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i_read_whatSo the one thing about doing two books at the same time is that I sometimes end up with very strange juxtapositions. It was interesting, for example, reading Bloodlist and Crystal Shard at the same time, because in both cases about three quarters of the book passes without a significant female presence, but in my opinion, Bloodlist very much makes up for that in its final quarter, where Crystal Shard basically peters out in that respect.
Here, reading Dragonsong and Shapechangers at the same time makes for another interesting comparison. Alix is seventeen years old in Shapechanger, only two years older than Menolly. But where Menolly ends her book by embarking on a new journey, pursuing education in a new career, with new friends, and all sorts of possibilities ahead of her, Alix has been isolated from everything she's ever known, married to an abusive and dismissive rapist almost twice her age, and is pregnant to boot.
I'm so sorry, Alix. You deserve an adolescence. You deserve a future.
So we're back at the Atvian camp. Duncan's stolen a horse for Carillon and helps him mount. It's pretty agonizing though, and Carillon is clearly trying very hard not to let it show. There's a lovely line here: "Silently she watched him compose himself in the saddle, gathering reins with swollen, discolored hands."
Duncan orders Alix to ride behind Carillon. He calls her cheysula, and I wish I thought he meant that as a reassurance rather than to mark his territory. Carillon protests, wounded male pride, and Duncan has the audacity to pretend to be feminist and/or a concerned husband here:
Carillon glared at him. “I have no need of a woman to keep me in the saddle, shapechanger.”
“This woman has accounted for your rescue, princeling,” Duncan returned. “And as for your ability to keep yourself in the saddle, that is for you to do. It is Alix I am concerned about, and the health of our child.”
Fuck you, Duncan. (I'm giving Carillon a bit of a pass for sounding sexist here, because it seems like he's motivated more by wanting to seem healthy. Machismo not misogyny.)
Alix wants to go with Duncan, but he explains that the others are leaving in lir shape, and he'll be walking and leading the horse. He notes that, whether she realizes it yet or not, she's definitely weary.
He's not wrong here, but I resent that Roberson's suddenly decided to go back to portraying Duncan as a reasonable person after the bullshit that was the entirety of Book Two, "Mei jha" and Book Three, "Cheysula".
Alix realizes that he's right and lets him help her into the saddle. They ride, and nothing really happens until they get to a clearing. Duncan helps Carillon dismount, though Carillon bristles. Duncan tells him it's no disgrace to need help, and asks if it's just Cheysuli help he spurns. But again, he also bristled about Alix, who he still doesn't quite see as Cheysuli, so I still think it's more pride. Carillon's spent a long time feeling weak and powerless, and he's in the midst of people who kidnapped him once before.
(I feel like we're supposed to kind of gloss over that bit. But really, why WOULD Carillon be comfortable with any of this?)
Alix is tired and asks if they have to "go at one another with no basis other than pride and arrogance?" She asks if they can't forget their races and simply conduct themselves as men.
...I like that she's speaking out, but I don't really like the way Roberson had her word this. As much as I hate Duncan, the Cheysuli are the victims of a genocidal purge. They shouldn't have to "forget" that ever.
But it does give Carillon a chance to show his character growth:
Carillon stared at her. After a moment something softened his expression and twisted his mouth briefly. He looked back at Duncan.
“You have proven your loyalty to me, at least, this night. It is not my place to reprove you for it.”
Duncan smiled and indicated a fallen log. “Come, my lord. We will see if you are worth saving,”
I WANT to say "fuck you, Duncan", but I have to admit that with Carillon's recent experience, a little bit of an edge is probably good for him. I don't think he'd react very well to gentleness from a rival right now.
Duncan tells Alix to build a fire. She's concerned about their proximity to the Atvians, but Carillon really can't travel any farther. Honestly, I'm still surprised he's even as mobile as he is, if he really spent weeks in a tumbril. How long does it take for muscles to atrophy?
I also wish Duncan would ASK instead of order Alix.
