FUN WITH COVERS: IN THE HAND OF THE GODDESS

I love that the Random House covers always tried to make Alanna a little ~sexay, even though she's supposed to be passing as a dude.  Here they do this by adding eye shadow, a leather mini skirt, and what seem to be orange water wings.  Hot.

Psycho!Alanna appears again and knows exactly what you just said about her.  Just back away, kids.  Back slowwwwly away.

 I have nothing bad to say about this cover, shockingly enough.  It's simple but well-done, the colours and fonts work well, and the whole piece has a tense, expectant feel that makes the book seem a lot more exciting than it ultimately proves to be.  I also really enjoy that Alanna's gripping the ember-stone.  It's a nice detail.  A+, whoever made this.

AND THEN THERE'S THIS.  Alanna is dressed for Jazzercise and fighting a dude who I think is supposed to be Roger.  (Remember that climactic fight they had in his workroom?  No?  Me neither.)  She seems to have either a mullet or a single poorly-placed pigtail.  Also, check that tagline!  "She would fight to the death to save her prince!"  That is what these books are actually about, everyone: sacrificing yourself for your man.

Ghostly lady hands seem to be a recurring motif in these covers.  Alanna looks like an anguished homosexual gentleman from the fifties.

And, finally, the most recent cover.  Alanna is once again striking a sexy teen pose, while Moonlight has clearly decided that brunettes have more fun.

FUN WITH COVERS: ALANNA: THE FIRST ADVENTURE

Alanna appears to be in the Colusseum.  Her shirt reminds me of the part of Anne of Green Gables where Anne gets near-homicidal over those goddamn puffed sleeves.

One of the special edition covers.  My favourite thing about this one is Alanna's hat, not only because it makes her look like Allan a Dale but because the button has an 'a' on it.  You know, just in case she forgets her name.

Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn defeat the Ysandir, keep frogs in their pockets.

This... well, this is one of the most unsettling things I've seen in a long time.  Alanna looks like a cross between Billy Corgan with pink eye and one of the Children of the Damned.  Does she lack the capacity to love?  Will this kid send you to the cornfield if you think bad thoughts?  Do we really want to give her access to weapons???

In which Alanna and Jon both look like Swedish lesbians.

 I love this one because it feels like the artist just kind of gave up.  "So this is a book about a magical crossdressing chick with purple eyes who fights demons?  What is the least ridiculous thing I can- you know what?  Fuck it.  I'll draw a sword."

This is either a legit French cover or some bullshit someone made on the Internet.  Due to the art style, it looks less like a book and more like Final Fantasy XXVVVIII: Here's A Goddamn Castle.

 Again, this is the cover currently gracing my local book store.  Note the blingee font again, and the fact that they tried to sex up a probably-eleven-year-old Alanna.  Sadly MIA: capsleeves, love triangle.

FUN WITH COVERS: THE WOMAN WHO RIDES LIKE A MAN

(Because Elliott is chronically unable to adhere to deadlines and feels intensely guilty about it, welcome to a brand new feature of Song of the Daffodil: Fun With Covers!)

This was the cover I grew up with, and honestly, from a purely nostalgic standpoint, I think it still looks awesome.  From a standpoint of a person who has eyes and uses them for seeing, I think that little yellow marquee makes it look as though The Woman Who Rides Like A Man is a new Broadway musical featuring songs by Elton John.

A more recent reprint, in which Farrah Fawcett waves are apparently the biggest trend to hit the Great Southern Desert.

An older cover in which everything looks very Lawrence of Arabia and Moonlight seems to have gone for a dye job.

Yet another old one.  Faithful is the size of a large dog, and Moonlight has once again been to the salon.  So has Alanna, judging by her mom hair.  Dude in the background is like, "Comb that shit out and reset it, girl."

Alanna just got back from a Barbarella audition, for which she borrowed Moonlight's leg warmers.  Not pictured: Faithful.  Definitely pictured: Hilarity.

 This is the edition currently for sale at the local bookstore, and every time I see it I start cackling gleefully.  Alanna has capsleeves and wears low-rise jeans!  The ember-stone is a pretty green necklace!  Jon and George are doing their best Edward and Jacob impressions in the background!  And the text looks like someone tried to make a blingee and the screen froze.  Favourite cover of all time.

THE WOMAN WHO RIDES LIKE A MAN, CHAPTER ONE: THE WOMAN WHO RIDES LIKE A MAN, OR, A TITLE THAT NEVER FAILS TO MAKE ME SNICKER LIKE A TWELVE-YEAR-OLD BOY

Who remembers The Horse and His Boy, that Narnia book that was set in the desert empire of Calormene?  The one about a Northern-born orphan who turned out to be a long-lost prince?  Man, that was my favourite book when I was a kid.  Then I grew up and realized that it was about how a bunch of nice rich white people are threatened by the mean, evil, Satan-worshipping brown people in the south (except for Aravis, and she’s only okay because she leaves Calormene and accepts Aslan into her heart, and by the way Aslan is Jesus for those of you who slept through that lecture).  And, well, I realized it was no longer my favourite.  

As an adult, I think I can say with confidence that The Woman Who Rides Like a Man is pretty racist.  It is not as bad as The Horse and His Boy because damn, Satan-worshipping, hard to top that.  But it is still pretty racist, and the depiction of the Bazhir is pretty cringe-worthy, and I think that recapping this is gonna be a long, awkward, potentially infuriating ride for all of us.  Let’s try to power through it.  Lioness Rampant is coming next, we all like that one, right?

At the end of In the Hand of the Goddess, Alanna and Coram were leaving Corus to bum around the Great Southern Desert, because Alanna is in fact that kid you knew in university who went to Europe for a year after graduating to “find herself.”   Months later, Alanna and Coram are still bumming around the Great Southern Desert.  Apparently she hasn’t found herself yet.  What she has found: raiders!  A bunch of hillmen (presumably dudes who live in the hills? it doesn’t really elaborate) are charging all up in their business, and Alanna and Coram need to fight them.  Worst vacation ever.

