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

The present chapter treats what many might regard as animal cruelty.

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The fifth chapter of Forest Mage, “Rosse’s Wedding,” opens with Nevare waking on the day of Rosse’s wedding and joining his father and brothers at breakfast. His younger brother, Vanze, has returned home and comments on Nevare’s weight, prompting laughter in which Nevare reluctantly joins. Breakfast proceeds awkwardly, Nevare’s choices of food displeasing his father no less than his lingering over the meager portions he serves himself.

Following breakfast, Nevare joins the rest of his family as they travel to the neighboring Poronte estate for the wedding. Progress thereto is detailed, and the Poronte estate described in some detail as they go. When the Porontes greet the Burvelles, Nevare is again a subject of ridicule, and as he joins his father and brothers in exchanging pleasantries with other guests, that does not cease until he manages to move off to the side and evade much notice. Contrasting his expectations with the presented reality, Nevare remarks his father’s pride in the marriage; he also remarks his brothers’ deportments, finding himself sympathizing greatly with his younger priestly brother.

Nevare considers the coming encounter with Carsina with trepidation as he muses on his physicality and that of those around him. He finds himself moved greatly by Carsina’s appearance, and he is dejected by her reaction to his changed appearance. Conversation with her, as well as with Yaril and with Kase Remwar, proceeds coolly and awkwardly as wedding proceedings begin and are described. Nevare’s ruminations on various matters pervade his description of events, and awards of lands to celebrate the nuptials are reported.

The wedding proceedings turn toward dancing and dining, and Nevare considers the events with trepidation. He finds himself confronted by his father and the Lord Grenalter, forced by manners into a conversation he did not want and that displeases his father. Being asked directly, Nevare reports such experience and knowledge of the plague as he has, which makes him something of a center of attention, to his father’s displeasure. Nevare belatedly realizes his over-speaking, and Keft rebukes him for the same.

Nevare afterward attempts to dance with Carsina, only to be rejected and to have his request for conversation with her refused. He replies harshly to her, which he immediately regrets. He withdraws from the situation and walks the Poronte grounds, finding evidence of a recent anumal sacrifice. It stuns him, and as he attempts to sort his thoughts, he is advised to depart. Returning to the festivities, puzzling over how to proceed, he soon settles at a dining table. Rather than trust himself amid the extravagance, he accepts the offer of a servingman to bring him a plate. As the servant departs, Nevare considers whether he is feeling the effects of Tree Woman and her magic upon him; his reverie is interrupted by his parents’ arrival at the table where he sits and his father’s rebuke. Matters are worsened by the Porontes joining them, and they are worsened further by the return of the servingman with an overabundance of food.

Nevare gorges himself on the food almost unconsciously, delighting immensely in the physical sensations of the food. Keft, quietly and coldly, rebukes him, and he dismisses Selethe from the table as he does so. Nevare offers a retort to his father’s assertions, which momentarily gives the older man pause but is soon followded by a promise of retribution. Nevare turns to drink, musing that excess in that earns him no rebuke.

To address the chapter-length issue: the present chapter, in the edition of the novel I’m rereading, runs 28 pages in length, approximately 3.83% of the novel. It is one of three chapters of such length in the novel, and there are only three chapters in the novel longer than it. That much noted, if it is the case that the present novel is composed of smaller narrative arcs as I think Shaman’s Crossing might be (see my comments on that novel’s chapters “The Return,” “Tiber,” and “Accusations,” for examples), the present chapter does not seem to conclude one so much as to set up what Freytag might call a climax of one; it is something of a turning point, particularly given what comes near and at the end of the chapter.

Also, for indexing purposes, the following: Apple compote, Battle of Dell, Brandy, Brede, Carsina Grenalter, Cartem, Caryton, Cecile Poronte, Colonel Haren, Colonel Rebin, Croaker bird, Dancing Spindle, Doril, Dorota, Dove, Dr. Amicas, Elisi Burvelle, Epiny Kester, Farleyton, Gettys, Gord Lading, High Temple, Holy Writ, Kase Remwar, Keft Burvelle, King Troven, King’s Road, Lady Poronte, Landsing, Lord Grenalter, Lord Poronte, Midlands, Nevare Burvelle, Old Thares, Prairie fowl, Rely, Rory Hart, Rosse Burvelle, Selethe Burvelle, Sergeant Erib Duril, Sirlofty, Spatterdock, Specks, Spinrek “Spink” Kester, “Stone Endures,”* Tree Woman, Trist Wissom, Vanze Burvelle, Yaril Burvelle. It’s a long list of which many names are mentioned in passing; centering around what must be a major social event in the area, the chapter might well be expected to offer many such details in pushing forward verisimilitude.

A number of issues present themselves in the current chapter. One of them, as might be expected in depicting a wedding, concerns religion. Bits and pieces of the dominant, seemingly official, faith at work in Gernia have been presented at several prior points in the Soldier Son novels (see, for examples, Shaman’s Crossing‘s “Harbinger,” “Dewara,” “Bessom Gord,” “Cousin Epiny,” and “Vindication“), and that this is in some contrast to prevailing patterns in Tolkienian tradition fantasy literature (see “Unchurched: On the Relative Lack of Religion in Tolkienan-Tradition Fantasy Literature” and “Manifestations of Medieval Religion in Robin Hobb’s Elderlings Corpus” for discussion) has been remarked. The wedding ceremony described in the present chapter, including some of Nevare’s commentary about it, fills in more details of that faith’s practices, which is a good thing for world-building and, again, for verisimilitude.

