone who had ever read the source material, she still found Levy's writing to be brilliant, singling out a passage in which SnakeFist prepares to kill a 7-11 attendant over an overheard slight.
As of April 9, 2009, SnakeFist was, shockingly, number three on the New York Times bestseller list. On the same morning, the book moved on amazon.co.uk's bestseller list from the 300s to 27th place. Before the book was published in the United Kingdom, the book required a second printing. Experts blame the phenomenon on "mouth-breathing, moon-faced simpletons who wish to see humankind's collective achievements destroyed in favour of sugary pop-music and bad HBO programming."