There is fighting, and Alanna gets into it with this one bulky dude with a weird-looking crystal sword.  Amidst the kerfuffle, he uses said sword to break Lightning, and Alanna just loses her shit and goes after him with an axe.  Luckily a few Bazhir riders show up at that very moment to shoot the hillmen, because that fight was getting boring.  Alanna looks at the crystal sword and has a vision of a pole and a crazy bro shouting nonsense.  So apparently she is still having visions sometimes.  Good to know.  She grabs the ember-stone and realizes that the crystal sword is full of orange fire.  She picks up Lightning, which is in two pieces, and turns to face the Bazhir.

The headman, a gentleman by the name of Halef Seif, tells her that they are of the tribe the Bloody Hawk and that she and Coram are trespassing.  Alanna tries to do the “in the name of the King” thing, but the Bloody Hawk are one of the (many) Bazhir tribes that do not recognize the King’s authority so it doesn’t really work.  He then says that he cannot think well of a king who is so weak that he uses women as warriors, and it all looks like it’s going to end in very bad things when one of the other riders recognizes her.

“She is the one!” he exclaimed.  “Halef, she is the Burning-Brightly One!”
“Speak on, Gammal,” Halef ordered.
The huge warrior was bowing as low to Alanna as his saddle would permit.  “Would you remember me?” he asked hopefully. “I was at the smallest west gate in the stone village that northerners call Persopolis.  It was six rainy seasons ago.  Your master, the Blue-Eyed One, bought my silence with a gold coin.”
Remembering, Alanna grinned.  “Of course!  And you spat on the coin and bit it.”
The big man looked at his chief.  “She is the one!  She came with the Blue-Eyed Prince, the Night One, and they freed us from the Black City!”

I am posting this exchange not only to illustrate how Alanna manages to avoid being summarily executed, but so y’all can see how cringe-worthy the Bazhir’s dialogue is.  They all sound like a mixture of Arabian Nights outtakes and Tonto.  Yeesh.

The Bloody Hawk shaman, a brosef named Akhnan Ibn Nazzir, objects, saying that the Night One and the Burning-Brightly One were taken into the sky in a chariot of fire.  Gamal objects, they start fighting, and Coram is really, really over it.  Halef Seif tells Alanna that she is welcome to stay with the Bloody Hawk for the night, and she accepts, because if she doesn’t she will likely get shot.

Alanna and Coram are taken to a guest tent and served by three young members of the tribe, Kara, Kourrem, and Ishak.  They are psyched about Alanna’s eyes and cat and general novelty, but also say that Akhnan Ibn Nazzir is sure that she will corrupt them.  Alanna and Coram can both tell that the shaman is going to make trouble for them; Alanna, ever the pragmatist, decides to take a nap until such time as she can do something about it.

When she wakes up, it’s nearly evening, and the village is oddly still.  Ishak, who is still kicking around, says that all of the adults in the tribe are communing with the Voice (on which more later).  He also asks if Alanna is a sorceress, saying that he himself has the Gift and wants to be trained.  Alanna, still a little freaked by the whole recent evil duke/magic doll/duel to the death thing, tells him that she knows “nothing of magic” and that the Gift “leads only to pain and death.”  She gets dressed in her fancy going-out chainmail while Faithful tells her that while she napped the shaman asked the three young people what she had of value.

She joins the Bloody Hawk at the fire, at which point Halef Seif says that there are two opinions as to what should be done with her: half of the tribe says she should be put to death for being Northern and uppity, while the other says she should be welcomed as a sacred guest.  Seif himself opines that she should be invited to single combat to prove herself.  The debate goes back and forth, with Alanna feeling impressed by the Bazhir’s dedication to free speech and expression.  They mention the mysterious Voice again, and Alanna’s as confused about it as Mark Wahlberg is by, like, the world.

Unsurprisingly, Akhnan Ibn Nazzir sides with the people saying she should be put to death.  He later switches to side with those who believe she should be tried in combat, saying that the gods will honour whoever kills her.  Alanna calls him on this and on his interest in her possessions, prompting Halef Seif to admit that one third of what she owns would go to the shaman in the event of her death.

They eventually vote on the issue, and single combat wins out.

Will Alanna win the respect of the Bloody Hawk?  What’s the deal with the orange fire and the crystal sword, that’s a Roger thing, right?  Why wasn’t this recap funny, are you sick or something? (Answer: yes.)  Find out next time in CHAPTER TWO: THE BLOODY HAWK, OR, ALANNA FIGHTS A DUDE, HAS A SWORD-RELATED TEMPER TANTRUM, AND MEETS AN OLD FRIEND.

IN THE HAND OF THE GODDESS, CHAPTER TEN: TO DUEL THE SORCEROR, OR, FFS IS ROGER DEAD YET?

Alright, so Alanna’s got her special holographic shield and everyone is feasting and carousing and it’s very special.  (Also, apparently the celebratory banquet is, in fact, a part of the Midwinter Festival.  Still doesn’t explain where Alanna’s yearmates went, but I’ll take it.)  She is enjoying her new status as a not-dead chick-knight when she notices that Queen Lianne is looking mighty ill.

Pictured above: The first thing that came up when I Googled “sick queen.”  Imagine that Lianne is that dragon-goat thing in the bed.  Alanna can be the narwhal.

Alanna grabs onto the emberstone, and sure enough, the Queen is glowing orange.  And—this is big, so make sure you’re sitting down and not drinking anything—she decides to actually do something about it.

She waits until the feast is in full swing (TPierce’s verbatim narration there) and then sneaks out to Roger’s chambers, using a cunning combination of magic and lockpicks to break in.  Sure enough, in his workroom she finds a wax replica of the Queen chillin’ in a fountain, the water gradually wearing her away.  The Duke apparently taught the pages ages ago that you can use dolls like that in works of sympathetic magic, include magically-induced illnesses (hence why the Queen never got better from the Sweating Sickness—she was in the fountain the whole time).  Alanna also finds a bag of replicas of herself, Jonathan, the King, Duke Gareth, Myles, and the Lord Provost, all wrapped in a veil.  The veil is apparently a magical thing that kept everyone inside it from seeing what Roger really is, which… okay, I guess that partially explains Alanna’s annoying “I have no proof” thing when the proof is literally about to gore her to death in the woods.  In an unheard-of act of actual sense-making, Alanna remembers to take the dolls with her before she gallops back to the Great Hall to yell treason.  Girl is making logical decisions, what even am I reading.

