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. Jakib 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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The fourth chapter of Forest Mage, “The Fast,” starts as Nevare, escorted by his elder brother, reports to the work detail led by Sergeant Duril. The surroundings and work are described as Nevare joins the tasks, and Duril privately expresses his surprise at Nevare’s appearance, to Nevare’s shame. But the work continues through the day, and when Nevare returns to his room at the end of it, washes up, and surveys himself, finding himself much changed from even his expectations and puzzled at how the changes have happened.

Having thus diverted himself from his intention to join his family at dinner, Nevare repairs to the kitchen, thinking to drink only water. He does drink a mugful of milk before trying to fill himself on water, but it does not satisfy him, and he withdraws to his rooms to make a journal entry and assess himself. He compares himself to Gord, noting the latter’s inexcessive eating, and determined to go out for a walk on the property. Along the way, he overhears his father’s displeasure, and goes outside, walking amid property he has helped tend.

While considering a pond he had known to be full of fish, Nevare finds himself beset by Yaril. Her ire confuses him, given their previous closeness, and he attempts to defend himself against her assertions of his ill intent. She presses upon him, upbraiding him with the political ramifications of his appearance, and words grow heated between them surrounding their expected marital prospects. Yaril leaves, and Nevare sits, considering her words and the folly of a fish-pond amid the semi-arid plains.

Selethe soon joins Nevare, speaking softly to her son. She notes her surprise at his appearance and summons him to her sewing room, where she speaks of seamstresses who had been hired in preparation for the coming wedding and takes measurements from which to make Nevare a new suit in haste. Selethe ascribes Nevare’s fatness to bad food at the Academy and his convalescence, and she notes having interceded with Keft for him. Soon after, he takes his leave, drinking water again and again finding no satisfaction from it.

The next day, Nevare reutrns to work, faring badly at it. After the work day, he has to avoid the kitchens despite his hunger, and he washes carefully before reporting to his mother’s sewing room and the attentions of the seamstresses. After an embarrassing interlude there, he withdraws to his bed, dreaming as his other self and recognizing the victory earned at the Dancing Spindle.

The following day repeats Nevare’s work experience, and through his exertions, he arrives at the idea that the Academy had stripped him of his self-discipline. He falls into self-recrimination, but he uses it to return to work with vigor, delighting in punishing himself with the effort. He finds when he returns to his mother’s sewing room for final fittings, however, that his efforts have not changed him, and he despairs of Carsina. Again, he compares himself to Gord, and when he returns to the sewing room as he had been directed, Elisi upbraids him. Selethe admits that having to make a new suit for Nevare has left them with insufficient time to prepare Elisi’s outfit to make an effective presentation to a visiting noble. Efforts to prepare for the wedding continue, and Nevare is, at last, sent off for the evening.

To address the chapter-length issue: the present chapter, in the edition of the novel I’m rereading, runs 17 pages in length, approximately 2.33% of the novel. There is perhaps some irony in so slim a chapter focusing on concerns of fatness to the extent that it does, although it might well be read that the text is being pared down as much as it is hoped Nevare will soon be. I’ll admit, though, that that might be over-inflating something that is merely coincidence, but even if it is mere coincidence, it’s something that bears some comment.

Also, for indexing purposes, the following: Alfalfa, Carsina Grenalter, Cilima Lading, Clover, Derwith Toller, Dr. Jakib Amicas, Elisi Burvelle, Eron, Gord Lading, Honeysuckle, Kase Remwar, Keft Burvelle, Nevare Burvelle, Old Thares, Poronte Family, Rosse Burvelle, Selethe Burvelle, Sergeant Erib Duril, Speck plague, Specks, Tree Woman, Widevale, Widevale Hall, Yaril Burvelle. A brief chapter might well be expected to have relatively few indexable items, and the present chapter meets expectations.

It’s time for affective reading again, it seems. I recently to this writing had a series of medical appointments. In them, I was reminded of being overweight–clinically obese, in fact–and that some health problems are starting to crop up in relation thereto. I don’t have quite the animus directed at me that Nevare does in the present chapter, having quite a bit of support as I begin working in earnest to take care of my overweight and my other incipient (and not-so-incipient, as it happens) health problems. There are challenges, though, and I don’t know that I’d do terribly well without the kindness and compassion of those in my life. I am grateful to have it. The present chapter reminds me that I should be thus grateful.

I will again refer to Metsäpelto here, the present chapter once again putting on display a variety of Gernian attitudes toward fatness that echo those present in the late nineteenth-century United States, echoing those in Victorian England. In the case of the Victorian English, part of what informs attitudes towards fatness is a reaction against Regency norms and excesses, a motion towards self-restraint and “decency” and away from the perceived immoralities of the recent past. Fatness is viewed as an indication of excess, thus of indecency, as attested by William Banting in his Letter on Corpulence, Joyce L. Huff in “Fat,” Peter R. Stearns in Fat History: Bodies and Beauty in the Modern West, Georges Vigarello in The Metamorphoses of Fat, Garabed Eknoyan in “A History of Obesity, or How What Was Good Became Ugly and Then Bad,” and elsewhere. The scholars note that such attitudes arise in force only in the later Victorian period and the post-Civil War United States, Stearns situating it specifically following 1890 (which reinforces some of the suggestions of more specific antecedents for Gernia noted in Shaman’s Crossing‘s “A Ride in the Park,” although the note must be repeated that Gernia borrows from the nineteenth-century United States rather than reflecting it precisely). They contrast in force with both earlier understandings of fatness (being more concerned with mobility than with girth as such) and ancestral regard for obesity as signifying sufficiency of food.* Such makes the Gernian disdain for fatness make more sense; Gernia, as presented, is very much about adherence to norms, to self-control and differentiation from indigenous lifeways, and the Burvelles are presented as being more concerned with such things than most. The vehemence against fatness** is not more comfortable for having such a context, of course, but the context does matter.

I’ll note also a strange myopia as regards how Nevare is expected to address his fatness. While several characters acknowledge that a scant few days is not enough time to lost all of the fat Nevare “should,” most do seem to think there will be a noticeable difference in him in those few days with work and short rations. For his part, Nevare does make a good faith effort to heed his father’s commands, starving himself for days as he does hard manual labor in the sun and heat. Having picked up rocks in the sun, I know it is no easy thing to do. I know, too, that I did not lose weight from it, at least not in the course of a few days. Water weight might be shed so quickly, but even then, doing so comes at costs–including some of the same symptoms that Nevare shows of weakness and fogged thought. It’s not healthy, even in the short term, and it’s not really sustainable.

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* Indeed, the evident preference for fatness among the Dappled People is suggestive of their adherence to such regard. Later portions of the reread will treat this.

** There is some vehemence even when encountered in moderation, as in Selethe’s opinion of Nevare’s weight as stemming from the circumstances of his convalescence. She, at least, seems to regard it as a thing that has happened to him, rather than as a thing he has done to himself; she does not decline to regard it as a problem he must solve, however, nor yet does she conceal her distaste for even her supposedly favored child due to his fatness.

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The third chapter of Forest Mage, “Spindle Dance,” opens with Nevare delighting in returning to more and more familiar terrain as he makes his return home for his brother’s wedding. As he progresses, he notices a sign advertising the titular Spindle Dance and takes its direction thereto. Arriving thereat, Nevare reflects upon what he knows of the Dancing Spindle of the Plainsmen as he describes both the imposing object and its surroundings.

