Choice Words: Give Yourself Goosebumps #09: The Knight in Screaming Armor

It's time for yet another trip into the world of Give Yourself Goosebumps. And we have an evil knight to deal with. At least with one of the paths. We've covered quite a few books with evil knights. More than I would have expected to be honest. I guess in terms of creepy monsters, it's a concept that you don't normally consider as a top tier scarer like say a mummy or a vampire. But a haunted suit of armor is definitely enough of a threat. Especially if it has a sword or an axe or something heavy and sharp. So does that bode well for this book, or are we going to have to wait another knight? Let's find out with The Knight in Screaming Armor.

This is my favorite GYG cover. Easily. Hands down. I love the hazy sky with the large full moon, the twisted dead trees and the eerie green of the sky. And then there's the main focus, the knight, which looks nice and creepy with the glowing yellow eyes and mouth that does indeed look to be screaming. So the title's not lying. The horse is neat, but does have a bit of a dead face to it. Not too surprising when you learn that Mark Nagata used a toy horse he bought at Toys R Us to serve as the model. This is also a cover with a hidden skull, which can be spotted on the emblem on the horse's armor. Also, the little armored knight bird is so damn silly that I love it. Such an extra little addition that it elevates the cover. That brilliant mix of the frightening with the fun that makes for a great Goosebumps cover. Easy top marks.

As is the case with these books, given that the protagonist is often presented as the reader and no specific gender is given, I'll be using They/Them and "The Player" when I talk about our protagonist. Although this one does have one wrinkle to this with the player's surname being Saxton. Cool? Good knight! 

While the player's Uncle Will is arriving from England to do lectures at famous museums, his kids, same age as the protagonist Kip and 15 year old Abbey, will be staying with the player. But they didn't come alone. They brought with them some crates of antiques that Uncle Will will be showing to the museums. Inside are two suits of armor. One belonging to the Evil Knight, and one belonging to their relative, Sir Edmund Saxton. One one of the crates is a label saying that until a good knight fights for right, the evil knight will cause misery and woe. Kip says it's part of a curse put on the Saxton family name. A sorceress who hated Sir Edmund, sent him a cursed suit of armor, the screaming armor. It killed everyone in Edmund's family except one son who was conveniently out hunting at the time. But he still kept the armor since I mean, it's a symbol of the death of his family, but would you piss off a curse more?

The player investigates the armor and notices nothing strange, certainly nothing evil. That night, the player hears screams. The first path is to investigate or not investigate further. Both paths lead to the same outcome, so it's not a proper split yet. The trio investigate the crates, wondering which one to open. The crate labeled Good Knight, or the one labeled Evil Knight? So here's the deceit of this book. You have two paths to start, there are three good endings, but one of them only has one good access to one of the three, and you can also get if you choose either path. So you can arrive at the same good ending regardless of path. So we'll use that good ending when we cover the second path. But let's see what a good knight will give you.

PATH #01: TO ALL A GOOD KNIGHT

The player opts to choose Good Knight, but then panics when they see a monster and feel some claws wrap around their leg. But turning on the light sees it was just a lawnmower and a rake. So with that done, the player can AGAIN choose to go with Good or Evil with the good being a new path and the Evil one being the one we could have chose. They check the crate, but there's nothing inside. They then hear laughter, and find a parchment inside the crate. Next split is to take the parchment or to just try to call the cops. The cops path is technically an ending, but it gives you the chance to continue and take the parchment path anyway. On the parchment there's a rhyme saying only a good Saxton wearing the armor can defeat the knight, but the player opts to go to bed instead. Next path sees the player wake up with Kip and Abbey or end up all alone. All alone is a bad end, so we need Kip and Abbey.

