(no subject)

[skygiants]

Wow, I super did not expect so many people to be into these write-ups of the Fionavar Tapestry, but I'm GLAD YOU ALL ARE because we are now hitting The Wandering Fire and it is probably my favorite of the books!



So in The Summer Tree, our five Canadian law student protagonists had a bunch of traumatizing adventures in Middle Earth Fionavar and then bounced back to Canada just as the Epic Battle Against Sauron Evil was about to begin!

When The Wandering Fire opens they're all ... kind of still hanging out in Canada. Doing law internships. Twiddling their thumbs.

KEVIN: So Kim! Buddy! Fionavar's newest magical Seer! Have you seen a way to get us back to Fionavar yet?
KIM: Not since the last time you asked, no.
DAVE: How about now?
KIM: ... still no.
PAUL: Now?
KIM: ... Paul, you also came out of Fionavar with special god powers, so why are you even asking me?!
PAUL: Funny thing about special god powers: they do not come with a guidebook.

KEVIN: Anyway, how's Jennifer?
KIM: Still suffering major PTSD ... still planning to go ahead with having Sauron's baby despite how many times I gently remind her that we are all pro-choice here ...
PAUL: Maybe I'll go try and talk to her.
KIM: Sure, Mr. 'I Don't Feel Feelings, My Heart Is A Desert,' go see what you can do.

PAUL: So Jennifer I hear you are planning on having Sauron's baby! Just to check in, so you know, we're all --
JENNIFER: YES I am AWARE that we are all pro-choice here and my choice is to HAVE THIS DAMN BABY. OK? OK.
PAUL: And you are aware that it may be an evil baby. I'm just checking in.
JENNIFER: Sure. It could be an evil baby. It could also be a superpowered baby who's gonna hella fuck Sauron up for me. I'm willing to roll those dice.
PAUL: ... well, OK, you seem committed and like you know your own mind! Want to go check out the new print show at a museum and not think about evil babies?
JENNIFER: That sounds nice and not at all ominous!

GALADAN THE WOLFLORD: HELLO I am here at the MUSEUM to KILL you both, especially JENNIFER and her POSSIBLY EVIL or POSSIBLY SUPERPOWERED BABY!
PAUL: One of these days I will kill you, Galadan! ... but today I still don't have a manual for my superpowers so we're going with option B: run away to Fionavar! Somehow!
JENNIFER: Hey, Paul ... so, um, apparently traveling through worlds is a good way to bring on premature labor ...

A VERY UNLUCKY FIONAVARAN LADY: Hello, um, what are you doing at my front door?
JENNIFER: So I was here like a year ago, and I happened to overhear a prophetess say that your teenaged son was doomed to have some kind of tragic destiny?
A VERY UNLUCKY FIONAVARAN LADY: ...er, yes...
JENNIFER: So I thought, hey, you know who probably wants a NEW baby? A woman whose son is doomed to a tragic destiny! Amirite?
A VERY UNLUCKY FIONAVARAN LADY: ...um.....
JENNIFER: PS, there is like a 50% chance this baby's going to be evil? But I'm sure if you take good care of him it'll be FINE. Good luck, have fun, no pressure or anything, we're off back to Canada now!
PAUL: Well, this was ...certainly one way of taking care of the possibly-evil baby problem....

A VERY UNLUCKY FIONAVARAN LADY: Finn, meet ... your new baby brother, I guess ...?
FINN OF THE TRAGIC DESTINY: HE'S ADORABLE. *____*
POSSIBLY EVIL BABY DARIEN: *burble*

So Paul and Jennifer bounce back to Canada, where they all twiddle their thumbs some more until Kim FINALLY has a vision.

KIM: OK, here's the plan: we're going to go break into Stonehenge and raise King Uther Pendragon from the dead!
DAVE: ....why?
KIM: So that he can tell us how to raise King Arthur from the dead! Everyone in? Dave, I know you just got that prestigious law fellowship --
DAVE: Eh, screw that prestigious law fellowship, I have things to hit with an axe.
KEVIN: Wow, you really did have personal growth, Dave! Meanwhile, I am definitely in, because I got laid all the time in Fionavar and I have not gotten laid forever.
DAVE: ...for the record, I have not had so much personal growth that I cannot still be 200% done with you Kevin Laine.

I could at this point describe the team's thrilling breaking-into-Stonehenge adventures, but instead you can all just go watch the classic Ylvis music video Stonehenge and get pretty much the same effect. God, it is the greatest henge of all.

