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i_read_whatSo we're starting part 2 of Dragonflight, which is also called Dragonflight. I believe that this is the story "Dragonrider" which won Anne McCaffrey the Nebula Award, but don't quote me on that.
At this point, Lessa has her dragon and is now (or at least, in training to be) Weyrwoman of Benden Weyr. And it's kind of a rotten deal, really. Dragons are awesome, but dragonriders? Are not.
So we start with Lessa getting her education in what it actually means to be a Weyrwoman. Basically, it amounts to copying a bunch of "teaching ballads" over and over again with her stylus like she's Bart Simpson while her hidebound instructors patiently explain why she won't actually be getting to do anything ever.
The big conflict ultimately is that Lessa believes that she and her dragon, Ramoth, should be able to fly and go between (teleport) just like the male (and green female) dragons can. However, according to her educators, Queens only fly to mate.
Lessa is sure that this isn't the case. There is, in fact, a very famous ballad called "Moreta's Ride" which specifically references a Queen Dragon and her rider flying. But the men seem to have decided that it's allegorical or something. Lessa has plans to find this ballad once she's permitted to assume the Weyrwoman duties as keeper of the records, but she hasn't been deemed ready yet.
Amidst this frustration though, Lessa has been learning some restraint: "She had had to learn that, although it was her nature to seethe, she must seethe discreetly" as the dragonriders could perceive strong emotional auras. She can't manipulate them easily as she had the people of Ruatha.
However, Lessa is not without recourse. She has learned that her ability to speak to any dragon in the Weyr is apparently unique to her, and makes for a convenient way to end lessons early.
We get another example of Jora as a scapegoat for the Weyr's troubles. Both S'lel and R'gul make note that Jora never flew Nemorth except for mating, and never left the apartments. Jora has been regularly characterized as: lazy, lecherous, incompetent, and stupid. None of the characters that we're supposed to like have a high regard for her.
I wonder though how much of that is really her fault. It's implied that it's Jora's fault that the Weyr believes Queens can't fly. But that doesn't make any sense. Jora's been Weyrwoman for F'lar's lifetime, sure, but she wasn't ancient. If Jora was the only Weyrwoman who didn't fly, then surely other older members would have remembered flying Queens. R'gul is reasonably old, as is Lytol. Manora, F'nor's mother, would also be old enough to remember the Weyrwoman before Jora.
To me, this indicates that the problem is older than Jora. And if you think about it, then a lot of Jora's negative traits make sense: why shouldn't she be lazy, if the only duties she's allowed to perform are sedentary? Why should she bother to stir her dragon, if the only time Nemorth is allowed to fly is to mate?
(That might not even be her fault, as S'lel notes "When Jora could get Nemorth to stir at all.". What exactly do you do with an uncooperative dragon?)
Why shouldn't she be lecherous, when her only real significance in the Weyr is to determine who leads by who gets to bang her/her dragon?
In my opinion, Jora's a victim of the Weyr, and she deserves better than the other characters' disgust.
Anyway, Lessa is not a fan of R'gul's leadership in general. She acknowledges that he's disciplined, but thinks his discipline is misdirected. He's too worried about angering the Holders than he is about having adequate patrols. We also find out that Fax's movement against the Weyrs didn't die with him, and another Lord, Larad of Telgar, is leading the movement.
"Now F'lar ... he had disciplined himself and his wingriders in what Lessa considered the proper direction. For he, unlike the Weyrleader, not only sincerely believed in the Laws and Traditions he followed, he understood them. Time and again she had managed to make sense of a puzzling lesson from a phrase or two F'lar tossed in her direction. But, traditionally, only the Weyrleader instructed the Weyrwoman."
How does this system remotely make sense? Why wouldn't you have a Weyrwoman learn from as many people as possible? It makes me wonder a bit if this set up was put in place to stack the deck. If the Weyrleader is training the Weyrwoman, then she'd be likely inclined to follow his lead, and perhaps subconsciously influence the outcome of the next mating flight? Which, by the way, is a really stupid way to determine a leader.
"Congratulations, your dragon fucked the queen, you're in charge now." That's a stupid fucking system.
Oh, hey, let's pile on Jora some more.
