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i_read_whatSo last chapter, Niall continued on his quest alone, faced Strahan, and learned that all is not well at home. Also a falcon might have swooped down and ripped out his eye. Oops.
I think I'm going to need a warning for this one. Ableism, this time. You'll see what I mean.
We rejoin Niall for some incoherent italics. They reference pain and hands touching and lifting him. Fortunately, it doesn't last too long, and we lead into Niall waking up in someone's care.
His eyes are bandaged, so he can't see what's going on. He can hear though:
“Be still. Do not bestir yourself. Pain is a wolf at the door in winter: fob him off with a morsel or two and he may wait for spring before he comes again.”
The voice painted pictures with intonations; with subtleties of emphasis. Such a magnificent voice. “Wolf—” My voice was more croak than anything else. “Oh gods—the white wolf—”
“Gone,” the clear voice told me. “And for now, you must let him go. Aye, he must be caught, be slain, but there is nothing now you can do. Not yet. Wait a bit; I promise, you will fulfill your own tahlmorra.”
Niall is in pretty rough shape at the moment. The pain is intense. One of his eyes is gone. Serri is here though, and reassures him. He tells him to do as "Taliesin" tells him, as his skills will heal Niall.
Taliesin says that Niall is too young to recognize his name, and that it's no longer spoken. Niall is in his cottage, but doesn't need to fear discovery, as Strahan doesn't come there. Taliesin also tells Niall that he knows what Strahan did to him and that it's not so different from what Strahan had done to Taliesin.
There's more:
“Here.” A hand was slipped beneath my head, tipping it up. Such a strong, wide hand, cradling my skull so gently. Another pressed a cup against my lips; I drank the bitter brew. “It will help the pain,” Taliesin told me. “Sleep, my lord—let the herbs do their work.”
My lord…. “You know me?”
“I do not know you—how could I? But aye, I know who you are. Be at ease, my lord. Solindish I may be, but I have no quarrel with Homana. Certainly none with you.”
“Your voice—” I was slipping into sleep. “I am sorry. I could not say if you are man or woman.”
Taliesin seems to be male, going by Serri's statement, but it's fair to ask. Taliesin doesn't take offense, stating that a true bard might be either or both when singing his lays and sagas. A bard! Is he a scary death bard like Lachlan??
Anyway, Taliesin confirms that when Niall is able to see again, he'll see that Taliesin is indeed male. Niall is still pretty shocked and out of it, though Serri confirms that he killed the hawk that hurt Niall. Aw.
After sleeping a bit, Niall is alert enough to ask questions. First and foremost, how a self-identified Solindishman knows of tahlmorra. Taliesin, cryptic and dramatic as bards must be by law, tells him that it's better to ask what he knows about the Cheysuli.
And THIS is interesting:
“What do you know of Cheysuli?” I asked obligingly. But my curiosity was genuine.
“I know of tahlmorras and lir and responsibilities. I know of the dedication that drives your race; the loyalty of the fanatic; the arrogance of a man who believes he is a child of the gods.”
“Believes!” I did not like his attitude, regardless how quietly he expressed it. “We are children of the gods.”
“Oh, aye, I know. The word Cheysuli means that precisely. But it means other things, as well: zealotry and intolerance, single-minded determination, the willingness to sacrifice many for the sake of a single man: the Firstborn. The child of the prophecy. The Lion of Homana.”
“By the gods, you sound like an Ihlini.”
“I should. I am.”
Ooo. A DIFFERENT kind of death bard! Niall, rather understandably, starts to freak out but Taliesin is quick to reassure him that he's not one of Strahan's minions, Niall can leave if he wish - Taliesin won't keep him, call him back, or tell anyone he's here, and urges Niall to ask his lir.
That's a fair point. Niall's been talking to Serri all along, despite Taliesin's presence.
We get more of an explanation:
“If you are Ihlini, this is not possible.”
“It is. I am not one of Strahan’s Ihlini; nor am I one of Tynstar’s, though once he was my lord. No. I am Ihlini, aye, but no more your enemy than your lir. There is a difference, my lord, a divergence of opinion. Strahan does not rule us all, only those who wish it. Only those who serve Asar-Suti.”
“And you do not.” My dubiousness was plain, but Taliesin was patient.
“Asar-Suti is the god of the netherworld; the Seker, who made and dwells in darkness. But I caution you, my lord: Be not so quick to lump us all together. Be not so ready to give me over into darkness when I prefer the light.”
I thought suddenly of the old woman in Homana, the old Ihlini woman, who had sacrificed her life to make certain Ian and I believed she told the truth. She had not done it for us. She had done it for Homana.
Niall asks how this can be, and Taliesin points out that they have free will. He admits that it does seem like there's no choice when you know you're denying the underworld by denying the prophecy, but he could.
As for Taliesin:
“I have no wish to shake your faith; to question your dedication. Once, I shared it myself, though I gave it to my lord and Asar-Suti. I believed, because Tynstar made certain I did. And I served as well as I could, until I began to question the validity of Tynstar’s intentions. Why, I wondered, was it so important for him to have Homana? Why was it so necessary to destroy our brother race in order to claim the land? And so, one day, I asked him.”
My fingers were locked in Serri’s pelt. “What did he say?” I asked tightly. “What was Tynstar’s answer?”
“He said if the Ihlini did not destroy the Cheysuli, the end of the world would come.”
“He lied!”
“Did he?” For a moment there was silence. “Be not so certain, Niall.”
Taliesin explains that he's talking about perception rather than absolutes. And elaborates:
“Perception, Niall: if the Cheysuli are allowed to live and the prophecy is fulfilled, the bloodlines will be merged. The Firstborn will emerge. And, in time—as it is with horses, dogs, sheep—the original bloodlines will be overtaken by the new.” He paused. “Tynstar spoke the truth: if the Ihlini do not destroy the Cheysuli, the world will come to an end. The world as Ihlini perceive it.”
Would it? The Firstborn died out once already. But I do think that there is a fair question here that remains unasked: what WILL happen to the Ihlini OR Cheysuli when the Firstborn come back? Will they be family? Or servants? Are the Firstborn going to be good people? Remember, if we listen to Strahan or Lillith, BOTH races descend from them. And there's enough to imply some truth to that. Even the Cheysuli weren't above keeping women as sex slaves to continue their race. So...Yeah...
Niall doesn't necessarily believe Taliesin, but he's starting to realize that at least some of his enemies actually do have understandable motivations behind their actions. Well, I don't think there was much understandable about what they did to Alix or Ian or Bronwyn. But the general enmity is more comprehensible.
Taliesin continues his story, explaining a bit about the natural state of the Ihlini:
“I ask you to make no judgments. I do not intend to shake your faith. I only explain how it was that one Ihlini chose to deny his god, his lord…and renounce the gifts the Firstborn gave us.”
“Gave you?”
“Aye,” he said gently. “Not all of us are evil. Not all of us serve Asar-Suti. And when we do not, when we have not drunk of the Seker’s blood, we remain only men and women who have a little magic. A little magic, Niall…the sort you would claim if Serri left you.”
There's a weird little tangent about what might happen if a lir willingly LEFT a Cheysuli rather than died, but it's pretty pointless. Except for one interesting part: Taliesin seems to believe that when the child of the prophecy is born, the lir will "know a new master".
“'One day a man of all blood will unite, in peace, four warring realms and two magic races,’” Taliesin quoted. “What happens then, Niall? What becomes of the Ihlini? What becomes of the Cheysuli?”
No.
“The races, merged, form a new one. The one that lived before. The one with all the power.”
Serri, say it is not true.
