As was the case for the first, second, and third volumes of the Rain Wilds Chronicles, the fourth and final volume, Blood of Dragons, begins with a cast of characters. Keepers and their dragons, Bingtowners, the crew of the Tarman (including the ship’s cat), and a miscellaneous array are described, with reference to previous novels and series where appropriate.
A brief prologue, “Changes” opens with Tintaglia waking to some discomfort due to the ongoing effects of an injury incurred during an attack by Chalcedean forces. Parted from Icefyre, she realizes to her chagrin that she had been following the older dragon, and she considers the humanization of her behavior unhappily as she rehearses her purpose of reaching Malta and Reyn and the demands of travel to them. When she attempts to take off, she falters, aggravating the injury, and when she regains the air, she does so with hardened purpose.
This will not be the first time I have written about the novel, of course; I first read it soon after it was published, and I wrote about it swiftly thereafter. It has been a while, though, since I have reread the novel–not the more than ten years since the initial reading, but far longer than ought to have been the case. I am pleased to be addressing the issue now, however, not only as part of this reading series, but also because a piece of scholarship I have undertaken to do will ask me to revisit the text in some detail. (And, in support of that piece of scholarship, I think this rereading series will be useful, although I can already see places where I could wish my annotation had been better than it currently is. Perhaps some kind of reading guide can come about that will be of help to others who would focus their attentions on Hobb’s work.)
As is ever the case, I look forward to moving through the book again. I don’t have as much luxury of time to read now as I did in the past, for a number of reasons (although parenting is less of one now than previously; I am pleased to have a child who, at least for now, enjoys reading, so it’s something we can do together). Giving myself reason to read, and to read materials I enjoy, is a good thing.
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Following a message from Erek to Reyall in which the former offers the latter a reference for promotion, “Strange Bedfellows” begins with Leftrin awaiting comments from Bellin, apprehensively given the strangeness of her request for private conference. She notes that crewman Hennesey has clearly become enamored of Tillamon despite the class differences, noting the potential difficulties such infatuation poses. Leftrin muses on them, as well, and agrees to address the issue. He is less sanguine when Bellin mentions Skelly‘s infatuation with one of the keepers and the problems attendant upon the same. But after Bellin leaves to return to her duties, Leftrin goes on deck and notes the clear affection present between Hennesey and Tillamon, knowing that the relationship will have to run its course.
Something of the scene… Photo by David Riau00f1o Cortu00e9s on Pexels.com
Elsewhere, Hest’s servant wakes him aboard passenger transport he loathes, and he muses sourly about Trehaug and about his servant’s shortcomings. Sitting to a meal he views with contempt, Hest looks forward to being off ship and about the errand to which the Chalcedean assailant has put him. The thought of the assailant quails Hest, and he considers the effects of having been poisoned and humiliated, the latter of which is detailed. The tasks to which Hest is assigned are also detailed, and Hest ponders their importance. As he does so, his servant presents gossip about Tintaglia and Icefyre he has overheard, and Hest considers the implications of the same.
Aboard the Tarman, Reyn grows impatient, and Leftrin lays out the challenges facing them. He also explains the circumstances of the pursuit that dogs them, and Reyn lays out his own concerns. The two confer for a time before Leftrin espies additional pursuit, a so-called impervious ship, moving upstream with good speed. The new challenge presented by the ship is detailed, and Leftrin notes that more awaits invaders in Kelsingra than they expect.
In Chalced, the Duke of Chalced muses bitterly on the reports of failure brought before him. Ordering the deaths of families, he considers his own worsening situation, and his chancellor, Ellik, confers with him. Privately, the pair drop the pretenses of formality, and Ellik warns the Duke of the intentions Chassim, his daughter, harbors. The spread of potentially seditions materials is noted and described, and Ellik cautions the Duke not to react as he is expected to, but to award Ellik Chassim as a wife. The Duke calmly explicates the potential for treachery, with which Ellik agrees calmly, and the Duke agrees to Ellik’s terms while setting one of his own: dragon blood. Ellik notes that a prisoner is en route who will provide it; a sample of the prisoner’s flesh is given to the duke, and he eats. Eased, he reaffirms his agreement to Ellik’s terms.
The epilogue, “Homeward Bound,” turns to Icefyre and Tintaglia as they hunt. Tintaglia finds herself envious of Icefyre’s more practiced abilities, and her thoughts turn to Selden. The pair fall upon prey, which Tintaglia pursues with difficulty due to her wound. The dragons confer about the injury, and Icefyre notes a silver well in Kelsingra that might be of aid. Tintaglia determines that she will return to the Rain Wilds.
