Read the previous entry in the series here.
Read the next entry in the series here.

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Once another piece from Badgerlock’s Old Blood Tales concludes, “Explorations” returns to Bee’s point of view and follows her progress towards her bolt-hole after Fitz’s departure to answer Chade’s summons. She begins to make plans for the space and to search out the other spaces connected to it. Her explorations take some time, enough to consume the candle she had carried with her, and she is left in darkness between the walls. The loss of light begins to panic her, and she calls aloud for the lost Molly before sinking into wordless fear.

The present chapter is remarkably brief, a scant seven pages in the edition I’m reading. It marks a sharp contrast from the sprawl of the previous chapter, although it is at a good length. It focuses narrowly on a single event, and it leaves the focal character in a place from which she will have to be extracted. The break in action occurring where it does prompts further readerly engagement with the text. That is, readers are almost compelled to read on to see what happens next, and if it is the case that the “cliffhanger” is a commonplace, it is also the case that it is a commonplace because it works.

Too, the chapter does well at presenting both the childlike joy of exploring tunnels and the like and the fear of being lost in what would otherwise be a familiar place. It is, perhaps, my affective reading once again that I note as much, but for me, the chapter conveys the feelings authentically, and the sudden juxtaposition of them highlights the fear admirably. It’s not horror, as such, but it certainly moves that way, and it does so effectively–more effectively, in some ways, than the gorier presentations often associated with acts of horror, because it is a more common experience and therefore one that lodges more fully into the mind. (Although Hobb also handles the more “normal” horrific in the series, as witness here and elsewhere.)

Perhaps it is being played for pathos, but novel-reading isn’t necessarily a strictly intellectual exercise–nor is it the case that more formal pieces are exempt from such play.

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