The High King, by Lloyd Alexander
The epic structure of the final volume gets a little unwieldy and I have some problems with the ending, but The High King has some of my favorite moments in the entire series (oh, the harp) and its cumulative emotional impact is powerful.
Every time I read this, I completely forget about Pryderi’s treachery. (Wow, he is different from his Mabinogion counterpart!) That story and his fate are set a little apart from the main story, which is probably why. But the images are stunning - old King Math, sword in hands, trampled by the Cauldron Born; and the quiet confrontation of Pryderi and Dallben in a cottage ringed by flame.
Alexander does not hold back on killing characters. Even though I know what’s coming, I'm stunned: Prince Rhun - Prince Rhun! - Coll, King Math, Annlaw the potter and all of his works, Llonio, Achren, even the gwythaint. He creates the sense of a war so brutal and all-consuming that you look up after the battle, blinking the blood and sweat from your eyes, and are amazed that anyone survived.
This is not a happily ever after world, but it is one in which sacrifice is not in vain. The scene which makes me cry the most is when Fflewddur destroys his harp. It burns all night not because of hitherto unknown magical properties, but because he gave up the thing he loved the most to save his companions. In this world, in the most bittersweet kind of wish-fulfillment, if you do that, your companions will be saved.
Like the moment in Taran Wanderer when his old swords breaks against his new one, or Ellidyr’s death in The Black Cauldron, it’s a beautiful, heartbreaking, magnificent, perfect scene. So is the moment with the gwythaint, when, like Bilbo sparing Gollum, a single long-ago act of pity ripples out to save the world; and when Taran stands alone on a bare mountaintop, scrabbling for pebbles to throw in defiance of death. All those are, to me, the very heart of story.
I dislike “the magic ends” endings, except for Lord of the Rings where there’s been so much build-up for the idea that the elves must leave Middle Earth, and so much accumulated weight of melancholy, that by the time it gets there it feels inevitable.
The problem with the Prydain Chronicles ending similarly is that its accumulated weight of melancholy is of a completely different type: not the loss of magic, but the loss of individual lives, of precious possessions, of gardens abandoned, of hard choices made, of paths not taken. None of those losses are arbitrary - they were sacrificed for a purpose, or lost because of conscious choices made by individuals. So while all the deaths in war, and Fflewddur’s harp being burned, and even Eilonwy’s bauble losing its light make intuitive sense, the enforced departure at the end does not. (Enforced by whom? What would happen if Fflewddur refused to go?)
Though there has been a long-running theme that ordinary effort is heroic and magic won’t fix all your problems, it hasn’t previously been the case that people who themselves are inherently magical are all that different from ordinary humans. Even the Fair Folk are much more down to earth than Tolkien’s elves. So it doesn’t make intuitive sense that Fflewddur Fflam has to leave - his harp is magical but he himself isn’t, and the rest of the story argues that lineage is irrelevant.
I don’t hate Eilonwy having to give up her magic as much as I possibly ought to, because her magic isn't what makes her Eilonwy. Her bauble is a precious, useful item, but it doesn’t have the emotional freight of Fflewddur’s harp. Still, it’s sad that Eilonwy’s best moment was probably getting Taran, Fflewddur, and Dyrnwyn out of Spiral Castle way back in The Book of Three. Also, that comment about women being having special metaphoric female magic was pure OH LLOYD ALEXANDER NO.
I do like the secret of Taran’s parentage: totally and forever unknown. This also seems to be Alexander’s attempt at making kingship more palatable to himself - not quite democratic, but at least not decided by royal birth. (Though I’m not sure that “decreed by prophecy” is that much better.) Westmark, of course, tackles the problem of monarchy head-on.
Despite its problems, though, the series overall holds up very well. I’ve re-read portions of it before over the years, and will certainly read it many times more. Well, maybe not The Castle of Llyr.
The High King (The Chronicles of Prydain)
Every time I read this, I completely forget about Pryderi’s treachery. (Wow, he is different from his Mabinogion counterpart!) That story and his fate are set a little apart from the main story, which is probably why. But the images are stunning - old King Math, sword in hands, trampled by the Cauldron Born; and the quiet confrontation of Pryderi and Dallben in a cottage ringed by flame.
Alexander does not hold back on killing characters. Even though I know what’s coming, I'm stunned: Prince Rhun - Prince Rhun! - Coll, King Math, Annlaw the potter and all of his works, Llonio, Achren, even the gwythaint. He creates the sense of a war so brutal and all-consuming that you look up after the battle, blinking the blood and sweat from your eyes, and are amazed that anyone survived.
This is not a happily ever after world, but it is one in which sacrifice is not in vain. The scene which makes me cry the most is when Fflewddur destroys his harp. It burns all night not because of hitherto unknown magical properties, but because he gave up the thing he loved the most to save his companions. In this world, in the most bittersweet kind of wish-fulfillment, if you do that, your companions will be saved.
Like the moment in Taran Wanderer when his old swords breaks against his new one, or Ellidyr’s death in The Black Cauldron, it’s a beautiful, heartbreaking, magnificent, perfect scene. So is the moment with the gwythaint, when, like Bilbo sparing Gollum, a single long-ago act of pity ripples out to save the world; and when Taran stands alone on a bare mountaintop, scrabbling for pebbles to throw in defiance of death. All those are, to me, the very heart of story.
I dislike “the magic ends” endings, except for Lord of the Rings where there’s been so much build-up for the idea that the elves must leave Middle Earth, and so much accumulated weight of melancholy, that by the time it gets there it feels inevitable.
The problem with the Prydain Chronicles ending similarly is that its accumulated weight of melancholy is of a completely different type: not the loss of magic, but the loss of individual lives, of precious possessions, of gardens abandoned, of hard choices made, of paths not taken. None of those losses are arbitrary - they were sacrificed for a purpose, or lost because of conscious choices made by individuals. So while all the deaths in war, and Fflewddur’s harp being burned, and even Eilonwy’s bauble losing its light make intuitive sense, the enforced departure at the end does not. (Enforced by whom? What would happen if Fflewddur refused to go?)
Though there has been a long-running theme that ordinary effort is heroic and magic won’t fix all your problems, it hasn’t previously been the case that people who themselves are inherently magical are all that different from ordinary humans. Even the Fair Folk are much more down to earth than Tolkien’s elves. So it doesn’t make intuitive sense that Fflewddur Fflam has to leave - his harp is magical but he himself isn’t, and the rest of the story argues that lineage is irrelevant.
I don’t hate Eilonwy having to give up her magic as much as I possibly ought to, because her magic isn't what makes her Eilonwy. Her bauble is a precious, useful item, but it doesn’t have the emotional freight of Fflewddur’s harp. Still, it’s sad that Eilonwy’s best moment was probably getting Taran, Fflewddur, and Dyrnwyn out of Spiral Castle way back in The Book of Three. Also, that comment about women being having special metaphoric female magic was pure OH LLOYD ALEXANDER NO.
I do like the secret of Taran’s parentage: totally and forever unknown. This also seems to be Alexander’s attempt at making kingship more palatable to himself - not quite democratic, but at least not decided by royal birth. (Though I’m not sure that “decreed by prophecy” is that much better.) Westmark, of course, tackles the problem of monarchy head-on.
Despite its problems, though, the series overall holds up very well. I’ve re-read portions of it before over the years, and will certainly read it many times more. Well, maybe not The Castle of Llyr.
The High King (The Chronicles of Prydain)