"Why , in the name of the Egg, hadn't Mnementh, F'lar's bronze giant, flown Nemorth? Hath was a noble beast, in full prime, but he could not compare with Mnementh in size, wingspread, or strength. There would have been more than ten eggs in that last clutch of Nemorth's if Mnementh had flown her.
Jora, the late and unlamented Weyrwoman, had been obese, stupid, and incompetent. On this everyone agreed. Supposedly the dragon reflected its rider as much as the rider the dragon. Lessa's thoughts turned critical. Undoubtedly Mnementh had been as repelled by the dragon, as a man like F'lar would be by the rider"
Okay, so let's unpack this for a moment. First, I love the victim blaming. It's Jora/Nemorth's fault that F'lar/Mnementh didn't find them desirable enough to mate. Let's ignore that Nemorth's preferences are apparently not an issue at all. (And, while this is not Lessa's fault because she hasn't been told some very important parts of how the mating works: Jora gets no choice in HER partner either.)
Look, F'lar KNOWS that the Red Star is coming. He knows that the dragons will be needed, at full strength. It's been two years since Lessa bonded with Ramoth. And those are two years that could have been used to revamp training and make preparations, but they didn't happen because F'lar and Mnementh couldn't man up and bang a woman/female dragon that they weren't attracted to, even though it seems pretty clear that Mnementh could have done it.
Fuck you, F'lar and Mnementh.
And Lessa, look at this society. Look at who you're dealing with. Don't let them rope you into this disgusting misogynistic victim blaming.
I really do feel for Lessa though:
Yet here she was. And that bright, active future F'lar had so glowingly painted had not materialized. Instead of using her subtle power to manipulate events and people for Pern's good, she was forced into a round of inconclusive, uninstructive, tedious days, bored to active nausea by R'gul and S'lel, restricted to the Weyrwoman's apartments (however much of a improvement that was over her square foot of the cheeseroom floor) and the feeding grounds and the bathing lake. The only time she used her ability was to terminate these sessions with her so-called tutors. Grinding her teeth, Lessa thought that if it weren't for Ramoth, she would just leave. Oust Gemma's son and take Hold at Ruatha as she ought to have done once Fax was dead."
...do it. I'm cheering for you Lessa. Take your dragon and retake your kingdom! That would be awesome!
We do meet a new female character, Manora, the "headwoman" who keeps Lessa informed of the domestic management of the Weyr. Unfortunately, only three of the Holds (Bitra, Benden and Lemos) have sent in tithes and the Weyr will not be able to feed itself for the full winter.
Lessa also learns the unpleasant fact that while the other women of the Weyr are permitted to fly with dragonriders to get supplies, she can't go anywhere. Manora at least articulates a more understandable reason why: with Ramoth growing so quickly, an absence could be disastrous.
Manora does very deliberately drop a few names in Lessa's ear: dragonriders of F'lar's wing who are chafing under R'gul's restrictions. We also learn that Manora is F'nor's mother, which may be why he's a little more tolerable than his half brother, F'lar.
Thanks to Manora, Lessa now has a goal to keep her focus: she'll recruit the dragonriders to surreptitiously keep the Weyr fed, with R'gul none the wiser.
She also comes a realization as to why F'lar hasn't acted: he's waiting for Ramoth to grow up, so that Mnementh can fly her and he can become Weyrleader.
I just...I can't get over the stupidity of this system. You could have the best strategic mind in the world, but if he happens to be a brown, blue or green rider (After all, Alexander the Great was only ever defeated by Hephaestion's thighs!), then he'll die in obscurity, his talents never even discovered.
--That may seem like a non-sequitur, but essentially the dragonriders' roles are at least in part defined by their sexuality. A bronze rider is a man attracted to women, a gold rider is a woman attracted to a man. Green riders are male at this point in time, but since their dragons are female, they still end up involved in mating flights, generally with blue or brown riders. So we've got a situation where implicitly anyone gay is barred from a leadership position. Theoretically, I think we could have a bi or pan bronze or gold rider, but as far as I know, there are no examples in the books. There is also no indication as to whether a heterosexual trans person could be a bronze or gold rider. I think there's a good argument for yes, but I don't think Anne McCaffrey has ever weighed in on it, and I'm not sure we'd like her answer if she did. --
Honestly, even if this strategic genius was heterosexual and had a bronze, but the bronze is weak or sickly: same problem. If she's a woman...she might have better luck leveraging her domestic leadership into something more direct, but even that's in question.
