Dragonsong - Chapter Six

[kalinara]

So last time, Menolly ran away and accidentally Impressed a shit ton of flying cats. Well, fire lizards. But I'm pretty sure they're the same thing.



So this chapter starts back at Half-Circle Hold. Sella is the first person to notice that Menolly's missing, mostly because she doesn't want to deal with Old Uncle. I feel like the book wants me to judge Sella harshly for this, but it's not like Menolly particularly enjoyed dealing with Old Uncle either. It sounds like dealing with Old Uncle has been Sella's job for a long time. But that's okay, I guess, because she's not super-talented like Menolly.

Sella is a bit of a bitch though, since she's ranting to her mother about how caring for Old Uncle is all Menolly's good for. Mavi does NOT approve of this, which leads Sella to grumble about how all Menolly does is "drag about, cradling that hand of hers as if it were precious" and that Menolly gets out of all of the reed work.

I'm sighing a little here. Dragonsong was doing so well in avoiding a lot of the usual 1970s feminist YA cliches. Menolly disliked traditionally feminine work, but that was because her interests lie elsewhere, not because there's anything intrinsically wrong with it. I was hoping we'd get to avoid the "bitchy, ultrafeminine contrast" part too. But sadly, no.

But as I mentioned before, I can kind of see Sella's point. I mean, obviously she could be a lot more concerned about her sister's injury, but it sounds like Sella's been doing a lot of less than pleasant work while Menolly's gotten to hole up with Petiron and learn music.

And honestly, I still really don't like the way Ms. McCaffrey uses Old Uncle here. I suppose it's understandable that young girls might resent having a caregiver role, but she could do a better job of treating the poor guy like a human being.

Anyway, Mavi is disturbed about the Hold doors having been unfastened that morning, and sends Sella to find Menolly. Sella eventually realizes that no one had seen Menolly all day. We're told she's annoyed at first, and she thinks Mavi is "a good deal too lenient with the child." And if Menolly wasn't inside, then she'd been caught out in the Thread, and "that served her right."

Whoa. Can we talk about the 0 to 100 acceleration here from "my sister is annoying and Mom is too lenient" to "and getting killed by Thread would serve her right"? Where the fuck did that come from?! And I was just praising Ms. McCaffrey for giving her adversary characters some nuance in this book.

Ms. McCaffrey backtracks a bit here, and Sella begins to feel frightened, thinking that if Menolly had been out there, there'd have to be something left that the Thread couldn't eat. She goes to their brother, Alemi, to ask if he'd seen anything unusual.

Alemi is considerably more sympathetic to Menolly than Sella, because he's a boy, not an ultra-feminine girl. He apparently doesn't share Yanus's issues with Menolly's ability, and didn't agree with Yanus's decision to keep it secret. This just makes Yanus's behavior make less sense, really, when even his son doesn't understand it.

That said, there is a bit that I genuinely like here, because Alemi finishes his musing with "especially now that there was a Harper in the Hold to keep her in line." It's a bit of an asshole thing to think, that his sister needs to be "kept in line" because she plays music. But I like that Alemi isn't a saint here, and still buys into some of the Hold's sexism.

Of course, Alemi ends up giving Sella a long hard look when her questioning sounds a bit like she'd be glad Menolly got Threaded.

Seriously, where did this COME from? Does Ms. McCaffrey not realize there's a pretty big difference between finding your sister annoying and wanting her dead?! And if Sella really hates Menolly this much, shouldn't we have seen some sign of malicious behavior before?!

So anyway, Alemi reassures Sella that no Thread got through Benden's wings, and Sella reports to Mavi with "some pleasure" that Menolly's gone and that she thinks Menolly "committed the enormous crime of leaving the Hold doors unbarred."

Well, that she did do. So I'm not really sure why the book is acting like Sella's being bitchy for accusing her.

Mavi, for her part, does shudder at the thought of anyone, "even a recalcitrant daughter", caught out in Thread.

...even a recalcitrant daughter? Really? I was JUST PRAISING this book for giving adversaries some depth, and we have Mavi treating the fact that her daughter could have been killed as something of an afterthought?!

And then there's Yanus:

Yanus was silent for a long moment when he heard of Menolly’s disappearance. He didn’t like untoward things happening, such as the Hold doors being left unbarred. He’d worried about that all during the Fall and the fishing after the Fall. It wasn’t good for a Sea Holder to have his mind diverted from the task at hand. He felt some relief that the mystery had been solved, and a keen annoyance and anxiety about the girl. Foolish thing for her to have done—leave the Hold that early. She’d been sulking ever since that beating. Mavi hadn’t kept her busy enough to make her forget the nonsense of tuning.

Look, Ms. McCaffrey, you did a reasonably good job earlier of convincing me that Yanus and Mavi were people who genuinely did care about their children, but were doing a very lousy job of showing it, and were particularly ill-equipped to handle an unconventional, extremely talented child. You did a fantastic job of showing us how Menolly, as a teenager, was apt to blow admittedly unfair things out of proportion as signs of malicious persecution or callous neglect.

But now you've given us a petulant, self centered monster who likes the idea of her sister dying in agony, and parents who seem to be considering their daughter's likely death an afterthought to the point of refusing to even go look for her.