The first thing she does when she gets in front of the King is tell him that she broke into a man’s chambers.  The second thing she does is show him the dolls.  Roger, naturally, is very rageful and blustery and accuses Alanna of making the dolls herself, to which she replies, “Pssh, naw.”  He then challenges her to single combat, and all the readers rejoice because they are totally fucking sick of this conflict at this point.

Before she goes down to do her Inigo Montoya routine, Alanna has a tete-a-tete with Jonathan, Myles, Coram, and Thom.  (George shows up after a few minutes, too, because of course he does, the creep.)  Myles for some reason asks why she suspected Roger.  Seriously, dude?  She was discussing how much she hated him with you like two chapters ago.  Jonathan is equally nonplussed.  Come ON, guys, she talked to both of you!  A lot!  Alanna decides that this is the perfect moment to tell Myles that she’s not a dude, because she may be dead in less than an hour.  Myles is like “shyeah, duh, please don’t get stabbed in the throat.”  Myles for President forever.  Everyone leaves but Alanna and Jon, and they have a romantic moment that—shockingly—does not make me want to punch anyone in the face.

Alanna looked at Jon and went into his arms, hugging him tightly.
“I’m sorry, she whispered, fighting back tears.  “I know you love him; but I couldn’t let it go on.  He was killing your mother.”
Jonathan held her close.  “I love you more.”  His voice was breaking.  “Don’t let him kill you.”
Alanna shook her head.  “I don’t plan to.  Believe me, I don’t.”

No one is being an asshole here, it’s great.  Although I feel the need to point out once again that that semi-colon does not go there.

They go down to the Great Throne Room, where Roger is basically baying for blood and everyone else looks kind of awkward and uncomfortable.  (Except the Queen, who is as previously established a bedridden dragon-goat.)  As Alanna gets ready for combat, she realizes that even if she loses, she’s won, because people are throwing Roger some serious shade, and even if he kills her—thus proving himself innocent, according to the bizarre Tortallan legal system—they will never see the Duke in the same way again

Right, so there’s swordfighting, which is generally as dull to read about as it is exciting to see in a movie.  There’s a lot of parrying and lunging and stepping back and the basic gist of everything is Roger thinks Alanna is going to be really rash and overconfident and starts getting pissy when she isn’t.  Then he uses an illusion to make her think he suddenly has two swords, which is a foul (as evidenced by Thom screaming “foul!” like he’s at a goddamn soccer match).  Alanna remembers she has a magic-seeing necklace—that’s twice in one chapter she’s remembered that! Fancy!—and she figures out which sword is real after a second, but not before Roger has overpowered her and started forcing her to the floor.  She rolls away and keeps a hand on the emberstone, the better to make sure she knows which hand he’s actually using, and goes in for the kill while he’s switching hands.  Alanna gets first blood, but the Duke strikes back, and ends up slicing through Alanna’s tunic, shirt, and the special corset she uses to bind her chest.

Pictured above: the Tortallan Court.

The King halts the stick-waving because WHAT THE HELL BOOBS.  Thom starts to explain while Alanna fixes her shirt so the duel doesn’t become Girls Gone Wild: Corus Beach.  When she’s done the King asks her what she has to say for herself.  Alanna replies that she never wanted to lie to him, but she wanted to win her shield even more, and she does not regret what she did.  It’s a really great moment which is, of course, ruined by Roger freaking the fuck out.

He calls her a demon and starts trying to stab her.  She parries, cutting off a lock of his hair in the process.  He retaliates by immersing himself in a giant orange cloud.

Pictured above: Death.  I’m not saying it’s not effective, I’m just saying it lacks poetry.

Alanna, never one to let a gigantic orange doom-cloud stop her, uses Lightning to slice open the cloud and stab him twice.  And that’s how Roger of Conte dies.  The end.

… aaand just when you think the book is over we have an EPILOGUE!  Alanna and Coram are getting ready to ride into the southern desert to do some heroing.  Everyone is clustered around to say goodbye like they’re at the goddamn airport.  Gary tells her that she doesn’t need to leave just because she killed a measly ol’ Duke, and Alanna says that she needs to find herself and that she’ll come back once she’s done so.  Raoul says that she sould stay because he feels like he doesn’t know “Sir Alanna” at all, to which she replies that “Sir Alanna” is just Alan with the truth being told, which is sort of lovely and perfect.  George tells her to remember the theives’s signs he taught her, presumably with a subtext of “if you don’t I’ll totally drug you.”  They all then leave Alanna alone to say goodbye to Jonathan, because apparently they are the worst kept secret in the whole gd realm.  They kiss, she promises (again) to come back, and then Jonathan watches them ride away.  Alanna thinks about the road to knighthood, the duel with Roger, and the possibility of future happiness for herself.  It is a very solemn, weighty moment.  And then she ruins it by being a dork.

She let out a whoop of sheer exuberance and kicked Moonlight into a gallop.  “C’mon, Coram!” she cried, galloping past him.  “Let’s go find an adventure!”

Pictured above: Adventurers.

So how does the whole knighthood thing go for Alanna?  Will George do the creep at her even while she’s in the desert?  How awkward is it going to be to reread this next one as an adult with some basic understanding of race relations, honestly?  Find out next time when we start THE WOMAN WHO RIDES LIKE A MAN!

(lol, rides)

IN THE HAND OF THE GODDESS, CHAPTER NINE: THE ORDEAL, OR, ALANNA GOES INTO A LITTLE ROOM, BECOMES A KNIGHT, AND SAY! THAT’S THE TITLE OF THIS SERIES!

Yo, bros, I am the worst blogger.  The worst of all.  Here is a picture of an adorable baby platypus to demonstrate my contrition.

Know what baby platypi are called?  Puggles.  Aw yeah, you forgive me now.