Approaching the monument, Nevare is confronted by a tour guide hawking his craft, who makes him deeply uncomfortable and provokes a rude response from him. The guide withdraws, and Nevare presses on, his description of the Dancing Spindle continuing as he approaches it. He considers its possible origins and history as he moves ahead, and he recognizes a strange sensation emanating from it as it captivates his attention.

Nevare joins others looking at the Dancing Spindle, most of whom are relatively uninterested in it. As another guide finishes delivering material, Nevare is overcome by what he recognizes as a locus of magical power as his alternative self reawakens. The guide, a Plainswoman, suggests Nevare leave, and he demurs; the earlier guide arrives to mock him for his earlier dismissal. A youth present moves to deface the monument, earning rebuke from Nevare; the youth’s iron knife sends painful messages through the Spindle, and Nevare cries out. The ensuing tumult disperses those present, and the guides rebuke Nevare for his interference as well as for his insistence upon its magic.

As Nevare departs, he sees the vandalizing youth at it again, aided by his friends. He moves to intervene, and the youths panic at his approach. One of them begins to slip downard, and Nevare manages to rescue him, although the youth’s knife cuts him as he does so. Nevare slams the knife away, and it slips to the base of the Dancing Spindle; when it makes contact with it, the knife cuts off the gathering magic of the Plainsfolk. Nevare is stunned by the event, and, befuddled, he resumes his return home.

The remainder of Nevare’s journey home passes reasonably quickly and without incident. His arrival at his family’s estate, however, is unhappy. He is initially not recognized by the staff or even his kin, his body having changed greatly since his departure for the Academy, and his father’s displeasure with him is obvious. When, after Nevare has washed and changed–into ill-fitting clothes–he attends his father in his study, Keft rebukes him for his fatness and what he believes is the laziness associated therewith. He commands him to a three-day fast and manual labor, assigning him once again and immediately to Sergeant Duril.

To address the chapter-length issue: the present chapter, in the edition of the novel I’m rereading, runs 24 pages in length, approximately 3.28% of the novel.* Longer than average, much of the present chapter glosses more travel time; it is principally another bridging chapter in the novel, serving largely to move Nevare to where he needs to be, although the focus on the titular rock formation does both call back to earlier parts of the Soldier Son novels and carry implications for the milieu as a whole.

Also, for indexing purposes, the following: Breg, Burry, Carsina Grenatler, Dancing Spindle, Dark Evening, Elisi Burvelle, Gernian, Hector, Jard, Keft Burvelle, Kidona, King’s Cavalla Academy, King’s Road, Midlands, Nevare Burvelle, Old Thares, Plainspeople, Ret, Rosse Burvelle, Selethe Burvelle, Sergeant Erib Duril, Sirlofty, Skay, Specks, Spindle Dance, Spindle’s Tower, Stone mage, Tree Woman, Widevale, Yaril Burvelle. Despite the relative length of the chapter, there are few indexables, something perhaps appropriate to the overall function of the chapter as a bridge rather than as its own narrative unit.

Several points of interest present themselves as I reread the chapter. One of them is the reaction of the Plainsfolk guides to Nevare’s insistence upon the magic of the Dancing Spindle. Initially, Nevare approaches it with a typically Gernian perspective: skepticism of and derision for stories of the Plainsfolk. This is despite his overt experiences not only with the magics of the Plainsfolk (see Shaman’s Crossing‘s “Crossing the Bridge,” for example), but also of the Dappled People (see not only “Crossing the Bridge,” but also and especially “Plague.”). He has no reason to be doubtful on approach, and he finds himself believing in it as his alternative self reawakens and the vandalizing youths apply iron to the magical locus (see Shaman’s Crossing‘s “Magic and Iron” for one reference; there are several others). That the magic presents itself to him, a Gernian, but not to the Plainsfolk who guide tourists to the Dancing Spindle, offends them; one nearly strikes Nevare for his insistence on the Spindle’s motion and declaims “NO! It did not. It has never turned for me, and it could not turn for you, Gernian! It was a legend. That was all. Those who say they see it turning are fools, and those who claim to be lifted by it are liars! Liars! Go away! Get out of here! How dare you say it turns for you! It never turned for me and I am of the Plains! Liar! Liar” (56). Amid it all, there is certainly some colonialist discourse, the reaction of an indigenous person against appropriative claims made by an oppressor; how dare Nevare make such a claim, indeed! There is also the entirely understandable sorrow of a longed-for thing being given to another; I am put in mind of Molly Grue’s initial reaction to the presence of Amalthea in Beagle’s The Last Unicorn**:

[Captain Cully] burst out laughing, and Molly sprang up, red from hairline to throat hollow. “Where have you been?” she cried. “Damn you, where have you been?”….

[…]

“I am here now,” [Amalthea] said at last.

Molly laughed with her lips flat. “And what good is it to me that you’re here now? Where were you twenty years ago, ten years ago? How dare you, how dare you come to me now, when I am this?”

It is an affective reading, I know, that I am moved by both passages. Less affectively, given the extent to which Hobb is on record as endorsing Beagle (see, for example, Bishop’s interview of Hobb for Five Books, as well as Hobb’s own comments about his work on GoodReads, which will be coming into the Fedwren Project soon [I think]), I think it likely that there is an echo of Beagle’s scene in Hobb’s. Another scholarly someday might well delve more fully into that particular bit of source-study.

Another, touching on something somewhat closer to home but not restricted to it, is the presence and desecration of a balancing rock. Balancing rocks are large rocks or boulders that, through natural processes, perch upon stones or till that look far smaller than should be able to support them. That they can be interpreted as, or made in fictional works into, magical structures is easily understandable. That they attract the attention of vandals is even more unfortunate than it is well-documented. One notable instance of the latter comes from a place near where I live: Fredericksburg, Texas. There was in its vicinity a well-known balancing rock atop what is called Bear Mountain; there are photos of the thing, such as this one from UTSA‘s digital collections:

Alas, the balancing rock is no longer there, having been blasted from its former position, as Michael Barr reports. And it’s not the only such monument thus destroyed; the destruction of one at Goblin Valley, reported upon by Scott Neuman and others, comes to mind,† as does the later destruction at the Brimham Rocks (per Samantha Lui). Similar efforts are unfortunately ongoing, as Joey Martin reports, and I am sure there are others that do not pop up to a quick check into such events. While those in the readers’ world do not carry quite as much heft as that in Hobb’s novel, they do help to connect her work to their world, even if that connection is an unhappy one.

A final point of attention for now centers on Nevare’s return home; while the trope of a person going off to school and coming back changed is a thing, the reactions presented are quite severe in the present chapter. Again, I think rereading Metsäpelto is in order; the animus against fatness is very much on display as Nevare arrives again at Widevale. Keft is clearly angry and offended at the fact of his son’s fatness, unreasonably so, acting and speaking as if done to spite the family and the degree to which appearances must be kept up. Admittedly, given earlier commentaries about the political state of Gernia and the power blocs of so-called old and new lords, Keft has some reason to attend to appearances; he has to work to maintain his and his family’s status in the stratified society. But, if memory serves, he has had reports of Nevare’s illness, and I seem to recall that they include information from Dr. Amicas, who notes the unusual nature of Nevare’s symptoms. A shock might well be expected at seeing what has only been in report so far, but anger at such a thing…it is not a good sign, nor yet is the harsh restriction to which Nevare is immediately assigned. Once again, Hobb points forward to trouble for her protagonist, which this rereading will continue to treat as it emerges.

