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Tuesday, June 29th, 2010 10:53 pm
books: shalador's lady redux
This is random, but I was re-reading Shalador's Lady by Anne Bishop--and tried to decide if there was a colonial aspect to Cassidy going to Dena Nehele, and I have thought on this but most of them are mixed on the race issue, since from my first reading I assumed that the long lived races, or at least most of them, weren't white*, whereas the short lived races very much are, and nothing I've read since has contradicted that--okay, I went off topic, but people who read this, or hey, want to go read the series real fast? You can do that. I can wait for an answer.
What the hell happened to Falonar?
Anne Bishop is not exactly subtle with her anvils, nor does she have characters change type. Cassandra, Luthvian, Theran, even Jaenelle's birth family, the few other vaguely hostile characters weren't bad. I mean, you knew who the bad people were. They were the ones castrating people and raping people. Or they were like Roxy, Kernilla et al who probably would end up like that eventually but weren't there yet.
...I need to get off this italics kick soon. But that's one of the things that get across fairly fast. You don't have to worry about liking the wrong character. You really could not like the bad characters. Even with a lot of effort.
Falonar as introduced in The Queen of the Darkness was not a bad guy and became Surreal's lover. By Dreams Made Flesh, the third story in there (I think?), they'd broken up because he was interested in Nurian the healer, and there were bruised feelings.
I re-read to see if I missed something, but people, I've almost memorized these books, okay? I did not see the transition there. Did something happen in Tangled Web that by some insane chance I missed?
Okay, now just regular squee.
One thing Anne Bishop does really well is make sure there's always something interesting happening, and it's not always Territory changing things, but especially in the Cassidy novels, the normal day to day routines of a court and its queen. In my earlier review, I talked about how much I loved that all these people are not superpowered, and why that works here, works brilliantly, and why I think Dena Nehele/Shalador Nehele needed a less powerful queen.
After re-reading, I'm even more convinced that a powerful queen or a lot of dark jeweled anybodies would have been disastrous for the people living there. Even now, Jaenelle and most of her (former) First Circle are superpowered in Territories that in general need that because they have a lot of dark jeweled people in them. They need the power to be equal to or greater than the people they rule, and their Territories are built around the fact of a lot of people being opal or above. Their lives are built around it, in fact.
Throwing Jaenelle to Dena Nehele would be the equivalent of moving, say, the population of fifteenth century London into current time New York. Not only are the people completely unable to figure out how to catch up with five hundred years of change, they don't have the context to understand it and they'd have no idea how to do anything or have the tools, either by education or by simply growing up there, to fit into current time New York.
With less power, Cassidy has to lead by both doing and by showing and by teaching others to do what she can't. She literally can't do everything for them, whereas it would be hard for Jaenelle not to and if she didn't, it would breed resentment from the people she ruled.
Whereas Cassidy's court, the distribution of labor also assures that everyone has a job to do, a necessary job, that they'll pass to other courts and other queens.
(This is where I stumbled on my colonialism thoughts and tried to decide if Cassidy coming to Dena Nehele could be considered a type of colonialism, and I think yes, but without disempowering the people who live there (I'm not sure how much difference it makes that she was invited by a member of the Territory, or that the people of Dena Nehele had once lived by Blood rules and wanted to return to that; again, this social structure really--complicated). To me--and I am willing to be corrected on this one if I'm off base on interpretation--she's less there to save them, or bring the enlightenment of Blood society to the savages as be a living, breathing toolbox for them to use to build their Territory. There's also the fact that the actual work to get the Territory functional again, the ways they go about rebuilding first the village and then the provinces are carried out exclusively by the native population.
This is the kind of thing I come up with at two in the morning, okay? Just go with it. A lot of it came from the fact that the Kaeleer queens aren't permitted to intervene in any way, and interestingly, the only time Kaeleer intervenes is indirect and at specific request of people who live in the Territory.)
The Blood
You know, the more I read about the Blood, the more I wonder about their social structure literally being genetic.
Caste isn't imposed by society but by literal what you can do from birth (exception; black widows, which someone can be either born or trained into, which makes me wonder how non-born black widows get that snakes' tooth thing. Is there a ceremony? How does that work?). It's fluid in that the leadership comes from any social class and any jewel level as related to caste; a Queen can be born white jeweled into a tanner's family and still has the biological imperative and equal opportunity to rule, and social class is completely irrelevant to that. That doesn't mean there isn't classism--oh, there is and it's covered in here as well--but Anne Bishop, as pointed out above, isn't ambiguous. In general, people who give a shit about social class are like, evil or in the ambiguous good category.