The three wake up to find themselves at the Medieval Museum where Uncle Will is supposed to lecture. But even stranger is the fact that a group of mud-slinging monsters show up and start throwing mud at the kids, with Abbey getting injured in the process. Either feel walled in or break free for the paths. Break free is the path we have to take. The player begins to think that the mud monsters are planted in their heads and aren't real. The next two paths can lead us to good endings which are holding a mud monster to the light or throwing it down. We'll start by throwing it down. After throwing the monster down, the kids hear the knights laughter and wake up, realizing this may have all been some eerie dream, but everything seems to be normal now, so that counts as a good enough ending. 

So let's instead grab the mud monster and hold it to the sunlight. Sure enough, the monsters disappear. However, now they find themselves in a room full of doors, and a parchment saying to beware his charge. Abbey makes a shopping joke because women and shopping am I right, fellas? However, every door they try disappears on them and the walls are closing in. Eventually it's down to two doors. One on the left and one on the right. The right door is the one we need so the three use that one. However they're now in a room filled with clocks which means it's time for the Goosebumps reference of the book. I guess the mud slingers are supposed to count as well, but I think this is the more concrete "This is from a Goosebumps book" reference. The kids find what appears to be The Cuckoo Clock of Doom and if you know what book this is from go one path, if the players choose a different clock, we go another. Interestingly taking the cuckoo clock path leads to a bad ending, so props to Stine on the swerve there.

Instead the kids spot a futuristic clock with three faces. A green one, a pink one and an orange one. So that makes a trifecta of paths to take. So, this is another deceit. The green one just loops you back, while the orange one is supposed to be the path we take, but the pink one adds an extra beat, so we're going there first. As the player messes with the pink clock, Abbey, Kip, and The Player begin to get older and older. Suddenly, an old woman shows up, the Keeper of All Times. Since the kids have wasted her time, she'll get rid of theirs. She speeds up the aging process. The player takes the pink clock face and moves the hands faster and faster until eventually the Keeper of All Times turns to dust and dies. The kids return to normal and now we go to the orange face path. The clock doesn't have any hands, but might be useful later. The kids leave the clock room and go down a slide and find themselves facing two buttons. One Heads, the other Tales. This is a coin flip challenge, and Tales just means restarting the tale all over again. 

The kids find themselves in a room filled with heads. Men, women, monsters, beasts, the whole batch. However, Abbey ends up getting her head swapped with an evil queen who sends her guards to attack the kids. The player uses their head to save Kip (using another head is a bad ending), but in the process the kids all get their heads switched around. The player's head on Abbey's body, the player's head on the queen's body and Kip with a Gargoyle on his. And time is starting to run out for the kids with the evil knight approaching. Does the player have enough time or not? Well "not" gives a bad ending and time on your side just resets everything back. So yeah... this is a time loop ending one way or another. So technically there's only one good ending with this path and one that just keeps going on forever. And instead of letting that happen, let's see what we get with the Evil Knight crate. Has to be better than this.

PATH #02: WHAT A HORRIBLE KNIGHT TO HAVE A CURSE

The player, thinking that Kip and Abbey are pranking them with the screaming sounds, opens the Evil Knight crate. However, the Evil Knight pops out and says that in the land of Saxons they'll be destroyed, before disappearing. The kids then see that the crate has a portal that takes them back to England in a field. As Kip and Abbey celebrate being home, the three kids then see a ram with glowing eyes charge at them. In fact, the knight is sending a whole flock of evil sheep at them. But instead of trampling the kids, the three end up in a bramble bush. They spot a pair of pixies, each claiming to have the right way out. Taking the left path leads the kids out, but now killer hedges begin to grow out of the ground, and surround the kids in a giant hedge maze. Do you search for an exit or try to barge through. Searching is the path we have to take on this one. And it gives us an activity page, this time being a maze to reach the exit, with not completing the maze leading to a bad ending.

The kids escape the maze, but hear the screaming laughter of the Evil Knight, meaning that he's on his way. The force of his screams are so powerful it sends the kids falling off a hill. Now here's where this book starts the BS. Because to advance in the story, you have to be sitting on a chair that either is cushioned, or not cushioned. No option if you're reading this on the couch, the floor, or on the toilet, which I guess could count as a seat that could or could not be cushioned, but you know, semantics. Well I hope your butt is hurting on a very hard seat because that's the path to the good ending. The kids find themselves in a rocky areas with fragile stones that collapse underneath them. But the player sees something interesting in a rock base and climbs up, only to find rocks shaped like people's body parts. They could keep going or go back to Kip and Abbey, which is the right path to take for this one. 

