Tuesday, November 08, 2011

ALANNA: THE FIRST ADVENTURE: CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER TWO: THE NEW PAGE, OR, IN WHICH WE MEET THAT THIEF GUY AGAIN, LEARN ABOUT THE TORTALLAN CRIMINAL UNDERWORLD, AND FIND OUT THAT SCHOOL IS REALLY HARD, YOU GUYS

Alright, so we open with a description of Duke Gareth of Naxen, the page training master.  He is said to be “tall and thin, with dull brown hair that fell into his muddy brown eyes.”  He also has a “thin and nasal” voice.  So basically he is Duke Steve of Urkel, but grosser to look at.  He eyeballs Alanna for a while and says he hopes that she will do better at the whole knighthood thing than her father did, because he was always reading books and being unenthusiastic about killing people with pointed sticks.   He eyeballs Coram as well, but in a friendlier way.  Apparently Coram saved his life way back when he was a soldier in a place called Joyous Forest.  Since “Joyous Forest” sounds kind of like the name of an Ibizan discotheque, I have to assume they are speaking in code about their doomed gay romance from many years before.  (He saved his life… AND STOLE HIS HEART.)

There is some brief exposition about the road to knighthood: four years as a page in general training and service at the Palace, another four as a squire serving an older nobleman, an hour in the mysterious Chamber of the Ordeal which may or may not kill you, and then hooray you’re a knight, unless you are dead.  Duke Gareth apparently lost a finger in the Chamber.  He shows Alanna this and then is like “but don’t waste time thinking about it now, you’ve got eight years to go.”  Yes, and now she is going to spend those eight years thinking about it because you just showed her your mutilated hand, numbnuts.  That’s like telling a pregnant woman about your last child being born sideways while tapdancing and then telling her not to worry because her baby won’t be born for nine months.

Anyway, Alanna is fitted for a page’s uniform and shown her quarters, then goes down to the Great Hall.  She is almost immediately pounced on by an older boy with bad teeth and nineties boy band hair named Ralon of Malven.  He starts picking on her for no immediately evident reason other than she maybe looks like she’s from the country.  (Please keep in mind that she’s in uniform at this point.  Does she have hay in her hair or something?)  Alanna headbutts him for his impudence and he’s about to retaliate when five approaching pages with distinguishing features stop him: Prince Jonathan (distinguishing feature: is a prince), the younger Gareth of Naxen, known as Gary (distinguishing feature: tall, brown eyes), Raoul of Goldenlake (distinguishing feature: tall, black eyes), Alex of Tirragen (distinguishing feature: dark, skinny), and Francis of Nond (distinguishing feature: none).  I love that at this point Pierce clearly didn’t give a shit about making up fantasy names- I keep waiting for a Dave or a Gordon to show up.  They shoo Ralon away and adopt Alanna as their own, even though she is ten and the rest of them are teenagers.

Oh, also: Jonathan is very, very handsome.  Bet that won’t be important later in the series.

Alanna’s all psyched about her first day and how she didn’t get her ass totally creamed by a goddamn Malven when BOOM, the next day comes and she has to actually go to class.  This is where my memory of Alanna fails me- in my mind she’s this stone cold badass who takes whatever comes at her without flinching, but in actuality she is kind of a whiny tool who flinches all the goddamn time.  She has to WORK and it’s so HARD and they expect her to LEARN STUFF and NOT WHEN SHE WANTS TO LEARN STUFF and WHY CAN’T I HAVE A SWORD NOW JEEZ I’M TEN WHAT ARE WE WAITING FOR HERE WHY I GOTTA KNOW ABOUT MATH AND SHIT THAT’S DULL AS BALLS.  The only time she sits down and calms her tits is when she goes to her history class, taught by Sir Myles of Olau, intellectual, Court drunk, and the only person in the entire realm who ever questions chivalry.  She’s even snippy about her combat training, despite the fact that SHE CAME TO COURT TO BE A KNIGHT.  By the second day she has a mental breakdown and tells Coram to pack his things ‘cause she’s taking her toys and LEAVING.  Coram’s all “you’re here to learn discipline, bro, put on your big boy hose and deal with it,” but Alanna is having none of it.  She did not sign up for doing anything other than exactly what she wants to do when and how she wants to do it, dammit.  Coram- who I now appreciate in a way I never did as a preteen- just rolls his eyes and makes little comments about running away and cowardice, which shame her into changing her mind.  Coram is a genius and a saint.  I probably would have slapped her across the head and been like HOMEWORK HAPPENS, KID, GET USED TO IT.

