Dragonsong - Chapter Eight
Dec. 14th, 2019 12:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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i_read_whatSo last time in Dragonsong, we had a really cute chapter of Menolly doing survivally things with her swarm of lizards. I enjoyed that a lot.
So, we rejoin Alemi and Elgion at Half-Circle Hold, who were told are out to look for fire lizards together. Then we're told how this happens.
Apparently, at some point Alemi manages to break his leg. (Father of the Year, Yanus is not very sympathetic, though he stops grumbling when Mavi points out that this was a chance to see if Alemi's first mate is capable of commanding a ship.)
We're told that Alemi has gotten restless after four days in bed, and Mavi gives him his crutch a week early, telling him that if he breaks his neck, he has only himself to blame. He ends up finding Elgion, teaching the children a new ballad. He joins in, and apparently is pretty quick to learn new lyrics and a tune. He's got a decent baritone, which Elgion notes. He almost slips up and mentions Menolly here, but catches himself.
I'm not really sure why Alemi is going along with the "let's not tell the Harper that Menolly can sing" bit. I'm also not sure why there IS a "let's not tell the Harper that Menolly can sing" bit. But then I'm ALSO not sure why Petiron didn't just send the name of the composer along with the letter, since they would have to find out Menolly's a girl eventually.
Anyway, Elgion is basically one of the few decent people in the cast and mentions that he asked N'ton to keep an eye out for her. He brings up Petiron's fosterling: he'd found some of the songs and is really impressed. And we get Alemi's reaction.
Alemi was torn between duty to the Hold and love of his sister. But she wasn’t in the Hold anymore, and commonsense told Alemi that she must be dead if, in this length of time, with dragonriders looking for her, she hadn’t been found. Menolly was only a girl, so what good did it do that her songs found favor with the Harper? Alemi was also reluctant to put the lie to his father. So, despite the fact that Elgion was impressed by the songs, since the songmaker was beyond them, Alemi answered truthfully that he didn’t know where “he” was.
Dear Ms. McCaffrey: it doesn't help to tell me that a character is "torn" if you don't tell me WHY. I can accept that Alemi probably has internalized a lot of his father's weird ideas, but I don't see how keeping Menolly's identity a secret works as his "duty to the Hold." Also, you'd think the children would have mentioned learning from her at some point.
Anyway, Elgion says he wants to send them to Robinton, which makes Alemi regret his lie. Elgion's smart enough to realize that Alemi knows who the composer is, and that there's some reason he can't name him, so he hopes that if the composer hears the music composed, "he" will come forward. He asks if the lad was sent away "in some disgrace", which he notes happens some time. But conveniently he backs off then, because we need to stretch out this reveal for literally no reason.
This is like Dragonquest to me: how can this book be so good in some respects (Menolly herself, the lizards, the survival fun) and so utterly annoying in others? I am, admittedly enjoying it a lot more than Dragonquest though.
Alemi and Elgion apparently hit it off, because they're about the same age, even with their different background. This would be more enlightening if I knew how old EITHER man is. Though we know Elgion is a young bard, that could still mean a lot of things. Alemi is curious about the world outside of the Hold, while Elgion is just happy that Alemi isn't a dick like Yanus, and thinks that he might have a chance with following Robinton's instructions to "broaden understanding" after all.
They meet up a fair bit, and Elgion gets Alemi to teach him to sail, since he knows very little about it. Apparently the childrens' crafts don't require both legs, and Alemi is happy to give instruction.
I like Elgion a lot, I wish he had more of an actual plot here, because the idea of being a young educator in a very stiff, closed-minded community (on a world with dragons!) is actually really interesting. There could be a really interesting parallel plot here, especially in terms of exploring what being a Harper actually means, but I don't think Ms. McCaffrey is interested in Elgion beyond his role of praising Menolly in abstentia and eventually learning her identity.
I'm not even sure Elgion shows up in any of the later books. That's how limited the poor guy's role is.
So anyway, Elgion realizes that while Yanus would probably be scornful of any search for fire lizards, and he doesn't want to get Alemi in trouble, so he's hoping to learn enough to search for himself.
So they have their date, and it's cute. He teaches Alemi how to fish with hook and line. There's an interesting implication that fish eat Thread here: apparently they only feed at dawn, unless there's Thread. And Alemi specifically uses "dry worm" as bait because it resembles Thread. I wonder if F'lar knows this.
I also wonder how stopping Threadfall will effect these fish. Given that they do okay during the 200 or 400 year intervals, they're probably not dependent on Thread for food. But it's still pretty interesting.
