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i_read_whatSo in part one and two, we learned that Dragonriders are the fucking worst. Perhaps this part will change our minds (spoiler: it doesn't. Lessa is great though.)
Interestingly, "Dust Fall" begins with R'gul's point of view. He hates F'lar, which is refreshing. Unfortunately, he hates F'lar for the wrong reasons. He also irks me with the way that he talks about Lessa.
"Why, R'gul had trained her up to be one of the finest Weyrwomen in many Turns. Before he'd finished her instruction, she'd known all the Teaching Ballads and Sagas letter-perfect. And then the silly child had turned to F'lar. Didn't have sense enough to appreciate the merits of an older, more experienced man. Undoubtedly she felt a first obligation to F'lar for discovering her on Search."
...yes. That's it. It couldn't possibly be that she thought you were a fucking idiot to the point where she threatened to take her dragon between if you had any shot of winning the mating flight.
I hate F'lar, don't get me wrong. But R'gul is just an idiot. He's ignoring all the visible signs that the Red Star is close enough that Thread will fall very soon. Which I might understand, given that it's been hundreds of years.
But here's the thing, if Thread doesn't fall, then what the fuck point is it to have dragonriders at all? They contribute nothing to society. Why should it matter if Lessa knows the Ballads and Sagas? Why should we care?
There's an interesting exchange between R'gul and F'lar including the phrase "Don't quote me verses I taught you as a weyrling."
This is actually a little interesting to me. I hate both F'lar and R'gul, but from what we've seen of the Weyr, it seems like there's a certain level of communal child-rearing. R'gul was a compatriot of F'lar's father, and even granting that F'lon didn't die until F'lar was nineteen, he might well have been involved in raising and training the boy.
Ultimately the inter-Weyr squabbles are basically just the squabbles of a very dysfunctional family.
R'gul insists there are no Threads, because they haven't fell for four hundred years. Jesus Christ. FOUR HUNDRED YEARS. The dragons have been actively a drain on Pern society, taking tithes, taking children and women for FOUR HUNDRED YEARS.
The Lords are saints, honestly. And damn him, F'lar of all people says pretty much that:
"'Then my fellow dragonman,' F'lar said cheerfully, 'all you have taught is falsehood. The dragons are, as the Lords of the Holds wish to believe, parasites on the economy of Pern, anachronisms. And so are we.'"
Ew, stop making me feel filthy for agreeing with a rapist, Book.
Also, you guys are parasites and have been for four centuries. Just because you're now proving some worth doesn't change that.
Anyway, F'lar basically tells R'gul that if he doesn't like it, he can leave. And R'gul's next thought actually makes me JUST A LITTLE sympathetic toward the dragonriders.
"R'gul was too stunned by F'lar's ultimatum to take offense at the ridicule. Leave the Weyr? Was the man mad? Where would he go? The Weyr had been his life. He had been bred up to it for generations. All his male ancestors had been dragonriders. Not all bronze, true, but a decent percentage. His own dam's sire had been a Weyrleader just as he, R'gul, had been until F'lar's Mnementh had flown the new queen.
But dragonmen never left the Weyr. Well, they did if they were negligent enough to lose their dragons, like that Lytol fellow at Ruatha Hold. And how could he leave the Weyr with a dragon?"
Okay, fuck you, R'gul. Lytol has been repeatedly the only fucking useful male character in this book. He and his dragon were burned because SOMEONE had the idiot notion to run games where dragons are breathing fucking fire.
But it does kind of emphasize how isolated and brainwashed these dragonriders actually are. We're talking about generations of isolation, except for the occasional people picked up during a Search. (And it's not like any of them are actually listening to Lessa like they ought to be.)
These are people who have had their little fucked up cult mentality drilled into their heads from the day they were born. They've never really had the chance to grow into decent people.
God, no wonder Jora was indolent, lazy and useless. Can you imagine getting essentially kidnapped into this fucking society?
So the meeting continues. F'lar gets R'gul to back down and gives orders to the rest. I'll give F'lar this: he's organized and decisive as a leader and has a clear plan of action.
Before I get too fond of F'lar though, we end up back into his point of view after the meeting concludes. He looks for Lessa:
"Lessa was not in the sleeping room, nor was she still bathing. F'lar snorted. That girl was going to scrub her hide off with this constant bathing. She'd had to live grimy to protect herself in Ruatha Hold, but bathing twice a day? He was beginning to wonder if this might be a subtle Lessa-variety insult to him personally. F'lar sighed. That girl. Would she never turn to him of her own accord? Would he ever touch that elusive inner core of Lessa? She had more warmth for his half brother, F'nor, and for K'net, the youngest of the bronze riders than she had for F'lar who shared her bed."
Oh, I don't know, F'lar. Maybe she feels this way because you FUCKING RAPED HER?
Maybe she likes F'nor and K'net better because they didn't rape her?
This isn't rocket science.
Anyway, apparently F'lar wants to teach Lessa to fly between today and he's frustrated to not be able to find her. There is no indication that he told Lessa he intended to teach her to fly between, but apparently she's supposed to be waiting for his convenience anyway. Fuck you, F'lar.
He asks Mnementh where "that girl" is.
"Lessa, the dragon replied, stressing the Weyrwoman's name with pointed courtesy, is talking to Manora. She's dressed for riding, he added after a slight pause."
I love you, Mnementh. You are way too good for your asshole rider. Then F'lar goes to leave and nearly runs Lessa over.
"You hadn't asked me where she was, Mnementh plaintively answered F'lar's blistering reprimand."
You know what, I choose to believe Mnementh did that on purpose. I love you, Mnementh.
Lessa is angry because she wasn't given the opportunity to see the Red Star through the Eye Rock. F'lar points out that there were a lot of people to accommodate, and she already believes that Thread is coming.
Yeah, but dude, remember that status you promised her? Would it have been THAT difficult to think about what she'd like?
Lessa points out that she's Weyrwoman and Recorder, and she'd have liked to see it in that capacity.
Now comes a bit that gets quoted a lot in feminist reviews of this book, for obvious reasons.
"He caught her arm and felt her body tense. He set his teeth, wishing, as he had a hundred times since Ramoth rose in her first mating flight, that Lessa had not been virgin, too. He had not thought to control his dragon-incited emotions, and Lessa's first sexual experience had been violent. It had surprised him to be first, considering that her adolescent years had been spent drudging for lascivious warders and soldiertypes. Evidently no one had bothered to penetrate the curtain of rags and the coat of filth she had carefully maintained as a disguise. He had been a considerate and gentle bedmate ever since, but, unless Ramoth and Mnementh were involved, he might as well call it rape.