So remember last time (lo those many months ago) when Jon told Alanna that she should tell Gary that she is a girl?  Alanna has decided that the best way to do this is to just blurt it out on horseback in the middle of the woods.  I generally try to do the gender-related personal revelation thing over a nice glass of wine, but horses and trees is good too.  She is clearly bracing herself for an over-the-top violent reaction, which makes me have all the feelings because damn this could be any trans kid coming out to their bff, you know?  Gary’s reaction:

“That’s not funny!”

Oh, Gary.  Never change.

Once Alanna has answered all of his awkward questions (including the inevitable “where are your tits, man?”), Gary proves himself wrong and starts cackling dementedly about how shocked everyone is going to be about Alanna’s vagina situation.  Jon proves himself a douchebag once again by getting jealous over her and Gary’s newfound closeness.  To the MOON, Jon.

Time passes weirdly quickly, as it does in these early books, and Alanna spends a lot of it worrying about the Ordeal.  When she is not worrying about that she is worrying about what will happen if she survives it.  Her current plan is to tell everyone she’s a chick and then split as fast as she can.  She tells Myles this (omitting the chick part even though he clearly already knows), and he gives her one of his patented “we all love you, dumbass, deal with it” peptalks with hug function enabled.  She says she loves him too and it’s all super emotional.

Alanna is still worrying the day before her Ordeal, when she goes to visit George.  He watches her fret for a bit and tells her (quite rightly) that she won’t be able to stay up for her Ordeal if she wears herself out with all her pacing and hand-wringing.  He then proceeds to (quite fucking wrongly) drug her fucking brandy so she falls asleep.  Faithful, the worst fucking familiar in the whole goddamn world, laughs and tells George to cover her so she doesn’t get cold.

So what we’ve learned from George and Alanna’s relationship so far: true love is when you get all up in someone’s personal space, force-kiss them a few times, and then drug them immediately before one of the most important days of their life.  Stay tuned for his new self-help book, He Is Totally That Into You And Will Tell You About It At Great Length No Matter How Uncomfortable It Makes You And Also Let Me Smell Your Neck (Wait, Where Are You Going?).

After the drugs wear off, it’s time for the Ordeal.  Alanna dresses in white and goes to have a special pre-knighthood-or-possibly-death ice cold bath in the temple of Mithros.  (Fun fact: this is taken from actual medieval knighthood rituals, although they generally spent the rest of the night praying over their armour rather than seeing crazy visions in a locked room that wanted to kill them.) Gary and Jon chill in the next room, both trying hard not to think of the boobs that are just a few feet away.  They then instruct her in the Code of Chivalry, which is all about being a helper helping the helpless.

Then they settle in together for a long winter’s meditation.  Instead of praying, Alanna spends some time silently angsting about the same crap she’s been angsting about all book.  What if all my friends hate me when they find out that I’m a girl?  Does Jonathan really love me or am I just super convenient because I am the only chick in the Palace whose rooms are connected to his?  How do I stop Duke Roger from killing, like, everyone I know?  Et cetera and so forth.

After what feels like forever it is finally time for her to be locked in the Chamber of the Ordeal and start trippin’ balls.

Like this, but less Samuel L. Jackson.

She is in there for all of ten seconds—it’s a super boring room, by the by, definitely not a must-see—when the Ordeal starts with its first, deadliest weapon: cold wind.  Alanna actually starts freaking out because ewww the coldddddd but, luckily, does not scream (because if you scream in the Chamber you’ll be dishonoured or drawn and quartered or something).  When a bit of a draft does not draw a squeak out of our stalwart heroine, the Chamber responds with a few of its more potent weapons, such as voices, very large spiders, and the ocean., to no avail.  Finally it shows her the most frightening thing of all: some weird glowing moving wall tapestry thing showing Roger stealing a symbolic crown from a symbolically dead Jonathan.  Alanna freaks out again at that one and tries to rip it off, ripping half the skin off her hands.  She still doesn’t scream, though, so she wins at being a knight and gets to leave the Chamber.

Man, honestly, the spider would have been it for me.  I don’t give two fucks about any chivalry if you start throwing giant spiders all up at me.

After she is let out of the Chamber she gets to take a nap before her knighting proper, where Thom presents her with a shield bearing the Trebond arms, a black tower on a red field.  Everybody cheers because Alanna is very special and everyone loves her.  Before the celebratory banquet later (which is apparently only in her honour- didn’t she have yearmates at one point? Did everyone else start screaming in the Chamber and get disqualified or something and nobody bothered to mention it? EVERYONE LOVES ALANNA BEST, W/E), Thom shows her in private that it is a magical hologram shield- one minute it is a boring ol’ Trebond shield, the next a bitchin’ golden lioness.  Hence the series name.  You so clever, TPierce.  Thom says it’s for when she reveals who she really is to the Court.  I, personally, would have gone with something a little more direct.

Will Alanna’s boobs ruin everything?  Was that ominous tapestry an omen or was the Chamber just being a dick?  Seriously, what the hell happened to Alanna’s yearmates, did they all die?  Find out next time in CHAPTER TEN: TO DUEL THE SORCEROR, OR, FFS IS ROGER DEAD YET?

IN THE HAND OF THE GODDESS, CHAPTER EIGHT: FEARS, OR, ALANNA NEARLY DIES AGAIN, A ROAD TRIP HAPPENS, AND GEORGE GETS SHOT HOLY GODDAMN

The whole rest of the spring, summer, and fall pass in the space of a single paragraph, presumably because TPierce also anti-ships Alanna/Jon and can’t stand to write too much of that shit.  Alanna spends the summer shopping, chillaxing with Myles, and boning Jon.  The paragraph actually says “at night, Jonathan taught her about loving,” which:

Delia apparently shares my feelings, as the next scene opens up with her ranting to the Duke about how Jonathan never shows up to stick it in her anymore.  The Duke tells her not to worry because he has other plans, and also strokes her hair and calls her “pretty one.”  So I guess Roger’s sleeping with her too.  The Contes: they keep it in the family.