Elgion eventually succeeds in getting Alemi to talk about having seen fire lizards. Alemi admits that the creatures he saw were too small and fast to be wherries, but he's skeptical of the whole "fire lizard" thing. Elgion fills him in on the current news out of Dragonquest: namely that F'nor and "five or six other riders" (because G'sel and Mirrim don't deserve names, I guess) have found and Impressed fire lizards, and that Elgion's been asked to look for them.
Alemi is on board with this plan. He's got a lot of helpful knowledge about tides and beaches, and when he saw the fire lizards feeding. There's more sailing lessons, and then we see exactly why this plot is happening at all:
Elgion hears music. Specifically piping. This makes Alemi visibly unhappy, and Elgion puts it all together: Alemi's missing sister is the musician who taught the kids. But we have to stretch this reveal out even longer: Alemi points out that Menolly can't be playing the pipes now because she cut her hand.
Elgion accepts this, even though he's only hearing about the injury second hand, and spares no thought for the idea that Alemi isn't a healer, the injury may not be as bad as it first looked, or that a set of pipes could be devised that could be played with one hand, or with only limited contribution from the other hand.
And we're also getting a good example of McCaffrey's lack of nuance shooting her own storyline in the foot. Alemi tells Elgion that Yanus believed the Hold would be "disgraced" to have a girl taking the place of a Harper. Elgion is appalled at the Yanus's "obtuseness".
Menolly's story has two main components: first, that she has a shit ton of fire lizards. Second, that she will be the first and only female Harper (at least at this time period.) Now, the writing for Half-Circle Hold has been pretty clumsy, but it did a fairly decent job of showing us a level of institutionalized prejudice that Menolly will have to overcome when she becomes a Harper.
But the problem is that the only characters that we see expressing this prejudice, are the characters we're not supposed to like. As we see here, Elgion seems to have no problem with the idea that the "fosterling" he's supposed to find is a girl. It's not even that Elgion is willing to look past Menolly's gender. He's genuinely appalled that YANUS has a problem with it. Which would imply then that the Harpers have no issue with female members.
Which raises the question of course: why is Menolly going to be the first/only female Harper? Are we seriously supposed to believe that NO other woman has demonstrated the talent or ambition to become a Harper before?
Right now, it's not a big deal. Menolly's story in Dragonsong is more about survival and learning about the fire lizards. But eventually, we're going to go back to the whole "first female Harper" thing in Dragonsinger.
So back to the reason Elgion exists, shilling Menolly:
Now Elgion could understand many things about Menolly’s disappearance and the general reluctance at the Hold to discuss her or find her. There was no doubt in his mind that her disappearance was deliberate. Anyone sensitive enough to compose such melodies must have found life in the Sea Hold intolerable: doubly so with Yanus as Sea Holder and father. And then to be considered a disgrace! Elgion cursed Petiron for not making the matter plain. If only he had told Robinton that the promising musician were a girl, she might have been at the Harperhall before that knife had a chance to slip.
a) So yeah, more concrete proof that Menolly's gender is apparently a non-issue, rendering that part of her storyline intrinsically pointless. (Why not have other female Harpers, then? Menolly's story could be about learning to be the BEST Harper. She doesn't have to be first!)
b) WHY is Elgion taking Alemi's word for how bad Menolly's injury is? It's not like Alemi even gave enough details for a knowledgeable person to say "oh, yeah, that won't heal right."
So they end up going back to the Hold. Elgion promises not to reveal that Alemi told him about Menolly, to avoid "disgrace". (Disgrace from whom? Elgion is the only person who didn't know!) He considers whether or not it's possible to play multiple pipes with one hand.
Ugh, this is tedious. Obviously we know Menolly is playing the pipes. Obviously, while her hand is still a problem, it's not enough of a problem to keep her from playing. Elgion is an experienced musician, so he ought to realize that not all injuries are the same. This is pointless.
So the chapter ends with Elgion going out to "solve the mystery", and I end frustrated.
Elgion is a good character. He's got some really interesting challenges here. And he makes for a good parallel with Menolly, as Menolly escapes her restrictive upbringing, Elgion's now got to stay in that environment and make it work. Elgion has a fairly important mission that ties into the long term goal of Harper Hall and the series. Through his mission, we should be learning more about what a Harper is, or does, beyond just playing music. (Menolly's already amazing at the music part. It's the rest of the "being a Harper" stuff that she'll need to learn.) We should see what it means to be a Harper in a Hold, the kind of politics that one plays, how to serve two masters: the distant Masterharper and the immediate Lord Holder. McCaffrey pays lip service to the idea that it's difficult to get Yanus to open his mind to new ideas, but there are other avenues to take.