Yet he knew someday, somehow, he would coax her into responding wholeheartedly to his lovemaking. He had a certain pride in his skill, and he was in a position to persevere."
...
Fuck you, F'lar. Just...fuck you.
These reviewers have all, rightfully savaged this passage. I'd like to do that too. But honestly it just makes me tired.
This is our hero, ladies and gentleman. A man whose only regret to setting up a situation where a woman would be compelled to have sex against her will and without prior warning is that she was a virgin. A man who made no attempt to control himself during the act because he figured that since she'd spent her adolescence working for lascivious warders and soldiers, it would be fine.
Because apparently rape victims, because that's the scenario he's describing, aren't worthy of being treated gently or without violence?
And he apparently is still having sex with her, without her "wholehearted" response. Newsflash, F'lar, it's still rape if Mnementh and Ramoth are flying. If you know she doesn't want to do this, it is rape.
I hate him so much that it's not even fun anymore.
Okay, it kind of does appeal to the masochistic side of me to see exactly how hateful F'lar can be. Let's see.
"Once or twice he had caught an unguarded expression on her face, loving and tender. He would give much to have that look turned on him. However, he admitted wryly to himself, he ought to be glad that melting regard was directed only at Ramoth and not at another human."
...yep. I can actually hate him more.
When he tells Lessa that he's teaching her to fly, she's delighted. And she even laughs when he says that he will do it, if only to keep her from trying it herself. I'm reminded again of those moments earlier in the book when I thought they had good chemistry. Why was this entire rape scenario necessary?
It'd be one thing if there was a point. If we were meant to look at dragonrider society and see how horrifying they've become. But no one criticizes this system. We don't get Lessa's opinion about any of it.
Hell, we haven't had Lessa's point of view since the mating flight. I have no idea how she's dealing emotionally with any of this. Is Ramoth giving her support? Manora? I'd like to imagine Mnementh is, from what we've seen. But why can't we see that?
We get more Jora bashing: "How different this inner room was now that Lessa was Weyrwoman, F'lar mused as Lessa called down the service shaft for food. During Jora's incompetent tenure as Weyrwoman, the sleeping quarters had been crowded with junk, unwashed apparel, uncleared dishes. The state of the Weyr and the reduced number of dragons were as much Jora's fault as R'gul's, for she had indirectly encouraged sloth, negligence, and gluttony.
If he, F'lar, had been just a few years older when F'lon, his father, had died ... Jora had been disgusting, but when dragons rose in mating flight, the condition of your partner counted for nothing."
The consent of your partner apparently means nothing too. Poor Jora. Every time these characters bitch about her laziness and indolence, I keep thinking "well, why the fuck not?"
All we know about Jora is that she was Searched before F'lar was born. That she was pretty then. That she couldn't or wouldn't get Nemorth to do much. That she was lazy and indolent. We know that the Weyr insisted that Queens couldn't fly. We know that mating flights are apparently done without the Weyrwoman having any say or veto over the participants.
Why should Jora do anything for these people? Especially when it's been four hundred years since the dragons actually DID anything?
Honestly, reading this as an adult, I feel like a lot of what we hear about Jora is actually the passive resistance of an imprisoned slave.
No one considers that maybe one of the reasons Jora was so "disgusting" is that maybe she didn't WANT to be appealing to these people who determine leadership based on who gets to fuck her.
Maybe she's lazy and indolent because she doesn't want to be there. She's been basically handed duties she may not be suited for, or maybe just doesn't want to do. So why should she?
Why couldn't F'lar or his ilk clean up once in a while? It's not like they're any more busy than she is. Thread hasn't fallen for four hundred years.
Actually, if you think about it, a lot of Jora's actions seem very similar to Lessa's under Fax. She has made herself physically unappealing. She has apparently sabotaged the Weyr itself with her indolence... Imagine for a moment that Jora, like Lessa in Ruatha, was doing it on purpose.
Oh Jora, you magnificent bastard.
So anyway, Lessa brings up something interesting. She's been asked to witness the birth of Kylara's child. Kylara, if you recall, is Larad's sister. The one who was taken at the same time Lessa was and we haven't heard from her since. So now we have an update.
"F'lar maintained an expression of polite interest. He knew perfectly well that Lessa suspected the child was his, and it could have been, he admitted privately, but he doubted it. Kylara had been one of the ten candidates from the same Search three years ago which had discovered Lessa. Like others who survived Impression, Kylara had found certain aspects of Weyr life exactly suited to her temperament. She had gone from one rider's weyr to another's. She had even seduced F'lar-not at all against his will, to be sure. Now that he was Weyrleader, he found it wiser to ignore her efforts to continue the relationship. T'bor had taken her in hand and had had his hands full until he retired her to the Lower Caverns, well advanced in pregnancy.
Aside from having the amorous tendencies of a green dragon, Kylara was quick and ambitious. She would make a strong Weyrwoman, so F'lar had charged Manora and Lessa with the job of planting the notion in Kylara's mind. In the capacity of Weyrwoman ... of another Weyr ... her intense drives would be used to Pern's advantage. She had not learned the severe lessons of restraint and patience that Lessa had, and she didn't have Lessa's devious mind. Fortunately she was in considerable awe of Lessa, and F'lar suspected that Lessa was subtly influencing this attitude. In Kylara's case, F'lar preferred not to object to Lessa's meddling."
Here's the thing about Kylara. Kylara is one of the very few female characters in the narrative who has active ownership of her own sexuality.
And she will be constantly and consistently demonized for this over the course of the narrative. Look at how she's described here: she's predatory. She goes from one rider's weyr to another. The fact that these men are all consenting participants seems to be an afterthought.
She even seduced F'lar apparently. And while I commend him for finding a willing partner for once, the romantic in me is annoyed that he's off banging some other woman while Lessa is stuck in endless lessons. Especially since he knows that he and Lessa would end up having to be partners in the mating flight.
I feel like that was time F'lar could have been spending getting to know Lessa, or god forbid, explaining to her what's going on.
I will give F'lar a tiny bit of credit in that his standards for Weyrwoman seem to be fairly consistent even when he's not intending a relationship with her.
I do feel like maybe someone could have sent a letter to poor Larad at some point though. Hey, dude, your sister is ok and says hi.
Now the "amorous tendencies of a green dragon" is also something worh unpacking. But I'll save that for the end of this review.
Anyway, Kylara had named the child T'kil. Apparently dragonrider names are a combination of father and mother. According to later material, F'lar's actual pre-shortened name is Fallarnon. For his father F'lon (Falloner) and his mother, Larna.