Anyway.  She stays, she works, she basically forgets about ever wanting to leave, and she stays friends with the Prince’s posse, as well as becoming close with Myles of Olau.  Part of what makes them close is that she is the one who helps him back to his room when he’s had too much to drink.  Presumably she has gained experience through making Coram do stuff.  Three months go by and she is called into Duke Gareth’s study.  He tells her that she’s doing well and will be given a day off to go into the city.  (One of many ways in which Tortall pages fare better than actual medieval pages: they get field trips!)  Alanna takes Gary into the city with her and they are accosted by the bro with the beak who Coram called a thief three months earlier.  He introduces himself as George Cooper, which is such a Dave name I can’t even, and invites them to an inn called the Dancing Dove for drinks.  Eleven-year-old drinks.  George is described as being tall with brown hair, and only handsome when he smiles.  Tamora Pierce apparently always imagined him as a young Jeff Daniels, but now, reading the series over, I picture him as Matt Smith, sans bowtie:



This man will steal everything you own.

George tells Alanna that he noticed her when she first arrived in Corus, and that he’s been keeping an eye out for her because he “like[s] her looks,” and that because he has the Sight he tries to pay attention to random children he notices in the street.  Gary is suspicious and asks if he always makes friends on such short notice, and George replies that in his line of work you need to learn to trust your instincts.  Gay’s like “AHA YOU ARE A THIEF” and George is like “LOL NO I AM THE KING OF THIEVES YOU DOOF.”  Because it is totally safe to tell the noble teenager you just met that you are the King of Thieves, in addition to your real name.  George goes on to explain that as the King of Thieves- sometimes also known as the Master of the Court of the Rogue, often simply “the Rogue”- he defeated the last King of Thieves in single combat and will probably be challenged at some point in the future by another, younger thief looking to become King.  For whatever reason this makes Gary like him, and they agree to be friends.  Alanna is too busy freaking out internally about George having the Gift because WHAT IF HE KNOWS SHE’S NOT A DUDE, but then she conveniently remembers that having the Gift shields you from the Sight.  So she stops freaking out, although she should really be freaking out about the fact that she is a rich kid with no weapons in a thieves’ den.  That is a scenario that ends with you in a ditch somewhere, kid.

A few weeks later Alanna is called out of math class (ooooh) to Duke Gareth’s study.  This time she isn’t getting a fun trip to the wrong side of the tracks; instead, the Duke shows her a letter from her father, in which he says that he trusts “Thom” will continue to do well.  Alanna’s got this, though, and smoothly explains that since her dad is the worst dad ever he’s never been able to tell her and Thom apart, and he probably can’t remember which one went to Corus and which one went to the convent.  Duke Gareth seems genuinely bummed by this, which is understandable- what can you really say to a kid whose father can’t even remember who he is?  Alanna is also bummed, which is less understandable since she has presumably had many years to get used to having the worst dad ever.

Will Ralon of Malven raise his boyband head again?  Why does George offer strange children alcohol?  Will Alanna’s dada ever give a shit?  Of course he won’t.  Tune in next time for CHAPTER THREE: RALON, OR, IN WHICH BULLYING IS FOUND TO BE WRONG, JONATHAN IS AMBIGUOUSLY GAY, AND ALANNA FALLS DOWN A LOT.

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