The entire caste of Warlord Princes is another thing entirely that I'm not entirely sure I know how to interpret; with a literal genetic imperative to serve (men who do not feel this are unnatural and weird and, you know, evil), who have the equivalent of a bond-at-first-sight with the Queen they are supposed to serve that is entirely separate from their sexual relationships or marriages or friendships, and who are violent and irrational by nature and if they wear dark jewels, can't be and shouldn't be trusted unless they serve a Queen, and go into heat regularly and must have violent sex with someone that can end badly (but if the Warlord Prince is emotionally attached, which it is implied that he should be to a lover, then it's just superhot).
The Blood are supposed to be separate from the Landen by their power, which is true, and their natures, which is also true, but it's in that they are less (as normally defined) human because of it, with genetic and biological hardwiring that's pretty much identical to how animal social structures exist. Or this: the Landens without the Blood could develop a democracy, a monarchy, an oligarchy, a new political/social structure of pretty much any kind they thought up. The Blood are severely limited by their own biology, and any alternate they might want to develop has to take into account their own hardwiring before it even got as far as political philosophy.
Like, IDK, bees that can think? I mean, sure, if we had some self-aware, intelligent bees that could exercise free will, they couldn't just set up like, elections in the hive one day just for the fuck of it; they'd have to accommodate the fact that certain types of bees literally can only do certain things, and--
Wait. Are the Blood bees?
Seriously, are the Blood bees? *blank* That can't be right.
In case you, too, want to know the answer, hey, Anne Bishop's page on Amazon! Yes, I really want everyone in the universe to read these so there are more people to talk to about them. THEY MIGHT BE HUMAN BEES!
Note
* I'm using 'non-white' instead of POC because I'm not sure it's appropriate in the way this fantasy series was introduced and developed, since it is really different in pretty much everything in how their societies are structured and arranged.
If using POC would be more appropriate or if 'non-white' is in any way offensive, please tell me and I'll make the change immediately. I had POC first, but since this fantasy doesn't follow anything even close to the white European medieval fantasy model (or the social structure of pretty much anything I've ever read or heard of in my life), and POC is, at least on LJ, a identification term that also has political/social history and connotations, I didn't want to take the term lightly or misuse its real life meaning in context of a fantasy series.
What the hell happened to Falonar?
Anne Bishop is not exactly subtle with her anvils, nor does she have characters change type. Cassandra, Luthvian, Theran, even Jaenelle's birth family, the few other vaguely hostile characters weren't bad. I mean, you knew who the bad people were. They were the ones castrating people and raping people. Or they were like Roxy, Kernilla et al who probably would end up like that eventually but weren't there yet.
...I need to get off this italics kick soon. But that's one of the things that get across fairly fast. You don't have to worry about liking the wrong character. You really could not like the bad characters. Even with a lot of effort.
Falonar as introduced in The Queen of the Darkness was not a bad guy and became Surreal's lover. By Dreams Made Flesh, the third story in there (I think?), they'd broken up because he was interested in Nurian the healer, and there were bruised feelings.
I re-read to see if I missed something, but people, I've almost memorized these books, okay? I did not see the transition there. Did something happen in Tangled Web that by some insane chance I missed?
Okay, now just regular squee.
One thing Anne Bishop does really well is make sure there's always something interesting happening, and it's not always Territory changing things, but especially in the Cassidy novels, the normal day to day routines of a court and its queen. In my earlier review, I talked about how much I loved that all these people are not superpowered, and why that works here, works brilliantly, and why I think Dena Nehele/Shalador Nehele needed a less powerful queen.
After re-reading, I'm even more convinced that a powerful queen or a lot of dark jeweled anybodies would have been disastrous for the people living there. Even now, Jaenelle and most of her (former) First Circle are superpowered in Territories that in general need that because they have a lot of dark jeweled people in them. They need the power to be equal to or greater than the people they rule, and their Territories are built around the fact of a lot of people being opal or above. Their lives are built around it, in fact.
Throwing Jaenelle to Dena Nehele would be the equivalent of moving, say, the population of fifteenth century London into current time New York. Not only are the people completely unable to figure out how to catch up with five hundred years of change, they don't have the context to understand it and they'd have no idea how to do anything or have the tools, either by education or by simply growing up there, to fit into current time New York.
With less power, Cassidy has to lead by both doing and by showing and by teaching others to do what she can't. She literally can't do everything for them, whereas it would be hard for Jaenelle not to and if she didn't, it would breed resentment from the people she ruled.