F'nor manages an even worse name: Famanoran. That's...just awful. I actually feel sorry for him. He loses out in the name sweepstakes twice.
F'lar and Lessa discuss the Weyr. Lessa informs him that the tithing trucks are due soon, while F'lar updates her on R'gul and company. Lessa thinks that F'lar should "cut out [R'gul's] criticism" and I don't entirely know what she means by that. I think possibly she's suggesting murder. But F'lar points out they only have seven bronze riders and they need him.
"'I don't trust him,' she added darkly. She sipped at her hot drink, her gray eyes dark over the rim of her mug. As if, F'lar mused, she didn't trust him, either.
And she didn't, past a certain point. She had made that plain, and, in honesty, he couldn't blame her. She did recognize that every action F'lar took was toward one end ... the safety and preservation of dragonkind and weyrfolk and consequently the safety and preservation of Pern. To effect that end, he needed her full cooperation. When Weyr business or dragonlore were discussed, she suspended the antipathy he knew she felt for him. In conferences she supported him wholeheartedly and persuasively, but always he suspected the double edge to her comments and saw a speculative, suspicious look in her eyes. He needed not only her tolerance but her empathy."
Maybe if you hadn't raped her, she'd be more inclined to empathize?
I can't get over this. I can't get over how blatantly unnecessary the rape was. It's clear we're not supposed to see F'lar as a rapist. We're supposed to be sympathizing with F'lar here. We're supposed to wonder what Lessa is thinking and hope she comes to appreciate him.
But I can't do that. He's a rapist and I want Lessa to castrate him. I read sections like this and I admire how Lessa is able to put aside her personal feelings and be professional. But I hate that she has to.
Lessa is supposed to be a wish-fulfillment type character. A Mary Sue, if you like, though I've never liked that term when it comes to original stories. (Of course these people are remarkable. That's WHY they're the main characters of the story. And the gender imbalance of the accusation always bugs me. I'll accept that Rey in Star Wars is a Mary Sue, if you admit that Luke and Anakin are too. And don't get me started on Batman.)
But what kind of wish-fulfillment is this? Sure you can be strong-willed and psychically powerful, you can plan a dictator's demise and bond with a dragon. But you are basically imprisoned, blamed every time you take initiative, and you have to work with your rapist who you eventually "fall in love with".
This book has made me not want to be a dragonrider in this universe. For me, that's the biggest measure of failure.
We do find out that F'lar himself didn't get to see the Red Star bracketing thing either, which might have made his lack of consideration marginally better if he wasn't an unrepentant rapist who is vile in pretty much every other way.
F'lar also tells us that Lessa eats very little. He makes a pointless asshole comparison to Jora, and then notes that there's no point in ever comparing Lessa to Jora.
Here's a thought, F'lar. Neither woman's eating habits are any of your business.
F'lar and Lessa talk about the restlessness of the dragons, and she brings up the feeling of foreboding and threat she'd felt at the beginning of the story. They also have an exchange that pisses me off.
"'You and Fax did come out of the northeast from Crom,' she said sharply, ignoring the fact, F'lar noticed, that the Red Star also rises north of true east.
'Indeed we did,' he grinned at her, remembering that morning vividly. "Although," he added, gesturing around the great cavern to emphasize, 'I prefer to believe I served you well that day ... you remember it with displeasure?'
The look she gave him was coldly inscrutable.
'Danger comes in many guises.'
'I agree,' he replied amiably, determined not to rise to her bait."
Shut up, F'lar. And this is the closest I think we'll ever get to Lessa being allowed to express an opinion about what he's done to her.
Anyway, he asks if she'd felt this before, and she gets quiet and panicked. She'd felt it the day Fax invaded. F'lar showing his customary level of empathy becomes concerned by the "unexpectedly violent reaction to a casual question.
Even though she JUST mentioned Fax invading her home. You know, when he murdered her family, you fucking douchenozzle??
'I was a child. Just eleven. I woke at dawn ...' Her voice trailed off. Her eyes remained focused on nothing, staring at a scene that had happened long ago.
F'lar was stirred by an irresistible desire to comfort her. It struck him forcibly, even as he was stirred by this unusual compassion, that he had never thought that Lessa, of all people, would be troubled by so old a terror.
Mnementh sharply informed his rider that Lessa was obviously bothered a good deal. Enough so that her mental anguish was rousing Ramoth from sleep. In less accusing tones Mnementh informed F'lar that R'gul had finally taken off with his weyrling pupils. His dragon, Hath, however, was in a fine state of disorientation due to R'gul's state of mind. Must F'lar unsettle everyone in the Weyr ...
...this is the kind of passage that makes me think that there could potentially be a good story in exploring why F'lar is the way he is. It's not even that he lacks empathy. Many people can lack empathy for one reason or another. But he seems unable to comprehend even the basic intellectual idea that people have emotional responses to things.
He almost seems to be using Mnementh as a guide to understanding the emotional context of the people around him. And both F'nor and Lessa have mentioned that he comes across as cold and unfeeling.
It makes me wonder if this is how he was born, or if there was some traumatic event that left him unable to process his own or anyone else's emotions without external assistance.
There's a really interesting seed of a story here, but it would require Ms. McCaffrey to acknowledge that F'lar is not a perfect human being, and I don't know that she really wants to do that.
So the moment is broken, and then Ramoth wakes up. We learn that she is now twice Nemorth's size and her wingspan is half-a-wing longer than Mnementh, the largest of the bronzes. She's also constantly hungry.
F'lar explains flying between: Basically both rider and dragon have to be able to clearly visualize where they're going. Dragonriders are therefore taught a bunch of reference and recognition points, because if they visualize badly, dragon and rider could end up staying between.
Oh and then this happens:
"Lessa laughed up at the gleaming eye and, with unexpected affection, patted the soft nose.
F'lar cleared his throat in surprise. He had been aware that Mnementh showed an unusual affection for the Weyrwoman, but he had had no idea Lessa was fond of the bronze. Perversely, he was irritated."
...are...are you jealous of your dragon?
We're also told that dragons and dragonriders should always plan to arrive in clear air. Only very experienced riders go between underground, and then he mentions seeing a dragon and rider entombed together, very young.
We switch to Lessa's point of view, FINALLY. Unfortunately, we get no kind of emotional response to recent events. Instead, she's focused on flying between. Mnementh gives her instructions directly, as opposed to through Ramoth, which she enjoys.
I like it too, but it occurs to me that Ramoth's characterization is suffering a bit due to this set up. Mnementh is a very well defined character already through his interactions with F'lar. But we don't get nearly as much direct interaction with Lessa and Ramoth, and I'd really like to see more of their dynamic.
