A review by octavia_cade
Locke & Key: ...In Pale Battalions Go… #3 by Joe Hill, Gabriel Rodríguez

adventurous dark sad fast-paced

3.0

Again, I feel as if I'm supposed to feel sorry for John, and to a limited extent I did. The one real emotional hit to this mini-series, I think, was when his dad told him that it should have been him who died instead of his mother. That's an awful thing to say, and an awful thing to hear... but it's not actually wrong. It would be a great deal fairer to live in a world where the consequences of our actions fell on us alone, but they don't. We have to live with that, and live with the guilt when our poor choices hurt people other than ourselves, except John can't do that either. So yes, I feel sorry for him... but I feel sorrier for the remnants of his family that are left behind, the ones who have to pick up the pieces after that idiot child smashed it all to smithereens by trying to play soldiers.

This is what comes from letting kids fool around with dangerous shit. I thought that when I read the first story - the giant spider one - collected in The Golden Age and my opinion hasn't changed. I suppose I am blaming John more than I should, and his parents less. Disaster was inevitable.