Whereas Cassidy's court, the distribution of labor also assures that everyone has a job to do, a necessary job, that they'll pass to other courts and other queens.
(This is where I stumbled on my colonialism thoughts and tried to decide if Cassidy coming to Dena Nehele could be considered a type of colonialism, and I think yes, but without disempowering the people who live there (I'm not sure how much difference it makes that she was invited by a member of the Territory, or that the people of Dena Nehele had once lived by Blood rules and wanted to return to that; again, this social structure really--complicated). To me--and I am willing to be corrected on this one if I'm off base on interpretation--she's less there to save them, or bring the enlightenment of Blood society to the savages as be a living, breathing toolbox for them to use to build their Territory. There's also the fact that the actual work to get the Territory functional again, the ways they go about rebuilding first the village and then the provinces are carried out exclusively by the native population.
This is the kind of thing I come up with at two in the morning, okay? Just go with it. A lot of it came from the fact that the Kaeleer queens aren't permitted to intervene in any way, and interestingly, the only time Kaeleer intervenes is indirect and at specific request of people who live in the Territory.)
The Blood
You know, the more I read about the Blood, the more I wonder about their social structure literally being genetic.
Caste isn't imposed by society but by literal what you can do from birth (exception; black widows, which someone can be either born or trained into, which makes me wonder how non-born black widows get that snakes' tooth thing. Is there a ceremony? How does that work?). It's fluid in that the leadership comes from any social class and any jewel level as related to caste; a Queen can be born white jeweled into a tanner's family and still has the biological imperative and equal opportunity to rule, and social class is completely irrelevant to that. That doesn't mean there isn't classism--oh, there is and it's covered in here as well--but Anne Bishop, as pointed out above, isn't ambiguous. In general, people who give a shit about social class are like, evil or in the ambiguous good category.
The entire caste of Warlord Princes is another thing entirely that I'm not entirely sure I know how to interpret; with a literal genetic imperative to serve (men who do not feel this are unnatural and weird and, you know, evil), who have the equivalent of a bond-at-first-sight with the Queen they are supposed to serve that is entirely separate from their sexual relationships or marriages or friendships, and who are violent and irrational by nature and if they wear dark jewels, can't be and shouldn't be trusted unless they serve a Queen, and go into heat regularly and must have violent sex with someone that can end badly (but if the Warlord Prince is emotionally attached, which it is implied that he should be to a lover, then it's just superhot).
The Blood are supposed to be separate from the Landen by their power, which is true, and their natures, which is also true, but it's in that they are less (as normally defined) human because of it, with genetic and biological hardwiring that's pretty much identical to how animal social structures exist. Or this: the Landens without the Blood could develop a democracy, a monarchy, an oligarchy, a new political/social structure of pretty much any kind they thought up. The Blood are severely limited by their own biology, and any alternate they might want to develop has to take into account their own hardwiring before it even got as far as political philosophy.
Like, IDK, bees that can think? I mean, sure, if we had some self-aware, intelligent bees that could exercise free will, they couldn't just set up like, elections in the hive one day just for the fuck of it; they'd have to accommodate the fact that certain types of bees literally can only do certain things, and--
Wait. Are the Blood bees?
Seriously, are the Blood bees? *blank* That can't be right.
In case you, too, want to know the answer, hey, Anne Bishop's page on Amazon! Yes, I really want everyone in the universe to read these so there are more people to talk to about them. THEY MIGHT BE HUMAN BEES!
Note
* I'm using 'non-white' instead of POC because I'm not sure it's appropriate in the way this fantasy series was introduced and developed, since it is really different in pretty much everything in how their societies are structured and arranged.
If using POC would be more appropriate or if 'non-white' is in any way offensive, please tell me and I'll make the change immediately. I had POC first, but since this fantasy doesn't follow anything even close to the white European medieval fantasy model (or the social structure of pretty much anything I've ever read or heard of in my life), and POC is, at least on LJ, a identification term that also has political/social history and connotations, I didn't want to take the term lightly or misuse its real life meaning in context of a fantasy series.
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From:Well, yeah. It wasn't a loan from a Territory; it was framed and created as a personal loan from Daemon Sadi to Cassidy and her court, not a loan from Territory to Territory. If it was a loan from a Territory, it would be more problematic, but I can't fault Daemon only choosing to personally loan money to someone who a.) he knew and trusted and b.) brought it to him as a complete plan of action.
I just wish I had a seen a little bit of Cassy taking control and pushing the Warlord Princes instead of being insecure and blowing up mostly ineffectually.