This bit isn't quite working for me. We already knew that the Prophecy is meant to bring back the Firstborn. There's nothing in there about lir. But maybe the Ihlini have more information. They do live longer, after all. With fewer generations, maybe more of the old knowledge remained intact. Taliesin at least believes that the Firstborn's re-emergence will defeat the Seker, and seal the Gate to the netherworld. The Firstborn shall rule in the name of the other gods.
Niall is confused. And this leads to a patented Roberson incomprehensible exchange:
“And you renounced Tynstar because of that?” I asked. “Because you support the merging of the races?”
“It means life, my lord, for all of us. I want the Cheysuli destroyed no more than the Ihlini. And the only means for settling our feud forever is to change the face of hatred.”
These lines don't work together! Also, Taliesin's dialogue all through indicates that he shares the Ihlini belief that the Prophecy isn't a good thing. Or at least that he's unsure. And "it means life" doesn't make sense as a response.
But I do appreciate the set up we have here: someone who may be ambivalent, or even against the Prophecy, but isn't willing to go to war over it. He doesn't want them to kill each other. Fair enough.
Meanwhile, Serri, conveniently, refuses to answer any of Niall's fears or doubts. Because lir are fucking useless sometimes.
--
Since this was short, I'm going to move into Chapter 9.
It seems to be a bit later. Niall's still recovering, and he's freaking out a little because he's realizing there's a third person here. Taliesin confirms this is true. "Caro" is this person and he's been here all along as Taliesin's guest, his friend, his hands.
Niall picks up on the oddness of the last bit, but is more focused on his eyes. The bandages are itching, he'd like them off. Taliesin agrees that it's time.
So Niall's eye adjusts. Singular. His right eye is gone. Taliesin says that they'll make him a patch. Caro is the owner of the big hands that helped. Taliesin has the voice.
And this is where we resolve a plot point very bizarrely and unsatisfactorily, because Niall looks at Caro. We're told he laughs and cries, because Caro IS "himself".
We don't get an explanation yet. We segue to Taliesin:
“Did you know?” I asked Taliesin, when the laughter and tears had faded. “Did you know?”
He did not answer at once. For the first time I looked upon him as he sat in a lopsided chair. His hair was white, bound back by a thin silver circlet, but his face was smooth, unaged; the face of a man eternally young. His clear eyes were very blue.
I looked at his hands. Twisted, gnarled things, once whole, now not; someone had purposely destroyed them, for nothing else could do such tremendous damage.
Ouch.
Anyway, Niall asks if SERRI knew. But Serri just says that Niall was in pain, so they didn't tell him until he needed to know.
“They told me his name,” Taliesin said. “Carollan. They asked me to keep him safe.”
Carollan/Carillon. Not quite the same, but close enough. Like father, like son—except the son was deaf and dumb.
“Safe,” I echoed, looking at my kinsman; at Carillon’s bastard son. “They believed my father would slay him?”
“They were convinced of it. There was nowhere in Homana he would be safe, they said, and so they brought him nearly two years ago to Solinde. To Taliesin the bard, who once sang in the halls of Solindish kings; in the halls of Ihlini strongholds. They knew. They knew I could never harm him. And they knew no one would look for him here. When they need him, they borrow him. But they always bring him back.” He paused. “It was how I knew you, Niall. This close to the border even I hear news of how the Prince of Homana resembles his grandsire, how the bastard resembles his father.”
I looked at Caro in fascination. He was me. But not, quite. He was thirty-six, nearly sixteen years older than I. His face was older, as was to be expected; wind-chafed, with traceries of sunlines at the outer corners of his eyes. His beard was more mature. But everything else was the same: tawny, sunstreaked hair, darker beard, blue eyes, almost identical shape of facial bones. Carillon had well and truly stamped his progeny.
So...enter the bastard.
And this is where things completely fall apart for me in terms of a resolution.
Carillon's bastard son is both deaf and unable to speak. Niall believes that this means that the Homanans just want a puppet on the throne. "An empty vessel upon the Lion, so they can rule Homana.”
That's pretty fucking ableist. He's still a person. While I doubt Deaf education is particularly good in this setting, the man is clearly competent enough to act as a Healer's hands. There are ways that he can communicate his wishes.
That said, it will be pretty difficult if he doesn't have willing help. And Homana is, at least implicitly, an ableist society:
I shook my head. “Surely they understand once the truth is known, the petition will be denied.”
“Surely they do,” Taliesin agreed. “But I am sure they feel the truth will never be discovered, or—if it is—it will be too late; the Lion will already be theirs. Look at what they have already accomplished, even with him hidden.” He shook his white-haired head. “Do not forget, Niall, many people never see their king. Many people know only his name, not what or who he is. They toil to pay his taxes, they die in his armies, they celebrate his name-day and the birth of sons and heirs…but only rarely do they set eyes upon the man. He is a name. And it is possible for a realm to be governed for years by only a name.”
I guess there's some truth to that. Though I still think this doesn't give Carollan enough credit. Taliesin points out that Carillon is a legend, and for a lot of people, elevating Carillon's son means recapturing Carillon himself.
Niall also thinks about Sarne and her insistence that Carillon promised his son a place in the succession. I think he thinks she was trying to protect him, but that does seem like a really bad idea. While I definitely think a deaf man can be a king, he will need some assistance. If the people around him aren't trustworthy, then he'll be in a pretty fucking vulnerable position. If he's forced into a figurehead role and tries to exert his own power...what happens to him?
I also wish that Roberson had let Caro be an actual active participant in this conversation.
Caro leaned down to rub more salve into my flesh. But I stopped him. I caught his wrist, sat up slowly, confronted him face to face.
I looked for some indication, some sign he knew who he was; what he was, and what he might have become. But there was only patient curiosity as he waited for an explanation.
I let go of him. “They told him nothing.”
“No. I think they believe him a lackwit, unable to comprehend. He is not, of course. But neither is he fit to be Mujhar.”
Okay, this doesn't make ANY sense at all. At SOME point, they must have had to show the guy off to at least a few people. A figurehead still needs to be visible. What did Caro think was going on?
Conveniently we don't have to know. Because the poor guy is window dressing in this scene.
Niall notes that all he has to do is announce Carollan's disabilities and the rebellion is done. Um. IS it?
I'll grant that the Homanans are probably ableist enough to believe that a Deaf man can't be king, but why would they believe Niall? And there still might be the issue of any children Caro might have. He's only thirty-six or so.
Niall is a good man at heart though, he asks, with sudden consternation, if the Homanans would then "destroy the useless puppet."
Taliesin is reassuring:
“I think it more likely they would simply cut the strings. But I will pick them up.” He lifted his ruined hands. “There is some movement left, I think I can work those strings. Better yet, I will cut them off entirely and let him go without.”
I looked at Caro. I could not tell what he thought. But I knew he was not the enemy, intentionally or no.
I reached out, clasped his arm, nodded to him a little. “My thanks, Caro,” I told him clearly. “In the Old Tongue—leijhana tu’sai.”
His eyes watched the movement of my mouth; the emotions in my face. I could not be certain he understood. But he smiled. He smiled my smile, returned my clasp, and went to sit upon a stool.
When I first read the book, as a teen, I'd assumed that Carollan and Taliesin had a son-father dynamic. In a later read, I picked up on the line about Carollan only being there for the last two years (...where HAD he been prior to that?), and I thought I remembered that they were established to be lovers. Possibly they were, and it's mentioned in a later book. But it's not stated directly here.
I'll bring this up because I held back on bitching TOO much about Varien being gay and hitting on Niall, and Niall's horror in response. I THOUGHT that Caro and Taliesin, as more friendly/positive gay characters, were a slight remedy to that scene.