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* To my great chagrin, as I was doing some other work, I realized that my earlier calculations were in error; I failed to account for the front matter of the present and previous volume in the series. This could be waved off as setting aside something that does not matter except that for the previous Soldier Son volume, I focused attention on the front matter (as witness this), and so I followed the model for the present volume (as witness this). Having made a point to include it, I should make a point to include it; I apologize for the earlier error and have made adjustments to the earlier relevant entries in this rereading series that I hope correct the error.

** Quotation is from Peter S. Beagle’s The Last Unicorn, first 40th anniversary edition, printed in 2008, pgs. 96-97.

† It’s even called a hoodoo, calling back to Shaman’s Crossing‘s “Crossing the Bridge” again.

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The second chapter of Forest Mage, “Homeward Bound,” starts with Nevare making ready to depart the King’s Cavalla Academy briefly in the interest of attending his elder brother’s wedding. Preparations at the Academy take longer than he had anticipated, as he is obliged to take assignments with him to complete. Once those are concluded, however, Nevare calls on his uncle Sefert, noting some awkwardness in their interactions in the wake of Epiny’s marriage to Spink, about which Nevare ruminates.

Nevare and Sefert confer at some length about Epiny, Nevare going so far as to let his uncle read the letters his cousin has sent him. Sefert expresses some pride in her determination to have her way and her accommodation to her life in Bitter Springs. Nevare resolves to rebuke Epiny for her neglect of her father, and Sefert dispatches letters and gifts with his nephew as he sends him along his way.

Nevare takes ship and passage upstream begins. He contrasts it sharply with the downstream trip he had taken to get to the Academy,* and he remarks upon an unpleasant series of exchanges between himself and a small group of other passengers who make much of mocking him for his increasing girth. One of them ends up falling and suffering a compound fracture after an exchange with Nevare in which he remarks on having “suddenly felt that I was in full control of this encounter” (34); Nevare admits to feeling some guilt afterwards.

After disembarking at Sorton, Nevare travels overland towards home. Along the way, he presses further ahead than had been planned, spending one night amiably at a farmstead and intimately with a young woman there. Musing on the experience, he comes a few days later to an inn with more common prostitutes, one of whom he engages in an unsatisfactory exchange that reminds him of his coming obligations and educates him about sex workers.

Pressing onwards towards home, Nevare comes to the King’s Road and follows it, noting the uneven quality of improvements made along its route. He also passes a labor gang, ruminating upon those imprisoned and those who must attend upon them, considering their situation gravely as he continues to adjust to his own changing shape.

To address the chapter-length issue: the present chapter, in the edition of the novel I’m rereading, runs 15 pages in length, approximately 2.05% of the novel–quite brief, honestly, although not the shortest chapter in the novel. (There are four other chapters of equivalent length and one shorter.) As I make the observation, I am finally getting to the point of systematizing some of my length-data, beginning to collect it into some kind of usable form to address one of the more persistent of my scholarly somedays. It will be the work of a few hours, provided I do not get distracted (as happens frequently when I work with Hobb’s writing), to pull together the relevant data from the editions of the novels I have. I still don’t know what to make of it all, but I also still think there’s something there to investigate and interrogate; I still want to see it.

Also, for indexing purposes, the following: Barrier Mountains, Barry, Bitter Springs, Caleb, Carsina Grenalter, Colonel Rebin, Cordelling, Council of Lords, Daraleen Burvelle, Epiny Kester (née Burvelle), Jankship, Keft Burvelle, King Troven, King’s Cavalla Academy, King’s Road, Midlands, Nevare Burvelle, Old Thares, Purissa Burvelle, Rory Hart, Rosse Burvelle, Sefert Burvelle, Sirlofty, Sorton, Spinrek “Spink” Kester, Trist Wissom. As might be expected of a brief chapter spent mostly in travel, there are relatively few indexables.

That the chapter is brief and with few indexables, however, does not mean it does not prompt points of interest. One of them is the reference to cordelling, which I was surprised to learn is a historical practice, and not dissimilar to its description in the present text. In the historical example, barges and keelboats would be pulled upstream by men ashore hauling on ropes;** the practice is attested in the 1830s and predominantly in the United States and Canada,† helping to reinforce Gernia’s mimicry of the nineteenth-century United States. While it is the case that the practice described in the novel (the use of small craft to ferry forward ropes to tie off to trees for hauling-in and thus progression upstream) is more narrowly known as “warping,” it is deployed in a similar enough fashion to allow the term-blending. In addition, the unique term avoids provoking misunderstandings among the likely primary audience of the text; “warping” brings to mind other transportation than a boat on the river, after all.

Another point is a contrast between Nevare’s comment, while engaging intimately with the young woman at the farmstead, that “I was no more prudish than any young man of my years” (37) and what prompts some of my earlier comments in this rereading series. Notable examples are in discussions of Shaman’s Crossing‘s “The Academy” and “Séance.”‡ Despite Nevare’s comment, he is, or at least has been, far more straitlaced than a great many of his comrades, all young men of approximately his own years. His reactions to several of his cohort’s exploits usually ran to scandalization rather than engagement; only in despair at his expectation of discharge, per Shaman’s Crossing‘s “Disgrace,” does he purpose to take part in what he sees as the debauchery to which his contemporaries are prone. While it might otherwise be regarded as something of a watershed moment for him, prompting a break from previous patterns, those same patterns do largely seem to reassert themselves following the events of the Dark Evening and Dust Dance; in effect, Nevare had an off day and returned to his prior self as much as he could as soon as he could. For him to tell himself otherwise in the present chapter is somewhat disingenuous, mitigated only by the likelihood that he, honestly but mistakenly, believes it.

A final point for now: I think I may need to reread Metsäpelto. While earlier parts of the Soldier Son novels have done much to point out prevailing Gernian attitudes towards fatness, the present chapter directs those attitudes sharply towards Nevare, subjecting him to no small discomfort. Given his earlier treatment of the decidedly heavyset Gord Lading, it might be thought that he has some of it coming; I admit to having such an affective reaction, which should come as no surprise, given this. But at the same time (and still affectively), that Nevare acts badly does not excuse others’ bad actions; that he was a jerk to Gord does not mean others should be jerks to him, in turn. However that might be, the attitudes show forth emphatically in the present chapter, making reference to Metsäpelto worth undertaking again.

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* See Shaman’s Crossing, “Journey” and “Old Thares.”

** Per such sources as the Gateway Arch Park Foundation (https://www.archpark.org/visit/points-of-interest/museum-at-the-gateway-arch/jeffersons-vision/keelboat) and Steamboats.org (https://www.steamboats.org/history-education/glossary/cordelling.html).

†Per the OED (https://www.oed.com/dictionary/cordelling_n) and Merriam-Webster (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cordelle).

‡ It occurs to me that I reference “Séance” a lot. I have to wonder if it does not end up being one of the most important chapters in the trilogy. Seems there’s another scholarly someday to consider.

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The first chapter of Forest Mage, “Forest Dreams,” begins with Nevare dreaming intimately of Tree Woman. He is shaken awake by Trist, and Nevare contrasts his present state with how he had been prior to the Dust Dance and plague while Trist relates one of his recurring dreams. Trist bemoans his weakened state and withdraws, leaving Nevare to consider the death of Tree Woman and the situation in which he and the other cadets at the King’s Cavalla Academy find themselves in the wake of the plague.