Lessa makes an attempt and does well, but on return, Ramoth takes off before Lessa gets the picture in her mind. Both Mnementh and F'lar are angry. Mnementh though is better at being angry than F'lar is. He tells her exactly what she did wrong (not visualizing) and then is immediately calmer.
Lessa notes that F'lar is both furious and very afraid for her safety, and wonders bitterly if he's concerned more about her or Ramoth. Oh, Lessa, honey. You can do better than F'lar. You really can.
Anyway, there's more practice, and then Mnementh tells them that they'll practice distance jumping the next day. Lessa figures that there'll be some emergency, and decides, impulsively to try one more jump that she KNOWS she won't miss: Ruatha.
But something is wrong: she arrives at Ruatha to see it under attack. And she starts to realize other things are wrong: it's spring, not winter. And the red star is gone. Lessa realizes that she is actually watching Fax invade her home, as it happened thirteen years ago.
She also learns that it was her fault that the watch-wher never gave the alarm. It sensed Ramoth and Lessa, and didn't realize that the Hold was in danger. Poor Lessa.
Lessa does end up warning someone though: herself. And she sees herself as a child run into the watch-wher's den.
They get back to the Weyr, but there's no sign of F'lar and Mnementh. Ramoth (who is starting to get some definite characterization in this section) comments that they probably went to Ruatha. Lessa tries again, and ends up three years ago. When as a drudge, she got the warning of foreboding. FINALLY she makes it to Ruatha proper and is ordered back to the Weyr. (Which strikes me as counterproductive. What if she'd fucked that up too??)
When she and F'lar finally end up back at the Weyr, he decides that he should try his hand at physical abuse. "She made no move to evade him as he grabbed her shoulders and shook her violently" He rants about her defying him at every opportunity as she tries to explain what happened.
God. This is our hero.
Mnementh and Ramoth back her up, and he finally calms down so that they can discuss what happened. Basically Lessa discovered time travel.
Let that sink in for a bit. LESSA DISCOVERED TIME TRAVEL. AWESOME.
As much as I truly hate the man, F'lar does one good thing here. When Lessa starts relaying what happened, she starts to break down and blame herself for her family's massacre. F'lar tells her that Fax had planned everything out very carefully. And that Lessa's arrival, during daylight, would have been after the watch-wher was relieved of duty (as they're nocturnal creatures). He points out that she did save herself.
This exchange, especially the point where he tells her with deliberate callousness that if she wants to flail around in guilt, she should go ahead, makes me think wistfully of what might have been.
In a better story, without the rape and abuse, F'lar could have been like Guy Gardner: an asshole who knows how to use his assholishness to provoke and defuse tensions. It could have been an entertaining complement to Lessa's ruthless intensity by providing her with a focus for her irritation that's unconcerned with her more prickly aspects.
But that's not this story.
Ramoth also points out the paradox effect: it had happened, and it had to happen so that Lessa could have come to Impress Ramoth. So they wouldn't have been able to change it. We're told that there are "egotistical nuances" to her statement, but that comes from F'lar, so...go fuck yourself, F'lar.
F'lar decides to try Lessa's trick for himself. He ends up choosing the day when Hath first had flown to mate "the grotesque Nemorth" and R'gul had taken over as Weyrleader. He sees himself as a "stripling" and a young dragon looking dejected. From what F'nor said, F'lar was nineteen at the time of this flight. I wouldn't necessarily call a nineteen year old a stripling, but okay.
F'lar actually manages to feel compassion for someone: it is of course his young self, and he wishes he could reassure himself that he'd become Weyrleader one day...
You'll also become a rapist, F'lar. Congratulations.
--
So I admit, Dust Fall is already getting off to a much better start than Dragonrider did. But I would enjoy it more if F'lar weren't an abusive rapist. I like seeing Lessa excel, and I especially love that she fucking discovered time travel. But I hate that she's trapped in a terrible situation. And I hate that we have yet to really get her perspective on her own rape.
Is Lessa okay?
We get to see more of Ramoth's personality this time, and it strikes me as interesting how the dragons seem to balance their riders' quirks and flaws. Lessa is driven, ruthless, obsessed, and impulsive. She is very capable but can't really be said to have a cool head. Ramoth, in contrast, is calm and logical, and a bit egotistical. We see her break through Lessa's panic a few times to suggest a rational explanation or direction.
And of course we have Mnementh providing the compassion and consideration of others that F'lar basically just ignores. It makes me wonder actually if it's intentional that the dragonriders are terrible people, because it increases the likelihood that their dragons will be the opposite to compensate.
Perhaps Hath was actually a forward thinker?
And I did say I was going to rant about that green dragon line. This is based more on what gets established later on, but I feel like it's worth going into now. The thing about the greens is that they're the lowest on the totem pole at the Weyr: they're female dragons, but because they don't have appreciably big clutches, they chew firestone (which makes them sterile) instead. They're small, fast and agile and very good when fighting thread.
They don't breed but they do have mating flights, and they basically serve to release the sexual tension in the Weyr for the other dragons.
And, at least at this point in the setting, all of the riders are men. Which means that, at least implicitly, there's a whole lot of m/m sex going on in the Weyrs.
We'll never directly hear about any of it. The only green riders I know of with major roles in the story are Tai and Mirrim, who are both rare female riders partnered with men. A few of the brown riders get focus, like F'nor, but as far as I remember, there's no mention of him ever taking part in a green mating flight and he has a female love interest.
And then there's Lytol. In this book, Lytol is a green rider. He's a good man and one of the few people who is steadily useful, but he really doesn't have much in the way of page time. In later books, when Lytol has a more substantial and authoritative role, he's a BROWN rider. He also is established to have had a wife and daughters. (Lytol's story is actually even more depressing than we know. Poor guy.)
Now there wouldn't be anything wrong with the idea of Lytol being bisexual of course (I love that interpretation, personally), and it doesn't mean that Lytol hasn't taken part in green mating flights. But this situation does put a bad taste in my mouth.
Considering what Ms. McCaffrey has said about homosexuality in the past (the tent peg quote anyone?), it's hard not to read into this. As soon as Lytol becomes a formidable presence in the series, he's recast from a green rider (and likely then the receptive partner in gay sex, given the mirroring between dragon and rider) to a brown rider (who, IF he's involved in those mating flights, would be in a more aggressive role). And that now, as far as I know anyway, we don't have any examples of male green riders in significant roles in the series.
Maybe this is something remedied in later books, certainly they've moved away from some of other dated and problematic aspects of the earlier books. But you can see, I hope, why that line about green dragons bothers me. In the context of the series, and Ms. McCaffrey's outside statements, it's very hard to give her the benefit of the doubt.