I note with some appreciation the way in which the final chapter of the novel calls back to the first chapter, and the epilogue to the front matter. It does make for a nice roundedness and boundedness to the novel, helping it to feel like a complete narrative in itself despite its clear status as one volume–and neither the first nor the last–of a series.
Less structurally, the decks of the Tarman seem awash in affection, whether of the romantic sort or the more familial. Reading affectively–because I seem always to do so, anymore–I find I do not envy Leftrin the tasks of investigating and discouraging young love that he faces. Admittedly, because Hennesey’s infatuation and Skelly’s do have the potential to affect how the crew of the Tarman operates, Leftrin has a compelling interest in at least monitoring their situations; as the captain, he is ultimately responsible for the behavior and performance of the crew. Too, as Skelly’s uncle, Leftrin has a more personal interest in her love affairs, both in the context of familial affection and in the context of Trader society, in which marriages are contracts. As to the former, the fact of the keeper’s transformation into an Elderling is a potential issue; the differences in life expectancy and, potentially, in species-specific mechanics certainly deserve consideration. As to the latter, Skelly already has some arrangements made on her behalf, which Leftrin’s own romantic interests potentially affect, and while readers might balk at the idea of arranged marriages, they are already established in context as part of “how things are done” among the Traders.
By contrast, the scene in Chalced seems calculated to highlight Chalced as stereotypically evil. There has been motion toward that point already, with the long-established history of Chalced as an enslavement-based society whose practices call to mind the worst aspects of chattel slavery in the earlier United States. In the Liveship Traders series, the rampant misogyny of Chalced is highlighted (and presented as a social contagion, not lease in the characters of Kyle Haven and Satrap Cosgo). In the current series, the willingness of Chalcedeans to harvest parts from the dragons is presented as in keeping with prevailing expectations of their nation and its people; there’s something of the “of course Chalced does that stuff” present in discussions of them. The assaults on Hest, the brutalization of Selden, and the willingness to outright slaughter Malta and Phron for parts, extend it further, making Chalced depraved in a way that goes beyond the kind of propaganda that might be expected of a people about their antagonistic neighbors.
Obviously.
The death-men, however, and the Duke of Chalced’s own (relatively) easy cannibalism cement Chalced as evil in an almost cartoonish way. (Not for nothing do I use the gif from Jackson’s movies above; I have to wonder if there’s not some more or less direct influence there.) It comes off as calculated to present Chalced as irredeemably evil, almost inherently so, and while Hobb has done some of that kind of thing before (I am put in mind of Regal again), she usually embeds at least a Freudian excuse into her protagonists. Not so with Chalced, not anymore. And I find myself wondering how such a society could remain in place as a persistent antagonist for both the Traders and the Six Duchies for so long–although I note something of the common conceptions of Sparta at work in the depiction of Chalced; pervasive militarization would have such an effect, and the yoking of such to depravity could easily be read as a comment on what has become called toxic masculinity…ah, to have time to write papers (and to do the reading for that kind of writing)!
One other thing attracts my attention as I conclude discussion of this novel in this series: the seditious materials Chassim is spreading. I note with glee that the motion towards overthrow of tyranny is undertaken in illuminated verse. It is not to be wondered at that an author would valorize writing, as I have noted, but it remains a delight to see done again, all the same.
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A few years back, now, I reflected on what is now and will likely continue to be regarded as the second major event in the new millennium in the United States (the first being the opening of the millennium): the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. It joins the fifth of November, Goliad, and the Alamo as a thing not to forget, and it is akin to 7 December 1941 in being a day that lives in infamy. Or it seems like it should, somehow, even if there seems to be less and less commemoration of, well, all such things. They’re decades gone and more, now, and there is always some new thing on which to fixate, some new wrong that deserves attention and redress (and I say so much sincerely); what has happened is crowded out by what is happening.
There is still not a picture needed for this.
So much is not inappropriate, of course. What went before cannot be changed, although regard for and understanding of it certainly can and almost as certainly should. (This is not to say evil should be excused, of course, though I know well that many will look at the revelation of nuance and detail as an attempt to do so. I see it happen too much with other things not to think that the same will happen again, and while I know that it is not strictly logical, I also know that reason is more than logic alone, despite the stated pretenses of far too many.) What is happening now can, at least to some degree, be changed; what is happening now can, at least to some degree and for some people, be improved. Who benefits and to what extent remain open questions, although they seem to be closing more daily, and in part because of what happened in the wake of the terrorist attacks whose twenty-second anniversary is today.
