Reading roundup: Extreme Dragaera edition
I was going to wait until I finished Athyra, Orca, and Jhereg reread, but it so happened that this has already maxed out the length of a single LJ post, so it's a good thing I didn't wait.
10. Steven Brust, Five Hundred Years After -- OK, I'm so glad I decided not to skip it but actually made them get off their butts and look for my hold, because ( Read more... )
10. Steven Brust, Five Hundred Years After -- OK, I'm so glad I decided not to skip it but actually made them get off their butts and look for my hold, because ( Read more... )
Aliera, on the other hand... is exactly the type of person to hunt the author for sport a soul-sucking Great Weapon in hand if she happens to be displeased with her portrayal in his book. There is also coincidentally no mention of her height in 500YA (as far as I remember).
I think you're right about the height! Which I'd not noticed before, but that's delightful XD I like your explanation for why Paarfi keeps talking up Aliera's beauty, and the difference you point out between how Aliera and Morrolan are likely to take criticism in a historical romance :) (though I do still want to know how Morrolan privately feels about everything Paarfi has written about him, even if I do think he would consider it below his honor to address any of it).
Oh I haven't read about him! POOR BABY!
Sadly there isn't very much more than this -- a scene or two with Adron, which I do love -- but I was both happy and sad to learn Morrolan had an older brother he never got to meet... :(
maybe it's due to being narrated by the Empire's biggest geopolitics specialist Vladimir Taltos.
Literal LOL on this one! XD
lad, being second gen, perceives Eastenders as monolite, however the East is devided on numerous, probably warring countries. We don't really know where Morrolan comes from, but Teldra mentions he's from a Fenarian speaking country but not Fenario. So if they intend to fight Fenario which is the biggest Eastern realm - and therefore the enemy of all the other Eastern realms, as Medieval history would show - there is no much reason for Morrolan to care about it.
That's pretty much where I ended up trying to make it make sense in my head, too. Second-gen Vlad seeing Easterners as a monolithic group because that's how they're seen in the Empire makes a lot of sense to me. And Morrolan only caring about the specific Easterners he grew up among makes even more sense. And sure he would probably have to work kind of hard to explain to his fellow Dragonlords that these Easterners you can slaughter all you want but those Easterners are off limits, and maybe go to war a time or two if they get it wrong, but I do think that would be something he'd be prepared to deal with.
Him being bicultural and him adapting to Dragaerian society is a criminally underdevelopped part of TVA (makes sense bc Paarfi)
Yes, I wanted so much more of that! Totally agree that it makes sense for Paarfi to not focus on it -- recognizing Morrolan as being bicultural would first require Paarfi to acknowledge that Easterners have such a thing as culture -- but this is where it would be really nice if there were thousands of fics in the fandom, to delve into all these things.
yeah, except that a couple chapters prior Aerich referred to even using a witch's service as dishonorable, so how does it work with Morrolan being a proud witch?
Right? There is some on-page stuff about Morrolan having to, basically, bite his tongue / pick his battles when it comes to what his new Dragaeran friends say about Easterners with Sethra the Younger (and the Sorceress in Green, maybe?) -- and it's actually such an interesting parallel to Vlad in Yendi. And of course it's NOT the same -- Morrolan may be culturally way more Easterner than Dragaeran at this point, but if he doesn't say anything, he will certainly "pass" -- which Vlad never will. This is another thing I really, really wish we could see from inside Morrolan's head...
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