Part 2:4 | Table of Contents | Part 3:2
Interestingly, "Dust Fall" begins with R'gul's point of view. He hates F'lar, which is refreshing. Unfortunately, he hates F'lar for the wrong reasons. He also irks me with the way that he talks about Lessa.
"Why, R'gul had trained her up to be one of the finest Weyrwomen in many Turns. Before he'd finished her instruction, she'd known all the Teaching Ballads and Sagas letter-perfect. And then the silly child had turned to F'lar. Didn't have sense enough to appreciate the merits of an older, more experienced man. Undoubtedly she felt a first obligation to F'lar for discovering her on Search."
...yes. That's it. It couldn't possibly be that she thought you were a fucking idiot to the point where she threatened to take her dragon between if you had any shot of winning the mating flight.
I hate F'lar, don't get me wrong. But R'gul is just an idiot. He's ignoring all the visible signs that the Red Star is close enough that Thread will fall very soon. Which I might understand, given that it's been hundreds of years.
But here's the thing, if Thread doesn't fall, then what the fuck point is it to have dragonriders at all? They contribute nothing to society. Why should it matter if Lessa knows the Ballads and Sagas? Why should we care?
There's an interesting exchange between R'gul and F'lar including the phrase "Don't quote me verses I taught you as a weyrling."
This is actually a little interesting to me. I hate both F'lar and R'gul, but from what we've seen of the Weyr, it seems like there's a certain level of communal child-rearing. R'gul was a compatriot of F'lar's father, and even granting that F'lon didn't die until F'lar was nineteen, he might well have been involved in raising and training the boy.
Ultimately the inter-Weyr squabbles are basically just the squabbles of a very dysfunctional family.
R'gul insists there are no Threads, because they haven't fell for four hundred years. Jesus Christ. FOUR HUNDRED YEARS. The dragons have been actively a drain on Pern society, taking tithes, taking children and women for FOUR HUNDRED YEARS.
The Lords are saints, honestly. And damn him, F'lar of all people says pretty much that:
"'Then my fellow dragonman,' F'lar said cheerfully, 'all you have taught is falsehood. The dragons are, as the Lords of the Holds wish to believe, parasites on the economy of Pern, anachronisms. And so are we.'"
Ew, stop making me feel filthy for agreeing with a rapist, Book.
Also, you guys are parasites and have been for four centuries. Just because you're now proving some worth doesn't change that.
Anyway, F'lar basically tells R'gul that if he doesn't like it, he can leave. And R'gul's next thought actually makes me JUST A LITTLE sympathetic toward the dragonriders.
"R'gul was too stunned by F'lar's ultimatum to take offense at the ridicule. Leave the Weyr? Was the man mad? Where would he go? The Weyr had been his life. He had been bred up to it for generations. All his male ancestors had been dragonriders. Not all bronze, true, but a decent percentage. His own dam's sire had been a Weyrleader just as he, R'gul, had been until F'lar's Mnementh had flown the new queen.
But dragonmen never left the Weyr. Well, they did if they were negligent enough to lose their dragons, like that Lytol fellow at Ruatha Hold. And how could he leave the Weyr with a dragon?"
Okay, fuck you, R'gul. Lytol has been repeatedly the only fucking useful male character in this book. He and his dragon were burned because SOMEONE had the idiot notion to run games where dragons are breathing fucking fire.
But it does kind of emphasize how isolated and brainwashed these dragonriders actually are. We're talking about generations of isolation, except for the occasional people picked up during a Search. (And it's not like any of them are actually listening to Lessa like they ought to be.)
These are people who have had their little fucked up cult mentality drilled into their heads from the day they were born. They've never really had the chance to grow into decent people.
God, no wonder Jora was indolent, lazy and useless. Can you imagine getting essentially kidnapped into this fucking society?
So the meeting continues. F'lar gets R'gul to back down and gives orders to the rest. I'll give F'lar this: he's organized and decisive as a leader and has a clear plan of action.
Before I get too fond of F'lar though, we end up back into his point of view after the meeting concludes. He looks for Lessa:
"Lessa was not in the sleeping room, nor was she still bathing. F'lar snorted. That girl was going to scrub her hide off with this constant bathing. She'd had to live grimy to protect herself in Ruatha Hold, but bathing twice a day? He was beginning to wonder if this might be a subtle Lessa-variety insult to him personally. F'lar sighed. That girl. Would she never turn to him of her own accord? Would he ever touch that elusive inner core of Lessa? She had more warmth for his half brother, F'nor, and for K'net, the youngest of the bronze riders than she had for F'lar who shared her bed."
Oh, I don't know, F'lar. Maybe she feels this way because you FUCKING RAPED HER?
Maybe she likes F'nor and K'net better because they didn't rape her?
This isn't rocket science.
Anyway, apparently F'lar wants to teach Lessa to fly between today and he's frustrated to not be able to find her. There is no indication that he told Lessa he intended to teach her to fly between, but apparently she's supposed to be waiting for his convenience anyway. Fuck you, F'lar.
He asks Mnementh where "that girl" is.
"Lessa, the dragon replied, stressing the Weyrwoman's name with pointed courtesy, is talking to Manora. She's dressed for riding, he added after a slight pause."
I love you, Mnementh. You are way too good for your asshole rider. Then F'lar goes to leave and nearly runs Lessa over.
"You hadn't asked me where she was, Mnementh plaintively answered F'lar's blistering reprimand."
You know what, I choose to believe Mnementh did that on purpose. I love you, Mnementh.
Lessa is angry because she wasn't given the opportunity to see the Red Star through the Eye Rock. F'lar points out that there were a lot of people to accommodate, and she already believes that Thread is coming.
Yeah, but dude, remember that status you promised her? Would it have been THAT difficult to think about what she'd like?
Lessa points out that she's Weyrwoman and Recorder, and she'd have liked to see it in that capacity.
Now comes a bit that gets quoted a lot in feminist reviews of this book, for obvious reasons.
"He caught her arm and felt her body tense. He set his teeth, wishing, as he had a hundred times since Ramoth rose in her first mating flight, that Lessa had not been virgin, too. He had not thought to control his dragon-incited emotions, and Lessa's first sexual experience had been violent. It had surprised him to be first, considering that her adolescent years had been spent drudging for lascivious warders and soldiertypes. Evidently no one had bothered to penetrate the curtain of rags and the coat of filth she had carefully maintained as a disguise. He had been a considerate and gentle bedmate ever since, but, unless Ramoth and Mnementh were involved, he might as well call it rape.