Except, when it comes to this kind of thing, I really think it has to be stated outright to count. Varien was explicitly gay, predatory and evil. So IF I'm going to give Roberson credit, Caro and Taliesin should be just as overt. And to my disappointment, they're not.
Anyway, Niall asks about Taliesin's hands. Who did it?
And here we get an interesting contrast in father-son methodology:
“Not Tynstar.” The blue eyes were clouded with memories. “No, for many years I pleased him with my skill. Instead of remaining an itinerant Ihlini bard, I gained a permanent patron…until I asked him why he wanted to destroy the Cheysuli; why he wanted to steal Homana.” The mouth tightened a little. “But he did not ruin my hands. No. His punishment was of a different sort entirely. He gave me the ‘gift’ of eternal life. He said that if I was truly a man who did not believe in what he and others sought to achieve, he would make absolutely certain I was alive to see it when he achieved it. So I could make songs about the fall of Homana and the rise of the Ihlini.”
“Then who did destroy your hands?”
“Strahan did this. He felt I was deserving of graver punishment. Once his father was slain by Carillon, Strahan showed his grief by punishing those who would not serve him. And so he destroyed my hands, that I would live forever without the magic of the harp.”
I wish we'd gotten to meet THIS Tynstar. The man urbane and elegant enough to 'punish' a doubter by making sure he'd stand as witness. It's a nice contrast to Strahan's brutality. But unfortunately, Tynstar never really got to shine as a villain in his books. Too bad.
Taliesin gives Niall a polished glass, so he can see the damage to his own eye. It...looks pretty bad:
I tried to remain dispassionate, to study my face without emotion. But I could not. All I saw was the lidless, empty socket and the livid purple weals.
All I saw was disfigurement; the ruination of a man. I let the silver fall out of my hand.
Taliesin picked it up with his gnarled claws. “Caro will make a patch.”
“Patch,” I echoed blankly. Oh gods, lir, what will the others think? What will the others see?
What they have always seen, those who know how to look.
Gently, I touched the puckered talon scars. They divided my right brow in half, stretched diagonally across the bridge of my nose to touch the lid of the other eye, reached downward out of the empty socket to cut into my cheekbone. There was no question the hawk had known precisely what he was meant to do. But for Serri, he might have done it.
Ew. Poor guy. Taliesin says the scars will fade, but there's a bit more of an issue:
“Maimed,” I repeated. “Do you know what it means to a Cheysuli?”
A NEW plot thread??? Two chapters from the end of the book???
"A maimed warrior is useless,” I told him steadily, defying myself to break. “He cannot hunt food, protect his clan, his kin.”
Taliesin’s raised hand stopped me. “No more,” he said. “No more. Forgive me for speaking openly, but I say that is foolishness. What is to stop you from lifting a sword? From loosing an arrow? From slaying deer and others for food? What, Niall? Do you mean to tell me you will give up because you have lost an eye?”
Taliesin points out that Niall has a responsibility to Homana, not just the clans. He's young, strong, and dedicated, and there's no reason that Niall can't overcome a minor disability. He points out that Niall has another eye. Caro has no voice or hearing but hasn't given up, why should Niall.
I mean, you guys did pretty much say you didn't think Caro could be Mujhar. But a missing eye can be compensated for.
Anyway though, I'm going to spoil this now, so as not to raise anyone's hopes up. This isn't going to be a new plot thread. For exactly the reasons Taliesin gives us, everyone's going to be fine with Niall.
But this isn't completely a red herring, because it will come up again, when we have a protagonist with severe claustrophobia, a protagonist who loses a limb, and a protagonist with a not-defined type of non-neurotypical condition. And there, it will be a more significant factor.
Anyway, Niall needs to go kill that wolf before he spreads the plague more. So he's going off to fight. I'd say something about how long it took for him to heal, but to be fair, it has been established that Valgaard is weeks away from Homana-Mujhar, and I wouldn't put it past Strahan to have the wolf linger so as to taunt Niall.
He says goodbye to Taliesin and Caro. There's some exchange of Cheysuli well-wishes with Taliesin, with a request that Taliesin continue to protect Caro and let no one use him false.
(To BE FAIR, neither Taliesin nor Caro bothered to stop anyone from the rebellion in the past. But okay, whatever.)
Caro actually gets an active part in the goodbye though:
Briefly Caro and I clasped arms. He opened his mouth as if he meant to speak, closed it reluctantly. Regret bared his teeth a moment, an eloquent moment, until I pulled him into an embrace. “It does not matter,” I told him clearly, when he could see my face again. “I know what you mean to say.”
He smiled. My smile.
The chapter ends with Niall resuming his quest.
So...there we go. The rebellion plot is now done. And...as I said above, it doesn't really work for me. Of all the plots, the rebellion got the most build up. And now it's done, because Niall just happened to be injured, and just happened to get rescued by Taliesin and Caro (and by the way...HOW?), and learns that Caro has disabilities that mean that he wouldn't be accepted as Mujhar.
But how does this even make sense? There's an entire army that wants Carillon's son in command. SOME of them would have had to meet him. Some of them would be aware of his disability. Okay, they'll probably want to keep him away from the bulk of his army so the secret doesn't out. But then why not set him up in a very guarded estate somewhere?! Keyword 'guarded'? By folks who will make damn sure no one can accidently learn the truth?!
Why is the lynchpin to the Make Homana Great Again movement being allowed to live peacefully in a cottage with his Solindish friend in the middle of nowhere?
And what DOES Caro think about all this? Niall seems to think that the army just drags the poor guy out when they need him, but everything Taliesin says about Niall: that he's young, strong and determined, is true for Caro too. Thirty-six is NOT old. (I say from my vantage point of three years older.) He's clearly powerful enough to carry a large man back to a cottage (since obviously Taliesin couldn't have). He probably doesn't have Niall's martial training, but it's hard to believe that he couldn't fight them if he really wanted to.
And it's a shame. It would have been much more interesting if Caro had been a willing figurehead. If he had reasons for thinking that it'd be better with him on the throne. Heck, maybe he WAS racist. He had been taught that Cheysuli were horrible people, and it's only after he and Taliesin save Niall that he realizes that they're as human as he is. Or maybe he looked at the many times that Homana invaded Solinde and had believed that they meant to kill all Ihlini, including his friend/maybe lover, and he thought the only way to make peace was to take the throne away from them. Then, after meeting Niall and learning the plans for Hart, he realizes that peace really is possible and chooses to let go of his rebellion.
If Caro were an active participant in the rebellion, then he could have made it part of his terms that he be allowed to go home to Taliesin when he's not needed. Then everything would line up nicely, and we can have the same result: an end to the plotline, but one that's satisfying. And not nearly so ableist.
I really like the idea of these two characters. Taliesin is a great concept: an Ihlini who wants everyone to co-exist, preferring peace to dogma. And Carollan could be a really interesting epilogue to Song of Homana. If you read Song the way I did, Carollan becomes a version of Carillon who could stop trying to sublimate his true feelings, and finds peace and love with a man from a magical race.
I just wish Caro had gotten to be more of an active participant. That said, this isn't actually the last time we see them, so we'll have to see what happens next.
I think I'm going to need a warning for this one. Ableism, this time. You'll see what I mean.
We rejoin Niall for some incoherent italics. They reference pain and hands touching and lifting him. Fortunately, it doesn't last too long, and we lead into Niall waking up in someone's care.
His eyes are bandaged, so he can't see what's going on. He can hear though:
“Be still. Do not bestir yourself. Pain is a wolf at the door in winter: fob him off with a morsel or two and he may wait for spring before he comes again.”