Anyway! Kim wakes King Arthur from the dead and they have a nice sad chat about how King Arthur always gets reincarnated for doomed battles and there's an angsty love triangle EVERY TIME and then he always DIES and Arthur is just kind of done with it already? BUT HE CAN NEVER BE DONE WITH IT ALREADY.

KIM: No, it's cool though! We definitely don't have a Guinevere or a Lancelot in this story!
KING ARTHUR: That's what you think. Oh, well, at least I'll probably die pretty soon.

(GUY GAVRIEL KAY: Just FYI, this thing with King Arthur and the tragic threesome is the saddest of all the stories ever told.
CONSTANT READER: ...really? Because, like, what's happened to Jennifer is pretty shitty, and so is the Tale of Finn's Poor, Poor Mother, Unluckiest Mom in Fionavar --
GUY GAVRIEL KAY: The saddest.)

Back in Fionavar: everyone's super excited to see their favorite Canadians again --

DAVE'S NOMAD BROS: Hey! It's Dave with the axe! YO DAVE!
DAVE: Bros, I missed you all so much!
DAVE'S NOMAD BROS: Bro!
DAVE: This is so much more fun than a prestigious law internship.

Especially Superpowered Seer Kim and Paul the Avatar Of Odin Mornir --

WIZARD LOREN: So now that you're back you can figure out how to help us break this ENDLESS MAGICAL WINTER we've been dealing with for the past year, right?
KIM: Ummmmmmm.
PAUL: Ummmmmmmmmmm.
KIM: Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
WIZARD LOREN: By the way, what's up with Jennifer, she seems kind of bummed?
PAUL: Certainly nothing to do with possibly-evil babies living down the street from us, why do you ask?

-- but everyone rapidly become distracted by Princess Sharra's dad turning up with an army to join the War Against Evil.

SHARRA'S DAD: I'm gonna turn up looking AWESOME and totally take charge of this war!
HOT AND IRRESPONSIBLE DIARMUID: Joke's on you, I totally knew you were coming the whole time!
AILERON THE LESS IRRESPONSIBLE BUT ALSO LESS HOT: Joke's double on you, I didn't know you were coming and whipped up the super fanciest welcome ceremony in two hours flat anyway!
SHARRA'S DAD: >.<
HOT AND IRRESPONSIBLE DIARMUID: Also, what do you want to bet your super-babe daughter is hanging out cross-dressed in your army?
PRINCESS SHARRA: Joke's on YOU, Hot and Irresponsible Diarmuid, I'm cross-dressed and hanging out in your army! And I must say I don't think much of your national security if random princesses can just pop up in your army any time they feel like it. For all you know I might be planning to stab you or something! LOL.
KIM: God, I love that woman.

KIM: So, uh, while we're all here, King Aileron, King Sharra's Dad, may I present King Arthur?
KING ARTHUR: Don't worry, I'll probably die pretty soon. I always do.
KING SHARRA'S DAD: Well, aren't you a bundle of cheer.
KIM: Hey, Jennifer, did you meet King --
KING ARTHUR: ...fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

So it turns out that in ADDITION to all the other fun she's had in Fionavar, Jennifer is the reincarnation of Queen Guinevere!

KIM: Well ... I guess that explains why you were always the most beautiful woman in the country ....? Um.
JENNIFER: FORTUNATELY, I'm so depressed and traumatized still about everything else I've been through, I'm not even interested in any love triangle nonsense! Have a nice life, Arthur!
KING ARTHUR: But ... what about our destined tragic love .....?
JENNIFER: Eh.
KING ARTHUR: You know what, it's fine, I WILL PROBABLY DIE SOON ANYWAY.

Pursuant to this, King Arthur and Kim both start peering around suspiciously for Lancelot, and both Hot and Irresponsible Diarmuid and Aileron the Less Hot but Also Less Irresponsible start desperately shouting 'not it, NOT IT.'

DAVE: So, on a total sidenote, remember when a goddess gave me this magical horn? Who feels like going on a field trip to wake the Wild Hunt?
DAVE'S NOMAD BLOOD BROS: Hell yeah Wild Hunt field triiiip!
KIM: I'm not sure this is such a good idea ... but what the heck, why not!

So they wake the Wild Hunt! Alas, it turns out the Wild Hunt is pissy because they are missing their ninth rider, who is supposed to be a teenage boy.