Yet he knew someday, somehow, he would coax her into responding wholeheartedly to his lovemaking. He had a certain pride in his skill, and he was in a position to persevere."
...
Fuck you, F'lar. Just...fuck you.
These reviewers have all, rightfully savaged this passage. I'd like to do that too. But honestly it just makes me tired.
This is our hero, ladies and gentleman. A man whose only regret to setting up a situation where a woman would be compelled to have sex against her will and without prior warning is that she was a virgin. A man who made no attempt to control himself during the act because he figured that since she'd spent her adolescence working for lascivious warders and soldiers, it would be fine.
Because apparently rape victims, because that's the scenario he's describing, aren't worthy of being treated gently or without violence?
And he apparently is still having sex with her, without her "wholehearted" response. Newsflash, F'lar, it's still rape if Mnementh and Ramoth are flying. If you know she doesn't want to do this, it is rape.
I hate him so much that it's not even fun anymore.
Okay, it kind of does appeal to the masochistic side of me to see exactly how hateful F'lar can be. Let's see.
"Once or twice he had caught an unguarded expression on her face, loving and tender. He would give much to have that look turned on him. However, he admitted wryly to himself, he ought to be glad that melting regard was directed only at Ramoth and not at another human."
...yep. I can actually hate him more.
When he tells Lessa that he's teaching her to fly, she's delighted. And she even laughs when he says that he will do it, if only to keep her from trying it herself. I'm reminded again of those moments earlier in the book when I thought they had good chemistry. Why was this entire rape scenario necessary?
It'd be one thing if there was a point. If we were meant to look at dragonrider society and see how horrifying they've become. But no one criticizes this system. We don't get Lessa's opinion about any of it.
Hell, we haven't had Lessa's point of view since the mating flight. I have no idea how she's dealing emotionally with any of this. Is Ramoth giving her support? Manora? I'd like to imagine Mnementh is, from what we've seen. But why can't we see that?
We get more Jora bashing: "How different this inner room was now that Lessa was Weyrwoman, F'lar mused as Lessa called down the service shaft for food. During Jora's incompetent tenure as Weyrwoman, the sleeping quarters had been crowded with junk, unwashed apparel, uncleared dishes. The state of the Weyr and the reduced number of dragons were as much Jora's fault as R'gul's, for she had indirectly encouraged sloth, negligence, and gluttony.
If he, F'lar, had been just a few years older when F'lon, his father, had died ... Jora had been disgusting, but when dragons rose in mating flight, the condition of your partner counted for nothing."
The consent of your partner apparently means nothing too. Poor Jora. Every time these characters bitch about her laziness and indolence, I keep thinking "well, why the fuck not?"
All we know about Jora is that she was Searched before F'lar was born. That she was pretty then. That she couldn't or wouldn't get Nemorth to do much. That she was lazy and indolent. We know that the Weyr insisted that Queens couldn't fly. We know that mating flights are apparently done without the Weyrwoman having any say or veto over the participants.
Why should Jora do anything for these people? Especially when it's been four hundred years since the dragons actually DID anything?
Honestly, reading this as an adult, I feel like a lot of what we hear about Jora is actually the passive resistance of an imprisoned slave.
No one considers that maybe one of the reasons Jora was so "disgusting" is that maybe she didn't WANT to be appealing to these people who determine leadership based on who gets to fuck her.
Maybe she's lazy and indolent because she doesn't want to be there. She's been basically handed duties she may not be suited for, or maybe just doesn't want to do. So why should she?
Why couldn't F'lar or his ilk clean up once in a while? It's not like they're any more busy than she is. Thread hasn't fallen for four hundred years.
Actually, if you think about it, a lot of Jora's actions seem very similar to Lessa's under Fax. She has made herself physically unappealing. She has apparently sabotaged the Weyr itself with her indolence... Imagine for a moment that Jora, like Lessa in Ruatha, was doing it on purpose.
Oh Jora, you magnificent bastard.
So anyway, Lessa brings up something interesting. She's been asked to witness the birth of Kylara's child. Kylara, if you recall, is Larad's sister. The one who was taken at the same time Lessa was and we haven't heard from her since. So now we have an update.
"F'lar maintained an expression of polite interest. He knew perfectly well that Lessa suspected the child was his, and it could have been, he admitted privately, but he doubted it. Kylara had been one of the ten candidates from the same Search three years ago which had discovered Lessa. Like others who survived Impression, Kylara had found certain aspects of Weyr life exactly suited to her temperament. She had gone from one rider's weyr to another's. She had even seduced F'lar-not at all against his will, to be sure. Now that he was Weyrleader, he found it wiser to ignore her efforts to continue the relationship. T'bor had taken her in hand and had had his hands full until he retired her to the Lower Caverns, well advanced in pregnancy.
Aside from having the amorous tendencies of a green dragon, Kylara was quick and ambitious. She would make a strong Weyrwoman, so F'lar had charged Manora and Lessa with the job of planting the notion in Kylara's mind. In the capacity of Weyrwoman ... of another Weyr ... her intense drives would be used to Pern's advantage. She had not learned the severe lessons of restraint and patience that Lessa had, and she didn't have Lessa's devious mind. Fortunately she was in considerable awe of Lessa, and F'lar suspected that Lessa was subtly influencing this attitude. In Kylara's case, F'lar preferred not to object to Lessa's meddling."
Here's the thing about Kylara. Kylara is one of the very few female characters in the narrative who has active ownership of her own sexuality.
And she will be constantly and consistently demonized for this over the course of the narrative. Look at how she's described here: she's predatory. She goes from one rider's weyr to another. The fact that these men are all consenting participants seems to be an afterthought.
She even seduced F'lar apparently. And while I commend him for finding a willing partner for once, the romantic in me is annoyed that he's off banging some other woman while Lessa is stuck in endless lessons. Especially since he knows that he and Lessa would end up having to be partners in the mating flight.
I feel like that was time F'lar could have been spending getting to know Lessa, or god forbid, explaining to her what's going on.
I will give F'lar a tiny bit of credit in that his standards for Weyrwoman seem to be fairly consistent even when he's not intending a relationship with her.
I do feel like maybe someone could have sent a letter to poor Larad at some point though. Hey, dude, your sister is ok and says hi.
Now the "amorous tendencies of a green dragon" is also something worh unpacking. But I'll save that for the end of this review.
Anyway, Kylara had named the child T'kil. Apparently dragonrider names are a combination of father and mother. According to later material, F'lar's actual pre-shortened name is Fallarnon. For his father F'lon (Falloner) and his mother, Larna.
F'nor manages an even worse name: Famanoran. That's...just awful. I actually feel sorry for him. He loses out in the name sweepstakes twice.