I dont know. I think that's part of what made her interesting, tbh. She was never, to my knowledge, helpless; in the second book, she handled her court pretty much as well as Jaenelle would have, minus cosmic powers, so.
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From: (Anonymous) Date: 2010-07-01 02:43 am (UTC)And I'm not sure she did act as Jaenelle would have but maybe so - the thing is when Jaenelle is mostly passive/protected it is in the context of her having vastly more power than the males pushing her around - that context is different for Cassidy and her court because Cassidy does not have more power she has less. Will her Court really obey her? We don't really know. We know they'll protect her.
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From:That's absolutely true but it was that entirely personal loan that let Cassidy be seen as a good Queen and attracted others to join her territory and I don't know that actually demonstrates being a good Queen.
I'm confused. She was still queen of Dena Nehele when the court received the loan. So she didnt' need to attract anyone to her Territory; she was already Queen of the Territory.
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From: (Anonymous) Date: 2010-07-01 01:36 pm (UTC)Her territory splits off from Dena Nehele - and various Warlord Princes all decide to join her territory rather than remain in Dena Nehele. It would have been more meaningful IMO if they had chosen that and were passionate of that purely on the basis of Karmila versus Cassidy or even just on the basis of Cassidy and them being Warlord Princes in need of a good Queen and not partially because of the money and added prosperity Cassidy could provide their lands independent of her own effort.
Er, sure they obey her orders, like ordering Ranon to play his lute. Or ordering that the old repressive laws were no longer in effect. What other orders were you thinking of? I don't remember her ordering them to do anything that they did not want to do or didn't agree to and them doing it. The closest I remember her coming is that incident with the Warlords and laden girl - and she didn't order them to interfere - she threw herself into the fight so that their interference was protection and not obedience.
I definitely felt she was more "acted on" than the "actor". It wasn't her plan to go to the Shalador village - Ranon convinced her while she was hysterical. It wasn't her plan to get the loan (as I remember). It wasn't her plan to have all the Warlord Princes join her. Etc. All the plans she had were frustrated by simple disagreement by Theran. She could have thrown him out of her Court for goodness sakes! Yes there wasn't another male who was "hers" but she could have chosen someone more agreeable at least. She could have ordered Theran to do what she wanted, period. But I don't remember her successfully "insisting" on anything in the books. No conflict resolution skills.
I liked the books and I liked Cassidy occasionally but I think to say that by the end of two books she had a real grip on her court is reading things into the books that weren't there. I don't even know that she got to know the Warlord Princes in her court - we still don't know anything about most of them.
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From:The thing is, she couldn't do those things because she was the one training the males in Protocol, so she couldn't a.) trust them or b.) trust they knew what to do. That was the point of her going to Dena Nehele.
But I don't remember her successfully "insisting" on anything in the books. No conflict resolution skills.
Queen's Gift, for one; the protection of the landens in book one, two (I am not sure exactly why you don't count the fact that they followed her orders on paying the girl and punishing the miscreants as not following orders?); the addition of Ferall and his province, three. There was a lot of things that aren't about winning; the Blood code is about compromise between the will of the Queen and the court. The final choice has always been given to her (see, the rise of Shalador Nehele).
She could have thrown him out of her Court for goodness sakes! Yes there wasn't another male who was "hers" but she could have chosen someone more agreeable at least.
No, she couldn't or her court would break.
Money:
I really have no idea why the money is such a problem. Theran had a treasure that wasn't a loan he could have used to help; he didn't. How you wisely budget, spend money, carefully choose your purchases for the greater good and spread prosperity is part of being a good ruler. So. *hands*
I don't even know that she got to know the Warlord Princes in her court - we still don't know anything about most of them.
We don't know much about most of any court, including Jaenelle's. Everyone got a name, but only a few had stories.
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From: (Anonymous) Date: 2010-07-05 05:43 pm (UTC)The issue for me is probably that I love the world and the particular set up of Cassidy's story really really hits my buttons - it is perfect - but Cassidy herself is not the character I wanted/hit my buttons in terms of behavior. So I really enjoyed the books because of the situation but was frustrated with Cassidy, though she had her high points. I'm crossing my fingers that there will be another main character Queen in the future - a self confident one would be a nice change IMO! (Jaenelle, Lia, and Cassidy all seemed to me very insecure when it came to interpersonal relationships though they all had good reasons for it). And one that loves clothes would thrill me - I get the occasional feeling that being into and comfortable with dressing up makes me "petty" and "borderline evil" in the Realms.
I really really wish there was more decent fanfic - I don't suppose you've seen any sites (other than fanfiction.com)?
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