The voice painted pictures with intonations; with subtleties of emphasis. Such a magnificent voice. “Wolf—” My voice was more croak than anything else. “Oh gods—the white wolf—”
“Gone,” the clear voice told me. “And for now, you must let him go. Aye, he must be caught, be slain, but there is nothing now you can do. Not yet. Wait a bit; I promise, you will fulfill your own tahlmorra.”
Niall is in pretty rough shape at the moment. The pain is intense. One of his eyes is gone. Serri is here though, and reassures him. He tells him to do as "Taliesin" tells him, as his skills will heal Niall.
Taliesin says that Niall is too young to recognize his name, and that it's no longer spoken. Niall is in his cottage, but doesn't need to fear discovery, as Strahan doesn't come there. Taliesin also tells Niall that he knows what Strahan did to him and that it's not so different from what Strahan had done to Taliesin.
There's more:
“Here.” A hand was slipped beneath my head, tipping it up. Such a strong, wide hand, cradling my skull so gently. Another pressed a cup against my lips; I drank the bitter brew. “It will help the pain,” Taliesin told me. “Sleep, my lord—let the herbs do their work.”
My lord…. “You know me?”
“I do not know you—how could I? But aye, I know who you are. Be at ease, my lord. Solindish I may be, but I have no quarrel with Homana. Certainly none with you.”
“Your voice—” I was slipping into sleep. “I am sorry. I could not say if you are man or woman.”
Taliesin seems to be male, going by Serri's statement, but it's fair to ask. Taliesin doesn't take offense, stating that a true bard might be either or both when singing his lays and sagas. A bard! Is he a scary death bard like Lachlan??
Anyway, Taliesin confirms that when Niall is able to see again, he'll see that Taliesin is indeed male. Niall is still pretty shocked and out of it, though Serri confirms that he killed the hawk that hurt Niall. Aw.
After sleeping a bit, Niall is alert enough to ask questions. First and foremost, how a self-identified Solindishman knows of tahlmorra. Taliesin, cryptic and dramatic as bards must be by law, tells him that it's better to ask what he knows about the Cheysuli.
And THIS is interesting:
“What do you know of Cheysuli?” I asked obligingly. But my curiosity was genuine.
“I know of tahlmorras and lir and responsibilities. I know of the dedication that drives your race; the loyalty of the fanatic; the arrogance of a man who believes he is a child of the gods.”
“Believes!” I did not like his attitude, regardless how quietly he expressed it. “We are children of the gods.”
“Oh, aye, I know. The word Cheysuli means that precisely. But it means other things, as well: zealotry and intolerance, single-minded determination, the willingness to sacrifice many for the sake of a single man: the Firstborn. The child of the prophecy. The Lion of Homana.”
“By the gods, you sound like an Ihlini.”
“I should. I am.”
Ooo. A DIFFERENT kind of death bard! Niall, rather understandably, starts to freak out but Taliesin is quick to reassure him that he's not one of Strahan's minions, Niall can leave if he wish - Taliesin won't keep him, call him back, or tell anyone he's here, and urges Niall to ask his lir.
That's a fair point. Niall's been talking to Serri all along, despite Taliesin's presence.
We get more of an explanation:
“If you are Ihlini, this is not possible.”
“It is. I am not one of Strahan’s Ihlini; nor am I one of Tynstar’s, though once he was my lord. No. I am Ihlini, aye, but no more your enemy than your lir. There is a difference, my lord, a divergence of opinion. Strahan does not rule us all, only those who wish it. Only those who serve Asar-Suti.”
“And you do not.” My dubiousness was plain, but Taliesin was patient.
“Asar-Suti is the god of the netherworld; the Seker, who made and dwells in darkness. But I caution you, my lord: Be not so quick to lump us all together. Be not so ready to give me over into darkness when I prefer the light.”
I thought suddenly of the old woman in Homana, the old Ihlini woman, who had sacrificed her life to make certain Ian and I believed she told the truth. She had not done it for us. She had done it for Homana.
Niall asks how this can be, and Taliesin points out that they have free will. He admits that it does seem like there's no choice when you know you're denying the underworld by denying the prophecy, but he could.
As for Taliesin:
“I have no wish to shake your faith; to question your dedication. Once, I shared it myself, though I gave it to my lord and Asar-Suti. I believed, because Tynstar made certain I did. And I served as well as I could, until I began to question the validity of Tynstar’s intentions. Why, I wondered, was it so important for him to have Homana? Why was it so necessary to destroy our brother race in order to claim the land? And so, one day, I asked him.”
My fingers were locked in Serri’s pelt. “What did he say?” I asked tightly. “What was Tynstar’s answer?”
“He said if the Ihlini did not destroy the Cheysuli, the end of the world would come.”
“He lied!”
“Did he?” For a moment there was silence. “Be not so certain, Niall.”
Taliesin explains that he's talking about perception rather than absolutes. And elaborates:
“Perception, Niall: if the Cheysuli are allowed to live and the prophecy is fulfilled, the bloodlines will be merged. The Firstborn will emerge. And, in time—as it is with horses, dogs, sheep—the original bloodlines will be overtaken by the new.” He paused. “Tynstar spoke the truth: if the Ihlini do not destroy the Cheysuli, the world will come to an end. The world as Ihlini perceive it.”
Would it? The Firstborn died out once already. But I do think that there is a fair question here that remains unasked: what WILL happen to the Ihlini OR Cheysuli when the Firstborn come back? Will they be family? Or servants? Are the Firstborn going to be good people? Remember, if we listen to Strahan or Lillith, BOTH races descend from them. And there's enough to imply some truth to that. Even the Cheysuli weren't above keeping women as sex slaves to continue their race. So...Yeah...
Niall doesn't necessarily believe Taliesin, but he's starting to realize that at least some of his enemies actually do have understandable motivations behind their actions. Well, I don't think there was much understandable about what they did to Alix or Ian or Bronwyn. But the general enmity is more comprehensible.
Taliesin continues his story, explaining a bit about the natural state of the Ihlini:
“I ask you to make no judgments. I do not intend to shake your faith. I only explain how it was that one Ihlini chose to deny his god, his lord…and renounce the gifts the Firstborn gave us.”
“Gave you?”
“Aye,” he said gently. “Not all of us are evil. Not all of us serve Asar-Suti. And when we do not, when we have not drunk of the Seker’s blood, we remain only men and women who have a little magic. A little magic, Niall…the sort you would claim if Serri left you.”
There's a weird little tangent about what might happen if a lir willingly LEFT a Cheysuli rather than died, but it's pretty pointless. Except for one interesting part: Taliesin seems to believe that when the child of the prophecy is born, the lir will "know a new master".
“'One day a man of all blood will unite, in peace, four warring realms and two magic races,’” Taliesin quoted. “What happens then, Niall? What becomes of the Ihlini? What becomes of the Cheysuli?”
No.
“The races, merged, form a new one. The one that lived before. The one with all the power.”
Serri, say it is not true.
This bit isn't quite working for me. We already knew that the Prophecy is meant to bring back the Firstborn. There's nothing in there about lir. But maybe the Ihlini have more information. They do live longer, after all. With fewer generations, maybe more of the old knowledge remained intact. Taliesin at least believes that the Firstborn's re-emergence will defeat the Seker, and seal the Gate to the netherworld. The Firstborn shall rule in the name of the other gods.
Niall is confused. And this leads to a patented Roberson incomprehensible exchange:
“And you renounced Tynstar because of that?” I asked. “Because you support the merging of the races?”
“It means life, my lord, for all of us. I want the Cheysuli destroyed no more than the Ihlini. And the only means for settling our feud forever is to change the face of hatred.”