F'lar and Lessa discuss the Weyr. Lessa informs him that the tithing trucks are due soon, while F'lar updates her on R'gul and company. Lessa thinks that F'lar should "cut out [R'gul's] criticism" and I don't entirely know what she means by that. I think possibly she's suggesting murder. But F'lar points out they only have seven bronze riders and they need him.
"'I don't trust him,' she added darkly. She sipped at her hot drink, her gray eyes dark over the rim of her mug. As if, F'lar mused, she didn't trust him, either.
And she didn't, past a certain point. She had made that plain, and, in honesty, he couldn't blame her. She did recognize that every action F'lar took was toward one end ... the safety and preservation of dragonkind and weyrfolk and consequently the safety and preservation of Pern. To effect that end, he needed her full cooperation. When Weyr business or dragonlore were discussed, she suspended the antipathy he knew she felt for him. In conferences she supported him wholeheartedly and persuasively, but always he suspected the double edge to her comments and saw a speculative, suspicious look in her eyes. He needed not only her tolerance but her empathy."
Maybe if you hadn't raped her, she'd be more inclined to empathize?
I can't get over this. I can't get over how blatantly unnecessary the rape was. It's clear we're not supposed to see F'lar as a rapist. We're supposed to be sympathizing with F'lar here. We're supposed to wonder what Lessa is thinking and hope she comes to appreciate him.
But I can't do that. He's a rapist and I want Lessa to castrate him. I read sections like this and I admire how Lessa is able to put aside her personal feelings and be professional. But I hate that she has to.
Lessa is supposed to be a wish-fulfillment type character. A Mary Sue, if you like, though I've never liked that term when it comes to original stories. (Of course these people are remarkable. That's WHY they're the main characters of the story. And the gender imbalance of the accusation always bugs me. I'll accept that Rey in Star Wars is a Mary Sue, if you admit that Luke and Anakin are too. And don't get me started on Batman.)
But what kind of wish-fulfillment is this? Sure you can be strong-willed and psychically powerful, you can plan a dictator's demise and bond with a dragon. But you are basically imprisoned, blamed every time you take initiative, and you have to work with your rapist who you eventually "fall in love with".
This book has made me not want to be a dragonrider in this universe. For me, that's the biggest measure of failure.
We do find out that F'lar himself didn't get to see the Red Star bracketing thing either, which might have made his lack of consideration marginally better if he wasn't an unrepentant rapist who is vile in pretty much every other way.
F'lar also tells us that Lessa eats very little. He makes a pointless asshole comparison to Jora, and then notes that there's no point in ever comparing Lessa to Jora.
Here's a thought, F'lar. Neither woman's eating habits are any of your business.
F'lar and Lessa talk about the restlessness of the dragons, and she brings up the feeling of foreboding and threat she'd felt at the beginning of the story. They also have an exchange that pisses me off.
"'You and Fax did come out of the northeast from Crom,' she said sharply, ignoring the fact, F'lar noticed, that the Red Star also rises north of true east.
'Indeed we did,' he grinned at her, remembering that morning vividly. "Although," he added, gesturing around the great cavern to emphasize, 'I prefer to believe I served you well that day ... you remember it with displeasure?'
The look she gave him was coldly inscrutable.
'Danger comes in many guises.'
'I agree,' he replied amiably, determined not to rise to her bait."
Shut up, F'lar. And this is the closest I think we'll ever get to Lessa being allowed to express an opinion about what he's done to her.
Anyway, he asks if she'd felt this before, and she gets quiet and panicked. She'd felt it the day Fax invaded. F'lar showing his customary level of empathy becomes concerned by the "unexpectedly violent reaction to a casual question.
Even though she JUST mentioned Fax invading her home. You know, when he murdered her family, you fucking douchenozzle??
'I was a child. Just eleven. I woke at dawn ...' Her voice trailed off. Her eyes remained focused on nothing, staring at a scene that had happened long ago.
F'lar was stirred by an irresistible desire to comfort her. It struck him forcibly, even as he was stirred by this unusual compassion, that he had never thought that Lessa, of all people, would be troubled by so old a terror.
Mnementh sharply informed his rider that Lessa was obviously bothered a good deal. Enough so that her mental anguish was rousing Ramoth from sleep. In less accusing tones Mnementh informed F'lar that R'gul had finally taken off with his weyrling pupils. His dragon, Hath, however, was in a fine state of disorientation due to R'gul's state of mind. Must F'lar unsettle everyone in the Weyr ...
...this is the kind of passage that makes me think that there could potentially be a good story in exploring why F'lar is the way he is. It's not even that he lacks empathy. Many people can lack empathy for one reason or another. But he seems unable to comprehend even the basic intellectual idea that people have emotional responses to things.
He almost seems to be using Mnementh as a guide to understanding the emotional context of the people around him. And both F'nor and Lessa have mentioned that he comes across as cold and unfeeling.
It makes me wonder if this is how he was born, or if there was some traumatic event that left him unable to process his own or anyone else's emotions without external assistance.
There's a really interesting seed of a story here, but it would require Ms. McCaffrey to acknowledge that F'lar is not a perfect human being, and I don't know that she really wants to do that.
So the moment is broken, and then Ramoth wakes up. We learn that she is now twice Nemorth's size and her wingspan is half-a-wing longer than Mnementh, the largest of the bronzes. She's also constantly hungry.
F'lar explains flying between: Basically both rider and dragon have to be able to clearly visualize where they're going. Dragonriders are therefore taught a bunch of reference and recognition points, because if they visualize badly, dragon and rider could end up staying between.
Oh and then this happens:
"Lessa laughed up at the gleaming eye and, with unexpected affection, patted the soft nose.
F'lar cleared his throat in surprise. He had been aware that Mnementh showed an unusual affection for the Weyrwoman, but he had had no idea Lessa was fond of the bronze. Perversely, he was irritated."
...are...are you jealous of your dragon?
We're also told that dragons and dragonriders should always plan to arrive in clear air. Only very experienced riders go between underground, and then he mentions seeing a dragon and rider entombed together, very young.
We switch to Lessa's point of view, FINALLY. Unfortunately, we get no kind of emotional response to recent events. Instead, she's focused on flying between. Mnementh gives her instructions directly, as opposed to through Ramoth, which she enjoys.
I like it too, but it occurs to me that Ramoth's characterization is suffering a bit due to this set up. Mnementh is a very well defined character already through his interactions with F'lar. But we don't get nearly as much direct interaction with Lessa and Ramoth, and I'd really like to see more of their dynamic.
