Christian's Epic Blog

King Mango was confident as he saw an entourage of people, with one man at the front of the group, approach his castle.  The leader at the front was none other than King Hungrybeast.  King Hungrybeast was once viewed as the least respected king in all of the 7 kingdoms, though this was no longer the case.  Over the past three years, Hungrybeast had been conquering more and more territory.  The pain and anguish that he had experienced from the ridicule of being the most disrespected king had taken a toll, and created a powerful king.  King Hungrybeast had been viewed as the most powerful king for some time now, being feared by all who had seen his game-play.  For in the 7 kingdoms, the pride of a king was their ability to compete at the game Super Smash Brothers Melee for the Nintendo Gamecube.  Kings and knights would play each other 1 v 1 with prize pools or even territory and kingdoms on the line.  Hungrybeast exclusively played the character Ji...

One thing that stood out to me in this part of the story was a scene from Chapter XV: The Great Battle.  Yudhisthira had just received the news that his uncle would not give him and his brothers five villages so that they could live at peace and not have war, though King Dhritarashtra, under the influence of his son, tells them that they cannot have five villages or even one village.  The dialogue that ensues from the Pandavas stuck out to me.  Yudhisthira seemed thoughtful and perplexed, while Arjuna was very fired up.  He claimed he would not stay in exile, and would take out his uncle's entire army with his bow.  Bhima was on the same page, claiming that he had to fulfill the promises and threats he had made against those that had wronged him and his family.  On this note, Yudhisthira decided that they will go to war.  He sent heralds to all the Indian kings in attempt to gain their allegiance.  He was able to acquire the soldiers from King Vir...

It was cool reading this story after already having a good idea of the characters and plots within the Mahabharata.  This story seemed much more face-paced, to the point where I thought that some things may have been in a different order than in the PDE of the Mahabharata. For instance, I didn't remember the Pandavas helping their teacher Drona get vengeance on his old friend Drupada so soon in the story and in their training.  The boys in this story start off as prodigies.  Also, Duryodhan attempts to murder them so quickly! After reading the first few pages it was clear that this was a very condensed version.  I had a good refresher on Vidura as a character and his role in ultimately looking after his nephews.  The man eating demon in this story is called Hidimva.  The fight between Bhima and Hidimva is pretty much how I imagined it.  In this story, Arjuna teases Bhima about being tired thus prompting Bhima to end the fight and kill Hidimva.  I ...