In October another sickness happens, and the Queen falls ill once again.  Damn, Roger, you are a one trick pony.  Alanna, for once, notices that shit’s suspicious and asks Myles about it, pointing out that the best healers in the kingdom are in the Palace and hey, shouldn’t they be able to help the Queen not catch a deadly disease every few years?  And hey, remember how the Sweating Sickness might have been caused by a sorcerer?  How about that, huh?  Myles hears her out and tells her not to make accusations, as it’s too dangerous, but says it in a way that makes Alanna realize he feels her feels.  She takes this as her cue to accuse the fuck out of him, because Alanna of Trebond is a fantastic listener.  Myles tells her that she has no proof—which, dude, haven’t you been saying that ALL ALONG, Alanna?—and asks if she hates the Duke.  She responds with the Tortallan version of “duh, bro.”

In an unrelated incident, that winter she nearly drowns because someone salts the ice of a pond she’s skating on.  NO PROOF.

Her little swim under the ice spurs her into action, and she goes up north to the City of the Gods to visit Thom.  (She initially just wrote him some letters, as per usual, but her messengers were ~mysteriously killed, go fig.)  George comes along, not because she invited him or wants him with her, but because he shows up at the gate and won’t take no for an answer.  La la la, everyone who wants to bone Alanna is gross and awful, the end.  On the way up they stop in at Trebond to visit Coram, who’s planning to come down to the Palace when Alanna has her Ordeal.  Because that’s still a thing, btw!  The Ordeal is still gonna happen and Alanna is still super worried about it.  You can tell by the way she hasn’t mentioned it at all for the whole friggin’ book.

They get to the City of the Gods, which is suitably gloomy and imposing, and are greeted by Si-Cham, the Chief of the Masters and the head of the Cult of Mithros.  He wearing black and gold robes and described as both “ancient” and “yellow.”  Which… yikes, bro.  “Yellow”?  Really?

Racism aside, Si-Cham is a friendly dude until he leads them to Thom, at which point he clams up and gets all cold and grim.  Thom—who isn’t at all surprised to see them, by the by—explains once he leaves that this is because he’s finally stopped pretending to be stupid and took the written examinations for the Mastery (which is apparently a hugeass deal if you are a wizard person, dear reader).  Alanna tells him about the continuing attempts on her life and asks him to come live at Court to help keep her (and her fake gay prince lover) safe from Duke Roger.  Thom agrees and then starts to paw at the ember stone, accidentally melting the chain with his magical powers.

… I’m sorry, I just had this moment where I realized I’m blogging about a book in which someone’s magical twin melts part of the costume jewellery a deity gave him.  The world is such a silly place.

Anyway.  The visit caps off with Thom telling Alanna that he’s not worried about being FOREVER ALONE, because he has the Gift and that’s good enough for him.  It’s a pretty sad and awkward moment, not least because Thom does not seem to understand how sad and awkward it is.  I like the little Thom moments we get scattered throughout these books; they always make me want him to have his own series.  Preferably one that keeps in all the dodgy Thom/Roger stuff, because I will never stop being sad that that was left on the cutting-room floor.

Alanna and George ride back to Corus, and George gets shot by a bunch of dudes who refuse to say who sent them.  When Alanna tries to question them they die, and the ember stone shows Alanna traces of orange fire on their bodies.  Shocking.  We already know that neither Alanna nor George will die, so it’s basically one of those sit-through-it passages; the upside of it all is Alanna heals George and he’s like “lol didn’t know you cared bb.”  George, you’ve surprise-kissed her like twenty times at this point.  If she didn’t care about you you’d be dead.

Back in Corus, time passes, aaaaaand it’s Alanna’s birthday again!  And this time she gets PRESENTS, namely a suit of gold-washed armour and a fancy-ass new saddle (and a ring from George, because dude just can’t stop being inappropriate).  Finally, an answer to the timeless question, “What do you get the fake gay squire who has everything?”  Alanna’s totally overwhelmed and gets all emo about it to Jonathan later (when they are dry-humping, because that’s what they do now, ugh). She tells Jonathan that she’s afraid her friends will hate her when she eventually reveals her vaginality to them, and he’s like “lolololol who could hate your vaginality sweet thing.”  That’s a lie.  What he says is, “Don’t you think some of them have already guessed?”  Somewhere, Myles’s ears are burning.

This leads them to the question of who’s going to supervise Alanna’s ritual bath on the night of her Ordeal.  Jonathan suggests she tell Gary and ask him to do it, after she’s finished bathing on her own.  Alanna’s like “lol you just don’t want Gary to see my downstairs business.”  Rather than respond to light-hearted teasing like a normal person, Jonathan gets all cranky and starts whingeing about how he loves her but is afraid to say it because she’ll run away and crap.  Dude, she’s leaving after she gets her shield anyway, what even?

Anyway, she says she loves him too, and he’s like “I know, I just wanted to be sure you knew too."

Will Alanna finally face her Ordeal?  Will Roger try to kill her again again?  Is this fucking book nearly over, for serious?  Find out next time in CHAPTER NINE: THE ORDEAL, OR, ALANNA GOES INTO A LITTLE ROOM, BECOMES A KNIGHT, AND SAY! THAT’S THE TITLE OF THIS SERIES!

IN THE HAND OF THE GODDESS, CHAPTER SEVEN: WINTER LESSONS, OR, ALANNA FEELS PRETTY, BONING ENSUES

[Sorry again for the long break, guys.  There have been Things happening, and some of the Things are still happening, and they are largely shitty, but whatevs, let’s get to the gay squire sex.]

Alanna goes into the City to visit George’s mom.  Remember her?  Yeah, I didn’t either until this chapter, but apparently Alanna visits her often enough that they are able to have a cozy little chat over tea about her still-healing arm and George’s awkward Alanna-based boners.  She then launches into a rant about Jon, who, in full dickhead form, has taken to yelling at Alanna both for “leading on” women at Court social functions and having a crush on every boy in her secret life as a vagina-haver.  Oh, honey, I hate Dan Savage but this is a clear case of DTMFA.  Alanna then asks, very abruptly, if Mistress Cooper can teach her how to dress like a girl.