Anyway, she sets up the cairn: laying down sticks and kindling. A Cheysuli warrior who is nameless lights it for her. I'd like to think this is Keighvin, my non-canon Cheysuli who is NOT a rapist or a dick, thank you very much.
She glances up and sees that the clearing is now filled with returned warriors. We get some imagery and Alix acknowledging her kinship to these people and it feels like a significant moment. Alix really hasn't had an opportunity to really just process what it means to be Cheysuli, I think. She went with Duncan, because she wanted to learn, and then got shoved face first into all the manipulation and marriage games. She had Duncan and Finn jerking her around, and she had a shit ton of nomadic type skills that she needed to learn. I think this might be the first time she's really gotten to FEEL it.
And I hate Duncan all over again.
Alix has an exchange with Cai where she basically says "I told you so" and he agrees that she's truly Cheysuli. He also gives her a cryptic message: She's learned much but there is still much left to her. In time, she'll know what it means.
She then hears Carillon cry out. Duncan is "manipulating" his hands around, "with little regard for his pain". Carillon asks if he can't let them be, because they'll heal. But Duncan points out that "Iron can damage more than flesh. It can take away the little life within the muscles themselves." But he believes Carillon will hold a sword again.
Which reminds me how idiotic it was for Duncan to want to leave Carillon there to begin with. Say they did protect Homana-Mujhar, and THEN saved Carillon. He might well have been permanently disabled at that point. And while that would have made an interesting story in its own right, it would have made it awfully difficult for him to go to battle and retake a mostly-conquered kingdom from two much stronger armies and an Ihlini sorcerer.
(Especially since later books will show us that the Cheysuli are not terribly enlightened when it comes to permanent disability.)
Carillon is glad to hear that he'll wield a sword again because he intends to shove one through Thorne. Finn asks what sword he'll use, considering he'd lost Hale's. Shut up, Finn. If you idiots had rescued him earlier, maybe you could have gotten it back.
Carillon admits that it's true, which surprises Finn, who expected denials or excuses. But really, Carillon's never been the sort for either. Duncan tells Finn that this can wait, but as it turns out Finn actually has a point to this. He somehow managed to get the sword back, and he gives it back with appropriate drama:
The warrior lifted it into the light, focusing all eyes on it. “Hale’s sword was meant for one man, Carillon. I cannot say if that man is you, but if it is—you had best take care. This is twice you have lost my jehan’s sword. Next time I may not see it back in your hands.”
Carillon said nothing as Finn held the sheathed weapon down. For a long moment his hands lay still in his lap, where Duncan had released them. Then, when Finn made no move to withdraw it, Carillon closed one hand around the scabbard.
“If you are so dedicated to overcoming my succession,” he began, “why, then, do you persist in restoring this blade to me? In your hands it might prove far more powerful.”
Finn shrugged, folding bronzed arms across his chest. “A Cheysuli warrior does not bear a sword. And I am that before anything else.”
I wish this book hadn't made Finn and Duncan so terrible, because I actually do think the characters have a really interesting dynamic with Carillon. (Something that, in Finn's case, will very much be a major element of the sequel.)
Carillon falls asleep after that, and Alix has her own moment of introspection, which Duncan ruins by being Duncan:
Alix looked on his bruised, gaunt face and suddenly longed for the first days of their meetings in the forest near the croft. His fine clothes were gone, replaced by soiled and scarred leathers and blood-rusted chain mail. His sword-belt was missing and his hair had grown shaggy and tangled in weeks of captivity. The only thing princely about him was the ruby seal ring on his right forefinger, and the determination inherent in his face even in exhausted sleep.
She sighed and felt a hollowness enter her spirit, knowing Carillon’s personal tahlmorra would take him farther from her yet.
Duncan rose and turned to her, looking down on her expressionlessly. Something in his eyes made her realize her face gave away her feelings, and for an odd moment she saw before her a stern shapechanger warrior who had forced her into his clan against her wishes.
Then the oddness slid away and she saw him clearly.
He is Duncan, she recalled. Duncan...