The player returns to see that Kip and Abbey are alright. But Kip inadvertently gives the player the idea to cause an avalanche to get the object, which they do. The object is a key which they use on a nearby cottage. They go inside the cottage, where a creepy old man tells them to come in. They hear a slam. If it makes the player scream or jump will depend on the path because at this point we're getting really specific with these paths. This leads the kids to fall down a trapdoor. It takes the kids to an underground monastery filled with ghost monks who chant "No bell tolls for us." The player rushes to a nearby belltower that has a bell in it to ring, or they could use a conveniently boiling kettle of liquid to splash on the monks. Interestingly, it's the boiling water that the player needs to use on the monks to get rid of them. The kids then see the Evil Knight in the courtyard. Suddenly a wall breaks and Abbey falls out... or more specifically, flies out. Does she come back or not? Well her not coming back is the path here.

As Kip and the player wonder if Abbey will come back, they hear the scream of the knight again. Then a giant cat beast shows up, which gets attacked by a giant blackbird. I'm starting to think this is very much a "throw anything at the wall" book at this point. The kids land on the bird's back and start flying. The path it takes is the next branch. Left, right, or things just get bad anyway? The bird loops in the air and sends the player falling to the ground below, back to the cottage. However, inside is the Evil Knight and the Good Knight's armor for the player to engage in the final battle, or not, which if you choose "not" is a bad ending, obviously. The sorceress shows up as the battle rages on. The player fights valiantly with the suit of armor and manages to defeat it. They then wake up back in their bed. Kip and Abbey are there and have no recollection of the events. But the player sees a heap of scrap metal, so maybe it really did happen after all.

#01: The kids seal up the Good Knight case and go to call the cops, when the Evil Knight breaks out of his crate. Turns out the word on the crate wasn't EVIL, it's LIVE. Interestingly, this is an ending, but the book will let you continue.

RATING: 2. I like the idea of the fake-out ending, but it just takes you to the path you could have chosen, which I'd imagine most readers not on the honor system would use. Fun idea from Stine though.

#02: The player wakes up and finds themselves trapped in a suit of armor. While they were sleeping the Evil Knight turned the player into one of his guardsmen.

RATING: 2.5. Gets a bump for replacing the Army slogan "Be all that you can be" with "Be all the evil you can be". 

#03: The mud monsters throw a barrage of mud at the kids which hardens and traps them forever. 

RATING: 2. Could have used a more interesting twist to it, but it does what it needs to.

#04: The player is shrunk and turned into a cuckoo inside a cuckoo clock.

RATING: 2.5. It's a bit weirdly structured, but I do like the general swerve of not just having the player suffer a similar fate to the protagonist of the original Cuckoo Clock of Doom.

#05: The player grabs a head to defend Kip, but it's the head of the Evil Knight, who switches bodies with the player.

RATING: 2.5. Not bad for a quick screwover.

#06: The player uses the orange clock, but instead of moving time forward or backward, it freezes them.

RATING: 2.5. Again, a very basic way to end this. 

#07: The player wakes up, thinking this was all a dream. However, they soon see the Evil Knight is in bed with them. 

RATING: 3. There's just something genuinely creepy with this one that does give it some point in terms of scariness.

#08: The kids don't solve the maze then just wither and die and their rotted corpses feed the plants.

RATING: 3. Get good at mazes, chump! Also it ends on "YOU'RE PLANT FOOD!" so we know where he got that book title from.

#09: The player enters the suit of armor, but starts itching. Turns out the suit is cursed and it leaves the player with an eternal rash.

RATING: 3. Another decent screw-over. Too bad there's no ye-old calamine lotion anywhere. 