Mistress Cooper raised her eyebrows.  “Now, this is odd,” she said calmly.  “Why such a request?”
Alanna made a face.  “I don’t know.  I just—I see all the Queen’s ladies wearing pretty things, and I’ve been thinking lately that I like pretty things.  I’m going to have to be a girl someday.  Why shouldn’t I start practicing now?”

Mistress Cooper very wisely does not ask if this newfound desire for chickwear is born of Jonathan being a cockwattle, and instead agrees to help Alanna, buying her clothes, teaching her how to use makeup, and even doing her hair.  It’s kind of like the makeover scene in Mrs. Doubtfire, which means that Mistress Cooper will forever sound like Harvey Fierstein in my head (and now in yours too).

Here’s a secret: I really love this subplot, and the fact that Alanna is pretty frequently described as enjoying “feminine” clothing and pretty things.  Partly this is because it reminds me of my own secretive forays into girls’ clothes as a young genderqueer—half eager, half defensive, one hundred percent awkward—but it’s also because in a lot of books a character like Alanna would be written as absolutely hating anything “girly,” as though because she’s good at what she does and is in a male-dominated field she isn’t allowed to like dresses or makeup or perfume.  How many times have you read a book in which you know you’re supposed to admire and identify with the tomboyish heroine because she doesn’t like any of that—yech!—GIRL STUFF, like, I dunno, fashion, or sewing, or having feelings, or whatever?  It’s an easy trap to fall into when you’re consciously writing a feminist character, because things that are seen as feminine are also seen as inherently frivolous and silly by the world at large.  TPierce doesn’t fall into that here.  Alanna is fantastic at killing people and also likes to wear pretty dresses, and there is no fucking contradiction there.

Anyway, there comes a day when Mistress Cooper is dressing Alanna up and does a big prom-style reveal in front of the mirror, and Alanna’s like “daaaaang, I’m fine.”  Naturally, that is the moment in which Jon and George both show up for a visit, and they are both like:

This may get complicated.

That winter turns out to be another hard one for Tortall, a kingdom that never seems to see any nice, mild winters that pass entirely without mishap.  The wolves get so hungry and pissy they start to eat people, and one particularly sizeable beast, name of Demon Grey, eats people the most.  The entire Court goes hunting for him, including our hero and our mustachioed villain.  Predictably, the gigantic man-eating beast tries to kill Alanna; she tries to kill it right back* and succeeds.  Gripping her ember stone with one hand, she is shocked—SHOCKED—to see traces of orange fire flickering around the body.  But!  But the Duke’s Gift is orange!  WHAT COULD IT MEAN.  I’d tell you, but I am busy choking myself with frustration over how stupid this fucking kid is.

Also, how long it’s taken her to figure out how to actually use that ember stone.  The Goddess’s gifts should come with written instructions, unless they are Faithful, in which case they are too useless to exist in the fist place.

The winter goes by, and Alanna’s seventeenth birthday happens.  She is having some feelings that night, on account of her gay squiredom and the upcoming Ordeal of Knighthood and bitches getting all up in her grill with their magic wolves and so on, so she decides to relax by dressing in women’s clothes and taking a leisurely stroll through a garden full of people who have always known her as a boy and can easily recognize her.  It’s okay, though, she’s got a wig on so she’s totally stealth.**

Jonathan meets her there and says he clocked her because she doesn’t know how to not walk like a dudely lumberjack.  I feel those feels, Alanna.   Jon notices her pregnancy charm—which, actually, is it couth for young Court ladies to just go around wearing their pregnancy charms out in the open?  I know commoners are allowed, but noblewomen are supposed to be all into the chaste-before-marriage-because-oh!-my-lord’s-succession scene.  Is wearing a pregnancy charm to a Court function the Tortallan equivalent of wandering into a really classy party and screaming “JUST GONNA TAKE MY BIRTH CONTROL NOW, IN CASE ANYBODY’S INTERESTED”?  Is Alanna committing one of those awkward faux pas you wouldn’t know about if you weren’t raised in a convent school with a dozen other noble chicks?  I am seriously curious.

… My undue interest in Tortallan sexual conventions aside, Alanna tells him what it is*** and he’s all “ohohoho we should try it out” and lays a big ol’ smoocharoo on our stalwart heroine.  Aaaaand then starts trying to take her clothes off.  In the fucking garden in front of the palace full of people they both know.  Everyone in this book makes fantastic choices and should be proud of them!  Alanna says no and Jonathan makes it weird, as all Tortallan men are apparently wont to do:

“You’re fighting what has to be,” he said, “and you know it as well as I.”
“I—I know no such thing,” she stammered.  “I promised myself once that I’d never love a man!  Maybe I almost broke that promise just now because of moonlight and silliness-“
“Stop it,” he told her sternly.  He made her look up at him.  “We belong to each other.  Is that silliness?  Surely you’ve realized all along this had to happen.”  When she did not answer he sighed.  “Go away, before I change my mind.”

EW. EW. EW.

Where to fucking start with this, honestly?  The refusal of her “no”?  His insistence that he knows what she wants and needs way better than she ever could?  That charming little “before I change my mind”?  (Change your mind to WHAT, Jon?  Are we catching the train to Rapeytown?)  This whole bullshit relationship is so, so gross, and I fail to understand why anyone ships it.

I also fail to understand why Alanna immediately goes to his rooms and has sex with him after this.  Must be because they belong together.

Will Jon ever stop being a dickhead?  No, never ever, but you should still come back for CHAPTER EIGHT: FEARS, OR, ALANNA NEARLY DIES AGAIN, A ROAD TRIP HAPPENS, AND GEORGE GETS SHOT HOLY GODDAMN.

* Because she’s got the right to live and try to kill gigantic man-eating beasts.  And people.

** The wig in question, by the by?  It’s black.  I know this is hopelessly shallow and irrelevant, but I just can’t help cringing over how that must clash with her colouring, not to mention her eyebrows. 

