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Sep. 9th, 2012 01:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsRecently I decided it was time to reread Guy Gavriel Kay's The Lions of Al-Rassan, now and forever subtitled in my head A Tale of Three Sexy Religions.
Al-Rassan is basically Romanticized Fake Al-Andalus. Romanticized Fake Al-Andalus maintains an uneasy balance between Fake Christianity (Jaddite), Fake Islam (Asharite) and Fake Judaism (Kindath), so naturally we have a sexy protagonist from each of these three faiths.
Rodrigo Belmonte: Jaddite war leader and mercenary, so sexy that as soon as he comes home from a campaign his wife kidnaps him, ties him down in a shed, stabs him with an arrow and has her way with him
Jehane bet Ishak: Kindath doctor, so sexy that one look at her hot surgery skills is enough to cause naive young soldiers to fall madly in love with her and decide to center their entire lives around her
Ammar ibn Khairan: Asharite poet, assassin and statesman, so extremely super sexy that when he rides into a city to stop a massacre he immediately gathers a crowd of fangirls shouting "DO ME AMMAR"
A lot of politicking means that Rodrigo, Jehane and Ammar all end up working for the same ruler in one of the fake Islamic city-states. Jehane meets Rodrigo and Ammar independently and finds both of them extremely sexy, but that is nothing compared to what happens when Rodrigo and Ammar's eyes MEET ACROSS A CROWDED ROOM. Guy Gavriel Kay spends at least two pages describing them staring at each other in Instant Soulmate Recognition, and because I am a terrible person this is the point at which I started laughing out loud on the subway, because it is total Mercedes Lackey-style lifebond. (And, in fact, since Rodrigo and Ammar are both based on historical figures, you can make a fairly strong argument that this whole book is Guy Gavriel Kay's El Cid/Ibn Ammar mystical soulmate RPF.)
No, but it's very poignant! There is basically an epic doomed emotional threesome between Jehane, Rodrigo and Ammar (only an emotional threesome, though, because Rodrigo has a hot wife at home) set against the backdrop of the Tragic Fall of Beautiful Cosmopolitan Al-Rassan to the Forces of Fake Christian and Fake Islamic Religious Intolerance, Shame About Those Nasty Crusaders and Desert Fundamentalists. (There is no Fake Jewish religious intolerance, the fake Jews just spent a lot of time being intolerated at.) There is a lot of beautiful imagery and sad poetry and elaborate politics and dramatically noble sacrifices and it's all very Guy Gavriel Kay at his most Guy Gavriel Kay-ish.
I was kind of disappointed that no one ever told the tragically doomed threesome that if they were lucky they would all be together in the next life in Fionavar.
Al-Rassan is basically Romanticized Fake Al-Andalus. Romanticized Fake Al-Andalus maintains an uneasy balance between Fake Christianity (Jaddite), Fake Islam (Asharite) and Fake Judaism (Kindath), so naturally we have a sexy protagonist from each of these three faiths.
Rodrigo Belmonte: Jaddite war leader and mercenary, so sexy that as soon as he comes home from a campaign his wife kidnaps him, ties him down in a shed, stabs him with an arrow and has her way with him
Jehane bet Ishak: Kindath doctor, so sexy that one look at her hot surgery skills is enough to cause naive young soldiers to fall madly in love with her and decide to center their entire lives around her
Ammar ibn Khairan: Asharite poet, assassin and statesman, so extremely super sexy that when he rides into a city to stop a massacre he immediately gathers a crowd of fangirls shouting "DO ME AMMAR"
A lot of politicking means that Rodrigo, Jehane and Ammar all end up working for the same ruler in one of the fake Islamic city-states. Jehane meets Rodrigo and Ammar independently and finds both of them extremely sexy, but that is nothing compared to what happens when Rodrigo and Ammar's eyes MEET ACROSS A CROWDED ROOM. Guy Gavriel Kay spends at least two pages describing them staring at each other in Instant Soulmate Recognition, and because I am a terrible person this is the point at which I started laughing out loud on the subway, because it is total Mercedes Lackey-style lifebond. (And, in fact, since Rodrigo and Ammar are both based on historical figures, you can make a fairly strong argument that this whole book is Guy Gavriel Kay's El Cid/Ibn Ammar mystical soulmate RPF.)
No, but it's very poignant! There is basically an epic doomed emotional threesome between Jehane, Rodrigo and Ammar (only an emotional threesome, though, because Rodrigo has a hot wife at home) set against the backdrop of the Tragic Fall of Beautiful Cosmopolitan Al-Rassan to the Forces of Fake Christian and Fake Islamic Religious Intolerance, Shame About Those Nasty Crusaders and Desert Fundamentalists. (There is no Fake Jewish religious intolerance, the fake Jews just spent a lot of time being intolerated at.) There is a lot of beautiful imagery and sad poetry and elaborate politics and dramatically noble sacrifices and it's all very Guy Gavriel Kay at his most Guy Gavriel Kay-ish.
I was kind of disappointed that no one ever told the tragically doomed threesome that if they were lucky they would all be together in the next life in Fionavar.
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Date: 2012-09-09 09:59 pm (UTC)