FINN OF THE TRAGIC DESTINY: Well, I guess I hear my tragic destiny calling! Goodbye, Mom! Goodbye, possibly evil baby brother! I'm OFF TO JOIN THE WILD HUNT.
POSSIBLY EVIL BABY DARIEN: Mommy where did my big brother go :( :( :( :(

(I forgot to mention that possibly evil babies half-Sauron babies grow up way faster than normal babies. Possibly Evil Baby Darien is now like six.)

PAUL: Crap, what if baby Darien's abandonment issues make him turn evil? Possibly we should have thought of this when we selected the House of Tragic Destiny to raise him in. I'd better go check in for emotional support.
KIM: Sure, Mr. 'I Don't Have Feelings, My Heart Is A Desert, Definitely Awesome With Kids,' go see what you can do.

PAUL: ...so....Darien.....it seems.....you're sad......?
POSSIBLY EVIL BABY DARIEN: ....I WANT MY BIG BROTHER. :( :( :(
PAUL: -- OK, you know what, maybe this will be easier if Darien's not a six-year-old anymore. Let's encourage him to magically age up to a teenager, that will probably help!
POSSIBLY EVIL BABY DARIEN: Guess what, I'm now a teenager and I hate everyone and everything.
PAUL: .......in retrospect this might not have been such a good idea.
POSSIBLY EVIL TEENAGE DARIEN: No one CARES about me! You're not my REAL dad! Get out, get out, get out!!!

CERNAN, GOD OF THE HUNT: Yo, that's Sauron's kid? Why was he not killed at birth?
POSSIBLY EVIL TEENAGED DARIEN: You know what, if nobody wants me, maybe I'll just go hang out with MY DAD SAURON. What about THAT.
PAUL: Great, at least someone has said something even less helpful to this kid than I did.

PAUL: So, Jennifer, funny story ... about your possibly-evil kid ........
JENNIFER: Eh.
PAUL: ????
JENNIFER: Did you miss the part where I'm too traumatized and depressed to care about anything?
PAUL: I thought I fixed that with fun museum trips. :(
JENNIFER: ....

JAELLE THE MAN-HATING FEMINIST HIGH PRIEST: I just got a psychic priestess message! Wolves are attacking the main priestess temple!

And lo, they all go forth to attack the wolves, and Dave is pretty good at wolf-slaying, and Dave's nomad bros are also pretty good at wolf-slaying, and Arthur is super good at wolf-slaying, and Diarmuid is even more super good at wolf-slaying, and Aileron is so super good at wolf-slaying that Guy Gavriel Kay basically runs out of adjectives and superlatives, and then Arthur starts squinting suspiciously and Aileron has to do the "NO SERIOUSLY NOT LANCELOT I SWEAR" dance some more.

KEVIN: So, hey guys, I gotta say, I'm feeling ... kind of superfluous on this trip? I mean, Paul has his avatar-of-the-God thing, and Kim has her Seer thing, and Jennifer has her evil baby and Guinevere thing, and Dave has his --
DAVE: I have an axe!
KEVIN: -- and Dave has his axe, and I ... have not really been doing anything ... I'm not even good at sports particularly?
KIM: Um, well, Kevin, at least you're still really good at sex ....?
KEVIN: >:(

JAELLE THE MAN-HATING FEMINIST HIGH PRIESTESS: Hey, fun fact about this temple: did I mention that even though it's eternal winter, right now it's technically Midsummer, when we have a regular symbolic ritual about a dude sacrificing himself to have symbolic sex with the Goddess and bring the summer back?
KEVIN: *lightbulb!*

(MEANWHILE, SOMEWHERE WHERE THE GODS HANG OUT, PROBABLY

THE GODDESS OF THE HUNT: Hey, Mother Goddess, cliff/shag/marry, random Canadian dude edition?
THE GREAT MOTHER GODDESS: Definitely cliff Kevin, shag Kevin, marry Kevin.
THE GODDESS OF THE HUNT: I'm not sure you understand how to play this game...)

So Kevin treks out to the symbolic cliff, and symbolically leaps off, and has a whole ton of really fantastic symbolic sex with the Great Mother Goddess, and breaks the endless winter! And then goes splat.

KEVIN, IN HIS LAST THOUGHT: I am so glad I am going to be too dead to explain this whole pagan marriage/sex/sacrifice thing to my extremely Jewish father.