*** Okay, yeah, I have another question about sex in Tortall, WHATEVER.  Jonathan has been tapping Delia for, like, YEARS at this point.  Why does he not know what a pregnancy charm looks like?  Has she just been freebirdin’ it the whole time?  How is she not already the mother to ten thousand cranky asshole babies???? 

IN THE HAND OF THE GODDESS, CHAPTER SIX: CAPTURED!, OR, KIDNAPPED! WAS ALREADY TAKEN SO WE WENT WITH THIS

Alanna wakes up after her dry-magic dirt nap to find the sun shining and her wounded arm (very poorly) bandaged by none other than the heir to the throne of Tortall.  Apparently he managed to weasel into her tent before anyone else to patch her up and ensure that no one else got an eyeful of gay squire boobage.

 
She has been asleep for three days, because in Tamora Pierce books no one ever passes out for a tidy half hour.  Alanna asks if they’ve found Jem Tanner and tells Jon that Thor was innocent.  Jon actually bellows “TREACHERY!”  This is one of the earlier onset signs of his transformation into Asshole Jon: random yelling.  Apparently the order given by King Roald not to retake the left bank still holds, and he’s even thinking of giving the Tusaine army the right bank to shut them up.  Alanna points out that if they give Tusaine the right bank they won’t stop until they regain the whole valley:

Jonathan nodded. “But no one can convince my father of that.  He takes being called ‘The Peacemaker’ very seriously.”
“He did establish peace after the Old King’s conquests,” Alanna said fairly.
“Yes, but this time he’s wrong!”  Jonathan growled.  He brooded for a few moments before smiling and taking her hand. [My God, growling and brooding in the same sentence, he’s practically Mr. Darcy.]  “Look at me.  You’re not awake five minutes and I’m burdening you with my problems.  Mithros, I’m glad you’re all right!”
Alanna squeezed his hand.  “Thank you for taking care of me, Jon.”
He reached over to brush a strand of hair away from her face.  Suddenly he was very close.  Alanna discovered she was afraid to breathe.  Carefully, almost timidly, Jonathan kissed her mouth.

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

As luck would have it, Myles chooses that minute to blunder into the tent, barely giving them enough time to spring apart and do the Definitely Not Making Out Dance.  Jon is reading a book, Alanna is drinking from a water bottle, and both of their faces are colours that faces oughtn’t be.  Myles is, of course, sharp as a box of tacks, knows exactly what’s going on, and chooses to observe their discomfort with quiet satisfaction.  As do we all, Myles, as do we all.

Duke Roger (oh, yeah, remember him? I know we are all very sad about Thor’s tragic death, but Duke Roger = still a thing!) orders Alanna to stay away from fighting for a while so she doesn’t fall asleep for three days again.  She is pissy about this, and about the fact that Douglass is acting as Jonathan’s squire while she’s out of commission.  To vent her frustration she volunteers to do every-friggin’-thing in camp: working in the healers’ tents, assisting the resident blacksmiths, and acting as a sentry.  Duke Roger finds her at this one evening and decides to have a casual chat with her, despite Faithful trying to rip his face off.  (Faithful, you are the WORST FAMILIAR.)  After a few minutes of aimless chitchat (where’d you get your nails done, what are you taking in school, have you ever transcended space and time, etc), the Duke suddenly gets down to the nitty gritty:

“We are not friends, are we, Alan?”

This is the conversation that follows, slightly paraphrased:

ALANNA: No, I kind of hate you.
DUKE ROGER:  That’s a shame.  If you didn’t hate me so much I might not want to kill you so hard.
ALANNA: You’d still want to kill all my friends pretty hard, though.  Not so down with that.
DUKE ROGER: I see.  Well, I’m going to leave you alone in this suddenly rising fog now.  If you start feeling sleepy, don’t worry, it’s definitely not a spell I’ve brewed up to disable you so you can be kidnapped by the opposing side.  Goodnight!

Yeah.  Guess what happens.

The kidnappers take Alanna, but they forget Faithful, who is curled up tight and will not wake up.  The Tortallans assume that this is because magic, rather than because cat.

Duke Roger tells Jon & Co. that they cannot cross the river to rescue Alanna, as per the King’s strict no-crossies rule.  Jon is freaking out because what if they see the gay squire boobage?  He tries to mention this to Myles, who gently not-quite-says that he already knows about said boobage, dummy, and also have you gotten to second yet?  It is decided that at some point that evening Myles will be elsewhere in camp, and if Jon and his heroic buddies decide to go for a little trip, maaaaaaybe across the river… well, who can stop them?

Alanna eventually wakes up (presumably not three days later, but in a Tamora Pierce book it’s always iffy) in a wooden hut with two other prisoners, a pair of foot soldiers named Micah and Keel.  They are all chained up; Alanna tries to use magic to break her chains, but they’ve been spelled so the Gift doesn’t work on them.  A Tusaine captain comes into the room to tell Micah and Keel that they will be paid and released if they give information; when they ask what will happen to Alanna they are told that she will not be ransomed, because Duke Hilam (remember him? he’s the King of Tusaine’s dastardly brother!) wants to speak to her personally.  And by “speak to” he means “torture.”

Keel and Micah, of course, refuse to say anything, because all Tortallans are fucking noble as balls.  Once the captain leaves the three of them try to figure out how to get out of the hut; Alanna finally remembers that she has a set of lock picks hidden in her belt and sets them free.  (Her own chains, of course, are magicked to melt her lock picks when she tries the same thing on herself.  Gee, Alanna, it’s almost as if A POWERFUL SORCEROR WANTS YOU TO DIE.  But whatever, you have no proof.)  When they hear footsteps, Keel and Micah hide themselves on either side of the door, ready to use their chains as weapons—which actually turns out to be a bad move, as Duke Hilam has the Gift and likes to blast doors off their hinges instead of opening them like a normal person.  Keel and Micah are knocked unconscious, their daring escape plan ruined, and Alanna is left to face yet another good-looking, magically powerful duke who wants to kill her.  They’re a dime a dozen in the Eastern Lands, apparently.  Hilam is followed by—surprise!—Jem Tanner, who it turns out is actually Count Jemis, the King of Tusaine’s other brother.