Nevare considers both his resistance to the Specks’ attempt to destroy Gernian society and his complicity in the attempt as he reflects on the events of his life. His recollection of the time with Dewara and the trip into the liminal realm where he first encountered Tree Woman receives attention, as well as his alternate self that had been formed at that point. The unification of the corps of cadets in the wake of the plague receives comment, and the fates of the survivors of Nevare’s original cohort are reported. Rory, promoted, is his closest present friend. Kort mourns his longtime friend Nate. Gord, married hastily during the plague, shows and even more powerful intellect than Nevare had thought he possessed. Spink and Epiny both write to Nevare, faring well but differently than either had anticipated.

Changes to classes and instruction are noted, with senior cadets taking over teaching roles to mixed effect. Nevare attends carefully to the lessons in military history, as they begin to treat the Plainsfolk, and one of his fellow cadets, Lofert, asks after the so-called Preservationist movement in Gernia; his queries are answered with patronizing commonplaces. Nevare reflects on the passing of the Plainsfolk’s ways of life, recalling events along his initial trip to Old Thares. The use of iron against magic is noted again, and Nevare muses on what has been gained for all the losses incurred.

Following morning classes, Nevare reads more of a letter from Epiny about the affairs at Spink’s family’s holdings at Bitter Springs until Rory delivers a semi-formal summons from Dr. Amicas in the campus infirmary. Nevare hastens thereto, passing by the mass grave of the plague victims and the marker erected in their honor. When he reports to the physician, he receives a small rebuke before submitting to a repeated examination. Amicas remarks upon Nevare’s increased weight, noting how unusual it is to see among plague victims, before conferring with Nevare about the cadet’s upcoming travel and theories about the origin of the plague.

After leaving the infirmary, Nevare finds himself considering Tree Woman again, contrasting his early impressions of her with his recent dreams. Nevare’s alternate self still manifests at times, and he tries to accommodate the viewpoints he has come to hold. Despite his growing weight, he makes good time and arrives at his dormitory’s study in good wind. Rory notes another letter has arrived for Nevare, this one from Duril, and Nevare reads it with some interest. He also looks forward to rejoining Carsina at his brother’s wedding, and he is taken by longing to return to his home, as well as joy at the prospect.

To address the chapter-length issue: the present chapter, in the edition of the novel I’m rereading, runs 26 pages in length, approximately 3.56% of the novel, a bit larger than average. Given that the present chapter is doing the kind of explication a sequel has to do–glossing many to all of the events of the previous novel and setting up the present–the length is not to be wondered at, unless perhaps to wonder why it is not longer than it actually is. (That said, it is one of the longer chapters in the novel; only six are longer, of which most are only two pages longer, and the longest only five pages longer.)

Also, for indexing purposes, the following: Barrier Mountains, Battle of Pukenshit, Bitter Springs, Bringham House, Burvelle’s Landing, Cadet Lieutenant Bailey, Cadet Sergeant Vredo, Captain Maw, Carneston Hall, Carsina Grenalter, Cilima Lading, Colonel Rebin, Dark Evening, Dewara, Dr. Jakib Amicas, Dust Dance, Elisi Burvelle, Epiny Kester (née Burvelle), Gera Kester, Gernia, Gord Lading, Keft Burvelle, Kidona, King Troven, King’s Cavalla Academy, Kort Braxan, Lady Kester, Landsing, Lofert, Midlands, Natred Verlaney, Nevare Burvelle, Old Thares, Plainsfolk, Plague, Preservationists, Rory Hart, Rosse Burvelle, Sefert Burvelle, Sergeant Erib Duril, Sirlofty, Sorton, Specks, Spinrek “Spink” Kester, Tobacco, Tree Woman, Trist Wissom, Wind wizard, Yaril Burvelle.* As might be expected from a heavily-explicative chapter, there are a lot of points of reference to make.

As might also be expected, contrasting the current first chapter with the previous first chapter, Shaman’s Crossing‘s “Magic and Iron,” suggests itself. (That there will be a number of such backward looks is exceedingly likely.) A number of points made, or at least gestured towards, in the earlier piece are reiterated or glossed in the present chapter, not least the negative effects of iron on the magic of the Plainsfolk, the patronizingly colonialist attitudes at work in Gernia,** and the Gernian revulsion towards miscegenation. Again, it is part of the task of an opening of a sequel to remind readers of the previous volume/s of what has happened, as well as to provide enough information for a new reader, stumbling into a series as it is in progress, to be oriented to major events and features of the milieu. (I comment to that effect when addressing the beginning of Mad Ship, as well as early in my remarks about Fool’s Errand, and again in notes made at the start of Fool’s Quest, and once again in treating an early part of Assassin’s Fate. It’s not a surprise that an author would return to an established pattern.) Here, as elsewhere in Hobb’s body of work, she handles the gloss well.

I’ll note the present chapter’s invocation of an old adage: Men but work from sun to sun, woman’s work is never done (13). It’s an old saw, one I remember hearing no few times from my mother and her mother, although given the kind of hours my dad put in doing HVAC work in Texas Hill Country summers, it was a little tongue-in-cheek. (Mom’s mom lived with us for much of my growing up, and she lived in my mother’s house when she died. I’ve written a little about it.) I’m told that it pops up notably in Jean Little’s Orphan at My Door, but given the relatively late publication date of that novel (2001), I doubt it is a source for Hobb’s own work. I do not doubt, however, that it speaks to the protofeminist parallel that Epiny is (see “Séance” in Shaman’s Crossing for more on this); if Gernian women are held to be less, then it makes little sense that they should do more.†

One other small note suggests itself: Lofert makes mention of a Preservationist movement in Gernia, the description of which echoes somewhat the land-back movements that are and have been at work in the United States (and presumably elsewhere, but I have not followed any outside the US). Given the publication and presumed composition of the Soldier Son novels after the Tawny Man, and the Tawny Man novels’ effective use of such groups as the Piebalds, I have to wonder (because although I have read Forest Mage, it has been a while) about such a group’s intervention in affairs, moving forward. If it does factor in, that’s all fine and good; it’s certainly being foregrounded here, and it was gestured towards at least as early as Shaman’s Crossing‘s “Old Thares.” And if it does not, the recognition of things in the world but not present in the primary narrative is a contribution towards the verisimilitude that Hobb, again, is on record as prizing; Chekhov isn’t neccessarily correct, or at least interpretations of him aren’t.

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* I’ll note that a few names, notably Cilima’s and Epiny’s, are changed from the characters’ earlier appearances (see Shaman’s Crossing‘s “Cousin Epiny” for an example); I give them as they are at present. Others needing updating (such as Sergeant Duril), I’ve updated per previous practice.

** Interestingly, Gernia appears to apply this logic towards itself. As Lofert asks his interim military history instructor about the Plainsfolk, he is answered with the following (12):

“That our superior civilization replaces the primitive order of the Plainsmen is a part of the natural order,” he lectured. “And lest you feel too superior, be mindful that we Gernians have been victims of advanced technology ourselves. When Landsing made their discovery that allowed their cannon and long guns to shoot farther and more accurately than ours, they were able to defeat us and take from us our seacoast provinces. Much as we resent that, it was natural thn once they had achieved a military technology that was superior to our own, they would take what they wished from us”

While the kind of might-makes-right ideology being espoused remains repugnant, that it is applied to the same people applying it to others is a bit of nuance that is, honestly, typical of Hobb; she uses and alters prevailing tropes throughout her body of work, as I’ve commented (see “Shades of Steel-Gray” and “Manifestations of English Arthurian Legend in the Farseer and Tawny Man Trilogies”, among others).