PAUL: WTF! Kevin, I cannot BELIEVE you just went and sacrificed yourself to a Fionavaran deity to break an unnatural weather phenomenon!!!
KEVIN, IN THE AFTERLIFE, PROBABLY: Never has the phrase 'pot, kettle' been more accurate.
JAELLE THE MAN-HATING FEMINIST HIGH PRIESTESS: Paul, I know he was your friend, and I am sorry for your loss.
PAUL: WHAT WOULD A MAN-HATING JERKASS HIGH PRIESTESS KNOW ABOUT MY LOSS
JAELLE: ...well, that was uncalled-for.
KIM: What I want to know is, who's going to explain this whole pagan marriage/sex/sacrifice thing to his extremely Jewish father? Because I call not it.

DIARMUID: On the bright side, I proposed to Princess Sharra while cross-dressed as her maid, and she said yes!
PRINCESS SHARRA: I mean, marrying Diarmuid at least won't be boring ...?

JENNIFER: On the other bright side, Kevin's heroic sacrifice has made me realize that life is short and sex is great! Hey, Arthur -- what do you think, should we go for it?
KING ARTHUR: It would be nice to have some fun before my inevitable tragic death.

(GUY GAVRIEL KAY: Don't get too comfy! Remember: the inevitable tragic threesome is THE SADDEST STORY EVER TOLD.
CONSTANT READER: I mean ... I'm pretty sad thinking about Kevin's poor Jewish dad, and ...
GUY GAVRIEL KAY: THE SADDEST.)

Anyway, now the winter is broken! Which means that, 3/4 of the way through this book, the war on Sauron can actually begin.

Dave heads off with his nomad bros, and gets into a classic epic battle, and then summons the Wild Hunt, which promptly starts killing everyone until the Goddess of the Hunt turns up to tell them to chill out.

GODDESS OF THE HUNT: Hey, you know that time when I played cliff/shag/marry, random Canadian dude edition, with the Great Mother Goddess --
DAVE: ...
GODDESS OF THE HUNT: Luckily for you, I'm not that into the cliff or the marry parts! Also, you will notice I have healed your wounds. For reasons. :D?
DAVE: I don't know why my fantasy adventure is going like five million times better than anybody else's in this book, but I WILL ROLL WITH IT.

Meanwhile, Wizard Loren and Matt the Ex-King of the Dwarves and Paul and King Arthur and Diarmuid all head off in a boat to a mysterious island where an evil wizard is hanging out with the Black Cauldron raising the dead. Before they get there, though, they hit a TERRIBLE SEA MONSTER ... which sings with BEAUTIFUL ELVEN VOICES ...

PAUL: Oh, shit. You know how the elves --
WIZARD LOREN: You mean the lios alfar?
PAUL: You know how the lios alfar hear a song and then sail across to the West instead of dying, exactly like Tolkien elves?
WIZARD LOREN: Yes, I do know this ...
PAUL: Pretty sure that none of them actually made it to the West. Pretty sure that, in fact, every single one of them was instead EATEN BY THIS SEA MONSTER.

WIZARD LOREN: ...dude, you OK? You want a handkerchief?
PAUL: It's just ... so sad .....! THE POOR ELVES. ;____;
WIZARD LOREN: Dang, when Odin Mornir made it rain in your heart, he really opened up the floodgates, didn't he.......

But they make it past the sea monster, and hit up the island, and come up against the evil wizard, and --

KING ARTHUR: Oh hey I bet this is the part where I die! :D

-- but instead Matt the ex-King of the Dwarves dies.

KING ARTHUR: Fine, whatever. As a sidenote, I just remembered: this island is where the greatest dead warriors of history live! You can wake them up if you know their names.
PAUL: That's an interesting historical footnote.
KING ARTHUR: Guess which dead warrior of history I'm gonna go raise from the dead!
PAUL: ...you know, no one actually asked you to, and you seem really stressed about this threesome thing, so maybe you should --
KING ARTHUR: No no, it's fine, it's for the greater good.
PAUL: Are you sure? Because Jennifer's been through a lot this trilogy, and honestly, we have a lot of really good warriors, Dave's really into his axe --
KING ARTHUR: No, no, I insist! HEY LANCELOT!
LANCELOT: Hey babe I am here and I am awake and I am READY to TRAGIC THREESOME IT UP.
KING ARTHUR: SADDEST STORY EVER.
LANCELOT: HECK YEAH.

LANCELOT: BTW, do I see a dead heroic dwarf over there? Just gonna bring him back to life, I guess. No big.

MATT THE EX-KING OF THE DWARVES: I'm very confused about everything that's just happened.
PAUL: You are not alone, my friend.

THUS ENDS THE SECOND BOOK OF THE FIONAVAR TAPESTRY. Coming up next: endless, endless tragedy. Saddest of all the long tales ever told.