1. This is really so very sad. Alix is seventeen years old. Carillon is eighteen. They're kids. And they've changed so much over such a short period of time. It's completely understandable that Alix might wish for a simpler time.
2. That said, I'm not sure how princely Carillon should look after weeks of captivity. He must smell terrible, for that matter. And I'm surprised no one took the seal ring.
3. For fuck's sake, Duncan. Let the poor girl worry about her friend.
4. He IS the warrior that forced you into the clan. He's fucked with your head for two arcs now. Ditch his ass.
But please knock off the racial epithets? You've been really good about that, Alix.
Ugh, Duncan comes over and tells her to come with him. They go out into the forest and he sets her down on a shattered tree stump. He's kind of lecturing, but not angry. He points out that she wasn't wrong, "only inconsiderate". A claim that is so gloriously bullshit that I am incandescent with rage.
After Malina. After Finn. After...
Inconsiderate.
Then he lectures her about the child in her womb. He doesn't want to risk her dying because of giving birth too soon. He also doesn't want to risk the child. I personally don't give a shit what he wants. He asks if she's thought about what shapeshifting while pregnant might mean.
This scares Alix, she asks if it harmed the child. Duncan doesn't think so, but he doesn't think it's good either to have the child shifting shape before he knows his own.
He might have a point here, but I still hate him. Also what's the point of this anyway? It's happened.
He says he didn't say this to worry her (fucking bullshit), just to make her think. I'm pretty sure she wasn't planning to keep wandering around as a wolf or falcon for no reason, you fucking dickhead. Hey, maybe if you actually agreed to rescue the dude who's supposed to fulfill your stupid prophecy, she might have shapeshifted less.
Anyway, Alix is now basically terrified that she's hurt her baby. Duncan says he's sorry to have said anything and that he shouldn't have put the worry in her mind. She thinks he's right to do that, and that she was foolish.
He points out that Carillon is free because of her. And even if he's the one who ultimately freed him, it was only because Alix forced the situation by defying him. And while I like that he's actually trying to comfort her for once, I really hate that he uses the word "defied". Because fuck, a marriage should be a partnership. Not a matter of obedience or defiance. Unless you're kinky, and that shit is negotiated first.
Anyway, Alix asks if he's sending her back. Duncan asks why she can't be like other women, and why she had to put on men's clothes (his own, he notes) to act the part of a warrior? To his credit, I suppose, he's amused when he asks this.
She says that she's herself. Which is a good response. He says "it's not entirely unpleasing, in its place" and I want her to punch him in his dick again. Anyway, he thinks she'll have to come with them. He doesn't want her to take lir shape to fly back, or to journey back alone, and he can't spare men to take her."
Alix admits that she doesn't know whether she's pleased or not. She doesn't want to be waiting at the Keep, worried about him, but she also isn't happy to see him risk himself for Shaine's city. Fair.
Duncan notes that it's not really Shaine's city. It used to be the Cheysuli's. Alix asks him, if the Cheysuli hadn't given up the throne, would Duncan himself have been Mujhar? Duncan doesn't really answer, which is an answer really, by saying that being clan-leader is enough.
I feel like I remember this coming up a bit more in the sequel. It's something that Carillon takes very seriously and represents a particular sort of bond/understanding between the two characters in that book. (Song of Homana has its problems, as I recall, but it's a MUCH better book than Shapechangers all around.)
Anyway, Alix has a moment of doubt about not being the proper sort of woman for Duncan, and I want to punt Duncan into the sun. Cai reassures her by saying she's the only woman for Duncan.
Well, except for Malina, if she hadn't told him that the kid was Borrs's.
Fuck this book, I remember that even if it doesn't want me to.
Here, reading Dragonsong and Shapechangers at the same time makes for another interesting comparison. Alix is seventeen years old in Shapechanger, only two years older than Menolly. But where Menolly ends her book by embarking on a new journey, pursuing education in a new career, with new friends, and all sorts of possibilities ahead of her, Alix has been isolated from everything she's ever known, married to an abusive and dismissive rapist almost twice her age, and is pregnant to boot.
