Reading roundup: Dragaera auxiliary
13. Steven Brust, Lord of Castle Black (book 2 of Viscount of Adrilankha) -- you know what, I'm buying this one with my next Amazon order. I was super-impressed with 500YA, as mentioned before, but I don't think it's a book I will want to reread, necessarily. LoCB I kind want to keep under my pillow and snuggle periodically. I didn't think it was
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That book is such a treasure trove for a Morrolan fan! :D I think I have like a quarter of it highlighted for Morrolan quotes XD
I LOVED his absolute - and sometimes hypertrophied - thirst for knowledge. Our boy is a Ravenclaw!
SUCH a Ravenclaw! :D (I was trying to remember where I'd done an actual Dragaera-characters-at-Hogwarts meme, and bless DW's functional journal search!
and I love your phrasing of "hypertrophied thirst for knowledge", because, yes, that's Morrolan! When Sethra Lavode of all people has to tell you to maybe chill a bit with the sorcery obsession, you know you're being special XD
In the main series, it kinda fades in the background like every other thing Vlad doesn't give a damn about - Morrolan, albeit extremely skilled, seemed more like a hedonist than a scholar.
Yeah! -- finding just how much of a nerd Morrolan was came as a very pleasant surprise in the Paarfi books. Which is interesting. I wonder how much of it is Morrolan's nerd side becoming a little less bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as he got older, how much is Morrolan showing a particular side of himself to Vlad (different than what he is willing to show to mentor figures like Arra, Sethra, etc.) and how much is Vlad's own perception filter on top of those things (and how much is Paarfi just making shit up, but that's a boring explanation)
It makes sense that Vlad would focus on the hedonism more, because Morrolan is his first posh friend, and there are definitely aspects of luxury Vlad would be not at all averse to -- but it still makes for an interesting contrast between the series!
NOT ONCE is he demeaning toward the Eastern ones (even despite this being written by Paarfi!). Like he often compares the two, reflects upon how different they are but never suggests one is better than the other, nor is ashamed of being Eastern-raised. There even was a moment I found so neat, shortly after they lifted Castle Black he was gushing about how amazinig, how efficient sorcery is. Someone - Sethra or Teldra ig - asked him whether he'd from then on practice sorcery rather than witchcraft and he simply replied he'd practice both. From one immigrant to another, that's the immigrant energy we want to see!
Yes, I really love this about him, and it seems to be quite a unique feature of Morrolan's. Born-in-diaspora!Vlad grudgingly learns sorcery but keeps talking about how much better witchcraft is (OK, he's got valid reasons due to his upbringing for that attitude, but still); no Dragaeran wizards seem to ever think of witchcraft as anything worth understanding (Daymar does show some curiosity, being Daymar, but I don't get the sense that after poking around in Vlad's brain he ever tried to learn anything more) -- but Morrolan really does seem committed to melding the two and taking full advantage of all the different modes of magic and knowledge available to him -- and I love him for it! (and agree that it's a very immigrant sort of view -- almost like code-mixing but with magic, you know? :D)
Another favorite Paarfi moment of mine along the same lines is when Sethra (I believe) was expressing surprise that Morrolan didn't know how to read in Dragaeran, and Morrolan was like, well, yeah, I can read in a bunch of other languages, just not this one -- it was such a great illustration of a very immigrant problem -- and I loved that he wasn't the least bit embarrassed about it, just, like, OK, let me get to it, since I now know that's a way to learn more sorcery and thus particularly useful to me.
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