OH GOD THE RAPTURE IS BURNING: Madinrei's Overture Review

Of all of the Fearblogs that exist in the Mythos universe, I don’t think it would be a stretch to say that OH GOD THE RAPTURE IS BURNING is probably one of the most well-known. Thus, I only found it fitting to dig into Rapture for my first review on this blog.

Rapture is extraordinarily long. That is the first thing that came to my mind when I started reading it, and unfortunately I don’t tend to be the fastest reader. Thus, the review of Rapture is going to be split into parts consisting of the Overture and each of the Acts. The Overture is shorter than the Acts, yes, but it does function as a nice prologue and a good starting point for the review. Quite a bit can be learned about the protagonist and the overall story from just that first day.

The protagonist, one Jordan Dooling, is for the most part just your average cynical teenager, choosing not even to acknowledge the Rapture the first moment it happens. (Sky’s turning red? That’s gotta just be some fire, it’ll get taken care of. Time to look up some porn.) Soon enough, though, Jordan comes across enough horrifying creatures to realize something is well and truly up, and from that point on it is merely a matter of survival for the first day.

The story is told through ‘logs in Jordan’s journal’, which I realize may have come up in debate among some of the readers as highly improbable. (After all, how could Jordan possibly write in a journal if it’s in the mouth of some hellish creature?) I will admit that I had these thoughts myself. The journal entries seem to me to be more of a record of thought than writing, if anything. The way Jordan tends to interrupt his own ‘writing’ midsentence, the way  Jordan will bold things when he comes across a decisive thought, and even the things Jordan writes down and notices point me more towards the thought process motif than anything else. It was near the end of the Overture, however, that I made an interpretation of Rapture that perhaps solves this dilemma. Jordan’s journal, or how I will choose to see it, seems to be a physical representation of Jordan’s mind. This holds true for all of what I have read of Rapture, not just the Overture. Throughout the story, Jordan is constantly losing and replacing his journals, most of which tends to happen during extremely stressed and active moments and moments of calm respectively, which reminds me of how in trying situations you tend to sort of lose yourself for a moment. ‘Getting caught up in the moment’ is a good phrase to compare to this behavior, and afterwards when Jordan is resting and collecting himself, his mind returns to him. (Usually a new journal given to him by a friend or found somewhere.) Sometimes the journal is taken by the eldritch creatures that roam the world in Rapture, and that could perhaps be a reference to the shock Jordan feels at seeing such creatures, to the point where he would temporarily ‘lose himself’. (Only to snap out of it via grabbing back the journal.) Plus, in the later Act 1 scenes with the Wooden Girl, she forces Jordan to write down in the journal, which could very easily be seen as brainwashing because she is controlling what goes into his mind, fitting the powers of the Wooden Girl perfectly.

With that mindset, I found it much easier to enjoy Rapture. I came to realize that the author seems to share my love and attention for the littlest of details, whether it’s Jordan injuring himself on glass he shattered moments before (something often overlooked) or the soreness of Jordan’s arms after whacking at zombies for a good space of time. The details can get a tad extreme at times…but when I consider my theory of the journal being Jordan’s thought, the details only seem to make sense. Your brain registers quite a few things from day to day, so when an entry about the exact clothes Jordan is pulling on comes up, it makes logical sense that he would list them one by one, as though he is thinking about each one as it is pulled on.

It is also good to note that the author knows a thing about showing and not telling. Jordan’s backstory is very obviously hinted at, but the author does not go into excruciating detail to let the audience know who Jordan is. Jordan’s actions speak for him, and any more than that would be rather extraneous in a story like Rapture.

I will mention that some realism has to be thrown out the window while reading this, and not because of the Rapture theme. For example, I still have no idea, to this day, how Jordan’s guitar controller manages to stay in one piece after hitting so many solid things with it. Those things are incredibly flimsy. But that is a minor detail, and when you consider that this takes place in a world that has taken a turn for the clearly fantastical, it is easy to overlook.

There are many references to popular forms of entertainment in Rapture, which are sparse in the Overture but pop up quite a bit more later on in the story. The few references there are in the Overture range from a very brilliantly placed hint of a reference to a blatantly obvious, slap you in the face with a quote reference. I found myself preferring the former of the two, especially what I believe is a small G-Man cameo near the end of the first day. The obvious quotes, such as the Portal reference at the beginning of the first day, seems a tad forced, though I do realize this is written in the mindset of a teenager and teenagers do tend to force these things.

The actual Rapture itself in the story is claimed not to have actually happened, even though the world is descending into a pre-Rapture chaos. Red skies, giant monsters, and, of course, Fears all roam the streets of the world Jordan is trying to survive in, and while it can definitely be considered an extreme take on the Fears, it is in no way a bad take. In fact, the Fears themselves seem to mesh into an end of the world scenario rather well, such as the infamous Rake simply scurrying around with no particular vendetta towards Jordan himself, just there to cause a little fear and chaos. While reading Rapture cannot be considered an overly terrifying experience, as some Fear Mythos blogs tend to aim for, it does lead to an enjoyable, fun read. The Overture doesn’t bring in much of the overall plot of Rapture just yet, but it is enough of a taste to encourage readers to keep going, and a very much a good representation of the diversity of the Fear Mythos universe.

The Act 1 review will come soon, and will obviously contain more perspective on Jordan and Rapture’s plot than my thoughts during the Overture. However, since the Overture contains very little development on both of those, I found it fitting to stick with the general for now. So stayed tuned for the next installment of the Rapture review!