Comments

[the_rck]

The stuff with Kevin and the Mother Goddess really did annoy me when I read this, way back when. It didn't make any sense to me, and seriously-- What about his very, very Jewish (and presumably loving) father? Kevin's father bothered me more than anything else that I remember from these books.

[skygiants]

POOR KEVIN'S POOR, POOR DAD. It's extra egregious because we hear maybe two words, if that, about Jennifer and Paul's families (where is Jennifer's family during the year she is pregnant and traumatized? WHO KNOWS!) and then Kevin is like 'I MAY BE HAVING SEX WITH A GODDESS BUT THAT WON'T STOP MY LAST WORD FROM BEING 'ABBA'!' Uncalled-for, GGK. >:(

[starlady]

Tears. TEARS.

[skygiants]

Is it raining in your heart?

[agonistes]

upon reading this beautiful work of criticism and summoning all the ....-s and >:|||||||s this book made me feel the first time

i realize that the true sticking point for me with this trilogy is that this was happening to... mild-mannered canadian grad students

like you invoke something so mundane and detail-oriented as grad/professional school and i'm like OKAY SO WE'RE GONNA BE DETAIL-ORIENTED AND THERE'S SOME DEGREE OF EARTH LOGIC I CAN EXPECT

and the only earth logic is that men are dirtbags who will stop at nothing to achieve threesomes that won't make them happy anyway

[skygiants]

hahaha omg it's true. No one ever does research and reasoned experimentation on their new powers at all! They're just like 'well I guess ... we'll wait until Fate moves us .....'

Although, admittedly, 'certain doom is coming, WE'LL PROCRASTINATE AND HOPE FOR A MIRACLE OR SIGN FROM ABOVE' is definitely a major part of the grad school experience too.

As a sidenote, did Aspen ever make you read the Darwath trilogy? I have some mixed feelings about them, but they are portal fantasy with a grad student protagonist who turns out to have amazing fighting powers as soon as she goes to fantasyland and still manages to save the day via in-depth historical research and cataloging.

[metaphortunate]

Ohhh yes. I read them in my youth and loved them! Nerdgirl protagonist NO ONE EVER HAD THOSE. Not sexy! Not even surprisingly sexy when she took off her glasses and shook down her hair! Just SURPRISINGLY COMPETENT AND BADASS take my heart, Hambly!

And then I reread them and...there's all this weird...hatred of the proletariat? I mean, I don't know how else to say it, but basically a thing about how people are treacherous scum who will devolve into cannibalism in a hot second without the special talented wise ones keeping us in line? Which yeah, as a nerdy teenager, you definitely nod your head and go "SO true," but...

[skygiants]

Yeeeah. It's that, and then, on a less profound but more personally discomfiting level, it's also the thing where she hooks up with the aged wizard (whom I was always unfairly prejudiced against anyway, STOP TWINKLING, it's creepy!) BUT HE WAS LIKE SEVENTY. IT WAS WEIRD.

[silveraspen]

You know you are inspiring me to reimmerse myself in this canon, RIGHT?

Can't wait for the next review!!!!

[skygiants]

EXCELLENT >:D >:D >:D not that ... this was my plan all along .... >.>

[davidgillon]

Everytime I see 'King Aileron' I picture GGK in a flap over naming and deciding to just wing it :)

[skygiants]

HAHAHAHA I WOULD BELIEVE IT

[metaphortunate]

You are a bad person and you should feel bad!

(I MEAN NOT THAT I WAS TRYING TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO SAY THIS AND THEN YOU SAID IT BETTER)

[rachelmanija]

This does confirm my previous impression that this book contains a number of wonderful scenes strung together by the author saying, "And then this happened!"

[skygiants]

'Why ARE we raising the Wild Hunt?'
'...'
'...'
'...'
'Well, the author dropped this plot token on our doorstep, so...'

[kore]

THE GODDESS OF THE HUNT: Hey, Mother Goddess, cliff/shag/marry, random Canadian dude edition?
THE GREAT MOTHER GODDESS: Definitely cliff Kevin, shag Kevin, marry Kevin.
THE GODDESS OF THE HUNT: I'm not sure you understand how to play this game...)

This was all hilarious but this was the part that made me fall out laughing.

[kate_nepveu]

oh gosh I saw skygiants reference this in the comments to the last one and I was lying besides the Pip who had _just_ gone back to sleep and I came >< this close to bursting out laughing and waking him back up again!

