Sorry to bother my followers with an in depth analysis about the diction of "sharpened bananas," but I have been watching this entire saga and have not gotten it out of my head so:
My gut response to the description is that it feels bad. However, something I am willing to admit is that it's very evocative of the shape of the claws. Bananas are known for being particularly curvy, and I think an emphasis on the curve of a bird's talon can be a good extra flair as opposed to a plain "claws shot toward me."
The problem is that any added sense of vivid danger from emphasizing the curve of the claws is lost in the comparison. Bananas are notoriously not sharp, and are in fact very easily squished (even by accident).
The sentence tries to amend that failing in the imagery by specifying the bananas are "sharpened," but that's a) a confusing image because no one does that and b) undermines the sense of danger even more than if it were just "claws like bananas," because most would imagine the process of "sharpening" a banana to turn it to mush (as nicely demonstrated by @transastronautistic in zir addition).
(photos from their attempt at sharpening a banana (and no, the attempt on the frozen banana wasn't much better, even if it wasn't mush))
If we wanted to make a comparison that emphasized the curvature of the talons without diminishing the sense of danger, perhaps we could go for something like a sickle. It's sharp, strong, and has an even more distinct curve than a banana.
"Like sharpened bananas" isn't inherently an unusable description. Depending on the context and what the author is trying to achieve, it could very much work.
I'm assuming this is for the sequel to Apparently, Sir Cameron Needs to Die, which is a very funny book that often derives its humor from overly drawn out or absurd descriptions.
(All the chapter titles are like this, and it's not just funny, it also pays off in a cool way later in the book)
The oxymoronic nature of "sharpened bananas" lends itself well to this tone, along with how it characterizes the POV that is producing this out of place imagery. I don't know the context of this scene, but if it's a largely comedic one with little sense of danger, being narrated by a character who is either so food or sex obsessed that their descriptions are hijacked by bananas even in danger, then this descriptor works! It's descriptive of the claws and especially the POV character, with the added benefit of being a very memorable and funny line.
However, if this is supposed to be a scene where you want the reader to be genuinely concerned for the well being of the POV character, then I don't think it works. The contradictory imagery immediately takes the reader out of the scene, because they have to stop their reading flow to understand what the claws are even supposed to look like, and keeping up momentum is really important to pacing action scenes.
Also, why are the bananas backward on the harpy photo.
gracieabrams
amandla