† I note, too, that the passage in which Epiny makes the quip reminds me of remarks by Judith Lanzendorfer in “Reader, Take Thy Adventure” at the 2010 International Congress on Medieval Studies, as well as Joyce Coleman’s Public Reading and the Reading Public in Late Medieval England and France and “Interactive Parchment: The Theory and Practice of Medieval English Aurality.” Why make notes you never look at again?

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The Soldier Son trilogy continues from Shaman’s Crossing into Forest Mage. As is the case with the first volume of the trilogy, the second begins with some front matter. Said front matter again consists of a half-title page with a list of other works by the author on the reverse, a title page with copyright information (citing the novel as belonging to Robin Hobb) on its reverse, a dedication, a map, a table of contents, acknowledgments, and another half-title page.

There is some contrast between the current front matter and that of the preceding novel in the trilogy. For one, the dedication doesn’t strike me as being as funny this time; it is more sincere and more typical than the quip that precedes so much of Shaman’s Crossing. Too, while Shaman’s Crossing reports only 24 chapters (with an average length right around 24 pages, rounding being an issue), Forest Mage reports 34. Its main text runs to 718 pages; the front matter adds another 13, for a total of 731. Average chapter / unit length, then, is just under 21 pages, or approximately 2.86% of the novel. (I make note of this because I do still want to see if there’s something going on with chapter-lengths. Since I have a set of first editions on the Soldier Son novels, I have a fair standard of comparison for them.) More important, I think, is the shift in the copyright page; the change from Lindholm to Hobb carries some meaning, a reaffirmation of writerly persona* that has seemed, from time to time, to shift a bit.

Also, as I get into the present novel, I do so with less hesitation than I started the last one. Those reading attentively here will likely note that I moved through Shaman’s Crossing relatively quickly and that I gave more, and more detailed, comment on its chapters than I had on the Realm of the Elderlings novels. Some of that is a result of being more comfortable doing the commentaries, particularly than was the case early in the Realm of the Elderlings rereading. (I might, might, go back and review / update / expand upon the earlier rereadings. Maybe.**) Some, I think, is just that I’ve been making more of an effort to add more; it’s worth doing, I think. Clearly. And, equally clearly, I find I have more to say.

So much noted, a fair amount of what I noted in addressing Shaman’s Crossing‘s front matter continues to apply to the present text. I’ve already linked the comments above, so I don’t need to repeat them here. Instead, I’ll focus on getting into the text of the novel, and I’ll see what all comes up as I continue my rereading.

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* Comments about the concept are at “Some Notes about the Written Environment,” while specific references to Hobb as an authorial persona can be found in Jane Johnson’s remarks and in Fool’s Quest‘s “Farseers,” among others.

** If it is the case that I do go back and update things regarding the Realm of the Elderlings novels, I’ll be looking at percentages by chapter. Even if I don’t have a cohesive set of books among them, I can figure relative chapter-lengths; the percentages should be relatively consistent across printings, which would allow some useful standard of comparison.

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The final chapter of Shaman’s Crossing, “Vindication,” opens on Nevare convalescing once again. Dr. Amicas notes Nevare’s peculiar condition to him, and Nevare is aware that he has been relocated from the Academy to his uncle’s estate. He is also soon aware that news is being kept from him as his condition slowly improves, and he ruminates unhelpfully over the events at the end of his first term at the Academy.

Epiny visits Nevare as he convalesces, briefing him on at least some of what has transpired during the ten days while he was unconscious from his illness and exertions. Spink’s condition and partial recovery receive attention, and Nevare finds himself moved to pity for his friend. Epiny notes looking forward to joining Spink’s family, and after Nevare voices misgivings, she reaffirms her decision and asks him if he can say as much for Carsina as Spink can for her. Nevare deflects attention to the fates of those at the Academy, which Spink had anticipated he would want to know. Despite the toll that hearing the information takes on him, Nevare asks for more, learning about reorganization at the Academy and the effects of the plague on the world outside it.

Epiny turns talk to the liminal realm in which Nevare had contested Tree Woman, and she is reminded as she does so that Caulder Stiet has sent Nevare a letter requesting a meeting. She passes the letter along and notes that she had destroyed evidence of Nevare’s discharge from service. Although shocked at the act and her open explanation of the reasoning behind it, Nevare does not contest it.

Nevare continues to recover, albeit slowly, and he manages to confer with Spink about events before the latter is married and departs for home with his new wife. His friend having left, Nevare posts a letter to Carsina and then answers Caulder’s letter. Calling on the boy in his home, he receives an apology for the boy having taken the rock retained from his experience on the plains.* He also receives apologies for the lies told about him and for Caulder’s other misdeeds and abuses. And he is rattled when Caulder asks about the possiblity that Tree Woman might return, growing upset at the thought. He is not more pleased that he will be adopted by his father’s scholar brother.

The meeting between Nevare and Caulder is interrupted by the arrival of Colonel Stiet, who upbraids Nevare for upsetting Caulder. Nevare asks after his Academy record and is told that he remains eligible to attend. He is also told that others complicit in Caulder’s misdeeds are also dead of the plague, and he excuses himself. Caulder calls for a blessing upon him as he goes.

Nevare returns to his uncle’s estate and continues to convalesce. Dr. Amicas continues to tend him and to remark on the oddity of his progress. He receives his orders to return to the Academy, as well, and he consults his father’s journals in the night. There, Sefert finds him, and the two confer, Sefert working to reestablish their relationship. The next day sees him return to the Academy, where he finds Rory promoted and is briefed on how many matters have fallen out. Reporting into his new quarters, he notes the privileges that had been afforded to others and gets to work on his assigned duties. After Nevare reads the mail that has arrived for him, he is joined by Gord at the work.

To address the chapter-length issue: the present chapter, in the edition of the novel I’m rereading, runs 27 pages in length, approximately 4.58% of the novel–not quite a return to average. It might have been a nice touch to have the last chapter mimic the first, “Magic and Iron,” in heft; the symmetry would have been somehow satisfying. But such was not to be, it seems. Alas.

Also, for indexing purposes, the following: Bridge, Bringham Hall, Cader Captain Jaffers, Caleb, Captain Infal, Captain Maw, Car Stiet, Carsina Grenalter, Caulder Stiet, Colonel Rebin, Colonel Stiet, Corporal Dent, Council of Lords, Daraleen Burvelle, Dr. Jakib Amicas, Epiny Burvelle, Gord Lading, Hotorn Burvelle, Jaris, Kase Remwar, Keft Burvelle, King’s Cavalla Academy, Kort Braxan, Lieutenant Wurtram, Lord Grenalter, Mr. and Mrs. Spinrek Kester, Natred Verlaney, Nevare Burvelle, Old Thares, Ordo, Oron, Otter, Plague, Purissa Burvelle, Rory Hart, Sefert Burvelle, Sergeant Rufet, Sirlofty, Skeltzin Hall, Speck, Spinrek “Spink” Kester, Stone, Tiber, Tree Woman, Trist Wissom, Yaril Burvelle. For a final chapter, it seems a lot; given how much of it is a listing of the dead, it likely is not so.