Amazing, is what I'm saying.

[skygiants]

IT IS MY FAVORITE JOKE. I'm pretty sure it's not initially mine, it was either rymenhild or setsthingsright who first pointed it out, but I have since stolen it and used it every chance I got.

[rmc28]

I haven't read these in about twenty years (when I was an impressionable teenager, ok) and NOW I WANT TO and they're probably even in my house somewhere :-)

Fabulous review, as ever.

[skygiants]

Oh man, I was SO EXTREMELY impressionable when first I read these. I still forever associate the name Kevin with tragic sexy death!

[kate_nepveu]

I am not sure I had registered how much better Dave's epic fantasy adventure is compared to everyone else's, but yes, you're quite right! (Possibly down to even the somewhat unearned very-last-bit of the ending!)

Poor Matt. I actually find your book 3 more confusing.

And all the NOT IT bits are perfect.

A++ will read next one -- in due course! -- with glee.

[skygiants]

I hadn't either, honestly, until I started rereading and figuring out how I was going to write it out, and it's like '...wait...' I'm pretty sure he doesn't even lose any of his closest buddies! Everyone else is in an epic bittersweet tragedy, and Dave is having a classic portal fantasy coming of age and feeling GREAT about it. (Down, indeed, to the very last bit of the end.)

[metaphortunate]

I remember laughing my ass off about all the NOT IT! bits when I originally read it. :)

[loligo]

(GUY GAVRIEL KAY: Don't get too comfy! Remember: the inevitable tragic threesome is THE SADDEST STORY EVER TOLD.
CONSTANT READER: I mean ... I'm pretty sad thinking about Kevin's poor Jewish dad, and ...
GUY GAVRIEL KAY: THE SADDEST.)

I was probably a freshman or sophomore in college when I read this book, and GGK's insistence on THE SADDEST pretty much ruined all love triangle stories for me forever after. Love triangles all get an automatic eyeroll from me, ever since. Really, folks, who you sleep with is (a) just not that big a deal in the scheme of things, and (b) amenable to many creative solutions. Get over it!

[petra]

Apart from "freshman or sophomore in high school," this. This, this, this. I read Fionavar not that long after reading Mists of Avalon (and while still in the age bracket where I thought Mists of Avalon was decently written). And that was layered over TH White several years previously.

My knee-jerk reaction to love triangles where it is very clear that A, B, and C all love or at least respect each other is "Hello, Polyamory Exists. Get over yourselves and talk."

I suspect this combination of Matters of Britain explains a lot about my stories, in retrospect.

[skygiants]

It's still hilarious to me that it takes THOUSANDS OF YEARS for them to figure out happy threesome is an option. It just never occurs to anyone! I mean, I'm very happy that they do resolve it, I'm just surprised everyone else puts up with them for that long.

[lnhammer]

I do remember being impressed that GGK was willing to actually, really-and-truly kill off one of the protagonists. And at how well he was blending his pagan elements into a modern high-fantasy setting.

I have no idea, if I reread it now, how well I'll think he did the blending.

---L.

[skygiants]

It's especially impressive because it is basically the same thing that happens to Paul in Book 1, and Paul straightaway gets a plot coupon to come back, so you expect the same thing for Kevin ... but nope! Kevin is WELL AND TRULY KERSPLATTED.

[mneme]

I ...don't remember this that well, but it sounds about right. LOL at the cliff/shag/marry game!

And yeah, Dave's adventure is just, for no reason, better than everyone else's.

[skygiants]

He gets character growth! He gets emotional support! He gets laid and doesn't die! Multiple times!

It's probably because he's the only one who didn't actually want to go on vacation to begin with, isn't that always the way?

[plinythemammaler]

I'm getting an irresistible and terrible urge to read these books!!!!!!!!

[skygiants]

DO IT! DOOO IT. Do it, and I'll read Smith and Jones! *helpful*

[pegasuswrites]

(GUY GAVRIEL KAY: Just FYI, this thing with King Arthur and the tragic threesome is the saddest of all the stories ever told.
CONSTANT READER: ...really? Because, like, what's happened to Jennifer is pretty shitty, and so is the Tale of Finn's Poor, Poor Mother, Unluckiest Mom in Fionavar --
GUY GAVRIEL KAY: The saddest.)

King Arthur killed me throughout this entire thing. I still don't quite understand why he's there, but I totally wouldn't want him to not be.