I'm so sorry, Alix. You deserve an adolescence. You deserve a future.
So we're back at the Atvian camp. Duncan's stolen a horse for Carillon and helps him mount. It's pretty agonizing though, and Carillon is clearly trying very hard not to let it show. There's a lovely line here: "Silently she watched him compose himself in the saddle, gathering reins with swollen, discolored hands."
Duncan orders Alix to ride behind Carillon. He calls her cheysula, and I wish I thought he meant that as a reassurance rather than to mark his territory. Carillon protests, wounded male pride, and Duncan has the audacity to pretend to be feminist and/or a concerned husband here:
Carillon glared at him. “I have no need of a woman to keep me in the saddle, shapechanger.”
“This woman has accounted for your rescue, princeling,” Duncan returned. “And as for your ability to keep yourself in the saddle, that is for you to do. It is Alix I am concerned about, and the health of our child.”
Fuck you, Duncan. (I'm giving Carillon a bit of a pass for sounding sexist here, because it seems like he's motivated more by wanting to seem healthy. Machismo not misogyny.)
Alix wants to go with Duncan, but he explains that the others are leaving in lir shape, and he'll be walking and leading the horse. He notes that, whether she realizes it yet or not, she's definitely weary.
He's not wrong here, but I resent that Roberson's suddenly decided to go back to portraying Duncan as a reasonable person after the bullshit that was the entirety of Book Two, "Mei jha" and Book Three, "Cheysula".
Alix realizes that he's right and lets him help her into the saddle. They ride, and nothing really happens until they get to a clearing. Duncan helps Carillon dismount, though Carillon bristles. Duncan tells him it's no disgrace to need help, and asks if it's just Cheysuli help he spurns. But again, he also bristled about Alix, who he still doesn't quite see as Cheysuli, so I still think it's more pride. Carillon's spent a long time feeling weak and powerless, and he's in the midst of people who kidnapped him once before.
(I feel like we're supposed to kind of gloss over that bit. But really, why WOULD Carillon be comfortable with any of this?)
Alix is tired and asks if they have to "go at one another with no basis other than pride and arrogance?" She asks if they can't forget their races and simply conduct themselves as men.
...I like that she's speaking out, but I don't really like the way Roberson had her word this. As much as I hate Duncan, the Cheysuli are the victims of a genocidal purge. They shouldn't have to "forget" that ever.
But it does give Carillon a chance to show his character growth:
Carillon stared at her. After a moment something softened his expression and twisted his mouth briefly. He looked back at Duncan.
“You have proven your loyalty to me, at least, this night. It is not my place to reprove you for it.”
Duncan smiled and indicated a fallen log. “Come, my lord. We will see if you are worth saving,”
I WANT to say "fuck you, Duncan", but I have to admit that with Carillon's recent experience, a little bit of an edge is probably good for him. I don't think he'd react very well to gentleness from a rival right now.
Duncan tells Alix to build a fire. She's concerned about their proximity to the Atvians, but Carillon really can't travel any farther. Honestly, I'm still surprised he's even as mobile as he is, if he really spent weeks in a tumbril. How long does it take for muscles to atrophy?
I also wish Duncan would ASK instead of order Alix.
Anyway, she sets up the cairn: laying down sticks and kindling. A Cheysuli warrior who is nameless lights it for her. I'd like to think this is Keighvin, my non-canon Cheysuli who is NOT a rapist or a dick, thank you very much.
She glances up and sees that the clearing is now filled with returned warriors. We get some imagery and Alix acknowledging her kinship to these people and it feels like a significant moment. Alix really hasn't had an opportunity to really just process what it means to be Cheysuli, I think. She went with Duncan, because she wanted to learn, and then got shoved face first into all the manipulation and marriage games. She had Duncan and Finn jerking her around, and she had a shit ton of nomadic type skills that she needed to learn. I think this might be the first time she's really gotten to FEEL it.
And I hate Duncan all over again.
