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After a missive noting formal complaint of message tampering and advising caution and documentation, “Marked by the Rain Wilds” opens with Malta and Jani Khuprus conferring together about the former’s plans. Malta notes her intent to accompany Reyn to Cassarick, hoping for news of the Tarman. The relationship between mother- and daughter-in-law is glossed, along with the history of the Rain Wilds Traders and the tree-cities they built. Jani advises Malta to dress to impress, and the two talk frankly of pregnancies and miscarraiges. Business partners’ labor practices are discussed as matters of concern, as well, as are concerns of integration of the Tattooed into Rain Wild society.

Talk returns to Malta’s pregnancy and the difficulties attendant upon it, not only those for pregnancies in general, but also the specific concerns that the Rain Wilds impose. The stark choices that face Malta–and all mothers in the Rain Wilds–are noted, and Malta’s reactions to them are glossed as she tries to distract herself with necessary tasks. She also reflects on her personal history following her reception by the Satrap. The reverie and discussion are interrupted by Reyn’s arrival and jesting with his wife and mother. Jani excuses herself, and Reyn conducts his wife to their waiting transport, the pair joining Reyn’s sister, Tillamon, along the way. Some tension with Tillamon is noted, and the group proceeds.

As they make for their ship, the River Snake, developments in shipbuilding and the implications for Rain Wild trade are discussed. The trio boards and is scarcely settled in before the ship gets underway, and Malta finds herself considering herself and her sister-in-law, and talk turns to that end briefly before going to concerns of pregnancy and midwifery. The dragon keepers are cited as beacons of hope for children who would otherwise be discarded, and Malta and Reyn determine to leave the fate of their coming child in divine hands.

There are several clear parallels that arise for me as I reread the present chapter. I’ve noted before my interpretation of Bingtown and the Rain Wilds as a gloss on the early United States. In keeping with that, I have to read the discussion of the Tattooed as a parallel to those surrounding enslaved populations in the United States and the ongoing effects of that ancestral wrong that persist into the present day. I’ve also noted having long lived in central Texas, and so I cannot help but read in the present chapter echoes of discussions surrounding immigration that I have heard and still hear, and not always gladly. Both sociohistorical items are heavily racially charged, and in the novel, the parallels are also based around what might well be termed racial or ethnic divisions (largely but not exclusively indicated by skin, in the event). There is the usual frustration of the parallels by Hobb; the Tattooed are marked as such, rather than born as such, and the Rain Wilds Traders are not the icons of “purity” upon which the wrong-headed racist / ethnocentric / supremacist discourses Hobb obliquely references (deliberately or otherwise does not matter) rely. They yet remain clear enough to be issues of discussion, however, both in themselves and in how they reinforce ideas of the sourcing for the Elderlings novels.

Another that comes across to me is the parallel between the discussion of Malta’s pregnancy and discussions of abortion and other reproductive rights. When the novel was published, in 2012, arguments surrounding abortion rights were particularly heated in legislatures, with a remarkably high number of restrictions on those rights put into place. I reread the chapter now and write in the wake of the 2022 Dobbs decision. Other, lower-profile, pieces of legislation addressing other reproductive rights has crowded in between, much of it conducing to strip from those who must bear the burdens of reproduction control of that reproduction. “Just keep your legs closed” is not good advice (though “keep your pecker in your pants” is). It’s a concern that emerges repeatedly in Hobb’s work, the Realm of the Elderlings and elsewhere (as noted here, among others), and it’s one with which people still too much grapple, usually to the detriment of those affected.

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Following advice of a reward for information about Sedric and Alise from their families and an accompanying brief message to Detozi that notes questions of transmission integrity, “A Bingtown Trader” begins with Hest surveying Alise’s chambers in his home. He muses in annoyance on the chambers and their erstwhile occupant, and he fumes at the expense of having taken Alise as a wife and the pretense that his doing so enacts. The implications that Alise and Sedric have run off together, though Hest knows them to be false, rankle and affect his business dealings, annoying him yet further. His steps against his lover and his wife are rehearsed, and his reverie is interrupted by a visitor from Chalced.

https://www.tumblr.com/blackandwhitemotley/641281072348397568/krwhl-probably-hest-from-the-rain-wild

Hest seeks to rebuke the visitor and is assailed for his troubles, soon pressed hard for information he does not have about Sedric’s dealings with Chalcedean agents. He is also conscripted into Chalced’s mission to acquire dragon-parts for their ruler’s health, given grim reminders of the importance of that mission to deliver.