[skygiants]

Poor King Arthur just wants to get out of there as soon as possible, it's like the first thing he says to everybody. "JUST FYI, I've gotta skip out before the end! JUST SO YOU KNOW. First heroic sacrificial opportunity I get, I am GONE."

[ranalore]

True story, I actually wept myself sick over Paul in the first book and then Kevin in this book, and then SPOILER in the next book the first several times I read them; it is RIDICULOUS but it's still a narrative kink that can pretty reliably yank on my heartstrings. Which only makes the cliff/shag/marry and "rain in your heart" bits all the more hilarious, really. Also THE SADDEST. I thought that was such a lovely poetic refrain the first time I read the trilogy. I was so young then.

I feel like my life was incomplete until this point because I had not seen that music video. I feel so enlightened now.

[skygiants]

I was genuinely surprised, reading the Paul sections last book, how many Paul feelings I still had! It's SO MANPAINY but it really is quite emotionally affecting manpain.

(setsthingsright has a theory that Paul is probably based on some friend of GGK's who is too macho to cry and having Paul then spend the rest of the book either weeping himself OR accidentally making girls cry is GGK's REVENGE.)

The best thing about the karaoke place near my house is that it has "Stonehenge" available. >:D

[salinea]

I remember the Arthur thing feeling like the most pasteded on yay thing ever.

Loved that GGK actually had Jews!! in Fantasy!! it just never happens (it continues to never happen to this day, or almost never).


THE GODDESS OF THE HUNT: Hey, Mother Goddess, cliff/shag/marry, random Canadian dude edition?
THE GREAT MOTHER GODDESS: Definitely cliff Kevin, shag Kevin, marry Kevin.
THE GODDESS OF THE HUNT: I'm not sure you understand how to play this game...)
Hahahahaha

[skygiants]

Yeah, I liked that too too! I know people who feel that Kevin's Judaism seems a bit pasted on, but for me it definitely made me happy the first time I read it. Though, once again: KEVIN'S POOR DAD.

[lacewood]

Wow, apparently I remember more of this book than I thought I did, or at least a lot of this sounds STRANGELY FAMILIAR. I totally forgot about poor Jennifer's maybe-evil baby plotline though. I'M VERY SORRY, JENNIFER.

[skygiants]

WE'RE ALL VERY SORRY FOR JENNIFER, whose fantasy adventure is the worst of all. :( Although possibly even sorrier for maybe-evil baby's adopted mom, who is just a random nice Fionavaran lady and didn't sign up for ANY of this. "Already got one kid with a tragic destiny? GREAT, how about adding another?"

[sovay]

JENNIFER: Sure. It could be an evil baby. It could also be a superpowered baby who's gonna hella fuck Sauron up for me. I'm willing to roll those dice.

You know, I've never seen that in a monster rape plot. What an interesting angle. I realize this is no fun for the baby, but it's certainly a choice on the part of the mother. It's not directly analogous, but I am reminded of Kahvi and Venka in Elfquest.

KIM: What I want to know is, who's going to explain this whole pagan marriage/sex/sacrifice thing to his extremely Jewish father? Because I call not it.

Does anyone ever tell Kevin's father? Or does Kevin just disappear in the otherworld and nobody ever tells his family? Because if so, I find that significantly more upsetting than the umpteenth iteration of the Arthurian love triangle.

Meanwhile, Wizard Loren and Matt the Ex-King of the Dwarves and Paul and King Arthur and Diarmuid all head off in a boat to a mysterious island where an evil wizard is hanging out with the Black Cauldron raising the dead.

. . . So Lloyd Alexander also went in the blender, is what you're telling me.

[skygiants]

The entire Jennifer-Darien-Finn-of-the-tragic-destiny plot is something that I genuinely find incredibly affecting. I mean, I joke about Jennifer's in-retrospect possibly unfortunate decision to dump the baby on a family that's already doomed by fate and hope for the best, but the whole dynamic in which Jennifer all her friends are unable to think of the baby as anything other than a potential decisive factor for good or for evil, so Jennifer decides to give the baby to a family that she knows will love it as an actual baby for as long as they can -- but mostly because she feels that that being genuinely loved has a better shot at turning him into a Weapon For Good than a Weapon For Evil -- it's a really interesting take. A bit Mordred's Lullaby in reverse.

-- hah, man, I forgot about Venka! I had actually forgotten the whole Kahvi-Rayek plot, but rereading Wikipedia is bringing very vague recollections back to me.

I CAN'T ACTUALLY REMEMBER if anyone ever tells Kevin's dad or not! I am waiting to get to the end to find out. I think the book may cut off right as the two people who make it back to Canada pass through, with the implication that they now have the highly unenviable task of breaking the news to everyone else, but I'm not 100% sure.