Lessa makes an attempt and does well, but on return, Ramoth takes off before Lessa gets the picture in her mind. Both Mnementh and F'lar are angry. Mnementh though is better at being angry than F'lar is. He tells her exactly what she did wrong (not visualizing) and then is immediately calmer.
Lessa notes that F'lar is both furious and very afraid for her safety, and wonders bitterly if he's concerned more about her or Ramoth. Oh, Lessa, honey. You can do better than F'lar. You really can.
Anyway, there's more practice, and then Mnementh tells them that they'll practice distance jumping the next day. Lessa figures that there'll be some emergency, and decides, impulsively to try one more jump that she KNOWS she won't miss: Ruatha.
But something is wrong: she arrives at Ruatha to see it under attack. And she starts to realize other things are wrong: it's spring, not winter. And the red star is gone. Lessa realizes that she is actually watching Fax invade her home, as it happened thirteen years ago.
She also learns that it was her fault that the watch-wher never gave the alarm. It sensed Ramoth and Lessa, and didn't realize that the Hold was in danger. Poor Lessa.
Lessa does end up warning someone though: herself. And she sees herself as a child run into the watch-wher's den.
They get back to the Weyr, but there's no sign of F'lar and Mnementh. Ramoth (who is starting to get some definite characterization in this section) comments that they probably went to Ruatha. Lessa tries again, and ends up three years ago. When as a drudge, she got the warning of foreboding. FINALLY she makes it to Ruatha proper and is ordered back to the Weyr. (Which strikes me as counterproductive. What if she'd fucked that up too??)
When she and F'lar finally end up back at the Weyr, he decides that he should try his hand at physical abuse. "She made no move to evade him as he grabbed her shoulders and shook her violently" He rants about her defying him at every opportunity as she tries to explain what happened.
God. This is our hero.
Mnementh and Ramoth back her up, and he finally calms down so that they can discuss what happened. Basically Lessa discovered time travel.
Let that sink in for a bit. LESSA DISCOVERED TIME TRAVEL. AWESOME.
As much as I truly hate the man, F'lar does one good thing here. When Lessa starts relaying what happened, she starts to break down and blame herself for her family's massacre. F'lar tells her that Fax had planned everything out very carefully. And that Lessa's arrival, during daylight, would have been after the watch-wher was relieved of duty (as they're nocturnal creatures). He points out that she did save herself.
This exchange, especially the point where he tells her with deliberate callousness that if she wants to flail around in guilt, she should go ahead, makes me think wistfully of what might have been.
In a better story, without the rape and abuse, F'lar could have been like Guy Gardner: an asshole who knows how to use his assholishness to provoke and defuse tensions. It could have been an entertaining complement to Lessa's ruthless intensity by providing her with a focus for her irritation that's unconcerned with her more prickly aspects.
But that's not this story.
Ramoth also points out the paradox effect: it had happened, and it had to happen so that Lessa could have come to Impress Ramoth. So they wouldn't have been able to change it. We're told that there are "egotistical nuances" to her statement, but that comes from F'lar, so...go fuck yourself, F'lar.
F'lar decides to try Lessa's trick for himself. He ends up choosing the day when Hath first had flown to mate "the grotesque Nemorth" and R'gul had taken over as Weyrleader. He sees himself as a "stripling" and a young dragon looking dejected. From what F'nor said, F'lar was nineteen at the time of this flight. I wouldn't necessarily call a nineteen year old a stripling, but okay.
F'lar actually manages to feel compassion for someone: it is of course his young self, and he wishes he could reassure himself that he'd become Weyrleader one day...
You'll also become a rapist, F'lar. Congratulations.
--
So I admit, Dust Fall is already getting off to a much better start than Dragonrider did. But I would enjoy it more if F'lar weren't an abusive rapist. I like seeing Lessa excel, and I especially love that she fucking discovered time travel. But I hate that she's trapped in a terrible situation. And I hate that we have yet to really get her perspective on her own rape.
Is Lessa okay?
We get to see more of Ramoth's personality this time, and it strikes me as interesting how the dragons seem to balance their riders' quirks and flaws. Lessa is driven, ruthless, obsessed, and impulsive. She is very capable but can't really be said to have a cool head. Ramoth, in contrast, is calm and logical, and a bit egotistical. We see her break through Lessa's panic a few times to suggest a rational explanation or direction.
And of course we have Mnementh providing the compassion and consideration of others that F'lar basically just ignores. It makes me wonder actually if it's intentional that the dragonriders are terrible people, because it increases the likelihood that their dragons will be the opposite to compensate.
Perhaps Hath was actually a forward thinker?
And I did say I was going to rant about that green dragon line. This is based more on what gets established later on, but I feel like it's worth going into now. The thing about the greens is that they're the lowest on the totem pole at the Weyr: they're female dragons, but because they don't have appreciably big clutches, they chew firestone (which makes them sterile) instead. They're small, fast and agile and very good when fighting thread.
They don't breed but they do have mating flights, and they basically serve to release the sexual tension in the Weyr for the other dragons.
And, at least at this point in the setting, all of the riders are men. Which means that, at least implicitly, there's a whole lot of m/m sex going on in the Weyrs.
We'll never directly hear about any of it. The only green riders I know of with major roles in the story are Tai and Mirrim, who are both rare female riders partnered with men. A few of the brown riders get focus, like F'nor, but as far as I remember, there's no mention of him ever taking part in a green mating flight and he has a female love interest.
And then there's Lytol. In this book, Lytol is a green rider. He's a good man and one of the few people who is steadily useful, but he really doesn't have much in the way of page time. In later books, when Lytol has a more substantial and authoritative role, he's a BROWN rider. He also is established to have had a wife and daughters. (Lytol's story is actually even more depressing than we know. Poor guy.)
Now there wouldn't be anything wrong with the idea of Lytol being bisexual of course (I love that interpretation, personally), and it doesn't mean that Lytol hasn't taken part in green mating flights. But this situation does put a bad taste in my mouth.
Considering what Ms. McCaffrey has said about homosexuality in the past (the tent peg quote anyone?), it's hard not to read into this. As soon as Lytol becomes a formidable presence in the series, he's recast from a green rider (and likely then the receptive partner in gay sex, given the mirroring between dragon and rider) to a brown rider (who, IF he's involved in those mating flights, would be in a more aggressive role). And that now, as far as I know anyway, we don't have any examples of male green riders in significant roles in the series.
Maybe this is something remedied in later books, certainly they've moved away from some of other dated and problematic aspects of the earlier books. But you can see, I hope, why that line about green dragons bothers me. In the context of the series, and Ms. McCaffrey's outside statements, it's very hard to give her the benefit of the doubt.