But McCaffrey isn't interested in Elgion's story, even where it serves Menolly. She invents the fire lizard quest to get him out of the Hold, pair him with Alemi so he can hear about Menolly's sad circumstances, and be outside to hear Menolly's playing. At no point does Elgion actually get to succeed in this mission, and in fact, he seems to have forgotten all about it now that he has a new mystery to solve. (which isn't even a mystery! McCaffrey just wants to drag the reveal out longer!)
And as mentioned, we're never actually going to see this guy again after this book.
Poor Elgion isn't really a character in his own right. He's a plot device to tell us more and more about how awesome Menolly is. And it's really annoying because Menolly is a good character! She doesn't NEED this shilling!
So, we rejoin Alemi and Elgion at Half-Circle Hold, who were told are out to look for fire lizards together. Then we're told how this happens.
Apparently, at some point Alemi manages to break his leg. (Father of the Year, Yanus is not very sympathetic, though he stops grumbling when Mavi points out that this was a chance to see if Alemi's first mate is capable of commanding a ship.)
We're told that Alemi has gotten restless after four days in bed, and Mavi gives him his crutch a week early, telling him that if he breaks his neck, he has only himself to blame. He ends up finding Elgion, teaching the children a new ballad. He joins in, and apparently is pretty quick to learn new lyrics and a tune. He's got a decent baritone, which Elgion notes. He almost slips up and mentions Menolly here, but catches himself.
I'm not really sure why Alemi is going along with the "let's not tell the Harper that Menolly can sing" bit. I'm also not sure why there IS a "let's not tell the Harper that Menolly can sing" bit. But then I'm ALSO not sure why Petiron didn't just send the name of the composer along with the letter, since they would have to find out Menolly's a girl eventually.
Anyway, Elgion is basically one of the few decent people in the cast and mentions that he asked N'ton to keep an eye out for her. He brings up Petiron's fosterling: he'd found some of the songs and is really impressed. And we get Alemi's reaction.
Alemi was torn between duty to the Hold and love of his sister. But she wasn’t in the Hold anymore, and commonsense told Alemi that she must be dead if, in this length of time, with dragonriders looking for her, she hadn’t been found. Menolly was only a girl, so what good did it do that her songs found favor with the Harper? Alemi was also reluctant to put the lie to his father. So, despite the fact that Elgion was impressed by the songs, since the songmaker was beyond them, Alemi answered truthfully that he didn’t know where “he” was.
Dear Ms. McCaffrey: it doesn't help to tell me that a character is "torn" if you don't tell me WHY. I can accept that Alemi probably has internalized a lot of his father's weird ideas, but I don't see how keeping Menolly's identity a secret works as his "duty to the Hold." Also, you'd think the children would have mentioned learning from her at some point.
Anyway, Elgion says he wants to send them to Robinton, which makes Alemi regret his lie. Elgion's smart enough to realize that Alemi knows who the composer is, and that there's some reason he can't name him, so he hopes that if the composer hears the music composed, "he" will come forward. He asks if the lad was sent away "in some disgrace", which he notes happens some time. But conveniently he backs off then, because we need to stretch out this reveal for literally no reason.
This is like Dragonquest to me: how can this book be so good in some respects (Menolly herself, the lizards, the survival fun) and so utterly annoying in others? I am, admittedly enjoying it a lot more than Dragonquest though.
Alemi and Elgion apparently hit it off, because they're about the same age, even with their different background. This would be more enlightening if I knew how old EITHER man is. Though we know Elgion is a young bard, that could still mean a lot of things. Alemi is curious about the world outside of the Hold, while Elgion is just happy that Alemi isn't a dick like Yanus, and thinks that he might have a chance with following Robinton's instructions to "broaden understanding" after all.
They meet up a fair bit, and Elgion gets Alemi to teach him to sail, since he knows very little about it. Apparently the childrens' crafts don't require both legs, and Alemi is happy to give instruction.
I like Elgion a lot, I wish he had more of an actual plot here, because the idea of being a young educator in a very stiff, closed-minded community (on a world with dragons!) is actually really interesting. There could be a really interesting parallel plot here, especially in terms of exploring what being a Harper actually means, but I don't think Ms. McCaffrey is interested in Elgion beyond his role of praising Menolly in abstentia and eventually learning her identity.
I'm not even sure Elgion shows up in any of the later books. That's how limited the poor guy's role is.
So anyway, Elgion realizes that while Yanus would probably be scornful of any search for fire lizards, and he doesn't want to get Alemi in trouble, so he's hoping to learn enough to search for himself.