#10: Turning the clock hands backwards turns everyone into babies. However, when the spell is broken, only the protagonist remains a baby.

RATING: 3. Another solid screw-over of the player.

#11: When the player touches the suit of armor, a cage falls on them.

RATING: 2.5. I figured we'd get at least one cage ending and this works.

#12: Learning the riddle of now and then doesn't help and the player and company get squished in the collapsing room.

RATING: 3. What makes this one work is the game essentially negating the importance of the twist by doing the whole "When will then be now?" "Soon" bit from Spaceballs.

#13: A three-headed gardener turns the kids into a three-headed monster.

 

RATING: 2.5 So the gardener's three heads were intentional I take it. 

#14: Abbey, turned into the giant bird, drops Kip and the player in her nest atop a volcano where her eggs are there, ready to hatch.

RATING: 3. Pretty dark way to swerve the reader.

#15: The kids are in a lake where the Knight awaits them. Abby, in bird form, morphs back to human and is also trapped as the Knight multiplies. 

RATING: 3. A lot of build, but I do like the payoff of how screwed the player and company are.

#16: The player falls into a crate and is trapped.

RATING: 2. Sort of a silly way to end things, but it does work with the feeling of dread that comes from being trapped in a small space. 

#17: The player climbs the rock, only to be caught by the Evil Knight who turns the kids into human rocks.

RATING: 3.5. I actually like this one. While there haven't been too many over the top endings on this one, this one works quite for enough of a scary effect. Although the "Getting stiffer... and stiffer... and stiffer..." bit made me laugh.

#18: The three-headed gardener wizard turns the kids into birds.

RATING: 2. A lot more bird transformations than I expected going in.

#19: The kids are turned into flowers by the gardener wizard. They see other flowers and realize they're not the only ones who met this fate.

RATING: 4. You know what? Legitimately frightening scenario right there. Easily our best of this book.

#20: The player tries to use the bell on the ghosts monks, but the rope breaks.

RATING: 1.5. Eh, at least now why know why they say the bell doesn't toll for them anymore. 

BEST TWIST ENDING: FLOWER POWER

WORST TWIST ENDING: ROPE-A-DOPES

This book was kind of a disappointment to me, honestly. It's far from the worst book ever, but I think in a way it feels like the one that doesn't fully commit to a story about an evil ghost knight. Granted, what we do get of the knight is cool and we do at least get a big battle that spans pages, so at least that's a plus. I just wish the build to get there was more interesting, more built around the history of the Saxtons and the Evil Knight armor. Again, we get a bit, but otherwise, it's really not a major factor. And we mostly get screaming laughter from the knight and less really imposing moments. And that sucks. Because we can get interesting villains in Give Yourself Goosebumps. Not to spoil things if you're going in numerical order you poor fool, but in a series that eventually gives us Sybil Wicked, this feels like such a forgettable villain. We didn't even get the metal bird, that would have been something.

Both paths sort of blend together. Literally in this case since you can reach a similar conclusion without taking the second path. And a lot of the book feels more like Stine throwing ideas together instead of keeping to the horror of the concept itself. Feeling like the best case so far of a ride book instead of a great concept. Feels like Stine really liked the title, worked on the book, screwed himself in coming up with cool paths and concepts, and just threw the book together. Kip is forgettable, a definite Superfluous Clay, and Abbey mostly feels like the "girly girl" stereotype that Stine honestly rarely does. But at least she feels more memorable than Kip at least. We get some solid interactive paths, but I will say a path requiring if the chair you're sitting on is cushioned or not does feel at least a bit inspired. More so than most of the endings that ultimately blend together. Far from Stine's best batch which sucks.

Overall, this one could have been much better. There's definitely interesting ideas within it, but the book clearly doesn't know how to put those interesting ideas together to make for an engaging book. So, yet again, the curse of "great cover, lousy book" has struck me again. It's again, far from the worst book, but it's definitely one I won't think much of after this blog, which honestly is never great. The Knight in Screaming Armor gets a B-.