If we have grown scarred as the cliché has it, it shows us as having been injured and being able to feel less as a result of it. Touch the scars you have, who have them, and then the never-cut flesh beside it, and tell me which place is more sensate. Consider the scars that are shown, and consider, too, the deeper ones formed by wounds not seen but still inflicted, tears and cuts and punctures deep within that make the lungs breathe more raggedly, the bowels move in fits and starts, the heart lurch. We live who live; we endure who do. But we do not do either so well as we did before, though we parade where we have been wounded.
The wounds show more fully the more closely and the smaller we look, of course. How many and how grievous have been inflicted, have been endured, have been accepted? Smooth skin is not necessarily a prize, youth and inexperience not virtues in themselves because unearned (and is there not a fixation on earning to be found?), but not all injuries are deserved, and not all scars are merited.
These years later, having seen the results of fear indulged too long and often, have we yet learned the lessons offered for such high tuition as makes pennies of what a bursar will bill? Or will we need more remediation?
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A poem, bespoke, can be a splendid prize, Or else can be a holiday surprise, For one beloved in whose watching eyes A person wants to look both good and true. It can, instead, be made to foster rue In someone whose rebuke is overdue, A slap delivered faceward without hands, The stinging pain of which across years stands. Short strings of verse can meet many demands; They can achieve goals spurred by love or pride, They can address what is often denied, And they can speak truths all too oft belied. O, you are worth a verse or two, I say; Avail yourself of such without delay!
To be put to good use… Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
In sonnet form or still an older style I push my pen as purpose will demand To meet the mandate, what must be done, Which the eater of verses, eager with eyes To look upon lines of love or of honor, Says what speaking should sit on the page, Field well furrowed and soon to bring fruit. The ink-home will empty; efforts avail To lay out the lines that will linger on, A person’s Polaris, a point for true steering To guide those who go out in the great world, Marvelous making that measure defies, Rightly through writing to reckon how life Is bettered, is boasted, while borrowed a time– Such I can say; who will sit and read it?
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Read the previous entry in the series here. Read the next entry in the series here.
After good news makes its way from Detozi to Reyall, “Shopping” begins with Hest confronting his father, the Trader Finbok. Hest recalls the attack he suffered as his father rebukes and upbraids him for his sloppiness with Alise, bidding him retrieve his wife as a means of securing Elderling goods from far up the Rain Wild river. The Trader Finbok relates information he has come to possess about the Tarman and the keepers’ expedition, and Hest is surprised to be presented with a line of thought he had not considered. He maneuvers his father somewhat, and the Trader Finbok explicates the situation with the keepers and the Councils in Trehaug and Cassarick in more detail, laying out what would be the advantageous position for the Finboks to take. Hest considers messages he, himself, had sent, following the implications thereof, and his father directs him to book passage.
Healthful and restorative… Photo by Julia Sakelli on Pexels.com
The argument the directive would provoke is forestalled by the entrance of Hest’s mother, Sealia, who is described in detail as she takes Hest in hand, to his father’s annoyance. Hest turns over the implications of his mother’s interference in his mind and sides, surprisingly, with his father. Sealia bustles off to make arrangements, and Hest receives further instructions from his father before heading out with his mother on her intended shopping trip.
Their progress to and through the main market in Bingtown is detailed, and Hest muses on his situation as they proceed. His reverie is interrupted by the sight of his assailant, and he urges his mother onto a different route than she had intended. Thinking himself safe, Hest presses his mother to return home, and he calls for tea upon arrival. When it is delivered, Hest finds himself poisoned, his assailant reminding him of his demands and the price for failing to meet them.
I have been accused, on no few occasions and not without substantial merit, of having a lascivious sense of humor. Put more plainly, I like dirty jokes, and I make them (too?) often, so much so that there are online communities in which pointing out or making innuendo is taken as typifying me. Consequently, when Hest makes a crude joke about his and his father’s genital endowments, it attracted my attention. Frankly, it’s a kind of joke I would make–and a kind of joke I have made, more than once. It does seem out of place, admittedly, both in-milieu (it’s not the sort of thing usually associated with the Bingtown Traders as previously depicted in the novels, nor with prevailing depictions of the genteel merchant princes of the early America I still maintain Bingtown evokes and echoes) and in a readerly sense; only one other overt example comes to mind for me at the moment, and it is also marked in the text as being unusual. Again, I don’t mind the joke, but it stands out, and, given the broader context of Hobb’s work, I think it has to serve to reinforce that readers should not like Hest–and that his father’s not a whole lot better, if he is at all.