These lines don't work together! Also, Taliesin's dialogue all through indicates that he shares the Ihlini belief that the Prophecy isn't a good thing. Or at least that he's unsure. And "it means life" doesn't make sense as a response.
But I do appreciate the set up we have here: someone who may be ambivalent, or even against the Prophecy, but isn't willing to go to war over it. He doesn't want them to kill each other. Fair enough.
Meanwhile, Serri, conveniently, refuses to answer any of Niall's fears or doubts. Because lir are fucking useless sometimes.
--
Since this was short, I'm going to move into Chapter 9.
It seems to be a bit later. Niall's still recovering, and he's freaking out a little because he's realizing there's a third person here. Taliesin confirms this is true. "Caro" is this person and he's been here all along as Taliesin's guest, his friend, his hands.
Niall picks up on the oddness of the last bit, but is more focused on his eyes. The bandages are itching, he'd like them off. Taliesin agrees that it's time.
So Niall's eye adjusts. Singular. His right eye is gone. Taliesin says that they'll make him a patch. Caro is the owner of the big hands that helped. Taliesin has the voice.
And this is where we resolve a plot point very bizarrely and unsatisfactorily, because Niall looks at Caro. We're told he laughs and cries, because Caro IS "himself".
We don't get an explanation yet. We segue to Taliesin:
“Did you know?” I asked Taliesin, when the laughter and tears had faded. “Did you know?”
He did not answer at once. For the first time I looked upon him as he sat in a lopsided chair. His hair was white, bound back by a thin silver circlet, but his face was smooth, unaged; the face of a man eternally young. His clear eyes were very blue.
I looked at his hands. Twisted, gnarled things, once whole, now not; someone had purposely destroyed them, for nothing else could do such tremendous damage.
Ouch.
Anyway, Niall asks if SERRI knew. But Serri just says that Niall was in pain, so they didn't tell him until he needed to know.
“They told me his name,” Taliesin said. “Carollan. They asked me to keep him safe.”
Carollan/Carillon. Not quite the same, but close enough. Like father, like son—except the son was deaf and dumb.
“Safe,” I echoed, looking at my kinsman; at Carillon’s bastard son. “They believed my father would slay him?”
“They were convinced of it. There was nowhere in Homana he would be safe, they said, and so they brought him nearly two years ago to Solinde. To Taliesin the bard, who once sang in the halls of Solindish kings; in the halls of Ihlini strongholds. They knew. They knew I could never harm him. And they knew no one would look for him here. When they need him, they borrow him. But they always bring him back.” He paused. “It was how I knew you, Niall. This close to the border even I hear news of how the Prince of Homana resembles his grandsire, how the bastard resembles his father.”
I looked at Caro in fascination. He was me. But not, quite. He was thirty-six, nearly sixteen years older than I. His face was older, as was to be expected; wind-chafed, with traceries of sunlines at the outer corners of his eyes. His beard was more mature. But everything else was the same: tawny, sunstreaked hair, darker beard, blue eyes, almost identical shape of facial bones. Carillon had well and truly stamped his progeny.
So...enter the bastard.
And this is where things completely fall apart for me in terms of a resolution.
Carillon's bastard son is both deaf and unable to speak. Niall believes that this means that the Homanans just want a puppet on the throne. "An empty vessel upon the Lion, so they can rule Homana.”
That's pretty fucking ableist. He's still a person. While I doubt Deaf education is particularly good in this setting, the man is clearly competent enough to act as a Healer's hands. There are ways that he can communicate his wishes.
That said, it will be pretty difficult if he doesn't have willing help. And Homana is, at least implicitly, an ableist society:
I shook my head. “Surely they understand once the truth is known, the petition will be denied.”
“Surely they do,” Taliesin agreed. “But I am sure they feel the truth will never be discovered, or—if it is—it will be too late; the Lion will already be theirs. Look at what they have already accomplished, even with him hidden.” He shook his white-haired head. “Do not forget, Niall, many people never see their king. Many people know only his name, not what or who he is. They toil to pay his taxes, they die in his armies, they celebrate his name-day and the birth of sons and heirs…but only rarely do they set eyes upon the man. He is a name. And it is possible for a realm to be governed for years by only a name.”
I guess there's some truth to that. Though I still think this doesn't give Carollan enough credit. Taliesin points out that Carillon is a legend, and for a lot of people, elevating Carillon's son means recapturing Carillon himself.
Niall also thinks about Sarne and her insistence that Carillon promised his son a place in the succession. I think he thinks she was trying to protect him, but that does seem like a really bad idea. While I definitely think a deaf man can be a king, he will need some assistance. If the people around him aren't trustworthy, then he'll be in a pretty fucking vulnerable position. If he's forced into a figurehead role and tries to exert his own power...what happens to him?
I also wish that Roberson had let Caro be an actual active participant in this conversation.
Caro leaned down to rub more salve into my flesh. But I stopped him. I caught his wrist, sat up slowly, confronted him face to face.
I looked for some indication, some sign he knew who he was; what he was, and what he might have become. But there was only patient curiosity as he waited for an explanation.
I let go of him. “They told him nothing.”
“No. I think they believe him a lackwit, unable to comprehend. He is not, of course. But neither is he fit to be Mujhar.”
Okay, this doesn't make ANY sense at all. At SOME point, they must have had to show the guy off to at least a few people. A figurehead still needs to be visible. What did Caro think was going on?
Conveniently we don't have to know. Because the poor guy is window dressing in this scene.
Niall notes that all he has to do is announce Carollan's disabilities and the rebellion is done. Um. IS it?
I'll grant that the Homanans are probably ableist enough to believe that a Deaf man can't be king, but why would they believe Niall? And there still might be the issue of any children Caro might have. He's only thirty-six or so.
Niall is a good man at heart though, he asks, with sudden consternation, if the Homanans would then "destroy the useless puppet."
Taliesin is reassuring:
“I think it more likely they would simply cut the strings. But I will pick them up.” He lifted his ruined hands. “There is some movement left, I think I can work those strings. Better yet, I will cut them off entirely and let him go without.”
I looked at Caro. I could not tell what he thought. But I knew he was not the enemy, intentionally or no.
I reached out, clasped his arm, nodded to him a little. “My thanks, Caro,” I told him clearly. “In the Old Tongue—leijhana tu’sai.”
His eyes watched the movement of my mouth; the emotions in my face. I could not be certain he understood. But he smiled. He smiled my smile, returned my clasp, and went to sit upon a stool.
When I first read the book, as a teen, I'd assumed that Carollan and Taliesin had a son-father dynamic. In a later read, I picked up on the line about Carollan only being there for the last two years (...where HAD he been prior to that?), and I thought I remembered that they were established to be lovers. Possibly they were, and it's mentioned in a later book. But it's not stated directly here.
I'll bring this up because I held back on bitching TOO much about Varien being gay and hitting on Niall, and Niall's horror in response. I THOUGHT that Caro and Taliesin, as more friendly/positive gay characters, were a slight remedy to that scene.
Except, when it comes to this kind of thing, I really think it has to be stated outright to count. Varien was explicitly gay, predatory and evil. So IF I'm going to give Roberson credit, Caro and Taliesin should be just as overt. And to my disappointment, they're not.
Anyway, Niall asks about Taliesin's hands. Who did it?