The entire Weyr seems to realize that R'gul's leadership is not working. Lytol, out in Ruatha, realizes that R'gul is fucking this up. F'lar, much as I hate him, clearly has a following, and a lot of respect from the non-riders of the Weyr, like Manora, whose support would be vital to any effort to lead the Weyr.
So why the fuck don't they just mutiny and CHOOSE their fucking leaders?
Look, let the mating flights happen. Sure. We still need new dragons, but why exactly does the dude who happens to be bonded to the daddy dragon need to be calling the shots? Why does mommy dragon's partner need to be handling all of the domestic duties?
Wouldn't it make more sense to choose leaders based on their abilities rather than whose dragon is the best at fucking?
I am SO FRUSTRATED by this entire ridiculous set up. WHY DID THIS HAPPEN?!!!
Anyway, we continue with a cute scene with Lessa and Ramoth (who is growing - she's already larger than Nemorth in her prime, hungry, cranky, and still reminds me of my cat), as well as a visit from F'lar, who almost manages not to annoy me for once. She also gets a message from Lytol in Ruatha, who continues to be the most useful character in the entire book by sending a generous tithe from Ruatha and updating them on the more seditious of the Lords.
Finally, there's a confrontation with R'gul, who firmly vetoes the idea of either bartering for food (one of the options brought by Manora) or raiding. It's determined that the food from Ruatha might be enough to make up the difference.
So this was an interesting section: Weyr politics are both fascinating and completely appalling. I still don't understand why, if R'gul is so afraid of the Lord Holders's might, he doesn't come up with ways that the dragons could actually contribute to society beyond just burning Thread. I've complained about this before, but seriously, you guys can't think of any way that a teleporting, telepathic, flying dragon could be useful.
Then again, considering how these guys reacted even to the idea of bartering for food, it could be more of a matter of pride. How dare the Holder Lords expect the dragonriders to WORK for a living...
God, these idiots are really lucky that we're about to see Threadfall soon. Otherwise, I think they really would destroy themselves.
Part 1:4 | Table of Contents | Part 2:2
At this point, Lessa has her dragon and is now (or at least, in training to be) Weyrwoman of Benden Weyr. And it's kind of a rotten deal, really. Dragons are awesome, but dragonriders? Are not.
So we start with Lessa getting her education in what it actually means to be a Weyrwoman. Basically, it amounts to copying a bunch of "teaching ballads" over and over again with her stylus like she's Bart Simpson while her hidebound instructors patiently explain why she won't actually be getting to do anything ever.
The big conflict ultimately is that Lessa believes that she and her dragon, Ramoth, should be able to fly and go between (teleport) just like the male (and green female) dragons can. However, according to her educators, Queens only fly to mate.
Lessa is sure that this isn't the case. There is, in fact, a very famous ballad called "Moreta's Ride" which specifically references a Queen Dragon and her rider flying. But the men seem to have decided that it's allegorical or something. Lessa has plans to find this ballad once she's permitted to assume the Weyrwoman duties as keeper of the records, but she hasn't been deemed ready yet.
Amidst this frustration though, Lessa has been learning some restraint: "She had had to learn that, although it was her nature to seethe, she must seethe discreetly" as the dragonriders could perceive strong emotional auras. She can't manipulate them easily as she had the people of Ruatha.
However, Lessa is not without recourse. She has learned that her ability to speak to any dragon in the Weyr is apparently unique to her, and makes for a convenient way to end lessons early.
We get another example of Jora as a scapegoat for the Weyr's troubles. Both S'lel and R'gul make note that Jora never flew Nemorth except for mating, and never left the apartments. Jora has been regularly characterized as: lazy, lecherous, incompetent, and stupid. None of the characters that we're supposed to like have a high regard for her.
I wonder though how much of that is really her fault. It's implied that it's Jora's fault that the Weyr believes Queens can't fly. But that doesn't make any sense. Jora's been Weyrwoman for F'lar's lifetime, sure, but she wasn't ancient. If Jora was the only Weyrwoman who didn't fly, then surely other older members would have remembered flying Queens. R'gul is reasonably old, as is Lytol. Manora, F'nor's mother, would also be old enough to remember the Weyrwoman before Jora.