I note also another bit of humor, subtler and far more pointed, at work in the present chapter. Readers of the Realm of the Elderlings novels will doubtlessly be familiar with a pair of assassins north of Bingtown, Skilled servants of the Six Duchies, Chade Fallstar and FitzChivalry Farseer. While the novels do not shy away from the nature of their work for their kingdom, they also go to great lengths to humanize the pair of them and to make them sympathetic, something aided, certainly, by positioning Fitz as the narrator in more cases than not. The assassin and enforcer that has been assigned to handle Hest is not nearly so kindly portrayed, which comes across to me as a particularly morbid bit of humor. Hest, being more of a stereotype than many other characters in the Realm of the Elderlings novels, gets a more stereotypical treatment than most do, as well. Admittedly, the humor’s less funny than it is sardonic, and there are problems with the use of stereotypes, generally, but that both are true does not mean the humor is not present in the text, the sardonic no less than the vulgar.
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I have been remarking on what today commemorates for some years, now, not only in this webspace (here, here, and here), but also in others. Having been a union man, and still being one in some ways, I know well the value of organized labor, and I note with some…vexation the repeated refusals by those who claim to want a return to the practices of decades past to align with the organizing principles that informed many of those practices. What made things great wasn’t what many want to believe. (That things weren’t great for a lot of people does not escape me, either, even if it does many–although I know that many don’t bother with pursuit.)
Keep it going! Photo by Kateryna Babaieva on Pexels.com
As I think on things this time around, I find myself somewhat caught. I suppose it’s a symptom of too much thinking that conundra emerge, and I suppose it says something about me that I encounter them as often as I do, but I recognize there is a tension at work between the potential ennobling effects of work and the fact that having to work is, in some ways, a curse. For those who value Genesis (the book, not the band or the up-jumped Hyundai), work is one of the things with which the fallen Adam is cursed (1:17-19); I am not up enough on other ideologies to remark on whether a similar burden is imposed from on high, which is my failing and not that of said ideologies. I can remark, however, that there are few in my experience or of whom I have heard report who do not, at least on occasion, complain about their work, even those who say that they love their jobs (and there are many who affirm very much the opposite). Much as I enjoy writing, there are times when the blank page taunts me, and while I meet some of those taunts bravely, there are some from which I have turned away.
I can also remark, though, that I am improved by working, and not only in terms of my bank accounts. Such work as I have done and still do–and I know there are some who will say that I do not “really” work and never have–has sharpened my mind. Used to be that it strengthened by body, too, until I had my jobs that are inside work with no heavy lifting. I’m not the only one, either; my family’s been full of such people, almost all of them better at what they do than I am at what I do, and my family is but one of many such. So there is nobility in the work that is done, even if it is otherwise than ought to be that the work has to be done.
But the work does have to be done, and I remain grateful for those who do that work. As should we all be, even as we work to ensure that those who do the labor upon which we rely are treated as they ought to be, as we would ourselves hope to be treated, did we do that work.
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I dare not follow Farragut closely My hull not so sound as to shrug off mines blithely And the sonar and spotters I sport are Fogged and faulty, failing to find a Clear course I might cruise that Does not run me aground, and I am not built for beaching
Iconic. Photo by Sachith Ravishka Kodikara on Pexels.com
Each bark that braves such waters and blasts Has its hull hit a time or two I know But with fresher crew and more in reserve Than I have on deck or in hold
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A holiday looms An extra day off For some people But not as many as should be And never enough And some are content with the way things are While others are certainly not And have started their celebrations early
I, too, use a shovel, but not for that, as might well be understood. Photo by Kateryna Babaieva on Pexels.com
Who can blame them Really As would not do the same Had they not thought of it in time?
But that I do not blame them Does note mean I am not struggling Making sure my work gets done And some of theirs When they are not here
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The people coming up now are doing the best they can with what they have And if they react differently than I did Their situation is different than mine was And they did not start where I did Where they could see what I saw And bask in a light that has been dimmed or switched off
It’s a different look. Photo by Alizee Marchand on Pexels.com
The people who went before were doing the best they could with what they had And if they reacted differently than I do Their situation was different than mine was And they did not start where I did Where they could see what I saw Looking through windows that had not been built yet
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Following a report from Detozi to Reyall about the status of messenger birds in Trehaug that also mentions the Tarman, “Second Thoughts” begins with Thymara waking after her assignation with Rapskal and chastising herself for the indiscretion before surveying her surroundings and gathering supplies. Both she and Rapskal clothe themselves in Elderling robes they find nearby, and they head back out into the city to scout more of Kelsingra. They prepare things for the group on the other side of the river, as well, and Rapskal comments easily about Heeby in ways that leave Thymara stinging at her lack of connection to Sintara. After they find some food, they confer about their assignation, Rapskal affirming affection for the questioning Thymara.