Because that's what happens next of course, Elgion (the bard) suggests that Menolly took shelter in the caves along the coast. And Mavi and Yanus go with that, insisting she'll be back soon. (Mavi at least has a note of anxiousness in her voice.)

Two days later, Menolly still isn't back and no one had seen her. One of the shipmasters says there's no point in searching for her, "mindful that there was more surety of catching fish than finding any trace of a foolish girl. Particularly one with a crippled hand."

Alas, poor nuance. I knew him well.

This dude, we're told, "rather favored the notion that she'd fallen into a crevice or over the edge of the bluff, in terror at finding herself out during Threadfall."

What the fuck is wrong with this Hold?! Apparently Ms. McCaffrey wasn't happy with my praise in the nuanced way she wrote Menolly, instead, she decided that Menolly is absolutely right: no one in the Hold cares about her at all (except Alemi, and possibly Elgion). And random strangers are HAPPY at the thought of her being dead.

Mavi is the only one who gets even a trace of humanity here, as the shipmaster's assholishness causes her to catch her breath in a sound "very like a sob". Elgion and Alemi defend Menolly.

Yanus orders everyone abroad to keep an eye out for her, but says that he cannot "in conscience do more than that under the circumstances." And he orders people to the boat. This is where nuance went to die.

And just in case we had any doubt:

While Elgion did not actually expect the Sea Holder to institute an intensive search for a lost girl, he was surprised at the decision. Mavi, even, accepted it, almost as if she were glad of an excuse, as if the girl were an embarrassment The shipmaster was obviously pleased by his Sea Holder’s impartiality. Only Alemi betrayed resentment.

So Elgion and Alemi talk, and Alemi reveals that he thinks Menolly is alive and better off wherever she is than in Half Circle. He wishes her luck and long life. Elgion, for his part, is having a crisis of ability: if he can't even get the Sea Holder to rescue a blood relation, how can he try to get them to see the big picture.

Poor Elgion, it's not your fault that Ms. McCaffrey seems unwilling to allow anyone to be remotely three dimensional characters. You were never going to succeed here. You exist only to facilitate the discovery of Menolly's talents.

And speaking of, Elgion realizes he doesn't know very much about Menolly at all and had barely seen her. He's also made no headway in discovering the song-maker. Apparently Robinton wants the kid yesterday, because Gifted songmakers are a "rare commodity" and something to be sought and cherished. Elgion's barely found anyone who can even help him with the task of nightly entertainment. He considers most of the people "deadheads", which is kind of rude.

Anyway, when he tries to tell the boys to keep an eye out for Menolly or at least her belt knife, they're all reluctant to look for her. Because no one in this Hold appears capable of actually caring about the fate of a child. Jesus Christ. He has to "regain their confidence" by telling them that Yanus had been the one to suggest that everyone keep their eyes open for her.

So, Menolly's not being a typical teenager, making mountains out of molehills. The people of this Hold, if they don't outright hate her, seem to have the kind of callous disregard that we see from the townsfolk in Shirley Jackson's Lottery. What close knit community wouldn't care that a child went missing? They were happy to have the girl entertain them on a nightly basis before Elgion shows up. Hell, these kids are kids that Menolly's been teaching for months, and not a single one wants to look for her?

This is bullshit. This is lazy writing.

I'm slightly cheered because the next part has Elgion meeting with a dragonrider. And he's one we know: the ever-present N'ton! He's here to ask about fire lizards and fills Elgion in on the gossip: F'nor's Impressed a fire lizard queen. And now fire lizards are in great demand. N'ton apparently knows Yanus well enough to know that he wouldn't waste his men's time and energy looking for them, but he thinks that Elgion and the Hold youngsters might find something.

Elgion's on board and asks what they should do if they find any. N'ton explains the Impressing process, and admits that he'd like one himself given the chance. Fair enough. Elgion brings up Menolly, and N'ton shows more sympathy than anyone in Menolly's own Hold, and says he'll tell the sweep riders to keep an eye out. He scowls when he finds out that no one's sent out a search party, and says "There are other things in life than fish."

Yes, thank you. Hey, Ms. McCaffrey, this behavior doesn't get any more comprehensible just because you've hung a lampshade on it.

This is an extraordinarily frustrating chapter. Moreso because it comes after such a fun one. I know I said this before, but I can't help it: the previous chapters were SO GOOD at showing Menolly as a teenager who was being treated unfairly by people who cared but didn't understand her, and which she read as being more malicious than it was. That was FINE. It was enough to make us want Menolly to leave and go somewhere she's appreciated, without the need to make anyone a horrible monster.

But Ms. McCaffrey appearently wasn't happy with that. So now we have a Hold full of callous monsters who are perfectly happy to leave a child to possibly be injured or dead out in the wilderness, because they don't want to deal with the inconvenience of finding her. The only people who remotely express any care for Menolly are Elgion (because he's a Harper), Alemi, and Mavi - though Ms. McCaffrey's quick to have her seem to dismiss her child after all is said and done. There are people who are outright happy to imagine her dead. And no one, not even her aunts, her uncle, the kids she's taught express even a hint of concern.

It's pretty clear that Ms. McCaffrey has basically lost interest in Half-Circle Hold or its people. They've served their purpose, so there's no need to allow them any nuance any longer. Now it exists only as a place to store Elgion until he can discover Menolly's identity and meet her again. Ugh.