To me, this indicates that the problem is older than Jora. And if you think about it, then a lot of Jora's negative traits make sense: why shouldn't she be lazy, if the only duties she's allowed to perform are sedentary? Why should she bother to stir her dragon, if the only time Nemorth is allowed to fly is to mate?
(That might not even be her fault, as S'lel notes "When Jora could get Nemorth to stir at all.". What exactly do you do with an uncooperative dragon?)
Why shouldn't she be lecherous, when her only real significance in the Weyr is to determine who leads by who gets to bang her/her dragon?
In my opinion, Jora's a victim of the Weyr, and she deserves better than the other characters' disgust.
Anyway, Lessa is not a fan of R'gul's leadership in general. She acknowledges that he's disciplined, but thinks his discipline is misdirected. He's too worried about angering the Holders than he is about having adequate patrols. We also find out that Fax's movement against the Weyrs didn't die with him, and another Lord, Larad of Telgar, is leading the movement.
"Now F'lar ... he had disciplined himself and his wingriders in what Lessa considered the proper direction. For he, unlike the Weyrleader, not only sincerely believed in the Laws and Traditions he followed, he understood them. Time and again she had managed to make sense of a puzzling lesson from a phrase or two F'lar tossed in her direction. But, traditionally, only the Weyrleader instructed the Weyrwoman."
How does this system remotely make sense? Why wouldn't you have a Weyrwoman learn from as many people as possible? It makes me wonder a bit if this set up was put in place to stack the deck. If the Weyrleader is training the Weyrwoman, then she'd be likely inclined to follow his lead, and perhaps subconsciously influence the outcome of the next mating flight? Which, by the way, is a really stupid way to determine a leader.
"Congratulations, your dragon fucked the queen, you're in charge now." That's a stupid fucking system.
Oh, hey, let's pile on Jora some more.
"Why , in the name of the Egg, hadn't Mnementh, F'lar's bronze giant, flown Nemorth? Hath was a noble beast, in full prime, but he could not compare with Mnementh in size, wingspread, or strength. There would have been more than ten eggs in that last clutch of Nemorth's if Mnementh had flown her.
Jora, the late and unlamented Weyrwoman, had been obese, stupid, and incompetent. On this everyone agreed. Supposedly the dragon reflected its rider as much as the rider the dragon. Lessa's thoughts turned critical. Undoubtedly Mnementh had been as repelled by the dragon, as a man like F'lar would be by the rider"
Okay, so let's unpack this for a moment. First, I love the victim blaming. It's Jora/Nemorth's fault that F'lar/Mnementh didn't find them desirable enough to mate. Let's ignore that Nemorth's preferences are apparently not an issue at all. (And, while this is not Lessa's fault because she hasn't been told some very important parts of how the mating works: Jora gets no choice in HER partner either.)
Look, F'lar KNOWS that the Red Star is coming. He knows that the dragons will be needed, at full strength. It's been two years since Lessa bonded with Ramoth. And those are two years that could have been used to revamp training and make preparations, but they didn't happen because F'lar and Mnementh couldn't man up and bang a woman/female dragon that they weren't attracted to, even though it seems pretty clear that Mnementh could have done it.
Fuck you, F'lar and Mnementh.
And Lessa, look at this society. Look at who you're dealing with. Don't let them rope you into this disgusting misogynistic victim blaming.
I really do feel for Lessa though:
Yet here she was. And that bright, active future F'lar had so glowingly painted had not materialized. Instead of using her subtle power to manipulate events and people for Pern's good, she was forced into a round of inconclusive, uninstructive, tedious days, bored to active nausea by R'gul and S'lel, restricted to the Weyrwoman's apartments (however much of a improvement that was over her square foot of the cheeseroom floor) and the feeding grounds and the bathing lake. The only time she used her ability was to terminate these sessions with her so-called tutors. Grinding her teeth, Lessa thought that if it weren't for Ramoth, she would just leave. Oust Gemma's son and take Hold at Ruatha as she ought to have done once Fax was dead."
...do it. I'm cheering for you Lessa. Take your dragon and retake your kingdom! That would be awesome!