And here we get an interesting contrast in father-son methodology:
“Not Tynstar.” The blue eyes were clouded with memories. “No, for many years I pleased him with my skill. Instead of remaining an itinerant Ihlini bard, I gained a permanent patron…until I asked him why he wanted to destroy the Cheysuli; why he wanted to steal Homana.” The mouth tightened a little. “But he did not ruin my hands. No. His punishment was of a different sort entirely. He gave me the ‘gift’ of eternal life. He said that if I was truly a man who did not believe in what he and others sought to achieve, he would make absolutely certain I was alive to see it when he achieved it. So I could make songs about the fall of Homana and the rise of the Ihlini.”
“Then who did destroy your hands?”
“Strahan did this. He felt I was deserving of graver punishment. Once his father was slain by Carillon, Strahan showed his grief by punishing those who would not serve him. And so he destroyed my hands, that I would live forever without the magic of the harp.”
I wish we'd gotten to meet THIS Tynstar. The man urbane and elegant enough to 'punish' a doubter by making sure he'd stand as witness. It's a nice contrast to Strahan's brutality. But unfortunately, Tynstar never really got to shine as a villain in his books. Too bad.
Taliesin gives Niall a polished glass, so he can see the damage to his own eye. It...looks pretty bad:
I tried to remain dispassionate, to study my face without emotion. But I could not. All I saw was the lidless, empty socket and the livid purple weals.
All I saw was disfigurement; the ruination of a man. I let the silver fall out of my hand.
Taliesin picked it up with his gnarled claws. “Caro will make a patch.”
“Patch,” I echoed blankly. Oh gods, lir, what will the others think? What will the others see?
What they have always seen, those who know how to look.
Gently, I touched the puckered talon scars. They divided my right brow in half, stretched diagonally across the bridge of my nose to touch the lid of the other eye, reached downward out of the empty socket to cut into my cheekbone. There was no question the hawk had known precisely what he was meant to do. But for Serri, he might have done it.
Ew. Poor guy. Taliesin says the scars will fade, but there's a bit more of an issue:
“Maimed,” I repeated. “Do you know what it means to a Cheysuli?”
A NEW plot thread??? Two chapters from the end of the book???
"A maimed warrior is useless,” I told him steadily, defying myself to break. “He cannot hunt food, protect his clan, his kin.”
Taliesin’s raised hand stopped me. “No more,” he said. “No more. Forgive me for speaking openly, but I say that is foolishness. What is to stop you from lifting a sword? From loosing an arrow? From slaying deer and others for food? What, Niall? Do you mean to tell me you will give up because you have lost an eye?”
Taliesin points out that Niall has a responsibility to Homana, not just the clans. He's young, strong, and dedicated, and there's no reason that Niall can't overcome a minor disability. He points out that Niall has another eye. Caro has no voice or hearing but hasn't given up, why should Niall.
I mean, you guys did pretty much say you didn't think Caro could be Mujhar. But a missing eye can be compensated for.
Anyway though, I'm going to spoil this now, so as not to raise anyone's hopes up. This isn't going to be a new plot thread. For exactly the reasons Taliesin gives us, everyone's going to be fine with Niall.
But this isn't completely a red herring, because it will come up again, when we have a protagonist with severe claustrophobia, a protagonist who loses a limb, and a protagonist with a not-defined type of non-neurotypical condition. And there, it will be a more significant factor.
Anyway, Niall needs to go kill that wolf before he spreads the plague more. So he's going off to fight. I'd say something about how long it took for him to heal, but to be fair, it has been established that Valgaard is weeks away from Homana-Mujhar, and I wouldn't put it past Strahan to have the wolf linger so as to taunt Niall.
He says goodbye to Taliesin and Caro. There's some exchange of Cheysuli well-wishes with Taliesin, with a request that Taliesin continue to protect Caro and let no one use him false.
(To BE FAIR, neither Taliesin nor Caro bothered to stop anyone from the rebellion in the past. But okay, whatever.)
Caro actually gets an active part in the goodbye though:
Briefly Caro and I clasped arms. He opened his mouth as if he meant to speak, closed it reluctantly. Regret bared his teeth a moment, an eloquent moment, until I pulled him into an embrace. “It does not matter,” I told him clearly, when he could see my face again. “I know what you mean to say.”
He smiled. My smile.
The chapter ends with Niall resuming his quest.
So...there we go. The rebellion plot is now done. And...as I said above, it doesn't really work for me. Of all the plots, the rebellion got the most build up. And now it's done, because Niall just happened to be injured, and just happened to get rescued by Taliesin and Caro (and by the way...HOW?), and learns that Caro has disabilities that mean that he wouldn't be accepted as Mujhar.
But how does this even make sense? There's an entire army that wants Carillon's son in command. SOME of them would have had to meet him. Some of them would be aware of his disability. Okay, they'll probably want to keep him away from the bulk of his army so the secret doesn't out. But then why not set him up in a very guarded estate somewhere?! Keyword 'guarded'? By folks who will make damn sure no one can accidently learn the truth?!
Why is the lynchpin to the Make Homana Great Again movement being allowed to live peacefully in a cottage with his Solindish friend in the middle of nowhere?
And what DOES Caro think about all this? Niall seems to think that the army just drags the poor guy out when they need him, but everything Taliesin says about Niall: that he's young, strong and determined, is true for Caro too. Thirty-six is NOT old. (I say from my vantage point of three years older.) He's clearly powerful enough to carry a large man back to a cottage (since obviously Taliesin couldn't have). He probably doesn't have Niall's martial training, but it's hard to believe that he couldn't fight them if he really wanted to.
And it's a shame. It would have been much more interesting if Caro had been a willing figurehead. If he had reasons for thinking that it'd be better with him on the throne. Heck, maybe he WAS racist. He had been taught that Cheysuli were horrible people, and it's only after he and Taliesin save Niall that he realizes that they're as human as he is. Or maybe he looked at the many times that Homana invaded Solinde and had believed that they meant to kill all Ihlini, including his friend/maybe lover, and he thought the only way to make peace was to take the throne away from them. Then, after meeting Niall and learning the plans for Hart, he realizes that peace really is possible and chooses to let go of his rebellion.
If Caro were an active participant in the rebellion, then he could have made it part of his terms that he be allowed to go home to Taliesin when he's not needed. Then everything would line up nicely, and we can have the same result: an end to the plotline, but one that's satisfying. And not nearly so ableist.
I really like the idea of these two characters. Taliesin is a great concept: an Ihlini who wants everyone to co-exist, preferring peace to dogma. And Carollan could be a really interesting epilogue to Song of Homana. If you read Song the way I did, Carollan becomes a version of Carillon who could stop trying to sublimate his true feelings, and finds peace and love with a man from a magical race.
I just wish Caro had gotten to be more of an active participant. That said, this isn't actually the last time we see them, so we'll have to see what happens next.
no subject
Date: 2022-10-13 05:58 pm (UTC)Good enough ploy from Strahan, anyway, although it could have been much more effective. If the hawk was able to plan taking out Niall's eye, then why not go in for the kill?
Niall would be in too much pain to react, and I don't know how much help Serri could be. He apparently did kill the hawk (poor thing), but it comes across as more of a revenge killing than attempt to disable them.
This scenario would have been nice: The hawk takes out Niall's eye and, when he's incapacitated, they tear open Niall's carotid arteries (talons would presumably be first choice, then beak) so he'll bleed out. (Failing that, another target could be the veins/arteries near his collarbones.) Serri would not be in time to stop the hawk from pouncing, and he would have to make the choice: Attack the hawk and risk either biting Niall or tearing the hawk off and also tearing the wounds wide open, or hold off and pray that Niall won't bleed out. Either way, Serri would have to stop the bleeding in th wilderness, without much medical knowledge, and without anything to staunch with other than his own body, which would make carrying Niall very hard. It's a bit preposterous already that Niall recovered this fine with his current injuries; the thing I just described should outright kill him, barring literal divine intervention.
