Wencit of Torenth, the Deryni, and Me
I’ve been following Judith Tarr’s re-read of the Deryni books over on Tor.com, and it sent me searching for a photograph that seems to have disappeared in my most recent move. It showed me and Lisa, sometime in the 1980s, indulging in cosplay from the Deryni books. I had made us both lovely medieval gowns (roughly twelfth century, though the original Deryni trilogy felt later to me), mine to just below knee-length to show off my tall boots, Lisa’s to mid-calf, heavy russet satin trimmed with gold braid, with belt and dagger to match. My gown was midnight blue, trimmed in silver, and I had (still have) a beautiful plain dagger in a silver-trimmed black sheath to go with it. I even recreated my character’s facial scar. We received many compliments, and had a wonderful time. The catch? As some of you may have guessed, we were cosplaying the villains of the series, Wencit of Torenth and Rhydon of Eastmarch.
Wencit and Rhydon are, by no stretch of the imagination, good or even pleasant people. Their only redeeming quality is that Wencit doesn’t persecute the magic-wielding Deryni (unlike the people of our heroes’ kingdom of Gwynnedd) - and, yes, I realize that means Rhydon has no redeeming qualities at all. So why cosplay them? Because they were, at the time, the most openly queer characters we could find in a popular novel.
Now, Kurtz doesn’t say that they’re lovers, though she certainly lays on the innuendo. And it’s certainly not intended to be a redeeming feature; it’s one more way in which they are shown to be very bad men. But it’s possible, in the fannish way, to look at the story and say, there’s another way to tell this story, to make it about Wencit and Rhydon. In that story, Wencit defends his kingdom and tries to destroy his enemies. It’s not necessarily good or moral, but it’s understandable. Most of all, in canon and a fannish reading, Wencit never apologizes for being what he is, the Deryni king of a Deryni kingdom. In a series of novels that is about the conflict between the magic-using Deryni and the church that oppresses them, Wencit is something entirely different. He is what he is: king, pagan, wizard - queer. Rhydon was a noble of Gwynnedd who betrayed lands and faith to join Wencit, and I could certainly see why. To walk around a con in those clothes, in those personas, was to borrow that confidence, that danger, that defiance, that version of queer.
Rereading High Deryni, I wasn’t able to recapture the defiant delight I’d taken in the characters. The world has changed, styles in fantasy have changed, I’m a different person - there’s too much water under the bridge. But I realized as I put the book away again and went looking for the pictures that in some ways I’ve been writing from that point of perception for a very long time. So many of my characters, and so many of their stories, start from that refusal to apologize, to make themselves less than they are. And I owe Katherine Kurtz a debt of gratitude for helping me to find that place.
Wencit and Rhydon are, by no stretch of the imagination, good or even pleasant people. Their only redeeming quality is that Wencit doesn’t persecute the magic-wielding Deryni (unlike the people of our heroes’ kingdom of Gwynnedd) - and, yes, I realize that means Rhydon has no redeeming qualities at all. So why cosplay them? Because they were, at the time, the most openly queer characters we could find in a popular novel.
Now, Kurtz doesn’t say that they’re lovers, though she certainly lays on the innuendo. And it’s certainly not intended to be a redeeming feature; it’s one more way in which they are shown to be very bad men. But it’s possible, in the fannish way, to look at the story and say, there’s another way to tell this story, to make it about Wencit and Rhydon. In that story, Wencit defends his kingdom and tries to destroy his enemies. It’s not necessarily good or moral, but it’s understandable. Most of all, in canon and a fannish reading, Wencit never apologizes for being what he is, the Deryni king of a Deryni kingdom. In a series of novels that is about the conflict between the magic-using Deryni and the church that oppresses them, Wencit is something entirely different. He is what he is: king, pagan, wizard - queer. Rhydon was a noble of Gwynnedd who betrayed lands and faith to join Wencit, and I could certainly see why. To walk around a con in those clothes, in those personas, was to borrow that confidence, that danger, that defiance, that version of queer.
Rereading High Deryni, I wasn’t able to recapture the defiant delight I’d taken in the characters. The world has changed, styles in fantasy have changed, I’m a different person - there’s too much water under the bridge. But I realized as I put the book away again and went looking for the pictures that in some ways I’ve been writing from that point of perception for a very long time. So many of my characters, and so many of their stories, start from that refusal to apologize, to make themselves less than they are. And I owe Katherine Kurtz a debt of gratitude for helping me to find that place.