Bittercon: "I'm So Special"

[intertext]

For those on my flist not able to join oursin and brisingamen at Wiscon, or who did not go and have fun at Kalamazoo (or even those who did!) but who would like to participate in a Con panel, there is lively discussion at papersky, sartorias and katenepveu and others coordinated in the community bittercon. Here's my panel topic

Comments

[noveldevice]

Brekke refuses to Impress again after Wirenth is killed by Prideth.

[intertext]

Right - I'd forgotten her. That subject - what happens when the imprinted animal/whatever dies - is touched on in most of the works. I think there are several instances of it in Lackey, for example. In the early Jennifer Roberson series about - is it the Cheysuli? - that becomes an important plot point as I think I remember that the human dies or goes mad with the death of his/her totem animal.

[noveldevice]

I haven't read any Roberson, but Lackey has only one Unchosen: Tylendel, and even he gets a second chance, though not as a Herald. In His Dark Materials, sundered children become like ghosts...

It's an interesting point.

Ooh, here: The Hallowed Hunt isn't shameful escapist brain-candy.

[intertext]

But Tylendel was chosen in the first place, wasn't he? Then gets a special job when his Companion dies iirc.

I suppose you could call whatsisname the engineer in that last series of Valdemar books an "Unchosen" but he has special skills that make him part of the elite group. I think I remember one short story either by Lackey or by a fanfic writer, in one of the Valdemar story collections, about a woman who does not get chosen, and it was actually one of the more powerful in the collection.

[lotusice]

I'd suggest Elric of Melniboné (Moorcock) as a good example.

[rysmiel]

Oh, Elric is chosen all right, just by a particularly perverse and unsympathetic god, among other supernatural entities. Chosen for dire things is not the same thing as having a boring everyday sort life. And the thing about having a boring everyday sort of life is that it's really not easy to make compelling stories about. Though I'd nominate Maureen McHugh as someonwe with a gift for this, particulalry in China Mountain Zhang.

[sartorias]

Oh, what a good topic. This is something I used to think about a lot. (And write about a lot, but gassing on about one's stuff is irritating enough in one's own blog, but unforgivably in someone else's.)

Trying to think of examples where I've seen it done. The closest coming to mind right now is the romantic version, an early novel by McKillip, illustrated by her sister (the seventies style of the drawings is mindboggling) called The Night Gift. She deals extraordinarily well with being the one Not Picked, even though it's by a boy, and not by The Fates or Destiny to be Queen of the Megaverse, complete with violet eyes.

[intertext]

Oh my - the one McKillip I haven't read, though I know of it. Finding it might be an epic quest, though.

[sartorias]

I don't let my copy out of my house.

[intertext]

I know what you mean! I have a copy of the hardcover original of The Throme of the Erril of Sherril that is a treasured item.

[ponygirl2000]

China Mieville's latest, Un Lun Dun, is pretty much just that - a book where the Chosen One's sidekick is the heroine. She gets pretty bitter at one point when a prophecy describes her as "the funny one."

Mieville's not subtle with some of his points but it's quite well done.

[intertext]

I'm not a huge fan of Mieville, but have seen that book in the shops and thought it looked interesting.

[a_d_medievalist]

This might be a stretch, but what about when the outsider finds this out, but ends up being the anti-hero throughout the book? Sorry -- sleepy at the moment, but I was thinking of one of the Darkover Novels ... Two to Conquer, I think. Actually, there are all kinds of being chosen -- and rejected -- in that particular book. And I just mixed up Bard and Paul in my head. But I think the point I started out with was that there we have an example of several kinds of being 'chosen' and having that status taken away.

For me, I have to say that the first six Deryni books never seemed like a guilty pleasure, and I think that Kelson at least fits your 'outsider who gets powers' scheme. Of course, I was at school when I read those. Dunno how guilty I'd feel now!