Alix has an exchange with Cai where she basically says "I told you so" and he agrees that she's truly Cheysuli. He also gives her a cryptic message: She's learned much but there is still much left to her. In time, she'll know what it means.
She then hears Carillon cry out. Duncan is "manipulating" his hands around, "with little regard for his pain". Carillon asks if he can't let them be, because they'll heal. But Duncan points out that "Iron can damage more than flesh. It can take away the little life within the muscles themselves." But he believes Carillon will hold a sword again.
Which reminds me how idiotic it was for Duncan to want to leave Carillon there to begin with. Say they did protect Homana-Mujhar, and THEN saved Carillon. He might well have been permanently disabled at that point. And while that would have made an interesting story in its own right, it would have made it awfully difficult for him to go to battle and retake a mostly-conquered kingdom from two much stronger armies and an Ihlini sorcerer.
(Especially since later books will show us that the Cheysuli are not terribly enlightened when it comes to permanent disability.)
Carillon is glad to hear that he'll wield a sword again because he intends to shove one through Thorne. Finn asks what sword he'll use, considering he'd lost Hale's. Shut up, Finn. If you idiots had rescued him earlier, maybe you could have gotten it back.
Carillon admits that it's true, which surprises Finn, who expected denials or excuses. But really, Carillon's never been the sort for either. Duncan tells Finn that this can wait, but as it turns out Finn actually has a point to this. He somehow managed to get the sword back, and he gives it back with appropriate drama:
The warrior lifted it into the light, focusing all eyes on it. “Hale’s sword was meant for one man, Carillon. I cannot say if that man is you, but if it is—you had best take care. This is twice you have lost my jehan’s sword. Next time I may not see it back in your hands.”
Carillon said nothing as Finn held the sheathed weapon down. For a long moment his hands lay still in his lap, where Duncan had released them. Then, when Finn made no move to withdraw it, Carillon closed one hand around the scabbard.
“If you are so dedicated to overcoming my succession,” he began, “why, then, do you persist in restoring this blade to me? In your hands it might prove far more powerful.”
Finn shrugged, folding bronzed arms across his chest. “A Cheysuli warrior does not bear a sword. And I am that before anything else.”
I wish this book hadn't made Finn and Duncan so terrible, because I actually do think the characters have a really interesting dynamic with Carillon. (Something that, in Finn's case, will very much be a major element of the sequel.)
Carillon falls asleep after that, and Alix has her own moment of introspection, which Duncan ruins by being Duncan:
Alix looked on his bruised, gaunt face and suddenly longed for the first days of their meetings in the forest near the croft. His fine clothes were gone, replaced by soiled and scarred leathers and blood-rusted chain mail. His sword-belt was missing and his hair had grown shaggy and tangled in weeks of captivity. The only thing princely about him was the ruby seal ring on his right forefinger, and the determination inherent in his face even in exhausted sleep.
She sighed and felt a hollowness enter her spirit, knowing Carillon’s personal tahlmorra would take him farther from her yet.
Duncan rose and turned to her, looking down on her expressionlessly. Something in his eyes made her realize her face gave away her feelings, and for an odd moment she saw before her a stern shapechanger warrior who had forced her into his clan against her wishes.
Then the oddness slid away and she saw him clearly.
He is Duncan, she recalled. Duncan...
1. This is really so very sad. Alix is seventeen years old. Carillon is eighteen. They're kids. And they've changed so much over such a short period of time. It's completely understandable that Alix might wish for a simpler time.
2. That said, I'm not sure how princely Carillon should look after weeks of captivity. He must smell terrible, for that matter. And I'm surprised no one took the seal ring.
3. For fuck's sake, Duncan. Let the poor girl worry about her friend.
4. He IS the warrior that forced you into the clan. He's fucked with your head for two arcs now. Ditch his ass.
But please knock off the racial epithets? You've been really good about that, Alix.
Ugh, Duncan comes over and tells her to come with him. They go out into the forest and he sets her down on a shattered tree stump. He's kind of lecturing, but not angry. He points out that she wasn't wrong, "only inconsiderate". A claim that is so gloriously bullshit that I am incandescent with rage.