We do meet a new female character, Manora, the "headwoman" who keeps Lessa informed of the domestic management of the Weyr. Unfortunately, only three of the Holds (Bitra, Benden and Lemos) have sent in tithes and the Weyr will not be able to feed itself for the full winter.
Lessa also learns the unpleasant fact that while the other women of the Weyr are permitted to fly with dragonriders to get supplies, she can't go anywhere. Manora at least articulates a more understandable reason why: with Ramoth growing so quickly, an absence could be disastrous.
Manora does very deliberately drop a few names in Lessa's ear: dragonriders of F'lar's wing who are chafing under R'gul's restrictions. We also learn that Manora is F'nor's mother, which may be why he's a little more tolerable than his half brother, F'lar.
Thanks to Manora, Lessa now has a goal to keep her focus: she'll recruit the dragonriders to surreptitiously keep the Weyr fed, with R'gul none the wiser.
She also comes a realization as to why F'lar hasn't acted: he's waiting for Ramoth to grow up, so that Mnementh can fly her and he can become Weyrleader.
I just...I can't get over the stupidity of this system. You could have the best strategic mind in the world, but if he happens to be a brown, blue or green rider (After all, Alexander the Great was only ever defeated by Hephaestion's thighs!), then he'll die in obscurity, his talents never even discovered.
--That may seem like a non-sequitur, but essentially the dragonriders' roles are at least in part defined by their sexuality. A bronze rider is a man attracted to women, a gold rider is a woman attracted to a man. Green riders are male at this point in time, but since their dragons are female, they still end up involved in mating flights, generally with blue or brown riders. So we've got a situation where implicitly anyone gay is barred from a leadership position. Theoretically, I think we could have a bi or pan bronze or gold rider, but as far as I know, there are no examples in the books. There is also no indication as to whether a heterosexual trans person could be a bronze or gold rider. I think there's a good argument for yes, but I don't think Anne McCaffrey has ever weighed in on it, and I'm not sure we'd like her answer if she did. --
Honestly, even if this strategic genius was heterosexual and had a bronze, but the bronze is weak or sickly: same problem. If she's a woman...she might have better luck leveraging her domestic leadership into something more direct, but even that's in question.
The entire Weyr seems to realize that R'gul's leadership is not working. Lytol, out in Ruatha, realizes that R'gul is fucking this up. F'lar, much as I hate him, clearly has a following, and a lot of respect from the non-riders of the Weyr, like Manora, whose support would be vital to any effort to lead the Weyr.
So why the fuck don't they just mutiny and CHOOSE their fucking leaders?
Look, let the mating flights happen. Sure. We still need new dragons, but why exactly does the dude who happens to be bonded to the daddy dragon need to be calling the shots? Why does mommy dragon's partner need to be handling all of the domestic duties?
Wouldn't it make more sense to choose leaders based on their abilities rather than whose dragon is the best at fucking?
I am SO FRUSTRATED by this entire ridiculous set up. WHY DID THIS HAPPEN?!!!
Anyway, we continue with a cute scene with Lessa and Ramoth (who is growing - she's already larger than Nemorth in her prime, hungry, cranky, and still reminds me of my cat), as well as a visit from F'lar, who almost manages not to annoy me for once. She also gets a message from Lytol in Ruatha, who continues to be the most useful character in the entire book by sending a generous tithe from Ruatha and updating them on the more seditious of the Lords.
Finally, there's a confrontation with R'gul, who firmly vetoes the idea of either bartering for food (one of the options brought by Manora) or raiding. It's determined that the food from Ruatha might be enough to make up the difference.
So this was an interesting section: Weyr politics are both fascinating and completely appalling. I still don't understand why, if R'gul is so afraid of the Lord Holders's might, he doesn't come up with ways that the dragons could actually contribute to society beyond just burning Thread. I've complained about this before, but seriously, you guys can't think of any way that a teleporting, telepathic, flying dragon could be useful.
Then again, considering how these guys reacted even to the idea of bartering for food, it could be more of a matter of pride. How dare the Holder Lords expect the dragonriders to WORK for a living...
God, these idiots are really lucky that we're about to see Threadfall soon. Otherwise, I think they really would destroy themselves.