So they have their date, and it's cute. He teaches Alemi how to fish with hook and line. There's an interesting implication that fish eat Thread here: apparently they only feed at dawn, unless there's Thread. And Alemi specifically uses "dry worm" as bait because it resembles Thread. I wonder if F'lar knows this.
I also wonder how stopping Threadfall will effect these fish. Given that they do okay during the 200 or 400 year intervals, they're probably not dependent on Thread for food. But it's still pretty interesting.
Elgion eventually succeeds in getting Alemi to talk about having seen fire lizards. Alemi admits that the creatures he saw were too small and fast to be wherries, but he's skeptical of the whole "fire lizard" thing. Elgion fills him in on the current news out of Dragonquest: namely that F'nor and "five or six other riders" (because G'sel and Mirrim don't deserve names, I guess) have found and Impressed fire lizards, and that Elgion's been asked to look for them.
Alemi is on board with this plan. He's got a lot of helpful knowledge about tides and beaches, and when he saw the fire lizards feeding. There's more sailing lessons, and then we see exactly why this plot is happening at all:
Elgion hears music. Specifically piping. This makes Alemi visibly unhappy, and Elgion puts it all together: Alemi's missing sister is the musician who taught the kids. But we have to stretch this reveal out even longer: Alemi points out that Menolly can't be playing the pipes now because she cut her hand.
Elgion accepts this, even though he's only hearing about the injury second hand, and spares no thought for the idea that Alemi isn't a healer, the injury may not be as bad as it first looked, or that a set of pipes could be devised that could be played with one hand, or with only limited contribution from the other hand.
And we're also getting a good example of McCaffrey's lack of nuance shooting her own storyline in the foot. Alemi tells Elgion that Yanus believed the Hold would be "disgraced" to have a girl taking the place of a Harper. Elgion is appalled at the Yanus's "obtuseness".
Menolly's story has two main components: first, that she has a shit ton of fire lizards. Second, that she will be the first and only female Harper (at least at this time period.) Now, the writing for Half-Circle Hold has been pretty clumsy, but it did a fairly decent job of showing us a level of institutionalized prejudice that Menolly will have to overcome when she becomes a Harper.
But the problem is that the only characters that we see expressing this prejudice, are the characters we're not supposed to like. As we see here, Elgion seems to have no problem with the idea that the "fosterling" he's supposed to find is a girl. It's not even that Elgion is willing to look past Menolly's gender. He's genuinely appalled that YANUS has a problem with it. Which would imply then that the Harpers have no issue with female members.
Which raises the question of course: why is Menolly going to be the first/only female Harper? Are we seriously supposed to believe that NO other woman has demonstrated the talent or ambition to become a Harper before?
Right now, it's not a big deal. Menolly's story in Dragonsong is more about survival and learning about the fire lizards. But eventually, we're going to go back to the whole "first female Harper" thing in Dragonsinger.
So back to the reason Elgion exists, shilling Menolly:
Now Elgion could understand many things about Menolly’s disappearance and the general reluctance at the Hold to discuss her or find her. There was no doubt in his mind that her disappearance was deliberate. Anyone sensitive enough to compose such melodies must have found life in the Sea Hold intolerable: doubly so with Yanus as Sea Holder and father. And then to be considered a disgrace! Elgion cursed Petiron for not making the matter plain. If only he had told Robinton that the promising musician were a girl, she might have been at the Harperhall before that knife had a chance to slip.
a) So yeah, more concrete proof that Menolly's gender is apparently a non-issue, rendering that part of her storyline intrinsically pointless. (Why not have other female Harpers, then? Menolly's story could be about learning to be the BEST Harper. She doesn't have to be first!)
b) WHY is Elgion taking Alemi's word for how bad Menolly's injury is? It's not like Alemi even gave enough details for a knowledgeable person to say "oh, yeah, that won't heal right."
So they end up going back to the Hold. Elgion promises not to reveal that Alemi told him about Menolly, to avoid "disgrace". (Disgrace from whom? Elgion is the only person who didn't know!) He considers whether or not it's possible to play multiple pipes with one hand.
Ugh, this is tedious. Obviously we know Menolly is playing the pipes. Obviously, while her hand is still a problem, it's not enough of a problem to keep her from playing. Elgion is an experienced musician, so he ought to realize that not all injuries are the same. This is pointless.
So the chapter ends with Elgion going out to "solve the mystery", and I end frustrated.