It would seem to have been a while since Hest last appeared “in the flesh” in the narrative, as such; he is referenced and recalled, but to have him present in the narrative present is not something that happens often. And that is likely for the best; he is, as has been remarked on more than one occasion by more than one character, an unpleasant person with few, if any, redeeming qualities. Admittedly, Hobb has dwelt on such characters more than once before; depictions of Will and Regal in the Farseer novels come to mind, as do depictions of Kyle Haven in the Liveship Traders novels. Still, that Hest has only this brief direct part in the narrative after so long outside it seems marked, suggesting to my mind that he is functioning as a place-holder and character-type rather than as an actual character. That is, Hest is not important to the narrative in himself so much as he is important to the narrative for his interactions with other characters.

The potential problem that arises with this is that characters who are treated in such ways tend towards enacting and reinforcing stereotypes. Used for their narrative functions rather than having their development presented and explored, such characters do not invite the level of craft and attention that more focal figures receive, and it becomes easy to present them via a kind of short-hand, evoking or outright presenting types likely to be taken in and understood by broader readerships–and, all too often, those types are unflattering representations of classes of people. That they are so easily accessible is the result of long years of infelicity and worse, problems likely to continue because they continue to be used with minimal critique in the media people take in.

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Read the previous entry in the series here.
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After a seemingly clandestine message from Kim in Cassarick to Hest Finbok that affirms concerns raised earlier, “Kelsingra” begins with Alise stalking through the streets of the ruined city, mentally categorizing and interpreting what she sees in something like an exercise in amateur archaeology. The strange condition of the buildings and the occasional echoes earlier presentations of the city, and Alise muses on matters at some length as she surveys the site. With thoughts turning to possible futures, Alise confers with Leftrin, who notes the problems that face the expedition despite best efforts being made by all members of the party. Alise offers a solution to at least part of their problem, but Leftrin argues against it, citing the reasons it would not work and that they should not attempt it. Leftrin’s own proposal receives similar treatment from Alise in turn, and the two make to return to the Tarman together. They are interrupted in their progress by an encounter with an agitated Heeby and a stricken Rapskal, to whom they attend. Reviving him from strange visions, they proceed.

Heeby bears Alise and Leftrin back to the Tarman in turn. Alise considers the experience as she is taken aloft. Leftrin watches anxiously as she goes, Rapskal offering some cold comfort as the two confer about Rapskal’s experience with the carved stones of the city. Leftrin presses Rapskal for details and receives cryptic answers about the purposes of the memories embedded in the stones. Given the responses, Leftrin opts to send Rapskal on ahead, awaiting a later turn to cross the river back to his ship and crew.

Before getting into discussion of the main chapter, I have to note once again my appreciation for the prefatory materials for each chapter–and their integration. I enjoy getting the sense that the narratives I take in take place in a world that exists outside the context of those narratives, and while this sometimes must mean that such indicators only tangentially affect the main narrative, it is also a pleasure to see them tie into themselves. It’s a bit of storytelling craft I like seeing at play.

As to the main chapter: I appreciate that Alise, even in the act of surveying what is present in Kelsingra, begins to move from simple recording into interpretation of data. It’s something of a popular misconception, I find, that the work of those who look to the past–be it in formal histories, in archaeology, or in older literatures–is a matter of rote memorization, a “these-are-the-facts-and-you-have-to-know-them” approach to the echoes of lives lived (sometimes not-so-) long ago. But it is not, or it is, at least, not only that. Yes, the available information has to be recorded, but the record has no meaning until it is acted upon; meaning and understanding are necessarily matters of interpretation. Indeed, even the selection of what merits inclusion in any kind of formal record is an interpretive act. (Consider: there is no way to take in and put down all of the possible data, so only what’s “important” gets noted. But how does a person know what’s “important” in a given context? By making an interpretation, hopefully based on an empathetic understanding deriving from intensive training and study, but always necessarily reflecting the inherent and ingrained biases present in the person making the record.) And, as Leftrin motions towards, the earlier interpretations will necessarily influence those that come later on–something with which my own trained field grapples, not always well.

Clearly, there is more work to do.

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