The wedding also contrasts dominant Gernian religious practices, explicitly and in detail, against earlier religious practices, something that both receives attention later in the chapter and that stands as an interesting difference between Gernia and the nineteenth-century United States from which it borrows so much. While it was not the case that nondominant religious practices were unknown to dominant populations in the United States of the time (as witness such things as the Theosophical Society of America and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn), information regarding specific practices of pre-Christian religions would not have been particularly prevalent.** In Gernia, however, such specifics seem to be commonly accessible, having received remark not only in the present chapter, but in several prior places in the Soldier Son series–and Nevare is not presented as having been a paritcularly diligent student of theology. And they do not seem to have been (excessively) propagandized; while comments about the wantonness of Dark Evening and the present chapter’s comments about flogging and animal sacrifices (90) might well be taken in such a way, the evidence of sacrifice Nevare encounters (101-03) indicates that matters may well not be (much) exaggerated.

Another issue that presents itself in the current chapter, and one that has been present in much of the Soldier Son materials thus far, returns to attitudes toward fatness. (Once again, Metsäpelto is a key resource to consider.) Fatness is seen as worthy of ridicule in the Burvelle household, an attitude Nevare had displayed in abundance in his interactions with Gord throughout Shaman’s Crossing (about which some remark is made in my comments on “Homeward Bound“); it should not come as a surprise that he, having become fat, is subjected to it, even if it can be said that nobody should be ridiculed thusly. It does lead him towards some self-recrimination; although he knows himself to be muscled underneath his fat (87), he also finds himself joining with and agreeing with others as they condemn him for his appearance, including his prospective father-in-law (92-93). But it is not only the fact of the fatness itself that prompts condemnation, nor even yet the implications (erroneous, but still understood) of laziness and lack of care that accompany it; the simple fact that Nevare pays the level of attention to his food that he does earns scorn. At the breakfast prior to the wedding, in which Nevare attempts to moderate himself, he ends up annoying his father and elder brother with the time spent in eating (84-85); after he is overserved and constrained to eat, he revels in the physical experience of the food and is rebuked for it (108-09). Eating little, he is shamed; eating much, he is shamed. There is no good course of action for him to take–although, as Nevare wryly remarks, being overindulgent in drink does not earn him scorn. Some other comment may be embedded in that fact, some other message to be found, some other scholarly someday to explore in time, depending on what else comes.

Yet another issue that presents itself in the current chapter is that of politics. Nevare notes early in the chapter that his father “and Lord Poronte, arms linked, move through the gathering, greeting the guests. They were a powerful duo, and their alliance through the marriage would make them even more formidable in the Midlands. They paraded as if they were the happy couple rather than their offspring” (87). Such might well be expected; in a hierarchical feudal system, marriages among nobles are trade arrangements more than they are anything else, and the expansion and consolidation of power bases is a powerful motivator. Nor yet is it unexpected that there might come letters from the monarch expanding the holdings of allied families, the importance of which does not escape Nevare’s attention: “I suddenly realized that this was how King Troven encouraged alliances between the new noble houses, thus keeping their loyalty safely in his pocket” (91). It also calls back to something Captain Maw had discussed with Nevare (see Shaman’s Crossing‘s “Crossing“), that “The real power lay not in the new nobles and their sons who would folloow wherever the king led, but in the ranks of the military who felt loyalty and alliance to the new nobles” (96). It further, although Nevare does not comment on the idea, keeps the newer nobles focused outward, as increasing the extent of the colonial periphery allows more possibility of their own holdings’ expansion. In the long term, such a strategy is doomed to failure; there is a limit to the land that can be governed in such a way. In the short term, however, it works well, or well enough, for those for whom it works.

A final issue to consider in the present chapter is that of family dynamics among the eastern Burvelles. The sheer vehemence with which Keft regards Nevare is…unsettling to read. That Selethe seems similarly unsettled is…telling, I think. It is a far cry from the reasonable figure present at the beginning of the Soldier Son novels (see Shaman’s Crossing‘s “Magic and Iron“), and the shift in character sits oddly as I reread. I have to wonder if the feminist critiques present in the series (see the present novel’s “Forest Dreams” and Shaman’s Crossing‘s “Séance” for discussion) are finding reiteration and enhancement in Keft, and I have to wonder if this is, in fact, consistent with the early- and already-demonstrated problems in the character (see, again, Shaman’s Crossing‘s “Magic and Iron,” as well as its “Harbinger,” “The Return,”and elsewhere). I suppose it’s another scholarly someday, or an addition to the Fedwren Project, to treat as much.

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* A small note: while Hobb is far from the first to comment on the persistence of stone, the fact of stones remaining in place across time is something that pops up an awful lot in her corpus. It is, perhaps, a bit of a joke that she brings it up in the present chapter.

** A couple of things, here: 1) For better or worse, (Protestant to Evangelical) Christianity was the dominant religious practice in the United States in the nineteenth century, particularly as depicted in those venues most likely to be familiar to Hobb’s presumed primary readership; and 2) This is as distinct from knowledge about the practices of the Plainsfolk, who are, because Gernia has problems, not recognized as being really Gernian, their subjugated status making the comparison between their beliefs and the prior beliefs of the Gernian public not really applicable.

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