Elgion is a good character. He's got some really interesting challenges here. And he makes for a good parallel with Menolly, as Menolly escapes her restrictive upbringing, Elgion's now got to stay in that environment and make it work. Elgion has a fairly important mission that ties into the long term goal of Harper Hall and the series. Through his mission, we should be learning more about what a Harper is, or does, beyond just playing music. (Menolly's already amazing at the music part. It's the rest of the "being a Harper" stuff that she'll need to learn.) We should see what it means to be a Harper in a Hold, the kind of politics that one plays, how to serve two masters: the distant Masterharper and the immediate Lord Holder. McCaffrey pays lip service to the idea that it's difficult to get Yanus to open his mind to new ideas, but there are other avenues to take.
But McCaffrey isn't interested in Elgion's story, even where it serves Menolly. She invents the fire lizard quest to get him out of the Hold, pair him with Alemi so he can hear about Menolly's sad circumstances, and be outside to hear Menolly's playing. At no point does Elgion actually get to succeed in this mission, and in fact, he seems to have forgotten all about it now that he has a new mystery to solve. (which isn't even a mystery! McCaffrey just wants to drag the reveal out longer!)
And as mentioned, we're never actually going to see this guy again after this book.
Poor Elgion isn't really a character in his own right. He's a plot device to tell us more and more about how awesome Menolly is. And it's really annoying because Menolly is a good character! She doesn't NEED this shilling!
no subject
Date: 2019-12-15 11:38 am (UTC)This is even more confusing when you factor in Robinton's mother being a Master Singer who lived in and worked for Harper Hall (her husband being the late Petiron). Oh, and Petiron had a few female students, too.
This is ultimately blamed on a sweeping wave of conservatism that occurs in Robinton's youth. Harpers have become associated with the Dragonriders (who are pretty much seen as useless, thanks to the long break between Threadfalls). A lot of people start seeing Harpers as worthless propagandists rather than historians and entertainers--especially since many of them don't believe that Thread is anything but a superstition or a Harper's tale. Other stories start spreading about how Harper women are liars and generally indecent. Fax from the first book encouraged the idea that Harpers were worthless, as he didn't want anyone in his domains learning what the duties of a lord were and using that knowledge to unseat him. And...it took a painfully long time to get rid of Fax.
By the time Menolly comes along--well, Thread has started falling again, and Robinton has engineered a campaign since he was in his twenties to get people to see the value of Harpers again (which has been partially successful), but widespread misogyny, Fax-spawned ignorance, and thirty-odd years of distrust of Harpers have combined to make the idea of a Harper girl shocking to much of Pern's population. Thirty years has been enough to convince a population that is largely illiterate, doesn't travel much, and largely isolated that "it's always been this way."
That's why everyone keeps talking about disgrace. To their minds, being a Harper woman is associated with immorality. No one wants the Harper man (who clearly wouldn't be immoral, heavens, no!) to know about Menolly because then he'll either know that Menolly is a bad girl or want to take her away and turn her into one, because clearly no one could have any interest in girls or women that wasn't purely sexual.
If you want to punch these assholes, you are not alone.
no subject
Date: 2019-12-15 08:10 pm (UTC)I'm a little frustrated that so little of that reasonable explanation pops up in Dragonsong/Dragonsinger. It's not so bad here, because Menolly's story is more about the survival/fire lizards aspect, but it gets really aggravating in Dragonsinger. So much of that takes place in the Harper Hall, where 95% of the people conveniently have no problem with a female Harper, that there's next to no actual challenge for the character, and we don't see any of the exterior prejudice against the Harpers there. (But that's a rant for another book. :-))
no subject
Date: 2019-12-15 08:45 pm (UTC)Yeaaaah, Robinton is very much a favorite of McCaffrey's. He's a remarkable musician from the time that he's about two or three--kind of like a Pernese Mozart. He's not so much a favorite of mine, as he ends up having a developmentally disabled son who can't sing--horrors!--that he's desperately ashamed of.
no subject
Date: 2019-12-16 02:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-09-21 01:10 am (UTC)Yup. That's a part of the worldbuilding I want to know more about. What was the ecology of Pern like before human discovery? How did it have any land-based life outside of caves? 200 years of normalcy is a long time, but 50 years of Threadfall will probably hit every inch of exposed land, setting everything back to square one.
Sea life is more straightforward, it's probably adapted to 250-year cycles. 50 years of plenty, 200 years of the excess life being consumed. The two Long Intervals have probably already messed up that cycle, and the end of Threadfall will throw it completely out of balance.
no subject
Date: 2024-09-21 01:57 am (UTC)Elgion
Date: 2025-05-19 09:40 pm (UTC)Still slightly confused about why everyone seems okay with women in every other crafthall, though. (Brekke and that one Smith headwoman who got pulled off cooking duty, for example.)
Re: Elgion
Date: 2025-05-20 12:24 am (UTC)