The chapter makes an interesting insinuation about the value of study. In reporting events to Nevare, Epiny makes the comment that “there is talk around the Academy that if it does not take action to demonstrate that Academy-trained officers are superior to those who buy their positions, the existence of the Academy itself may be called into question. It is not a cheap institution to run” (557). Reading perhaps affectively again, I have to wonder about whether there is some backhanded comment about formal education to be found in the comment. In “5000 Words about Myself,” Hobb notes attending but not completing college; she also emphasizes the importance of experience in her writing. Taken together, the remarks open the possibility for such a comment, particularly amid prevailing discourses surrounding higher education and its costs; it may be something to follow further.

There is also an interesting comment made about succession (557-58). The plague inflicted substantial damage on the entrenched nobility in Old Thares, many lords and / or their designated heirs dying from the disease. In no few of those cases, younger sons are being promoted to heirship, and many of those so promoted are the priestly third sons rather than the primogeniture-suggested soldierly second sons. I find myself in mind of comments made in “Manifestations of Medieval Religion in Robin Hobb’s Elderlings Corpus” and in “Unchurched: On the Relative Lack of Religion in Tolkienan-Tradition Fantasy Literature”; I wonder how much might well be applicable to Gernia, despite its removal from the Realm of the Elderlings and its separation from Middle-earth and the more obvious followers of the same.

Caulder’s condition also prompts some interest (566-68). After apologizing to Nevare for his misdeeds regarding him and his cohort, the boy asks about what he witnessed in the liminal realm, growing upset at the thoughts he voices. When Nevare calls for help, he panics more, working to force himself to calm against the threat of being drugged. I have been told by a folklorist, long my friend and hopefully still despite the time that has passed, that many people who report spiritual experiences find themselves subjected to pharmaceutical interventions, not always willingly or happily. Given the parallels between Gernia and the nineteenth-century United States, I have to imagine that such interventions as are available are not at all pleasant; the hint of them given in the present chapter is only a hint, but it is a chilling one.

A small note, and in a line about which I have commented before (see “Classmates,” “Séance,” and “Crossing“): at one point in the present chapter, the Academy’s physician is referred to as “Dr. Amicus,” as opposed to the “Dr. Amicas” that has been the norm since his introduction in “Bessom Gord.” I bring it up not because I am immune to such typographical mistakes–far from it–and not because I expect paid copyeditors never to err–they, too, are human. But it is of interest, nonetheless; as a medievalist, I’ve been taught that such errors are ways to trace textual legacies. I do not have the apparatus to trace transmission for the work at this point, and the presence both of mass-production and resale markets frustrate what might otherwise be for such study, but I do wonder how others will respond to Hobb’s work as she acknowledges responding to Tolkien’s (albeit with divergences therefrom noted from time to time to time).

A smaller note: the present chapter reveals Rory’s surname of Hart. As with previous such revelations, I have updated my indexing to account for the new information.

A longer note: the fates of Nevare’s cohort (and others at the Academy) certainly deserve some attention. Nevare himself survives, if with some difficulty and decided changes to his appearance. Of his classmates, Nate, Oron, and Caleb die and are removed from further consideration outside memory. Trist and Spink survive, although similarly diminished; since they are, earlier in the novel, set up as foils for one another, it seems fitting that they share a similar outcome. (It must be noted that, as Spink had gotten the better of Trist via unconventional means in their earlier conflict, he seems to have gotten the better outcome between himself and Trist, and with the decidedly unconventional Epiny.) Gord seems to have fared as well as could be expected, returning to the Academy further along than he left it and unimpaired; again, his absence seems to have served him well. Rory seems to have fared best of Nevare’s cohort, being promoted.

Of Nevare’s instructors, both of his most challenging, Infal and Maw, succumbed to the plague, as did his unexpected ally, Sergeant Rufet; the passing of mentor figures is usually a trigger for character growth. That the deaths happen by disease and mostly out of narrative view,** as well as at the end of the novel, indicates that 1) the typical progress for Nevare’s growth is likely to be frustrated and 2) it will definitely happen in the novels to which I will turn my attentions next. The parallel of the two captains, however, seems to carry some significance. I don’t know what that is, at the moment, except for another scholarly someday towards which I can hope.

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* See “The Return” and “Tiber.”

** Nevare does see Rufet in the liminal realm dominated by Tree Woman, collapsing into a puddle Nevare’s alternative self consumed. But Nevare does not see the man die, as such.

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The penultimate chapter of Shaman’s Crossing, “Plague,” starts with Nevare commenting about the disjointedness of his recollection of experiencing the titular epidemic. He gives broken answers to medical questions not wholly understood and overhears conversations regarding his answers and those of others. The progress of the Speck plague in the Academy and in Old Thares is noted, and specific symptoms of the plague are attested.

As Nevare continues to endure the illness, he notes the rotating presence of members of his cohort in the sickbeds near his. He also dreams, somewhat lucidly, of Tree Woman and the workings of her magic. The vector through which the plague spreads is noted, as does the means by which the Dappled People make themselves immune to it, and Nevare raves in his continuing fever about the lies spoken about him. More dreams follow, many of which center on Nevare’s shames and fears or show him the progress of the Gernian dead to Tree Woman’s harvest.

Nevare wakes at one point to discussion of the continued plague. He wakes at another to overhear argument over how the dead are to be treated. And he finds himself dying at one point, joining the parade of Gernian souls across the bridge that he had erected (see “Crossing the Bridge”). He recoginzes a number of figures amid it, and he is beginning to cross, himself, and observes much before Tree Woman expels him back into his own body. He wakes, then, to find Epiny attending him, and she reports to him the events of Dark Evening from her perspective, including the break from her family that they prompted. She notes, too, that the Academy has remained the epicenter of the plague, still roiling with it even as the surrounding areas have largely cleared the disease.

As they confer, Nevare realizes the extent to which Epiny is bound to Spink, and Spink, lying nearby, begins to die. His death drags him towards the bridge, pulling Epiny along. Nevare follows, drawn back towards death by magic. And in the liminal world of the not-quite-dead, he fights against his alternate self and against the magics that ensnare him, his cousin, his friend, and others. With substantial effort, he manages to free first Caulder, then others in sequence, and he retrieves the weapon he had left behind years ago, using it to cut the bridge he had once built. Demanding that Tree Woman return Epiny and Spink to themselves, Nevare attacks her, wounding her, and she expels him from the liminal realm violently.

To address the chapter-length issue: the present chapter, in the edition of the novel I’m rereading, runs 30 pages in length, approximately 5.08% of the novel. Hobb’s back-loading is on full display in it; although the next-to-last chapter, it has a lot going on, resolving major points that call back to “Crossing the Bridge.” There is not so much structural symmetry going on as has been the case, but it is the case that asymmetry prompts a feeling of motion through works of art; the lack of symmetry is not a flaw.

Also, for indexing purposes, the following: Carsina Grenalter, Caulder Stiet, Colonel Stiet, Dappled People, Daraleen Burvelle, Dark Evening, Dewara, Dr. Jakib Amicas, Epiny Burvelle, Eron, Gernian, Gettys, Gord Lading, Keft Burvelle, Kidona, King’s Cavalla Academy, Natred Verlaney, Nevare Burvelle. Old Thares, Oron, Plague, Rory Hart, Scout, Sefert Burvelle, Sergeant Rufet, Speck, Spinrek “Spink” Kester, Swanneck, Tree Woman, Trist Wissom. There is in the present chapter a more intense focus on fewer characters and places; the greater intensity suggests greater narrative importance that the deep echo of events in the chapter and the narration itself bear out.