Image from Viridia Lizard’s Tumblr, here, used for commentary
Aboard the Tarman, Reyn and Malta confer about their situation as the liveship is readied for the return to Kelsingra. The condition of their son receives attention, as well, and the pair decide on a name for him: Ephron “Phron” Bendir Khuprus. Malta’s thoughts turn to her absent younger brother, Selden.
Selden wakes in poor condition in captivity, surveyed by his captors and pleading for hot food and drink and a blanket. He confers with a ship’s boy and learns he is aboard the Windgirl, bound for the capital of Chalced, there to be delivered to his enslaver. Selden recalls, in broad terms, his progress into captivity, and he is denied his requests. The ship’s boy leaves him to ruminate bitterly.
Leftrin frets at the delays in getting back underway to Kelsingra. Although Khuprus financial backing is helping him resupply, he is also paying premiums for the speed at which he is acquiring materials, and he is drawing ire from customers whose purchases are being subordinated to his. Crew and family difficulties assemble, legal entanglements threaten, and Leftrin issues orders to accelerate departure. A Council delegation makes to confront Leftrin, and, after some dickering, the Tarman shoves off, evading pursuit at the risk of revealing the clandestine modifications made. As they depart, Malta, Reyn, and Tillamon confer.
In Kelsingra, Thymara and Rapskal rejoin their companions, who watch as they return, Tats jealous and the dragons conferring. Questions are posed and reports made, and Alise chafes at the despoiling done, citing the mercantilism of Bingtown. Rapskal gives answer, suddenly eloquent on the topic, and Tats recognizes that Rapskal has positioned himself as a leader in their company, and it eats at him. His dragon eases him, and Mercor takes overall command of the situation, bidding all focus on helping the remaining grounded dragons to fly.
There is a lot going on in the present chapter–sensibly, since the end of the book approaches and things must be made ready for the subsequent volume. It’s something I recall noting before (although whether it is in this webspace or not, I do not recall), a tendency to rush towards the end, and I tend not to like it as a reader. Somehow, it seems to me to be…off. But, as I also recall I’ve said before, it’s not like I can do any better. Too, I’m sure that it works quite well for some people. That much said, I think I’m allowed to express personal preferences (and it can’t be too far outside them; I am still reading the book, more than a decade later).
Of some small interest is the way in which Selden’s present and his brother Wintrow’s past align. Both have been subjected to enslavement on the Chalcedean model (Selden at present, Wintrow here), and it seems that both have lost parts themselves (Selden here, Wintrow here). Markings and maimings differ, of course, but the fact of the parallel is somewhat striking. Wintrow’s ordeals emerge from the actions of Kyle Haven and his crew, as has been noted, but Selden’s do not seem to have quite such a source, at least not that springs to mind. Perhaps it can be read as a longer-ranging unintended consequence of Kyle’s perfidies.
Also of interest is how Leftrin acts in the chapter. I have opined at great length about the Traders’ society echoing the early United States; reading the text with that in mind, Leftrin’s actions call up, for me, memories of having read Louis L’Amour’s Sackett novels in my teenage years. (I grew up in central Texas; Westerns are a thing.) They seem entirely consonant with the kind of ethos that often gets espoused, in those books as elsewhere, and not only where I grew up; the law is useful to an extent, but sometimes right requires moving outside it–and even more so does need.
I wonder, as I write this, how far that parallel might be taken. I know there are resonances between typical Westerns and the kind of materials from which much mainstream US fantasy literature borrows, of course, and there is certainly more to be done to bear out that kind of connection. The extent to which fantasy literature borrows from Westerns, though, is something I’ve only done a small amount to investigate. (I’m also not the only one, as might well be imagined.) Efforts of which I’m aware have focused otherwise than on the Realm of the Elderlings novels, but if it is the case that the Traders are echoes of US settlers / colonists, then it follows that the milieu in which they operate can be read with an eye towards such a refiguring no less than a mainstream fantasy novel working an amorphously “medieval” milieu can be read with reference to earlier renditions of medievalism (e.g., reading A Song of Ice and Fire to see how it mis/uses tropes from, say, Lord of the Rings). So perhaps there’s another line of inquiry that someone with more time and energy to devote to the life of the mind can follow.
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Elliott RWI 