And so, the plague would be free to roam, as Serri would be dead too, Carollan and Taliesin would never hear of it and even if Ian and Tasha recovered, they wouldn't know about the white wolf from the start. Sure, someone would be bound to kill the wolf at some point (after all, some people would notice the connection to the legends), but in the meantime, lots of people would die. And Niall dying would fuck up the succession, what would cause extra chaos. Making the switch could be hard, especially from a first-person perspective, but I think it would be worth it.
Instead, the threat is minimised and the bird is anticlimactically killed off.
no subject
Date: 2022-10-13 06:04 pm (UTC)That said, I think the hawk actually did debut there: I remember Shakti going after Donal's lir "Taj" when he was captive.
Here, we do have a BIT of a handwaved excuse: supposedly Serri killed the hawk before it could kill Niall. But it seems very iffy, and I'm not really sure how Caro and Taliesin, especially given the latter's injuries, could have carried Niall off without Strahan noticing.
(And you've got a point about the healing. Serri credits it to Taliesin, but we'd never heard anything about Ihlini having healing magic the way that the Cheysuli do. Though I guess it could be tied into their whole unaging schtick. I wish Niall had asked more about it, because it COULD be a nice little compare/contrast to Cheysuli Earth magic and thus another indication of the original relationship between the races.)
It's a funny phenomenon, the book series gradually gets better from this point on (at least in contrast to Shapechangers or Legacy of the Sword), but the villains are pretty one note. Except maybe one, who we'll meet in the next book: Pride of Princes. That villain is surprisingly effective.
no subject
Date: 2022-10-13 07:13 pm (UTC)Reading your recap of Part 2 Chapter 4 of Legacy of the Sword, I saw this:
(Not that I blame you for forgetting; it's been slightly over a year.)
So Sakti died back then. Which still makes this hawk come right out of nowhere. It could have been nice of they were some kind of relative of Sakti (for example, one of her daughters, come to take revenge), but it's just weird here.
Says Serri. Not to be mean, but I doubt how clear Serri could have been in such a streesful situation, and whether he would be able to see if the hawk meant to kill Niall. It makes sense that he would interpret the situation in the worst possible terms.
Me too. I'd think Strahan would keep a keen eye on Taliesin: he may expect Tally not to interfere, but that doesn't mean he won't.
And how did Tally and Caro find out about Serri and Niall in the first place? I don't think Serri would know where to find them, and even if he did, it wouldn't be very easy. I guess Tally heard the screaming? But even then, it feels too convenient that the murderhawk attacked Niall just around their place.
Or maybe he's supposed to be just that good with herbs, which still seems too convenient for such a wound as this, especially with preventing infection.
Qua healing magic, it could tie in with the unaging part by putting healing as de-aging someone to the state before they were wounded, with older wounds being harder to heal. That'd be really cool.
Thankfully this series doesn't follow the Twilight/Inheritance profile: steadily declining quality (bonus points of the middle barely has plot.)
Another sadly common thing. *sigh*
Oooh, nice.
no subject
Date: 2022-10-14 01:36 am (UTC)It doesn't actually surprise me that Strahan isn't keeping an eye on Taliesin. Strahan has some tendency toward overlooking small things that turn around and bite him in the ass (see, for example, how Evan and Finn rescue Donal in Legacy, using the stone he'd left behind to power his illusion.) But you're not wrong: Taliesin and Caro finding Niall at all seems very contrived. (Why is the bastard contender for Homana's throne living in a cottage past the Solindish border anyway?)
Honestly, all Roberson had to do was tell us that Ihlini have some limited clairvoyance. It wouldn't contradict what came before, and would have been an excuse for Taliesin to know where to go.
I appreciate your comments! I'll warn you though, if you do decide to go back and read the rest of the series so far, the first and third books are utterly abysmal. Depressingly, this is possibly the best book so far, even with the weaknesses in this chapter.
no subject
Date: 2022-10-14 05:04 am (UTC)Ah, right. I guess overlooking small things is a complication of being Chaotic Dramatic.
Indeed. Giving the Ihlini a bit of magic of all kinds would have been a quite good idea.
Thanks! And I'd already seen Shapechangers and Legacy of the Sword were horrible. I'll see if I can bear to go back to them.
no subject
Date: 2022-10-14 06:56 am (UTC)Part 2
Date: 2022-10-13 07:46 pm (UTC)Just the face of hatred. So you'll just find another group to hate? I don't think that will solve much in the end, Tally.
Guess I should just be glad he doesn't act like a jealous boyfriend...
Right. Keep him safe by having him in the backyard of the eeeevil Strahan. What's to keep Strahan from keeping Carollan hostage? It would be a great way to get leverage over Homana.
And what if someone else would want to assassinate him? He's living there in plain sight, using his own name and going undisguised. Somehow, it doesn't seem the best option to me.
Carollan may be deaf, but that doesn't mean he's incompetent, as you said. Whether or not he would be a puppet depends much more on his personality and how much pressure the Homanans can put on him.
Eesh. And this is why you don't mess with birds.
How does Niall know the hawk was male, by the way? It seems unlikely he or Serri could have identified their gender in such a stressful situation. And qua raw power, a female would generally be better suited. So I'm going with some internalised sexism.
Unrelated question: Which kinds of animals can be lir? I know they can be hawks, falcons, and wolves, at least, but beyond that, I don't know.
Re: Part 2
Date: 2022-10-14 02:02 am (UTC)I can actually buy that Niall can sex a hawk or falcon based on his Cheysuli upbringing. Hawks and falcons are pretty common lir, and as mentioned, Niall's father Donal has a falcon lir. (And a wolf. Donal's obnoxiously special.)
I don't know that Roberson has specifically laid out rules as to which animals can and cannot be lir. So far, we've seen or heard of hawks, falcons, wolves, big cats (Ian's Tasha), foxes, and bears. Aidan, the lead of book 7, has a raven. This is surprising to the other characters, because there hasn't been a raven lir for some time, but it's not unheard of.
It is pretty boggling that Carollan's out in the middle of nowhere. I'm not sure if you've read enough to follow the family dynamics, but I'll give you a quick explanation. Carillon was a major character in the first three books of the series. The main thrust of his story is in Song of Homana, where he emerges from exile to free his homeland after it had been conquered by Solinde. He also ended the genocidal purge against the Cheysuli that his predecessor began. (Long story). So he's now gotten a very mythic quality.
Carillon has only one legitimate child, his daughter, Aislinn (Niall's mother.). To secure the throne, he betrothed her to Donal, the son of Alix and Duncan (the main characters of the first story in the series). Alix is his first cousin and had been the granddaughter of Carillon's predecessor, so Donal had a claim to the throne in his own right.
Niall then is Carillon's grandson. Carollan is his illegitimate half-uncle. Niall, like his father, is culturally Cheysuli, which is an ethnic minority, albeit one with cool shapeshifting/healing powers. The Homanans are a bit ambivalent about being ruled by a Cheysuli (and things had been really bad a few generations ago, hence the whole genocidal purge thing), so they've latched onto the idea of Carollan as an alternate potential heir. For all that Niall talks about a "rebellion", it hasn't gotten to the level of outright fighting yet, which is probably why Carollan hasn't been tracked down and assassinated. (Though our heroes might be too heroic to consider that tactic. Hard to say.)
It really does make it ridiculous that Carollan is randomly living with an Ihlini bard (Ihlini being the series villains) across the Solindish border. Roberson, rather unsurprisingly, dropped the ball here.
