History YMMV / TheEyeOfArgon

* {{Squick}}
-->''With a loud crack the rodents head parted from its squirming torso, sending out a sprinking shower of crimson gore, and trailing a slimy string of disjointed vertebrae, snapped trachea, esophagus, and jugular, disjointed hyoid bone, morose purpled stretched hide, and blood seared muscles.''

* MemeticBadass: The rat Grignr fights. It's the most difficult enemy Grignr faces [[spoiler:apart from the [[TrueFinalBoss Eye itself.]]

* AntiClimaxBoss: [[spoiler Agaphim]] gets [[ManOnFire burned alive]] by Carthena, and it isn't even a fight. [[spoiler: That said, the TrueFinalBoss turns out to be this giant leech thing, and that actually ''is'' a pretty tough fight for Gringr.]]

* AntiClimax: Agaphim, despite being built up as the main villain, [[spoiler:is burned alive by Carthena without a fight. He is not even the final challenge of the book.]]

* MemeticBadass: The rat Grignr fights.

-->Had Theis been a student of mine and handed me “The Eye of Argon” as an assignment, I would have been thrilled. Here’s a partial list of the virtues the story displays that cannot be counted on in stories by high school students:
-->-You can tell what the author probably intended to say in almost every sentence.
-->-The story has characters.
-->-Something happens.
-->-Several somethings, even, with some detectable instances of cause and effect.
-->-The author has a unified idea of what he’s trying to accomplish, and he sticks with it from start to finish.
-->-The story has a beginning, a middle, and (in some versions of the text) an end.
-->-You can tell what tradition the author is writing in, and that his influences are deliberately embraced.
-->-It’s a long enough story to have required many days of sustained effort.
-->-You can tell that the author truly does care about what he’s writing.
-->Every one of those virtues could be followed by a but. But!

* AcceptableTargets: Bob Dornan and Music/AlanisMorissette.
** Not to mention Clarence Thomas and Bob Packwood. There's also a snappy reference to the Clinton/Mac Dougall real estate scandal, better known as [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitewater_controversy Whitewater]].

* HarsherInHindsight: For some readers, Wiki/TheOtherWiki's claim that Jim Theis gave up writing due to [[NeverLiveItDown not being able to live down]] the humiliation (and that Theis explicitly said that his feelings had been hurt) makes the story harder to enjoy or laugh at.

* HoYay: As Yahtzee Croshaw noted, there is a strong homoerotic subtext that Jim Theis was probably unaware of.
** For instance, this bit of unintentional FoeYay:
---> Grignr's emerald green orbs glared lustfully at the wallowing soldier struggling before his chestnut swirled mount.

** A teacher lists its positive points here, though it ends up rather as DamnedByFaintPraise:

* FunnyAneurysmMoment: For some readers, Wiki/TheOtherWiki's claim that Jim Theis gave up writing due to [[NeverLiveItDown not being able to live down]] the humiliation (and that Theis explicitly said that his feelings had been hurt) makes the story harder to enjoy or laugh at.

* SoBadItsGood: Some people think it's hilarious. Some... [[DarthWiki/SoBadItsHorrible think it's just awful.]]

* SnarkBait: This book is possibly the worst fantasy short story ever written ''ever''. Terrible in the extreme, only readable with the help of the [[Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000 MST3K]] crew heckling it... yet somehow, impossible not to read (at least once). In places, it has become tradition to stage competitions of how much people could read with a straight face and expressive voice. Three quarters of a page is considered doing extremely well.

* SoBadItsGood: Some people think it's hilarious. Some... think it's just awful.

** Some fans of [[HeroicFantasy the genre Theis was attempting]] say that the concepts behind the story aren't that bad. Theis seems to have been influenced by Creator/RobertEHoward and his ''Literature/ConanTheBarbarian'' stories, particularly "Literature/TheTowerOfTheElephant" (an idol has an enormous jewel which Conan takes), "Literature/QueenOfTheBlackCoast" (Conan speaks of having just witnessed an encounter almost exactly like Grignr's in the tavern); "People of the Black Circle" (the evil shamans), "Literature/RoguesInTheHouse" (the hero imprisoned, later using a bone to escape; Conan also languishes in prison in ''Literature/TheHourOfTheDragon'') and "Literature/TheScarletCitadel" (lengthy explorations in the underground passages). The use of "emerald orbs" and "life fluid" type euphemisms are also ''very'' characteristic of Howard's writing. Grignr's declaration that his people live free and wild in the hills without need of decadent baubles is not unlike statements Conan made in several stories:

--> (from "People of the Black Circle", to a kidnapped queen saying she has to go back to her kingdom):
--> "Why?" he demanded angrily. "To chafe your rump on golden thrones, and listen to the plaudits of smirking, velvet-skirted fools? Where is the gain? Listen: I was born in the hills of Cimmeria where the people are all barbarians. I have been a mercenary soldier, a corsair, a kozak, and a hundred other things. What king has roamed the countries, fought the battles, loved the women, and won the plunder that I have?"

* SugarWiki/CrowningMomentOfFunny: This exchange:

* SoBadItsGood: Some people think its hilarious. Some... think it's just awful.

* FetishRetardant: With descriptions such as "[Carthena's] sagging nipples" and "the amorphos [sic], broad bleated [sic] female," FetishRetardant abounds.

** Not to mention Clarence Thomas and Bob Packwood. There's also a snappy reference to the Clinton/Mac Dougall real estate scandal, better known as [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitewater_controversy Whitewatergate.]]
* CrowningMomentOfFunny: This exchange:

** Some fans of [[HeroicFantasy the genre Theis was attempting]] say that the concepts behind the story aren't that bad. Theis seems to have been influenced by Creator/RobertEHoward and his ''Literature/ConanTheBarbarian'' stories, particularly "Literature/TheTowerOfTheElephant" (an idol has an enormous jewel which Conan takes), "Literature/QueenOfTheBlackCoast" (Conan speaks of having just witnessed an encounter almost exactly like Grignr's in the tavern); "People of the Black Circle" (the shaman), "Literature/RoguesInTheHouse" (the hero imprisoned, later using a bone to escape; Conan also languishes in prison in ''Literature/TheHourOfTheDragon'') and "Literature/TheScarletCitadel" (lengthy explorations in the underground passages). The use of "emerald orbs" and "life fluid" type euphemisms are also ''very'' characteristic of Howard's writing. Grignr's declaration that his people live free and wild in the hills without need of decadent baubles is not unlike statements Conan made in several stories:

* FunnyAneurysmMoment: For some readers, TheOtherWiki's claim that Jim Theis gave up writing due to [[NeverLiveItDown not being able to live down]] the humiliation (and that Theis explicitly said that his feelings had been hurt) makes the story harder to enjoy or laugh at.