A note of interest: Nevare remarks that the alternate self of him Tree Woman has made “loved the [Dappled] People as I had never loved my own kind” (536). Throughout the novel, Nevare makes much of his perceived duties, although he often fails in their execution, both in their letter and in their spirit. He seems throughout to be seeking approval, an “attaboy” for fulfilling his expected role, and while that is not necessarily inexcusable in a youth, it is something that bespeaks a mismatch between his authentic self and the performative persona he seeks to display and to instantiate. That is, he is not the role for which Gernian society intends him (nor that for which Dewara or Tree Woman did), even if he wants to be the role. Maw’s repeated offer (see “Letters from Home” and “Crossing”) speaks to some awareness of others of that truth. In fits and starts, Nevare seems to be growing aware of that truth, himself. It is sensible enough; he is still becoming an adult, whatever his legal status may be, and such becoming is rarely linear or abrupt. There’s another scholarly someday in there, I’m sure.

The plague, as described, seems akin to typhoid or something similar (such as cholera, previously mentioned in regards to “Sword and Pen”).* The symptoms presented, as well as the rapid spread and the vector of infection–the dust of the Dust Dance is powdered feces–are suggestive of the comparison. Too, there are historical parallels to be found; the nineteenth-century United States that Gernia echoes had no few outbreaks of the disease, including notably in Chicago, and what I remember from history classes (with apologies that I cannot give more specific citation; it has been more than twenty years since I had a US history course) tells me that there were more casualties in the US Civil War caused by typhoid and similar diseases than by combat. As might be expected, the parallels are inexact. Gernia is not the United States, of course, and its history is not the history of the readers’ world. Too, the plague, while acting in some ways like observable diseases (including offering an innoculation after the manner of early vaccines), is clearly also enhanced by supernatural means. But it is rooted enough in known facts of the readers’ world that it rings of the verisimiltude Hobb reports prizing.

To shift: like others, I’ve pointed out some comparisons between Nevare and Fitz. For examples, see “Magic and Iron,” and “Journey,” as well as “Crossing the Bridge,” “Sword and Pen,” and “Carnival,” already linked above. Narrative perspectives and introduction, as well as narrative dislocations and disjunctions related to illness, injury, and immersion in magic all come to mind–along with a telling haircut at a similar point in the texts. The present chapter adds another parallel between them, imperfect as it is: like Fitz, Nevare dies and gets better. In the present chapter, owing to a combination of illness and the invocation of a familiar (borrowed**) magic, Nevare finds his sould separated from his body and following along with many others in similar straits, no few of whom are consumed by Tree Woman and her agent. This is not entirely dissimilar from what Fitz experiences at the end of Royal Assassin and the beginning of Assassin’s Quest, although, again, there are differences to be found–not least of which is the relative lack of depiction of an afterlife at that point.† The earlier occurrence for Nevare also bears attention; how the characters concerned address their relative experiences, continued rereading will make clear.

I look forward to doing it.

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* I note with some interest that the fact of plague comes up repeatedly in Hobb’s work. The Blood Plague reported in the Realm of the Elderlings novels comes to mind no less than the Speck plague of the current series–and there is nearly off-hand mention of a pox epidemic in living memory in the present chapter, as well. Again, I stumble into more scholarly somedays.

** The topic of the borrowed magic is broached in “Séance,” to some effect. Interaction with colonialist tropes and postcolonial criticism suggests itself as yet another scholarly someday to pursue, to the extent that Helen Young has not already done it.

† That lack, as well as the ways in which Hobb comes to address post-death experience (as witness “Sites of Memory in Robin Hobb’s Realm of the Elderlings,” “Smoke” in Assassin’s Fate, and others), informs my assertion during the discussion following a 2024 conference presentation (of which I make some remark here) that Hobb’s motion away from the Tolkienian tradition is a progression. Like most of us, she figures some things out as she goes along.

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Read the previous entry in the series here.
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The twenty-second chapter of Shaman’s Crossing, “Disgrace,” begins with Nevare feeling isolated. Having given up on attempting to find Spink and Epiny, he determines to accompany other cadets on illicit escapades if they are having them. He finds, however, a number of senior cadets urging Caulder to drink to excess, leaving him when he collapses; Nevare tends to the thoroughly drunk boy.

Nevare maneuvers Caulder through the crowds with difficulty, eventually encountering Dr. Amicas, who pays cab fare for the pair to return to the Academy and issues orders for Nevare to see to Caulder’s return home. The trip back to the Academy is unpleasant, with Caulder rebuking Nevare no less than do Colonel Stiet’s servants when Nevare delivers him home. Thus it is in a dark mood that Nevare returns to his dormitory to find it largely empty, and he dreams unpleasantly before falling into an erotic dream of Tree Woman.

Nevare starts awake from the dream, to his disgust, and finds himself surrounded by the suffering figures of his cohort. At length, he reports to the Academy mess hall, where Spink joins him, and the two confer about the previous night’s events. They are joined by yet others, but conversation soon dies down and the cadets return to their rooms. Sergeant Rufet finds Nevare in them and escorts him, under orders, to report to Colonel Stiet. The commandant berates him for his treatment of Caulder the night before, relying on his son’s false reports, and issuing him discharge papers. Nevare protests, to little avail.

Nevare also begins to fall ill and withdraws. Rufet, awaiting him, learns of the discharge and its origins and inveighs at length about them. He also bids Nevare to silence about the discharge as he returns the cadet to his quarters. There, Nevare struggles to make sense of things as illness breaks upon him. He learns he is not alone in his illness; the other members of his cohort present are similarly afflicted. He dozes and wakes to find Amicas in attendance on him; the physician asks him about what he had had to eat the night before and learns of the Dust Dance that the Specks had performed as Colonel Stiet demands treatment for Caulder. Amicas calls for a quarantine of the whole Academy, citing it as an outbreak of the Speck plague, and Nevare falls unconscious.

To address the chapter-length issue: the present chapter, in the edition of the novel I’m rereading, runs 21 pages in length, approximately 3.56% of the novel. It also seems to put Nevare into a particularly bad position, socially and physically, setting up matters more for future work than for the present novel, given that only two chapters remain. There is simply not enough space left in the text to do much of anything.

Also, for indexing purposes, the following: Captain Maw, Carneston House, Cates, Caulder Stiet, Cecile, Colonel Stiet, Dark Evening, Dr. Jakib Amicas, Dust Dance, Epiny Burvelle, Fort Gettys, General Scoren, Gord Lading, Great Square, Jaris, King’s Cavalla Academy, Kort Braxan, Lady Parra’s, Morray, Natred Verlaney, Nevare Burvelle, Old Thares, Ordo, Oron, Plague, Rory Hart, Scout, Sefert Burvelle, Sergeant Rufet, Specks, Spinrek “Spink” Kester, Tree Woman, Trist Wissom. Even so close to the end of the novel, there are new names to point out, even if only in passing; the glimpses of outside life deepen the impression of the milieu as a living thing in which stories can take place.