Re: Part 2
Date: 2022-10-14 04:49 am (UTC)Ah, fair enough. And pretty cool. I'd already seen Donal had two lir. Special is as special does, after all. *rolls eyes*
So the usual suspects. I'd really like some more diversity qua companions in such stories in general. Like someone with a nightingale lir. It might not fit a warrior society, but it would be nice to break the mold.
Carollan would certainly make sense as a candidate. And good to see I've identified a plot hole while I don't know all that much about the series.
Re: Part 2
Date: 2022-10-14 06:54 am (UTC)Re: Part 2
Date: 2022-10-14 04:13 pm (UTC)As to his lir, my best guess would be a fox or the like. Even in modern settings, they wouldn't attract overmuch attention.
(And I don't think that anyone could have an ermine, stoat or weasel lir for example, as they're coded as "vermin" in Western society, in the 90s probably more so than now, and author forbid the Cheysuli have other prejudices on that front.)
Anyway, I don't know why there's such a focus on either raptors or large mammals not only with lir, but also with "animal companions" in general. I think it's got to do with those animals being quite prominent in popular culture and so being the "usual suspects", so to say. Although the lir do get a good sense of personality, they still feel more like Cheysuli cosplaying like wolves and such, and less like actual wolves and the like.
I'd wish for more stories where the companion does have a distinct personality, but isn't essentially turned into a human.
I'm just asking for a bit more diversity qua species.
I hope that made a bit of sense. I'm tired and on a phone, so yeah.
Another question: how long do the lir live? I'd think they'd get an average human lifespan.
Re: Part 2
Date: 2022-10-14 04:47 pm (UTC)There seems to be some variation on the age of a lir when bonding. Most of the lead Cheysuli characters are bonded prior to the events of their books, except for Niall and Kellin. Niall's Serri seems to be a young adult, while Kellin's Sima is described as still a cub (big cat. Weirdly wolves seem to be the most common lir for the protagonists in the first half of the series (between Finn, Donal and Niall), while big cats seem most common in the second half (Ian, Brennan and Kellin). Not sure if there's any meaning behind that.)
Storr is the only lir we've seen so far to outlive his bondmate, and he dissolved into dust. I'm not sure if that's because he's long past a wolf's natural lifespan or that's how it always happens.
Re: Part 2
Thankfully. And I hope most lir would get bonded when they're at least adolescent. It just feels really icky when they're younger, because they've never really had a life of their own.
Maybe the shift to big cats symbolises changing attitudes or something? Although someone bonding to a raven lir would be a surer sign.
Seems more like Storr was much older than he would have normally been. So lir-ship does have some perks.
Come to think of it, the Inheritance Cycle, my mainstay qua bad fantasy, also has a relationship that works somewhat like this. In that case, it's Dragon Riders (sound familiar?) who magically bond to a dragon hatchling. It's supposed to be a "soul-bond" and one half of a pair should have a very hard time living on without the other. The only problem is that protagonist and his dragon barely seem to care about each other, so it kind of falls flat.
By the way, I think the post title should read "Part 3" instead of "Part 2".
Re: Part 2
Date: 2022-10-14 07:05 pm (UTC)It's a shame when the psychic bond thing doesn't work very well. The Dragonriders of Pern (which probably originated the trope, though there might have been earlier examples) can be hit or miss when it comes to fleshing out the rider-dragon relationship. Some are very strong and some may as well be non-existent.
Roberson's reasonably competent at it, I think. Shapechangers was a crap book, but she did pretty clearly differentiate Cai and Storr as individuals, and their respective bonds with Duncan and Finn. And Storr had some additional focus in Song of Homana, even if he couldn't talk at the time. I thought she dropped the ball a bit with Taj and Lorn in Legacy of the Sword, but Serri is strong enough to make up for that.
The Valdemar books by Mercedes Lackey kind of go in a different direction. There, Heralds bond with Companions, who appear to be white horses, but have human intelligence. The emotional bonds are VERY strong, and the Companions are all very defined in personality, but they're basically characterized as humans in horse form (and there is a setting justification for that). So it may not really scratch the itch.
Re: Part 2
Date: 2022-10-14 07:56 pm (UTC)There's the cases that really don't work:
The two main characters, Eragon and Saphira. At first, Eragon is horrible towards Saphira and Saphira behaves like a jealous girlfriend. Later on, they just don't care about each other.
The "teachers" of Eragon and Saphira. The dragon, Glaedr, has probably been depressed for years and his partner doesn't seem to care.
The Love Interest, Arya and her dragon, Fírnen. Arya sets Fírnen up to be raped by Saphira. It's not meant like that, but it is rape when he's got no idea what is happening.
And then the cases that do work:
Eragon's Evil-but-not-really half-brother, Murtagh, and his dragon, Thorn. Despite barely seeing them on-screen together, we can still see they've got a good relationship, and I've even got a feel for Thorn's character.
Galbatorix (the EEEEVIL villain) and Jarnunvösk, his first dragon. We barely know anything about them, but Jarnunvösk was apparently still prepared to sacrifice herself for Galbatorix.
And yeah, they certainly do have seperate personalities. Roberson certainly did good enough in that aspect, although I will always wish for less rape and incest.
Your mention of the Valdemar books reminds me of the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant (another possible target for this community :)), where there's horses, the Ranyhyn, with vaguely magical powers and who are linked to the land in a way. IIRC, in the later books, they also form a kind of psychic bonds. And they can use time travel, too. They're really one of the parts I like best about the books. (I really should reread them.)
Ah well, maybe the specific kind of books I want just don't exist yet. I'll wait.
Re: Part 2
Date: 2022-10-14 08:09 pm (UTC)I remember Thomas Covenant. I'd liked a different series Donaldson had written, started Lord Foul's Bane and noped the fuck out of there. Which says something, considering how many terrible books I did read. (This isn't meant to be a judgment of anyone who did enjoy it. It's just that it really didn't appeal to me.)
I won't say I'll never review it here, but it's definitely not on my upcoming list. It's fair game if you want to tackle it first. :-D
Re: Part 2
Date: 2022-10-14 08:14 pm (UTC)Re: Part 2
Date: 2022-10-14 08:15 pm (UTC)Re: Part 2
Date: 2024-09-12 09:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-04-03 07:55 pm (UTC)That's interesting to hear! Also... by now, I've ended up scratching my own itch, as you might have surmised. As it turns out, telepathic companions don't really feature in that at all (though they probably do exist). I'm having quite some fun with what I did do!
no subject
Date: 2023-04-17 03:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-04-17 06:54 pm (UTC)It's frustrating because it wouldn't take much to give Caro some agency in all this. Roberson's great at broad strokes characterization, she could absolutely make Caro a memorable character in his own right (as she did with Taliesin). She just didn't bother.
no subject
Date: 2024-09-12 08:57 am (UTC)Not always a good thing~ /points at the Law Endings of many Shin Megami Tensei games
Carillon's bastard son is both deaf and unable to speak. Niall believes that this means that the Homanans just want a puppet on the throne. "An empty vessel upon the Lion, so they can rule Homana.”
It's an ableist sentiment, but it could work if it is what the rebels plan. But Caro's in hiding with Taliesin because he realized that they were planning to put him on the throne as a figurehead and were very carefully isolating him from anyone he could communicate with who would also pass along whatever he said. So he absconds, hoping that without their figurehead, the rebellion will be critically weakened, since while men will fight in the name of a son of Carillon that nobody has seen in a while but many swear exists, it's much harder to crown a missing man.
And then the resolution could be even more anti-ableist, with Niall deciding to undercut the rebels by bringing him to the capital and letting him officially petition for a position in court that befits his parentage.
Maybe a general. And he ends up in a rivalry that turns romantic with his counterpart in Solinde...