After Malina. After Finn. After...
Inconsiderate.
Then he lectures her about the child in her womb. He doesn't want to risk her dying because of giving birth too soon. He also doesn't want to risk the child. I personally don't give a shit what he wants. He asks if she's thought about what shapeshifting while pregnant might mean.
This scares Alix, she asks if it harmed the child. Duncan doesn't think so, but he doesn't think it's good either to have the child shifting shape before he knows his own.
He might have a point here, but I still hate him. Also what's the point of this anyway? It's happened.
He says he didn't say this to worry her (fucking bullshit), just to make her think. I'm pretty sure she wasn't planning to keep wandering around as a wolf or falcon for no reason, you fucking dickhead. Hey, maybe if you actually agreed to rescue the dude who's supposed to fulfill your stupid prophecy, she might have shapeshifted less.
Anyway, Alix is now basically terrified that she's hurt her baby. Duncan says he's sorry to have said anything and that he shouldn't have put the worry in her mind. She thinks he's right to do that, and that she was foolish.
He points out that Carillon is free because of her. And even if he's the one who ultimately freed him, it was only because Alix forced the situation by defying him. And while I like that he's actually trying to comfort her for once, I really hate that he uses the word "defied". Because fuck, a marriage should be a partnership. Not a matter of obedience or defiance. Unless you're kinky, and that shit is negotiated first.
Anyway, Alix asks if he's sending her back. Duncan asks why she can't be like other women, and why she had to put on men's clothes (his own, he notes) to act the part of a warrior? To his credit, I suppose, he's amused when he asks this.
She says that she's herself. Which is a good response. He says "it's not entirely unpleasing, in its place" and I want her to punch him in his dick again. Anyway, he thinks she'll have to come with them. He doesn't want her to take lir shape to fly back, or to journey back alone, and he can't spare men to take her."
Alix admits that she doesn't know whether she's pleased or not. She doesn't want to be waiting at the Keep, worried about him, but she also isn't happy to see him risk himself for Shaine's city. Fair.
Duncan notes that it's not really Shaine's city. It used to be the Cheysuli's. Alix asks him, if the Cheysuli hadn't given up the throne, would Duncan himself have been Mujhar? Duncan doesn't really answer, which is an answer really, by saying that being clan-leader is enough.
I feel like I remember this coming up a bit more in the sequel. It's something that Carillon takes very seriously and represents a particular sort of bond/understanding between the two characters in that book. (Song of Homana has its problems, as I recall, but it's a MUCH better book than Shapechangers all around.)
Anyway, Alix has a moment of doubt about not being the proper sort of woman for Duncan, and I want to punt Duncan into the sun. Cai reassures her by saying she's the only woman for Duncan.
Well, except for Malina, if she hadn't told him that the kid was Borrs's.
Fuck this book, I remember that even if it doesn't want me to.
no subject
Date: 2020-01-28 01:53 am (UTC)I hate all of this so much, and particularly Duncan. I am looking forward SO MUCH to his agonising death.
no subject
Date: 2020-01-28 01:55 am (UTC)How is this our lead?
no subject
Date: 2024-09-03 06:42 am (UTC)Velriset: There we go again... At least it is close to the end?
She asks if they can't forget their races and simply conduct themselves as men.
No, naturally they cannot!
But Duncan points out that "Iron can damage more than flesh. It can take away the little life within the muscles themselves."
Then I am not sure if what Duncan does will help significantly...
Oh, that scene with Carillon sleeping is quite touching!
He points out that she wasn't wrong, "only inconsiderate".
You lost the right to say that quite some while ago.
This scares Alix, she asks if it harmed the child. Duncan doesn't think so, but he doesn't think it's good either to have the child shifting shape before he knows his own.
Do they not actually know what the effects are? All women were supposed to be able to shapeshift a time ago, so I think the effects would be well-known.
no subject
Date: 2024-09-03 01:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-09-03 05:57 pm (UTC)Velriset: Yes, that could indeed be the case.