Less mechanically, the horror of the proposition of dishonorable discharge comes across in the present chapter. In the United States which Gernia echoes, such an action is an emphatically adverse one. For Hobb’s expected primary readership, presumably people in the United States in the early twenty-first century, such a discharge is a result of a trial and conviction for substantial crimes and is accompanied not only by prison time prior to discharge but also a loss of rights and privileges afterward. In Gernia, it seems worse yet, not only because it can seemingly be unilaterally assigned–Colonel Stiet issues the paperwork without Nevare having been availed of proceedings–but also because it represents a loss of identity. In Gernia, after all, social roles and professions are determined by birth (see “Harbinger” for details, among others). The discharge represents expulsion from that order; worse than being merely criminal, it makes the recipient something of an outlaw–in the older sense of being outside the law and its protections. Nevare is right to be emotionally battered by it, particularly since it is assigned to him based upon lies.

I note, too, and with some interest the repetition of the injunction to “be a man” in the chapter. Caulder and Nevare both hear it from others, and Nevare comments on at least one version of it with some derision. Given the gender politics at work in the novel (see “Magic and Iron,” “Letters from Home,” and “Séance” for notable examples; there are others), it seems overdue that manhood and its definitions come in for interrogation at all, even if the present chapter offers only a little of that kind of thing. Still, for all that the novel has made much of what women “ought to do” and questioning it, there is some good in seeing at least some asking after “what does it take to be a man?“

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Read the previous entry in the series here.
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The present chapter deals in a lot of racist tropes.

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The twenty-first chapter of Shaman’s Crossing, “Carnival,” opens as Nevare returns to his dormitory after his meeting with Captain Maw, feeling the impending dismissal. He determines to make a quiet night of Dark Evening, but a note from Spink tucked into his coat attracts his attention. Reading it, he finds that Spink and Epiny have arranged to meet, and he determines instead to rush off to such rescue of his cousin and his friend as he can effect.

A cart-ride later, Nevare is deposited into the filled streets of Old Thares, beleaguered by festival-goers of varying vulgarities and indulgences in the same. Shocked thereby and concerned at the thought of Epiny’s exposure to the same, Nevare’s search for his cousin continues, albeit without success.

Nevare does encounter several of his cohort at a collection of “FREAKS, GROTESQUES, AND WONDERS OF HUMANITY” (483). They greet him warmly and report that Spink had accompanied them but wandered off; Nevare is carried along with them through the collection. Details thereof are presented as Nevare sees them, and he finds himself facing a display of Specks who are described as they plead for tobacco. Nevare’s comrades engage the display, and Nevare’s hand weaves a strange sign as he recalls a dream. At the sign, the Specks confer briefly and determine to dance a particular dance, the Dust Dance. As they do, they spread a dust around themselves and onto the watching crowd.

Nevare urges his fellows to leave, and they tour the remainder of the collection. Separating from them, Nevare finds himself confronting a pair of massively corpulent people, Eron and Candy. Eron relates a strange story of having been affected by plague in such a way as made him so fat as he is, his military career cut short by Speck magic. He warns Nevare against the Barrier Mountains as the youth excuses himself, leaving off his mission to find Spink and Epiny and determining to return to his dormitory.

To address the chapter-length issue: the present chapter, in the edition of the novel I’m rereading, runs 22 pages in length, approximately 3.73% of the novel. The expected acceleration of events seems to be in place in the present chapter; Nevare’s motion through the titular carnival is somewhat disjointed* and hurried, and if it is not the case that there is a new narrative arc at work for the novel, itself, it does seem clear a major event takes place. Where the motion of the chapter slows and expands, that major event stands out. Given its position in the novel, it is one likely to be of substantial effect for the remainder of the series.

Also, for indexing purposes, the following: Barrier Mountains, Beggar, Caleb, Candy, Captain Maw, Carneston House, Caulder Stiet, Colonel Stiet, Dance of the Blowing Leaves, Dark Evening, Dust Dance, Epiny Burvelle, Eron, Far Entia, Gimpy, Great Square, Jaris, Jensen’s Horse, Juggling Hidaspi Brothers, King’s Cavalla Academy, Kort Braxan, Marrea, Natred Verlaney, Nevare Burvelle, Nightshades, Old Thares, Ordo, Oron, Plague, Potatoes, Princess, Rory Hart, Sergeant Rufet, Specks, Spinrek “Spink” Kester, Syinese, Tobacco, Tree Woman, Trent, Trist Wissom. A busy carnival might be expected to show many performers and participants.

A comment attracts attention: soon after entering the throng in Old Thares, Nevare is confronted by a woman dressed as a tray of fruit and remarks at her offer of tasting said fruit that “The peaches are large but they are surely well past their season” (480). It is a particularly good show of wit, especially from Nevare; indeed, it does not seem of a keeping with most of his other dialogue in the novel, both for its cleverness and its strange stiltedness. (I’d think contractions more in keeping, honestly.) In the event, the “peaches” on offer “were actually her powdered and painted breasts surrounded by wax fruit on a ledge of stiffened fabric,” shocking Nevare (481). I, myself, am put in mind of Mardi Gras festivities in New Orleans; when I attended them, I saw many breasts, painted and displayed abundantly. (Unlike Nevare, I did not rush away.) I am also put in mind of Christina Rosetti’s “Goblin Market,” although I note the gender inversion at work and the presumptive dearth of ill effects upon the taster in the present chapter. And I must note the mismatch from expectations: peaches are less often breasts than they are genitals (the divet and fuzziness making the connection clearer there), although the more common melons might well not play quite so well in the context.

Another comment attracts attention: viewing Eron and being addressed courteously by him, Nevare finds himself “suddenly uneasy to have the spectacle turn into a person” (495). While speaking to the kind of thing Metsäpelto discusses, at least obliquely (Eron is a spectacle because he is corpulent), it is more telling as an indicator of Nevare’s–and Gernia’s prevailing–social attitudes. Repeatedly in the text, when Nevare is obliged to reconsider his assumptions, he expresses discomfort; Eron, being presented initially as an object to be viewed for entertainment, forces such a reconsideration by speaking to him politely and in the kind of militaristic terms Nevare has been trained from infancy to understand and to regard favorably. That is, he makes himself someone that Nevare cannot blithely disregard. The power of dehumanization suggests itself emphatically in the exchange–along with the several other things the exchange does, about which the continuing reread will doubtlessly comment.

That Gernia is racist is clear at least as early as “Harbinger.” A number of the succeeding chapters reinscribe that racism, directly and tacitly. The present chapter fairly strikes the reader over the head with it; the ways in which non-Gernian characters are depicted echo, decidedly uncomfortably closely, caricaturish stereotypical presentations of non-white races and ethnicities in all too many places, both formerly and presently. They are called subhuman, savage, unintelligent, animalistic, lust-inducing, all pejoratives applied to colonized, subjgated, often enslaved populations (about which Young comments); Nevare’s complicity in those presentations argues against him being a sympathetic character, and if he is the agent through which the Dappled People work to stop Gernia’s expansion, it is also the case that Gernia seems worth stopping. And while it is not necessarily the case that a protagonist always hold or adopt positions with which a reader must agree, the bluntness of the confrontation in the present chapter is, in a word, stunning.

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* For disjointedness in Nevare’s experience, “Crossing the Bridge” is a useful reference. That the earlier chapter is the fourth of, and the present chapter leaves four in, the novel seems an interesting bit of near-symmetry. And I am put in mind of any of the several iterations of Fitz’s disjointedness throughout the Farseer novels, as well.

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