Lloyd Alexander is absolutely in the blender. A whole bunch of Welsh mythology is rattling around in there very happily. I forgot to mention Taliesin in this writeup, but Taliesin is also there. He doesn't do very much plot-wise except occasionally pop up to quote things incomprehensibly from the Book of Taliesin and then wander off again.

[sovay]

but the whole dynamic in which Jennifer all her friends are unable to think of the baby as anything other than a potential decisive factor for good or for evil, so Jennifer decides to give the baby to a family that she knows will love it as an actual baby for as long as they can -- but mostly because she feels that that being genuinely loved has a better shot at turning him into a Weapon For Good than a Weapon For Evil -- it's a really interesting take.

Yeah. Also, if you didn't have a tragic destiny when you were born, after that move you certainly do.

-- hah, man, I forgot about Venka! I had actually forgotten the whole Kahvi-Rayek plot, but rereading Wikipedia is bringing very vague recollections back to me.

It was almost certainly my first exposure to the idea of raising your child explicitly as a weapon. It's somewhat defused in Elfquest by the fact that Kahvi gives up the idea of revenge on Rayek after a couple of centuries and goes off to see the world with Tyldak, by which point Venka has already more or less decided to have her own life whether she ever meets her father or not—when they finally meet, she tells him outright that although she was raised to stop him from what he's about to do, she's doing the much worse thing and leaving the choice to him—but the books are remarkably clear about how long it takes before Kahvi can see her daughter as a person of her own rather than a means to one end or another. She conceived by Rayek in order to bring new blood into her tribe; she lied to him both about the child's survival and its parentage, so that he wouldn't try to claim any rights over her; when Venka's blocking abilities first manifest in infancy, she gets the idea that her daughter will grow up to be her ex-lover's comeuppance and persists in this plan until Venka is an adult. The good news is, she gets over it. And the relationship is not abusive; it's more like one of those unquestioned parental assumptions that fade as reality asserts itself. But even as an adolescent, I remember reading a stretch of Kings of the Broken Wheel and thinking, I'm not sure this is going to work out the way you think it should . . .

. . . I read these comics at a very young age: the first four around age eight, the entire original series (I recognize no others) at age thirteen. My parents bought me and my brother alternate collections when the series was reprinted in the '90's. They occupied a huge portion of my brain into college. I can't even evaluate any more whether they're good or not—I think the answer actually is yes, but there's just so much id in there, I can't tell.

I think the book may cut off right as the two people who make it back to Canada pass through, with the implication that they now have the highly unenviable task of breaking the news to everyone else, but I'm not 100% sure.

Yikes. Well, let me know.

He doesn't do very much plot-wise except occasionally pop up to quote things incomprehensibly from the Book of Taliesin and then wander off again.

I think he does something like that in a novel by Charles de Lint whose title I cannot remember because after patiently trying him again and again in high school it turned out I just really don't like Charles de Lint.

[skygiants]

I read most of them at a young age too -- my childhood best friend and our younger brothers all got really into them in our preadolescence; you probably don't want to ask about the time that we decided to make a musical version of the story set to the classic sound of the Backstreet Boys and N'Sync -- but all I really remember is the early bits going up to about the Siege at Blue Mountain arc; most of what happens afterwards is significantly blurrier. So much id, though! I have a distinct memory of attempting various elf hairstyles at different periods in middle school. (Redlance hair was my dream, and .... a bad idea. Very much a bad idea.)

Aaand my vague memory is correct! In fact the book cuts off right before they go home. IT'LL PROBABLY BE FINE.

I tried really hard to like Charles de Lint! I did like Someplace to be Flying, quite a bit, and then I read a bunch of his other books and none of them were anywhere near as enjoyable.

[sovay]

I have a distinct memory of attempting various elf hairstyles at different periods in middle school.

When I had enough hair, I could braid it before my ears like Kahvi.

[edit] IT'LL PROBABLY BE FINE.

DAMMIT.

[tavella]

I had forgotten the Lloyd Alexander/Welsh bits in the ridiculous blender that is the series. "I MAY NEVER WRITE ANOTHER BOOK! IT MUST ALL GO IN, ALL MY FAVORITES!"

[skygiants]

HE GOT IT ALL OUT. I'm honestly very proud of him. After that, he contents himself with picking ONE historical period and mashing up everything he likes about it! As opposed to, like, twelve.