Okay—so you’ve got a king, a duke, and a count, who are all brothers?  Like, legitimate brothers?  The Tusaine feudal system is fucked up.

The Duke kicks her a bit and threatens to cut out her tongue, and Alanna endures it because Micah and Keel have regained consciousness and she wants to give them time to escape.  And also because she’s in frickin’ chains and can’t fight back against a frickin’ evil duke.  Jemis asks if he can kill her, because “I could have killed Prince Jonathan that night if he hadn’t been there” (SPOONING ON HORSEBACK); Hilam says he needs to stab some information out of her first.  Alanna makes fun of him, which is always a wise choice when you’re tied up and held hostage by someone who intends to kill you.  Before her dumbassery can get her into deeper shit, however, Prince Jonathan and the cavalry show up to take Jemis and Hillam as hostages, thereby ending the war and keeping Alanna safe and un-tortured.

Yep.  That is actually how this chapter ends.  They sign peace treaties, the Tortallans get their fucking valley back, and everyone goes home by August.

Jesus, this book.

Do we have time for another pointless war before the end of the novel?  Will Alanna and Jon do more horseback spooning?  Is that SERIOUSLY the end of the Tortall-Tusaine conflict, seriously???  Find out next time in CHAPTER SEVEN: WINTER LESSONS, OR, ALANNA FEELS PRETTY, BONING ENSUES.

IN THE HAND OF THE GODDESS, CHAPTER FIVE: BY THE RIVER DRELL, OR, JON IS GAY AGAIN, SOME FIGHTING OCCURS, AND ALANNA MINGLES WITH COMMON FOLK WHO DON’T WANT TO STICK IT IN HER

The Tortallan army arrives at the Falls camp and settles in just in time for dinner.  Dinner, for Alanna, is a plate of meat and beans.  I’m hoping the meat is actually chopped up hot dogs in tomato sauce.  Just like Mom used to make!  She sits with the foot soldiers instead of the knights and other squires, presumably because all that time she spends at the Dancing Dove has rendered her more comfortable kickin’ it with the simple peasantfolk than murmuring about wine vintages and poetry with her fellow aristocrats.  (That’s what classy people talk about, right?  Wine and crap?)  One of said relatable peons is a very large, very friendly gentleman named Thor.  Yes, Thor.  Like the Norse God/Marvel hero.  He saves Alanna when she nearly chokes on her wieners and beans, thus ensuring that they will be BFFFL.

All the assorted foot soldiers assume that Alanna is twelve, because she is short and that never stops being funny.  When she corrects them, some bro saunters out of the crowd like an obnoxious dick to obnoxiously point out that Alanna fought and won a duel against a full-grown Tusaine knight.  Obnoxious Bro’s name is Jem Tanner, and everyone reacts to him like he smells like an open sewer and makes jokes about the mentally disabled, so you (the reader) get that he is really super super obnoxious.  He then hints (obnoxiously) that Alanna might be a spy sent into their ranks by the Tusaine army.  Silly Jemnoxious, spies can’t be short.  Alanna yells at him and he melts obnoxiously back into the crowd.  Everyone now likes Alanna the most because she yelled at this bro, and Thor likes her the most the most, which I think I can confidently say means he will be dead within a few pages.

We get a quick description of how Alanna spends her time in the army: grooming horses, learning history lessons from Myles, drilling and eating with the foot soldiers.  It’s pretty dull, and pretty blatantly set up to make us have the feels when Thor inevitably dies.  Because, y’know, their deep beans and wieners bond and such.  Jemnoxious is still hanging around being a jerk in a vague sort of ineffectual way.  That is apparently not interesting enough for our stalwart heroine, who asks Duke Baird if she can help out in the healers’ tent to stave off boredom.  Hanging out there totally harshes her buzz because everyone is dying all over the place, and she uses up pretty much all of her Gift either healing people or doing the Angel of Mercy bit.  Jonathan finds her there, pretty much asleep on her feet.  He quite rightly decides that it is time for his exhausted squire to go to bed.  He quite wrongly decides that the best way to take his exhausted squire to bed is by spooning her on horseback in the moonlight while he whispers sweet nothings in her ear.  Faithful meets them in the dark and is all yo, don’t kill yourself in the healers’ tent, dumbass, and also everyone who is looking at you right now thinks you are Tortall's biggest mo.

Cue Jem Tanner, oozing out of the night to accuse Alanna of “gadding about.”  I don’t know what that means but I’ll assume it’s a reference to covert homosexual shenanigans.* Alanna yells at him—I know! Our delicate little chrysanthemum!—and he disappears to finish guard duty.  Remember that later, kids, it may be on the test.  Faithful then tells Alanna that if she plans on falling in love with the prince she ought to be more subtle about it.  Alanna, predictably, is like “lolwut?”  When she tries to go to bed later she ends up tossing and turning and eventually throws up because apparently being in the healers’ tent was super gross.  Jonathan finds her vomming up a storm and tells her that he threw up after his first skirmish.  He then  tells her not to let the men know because it “wouldn’t do to let them think we’re sissies, would it?”

Bro, you just romantically dry-humped your male-presenting squire on the back of a goddamn horse.  Do you really think a little Technicolor yawn is going to make a difference?

Two nights later—yes, two nights, as in two nights since the scene in which Jon and Alanna played Ambiguously Gay Horseback Knifey-Spoony, AKA That Was Actually So Irrelevant, Tamora Pierce, I Can’t Even, Where Is Your Editor—Alanna is looking for Big Thor, because apparently his spear broke and Alanna’s got a new one for him.  She stole it from a dead dude.  Sweet girl, that Alanna.  Instead of finding Big Thor (who, coincidentally, was supposed to be on guard duty with Jemnoxious, because the Tortallan army only has two guards at a time, ever), she finds soldiers from Tusaine.  Surprise! The opposing army is crossing the river, and our favourite Mr. Tanner is nowhere in sight.

Maybe they killed him for being too obnoxious.

There is a battle, and it is as inevitably dull as all battle scenes in all fantasy literature ever.**Alanna kills some bros and saves Jonathan’s life, and then the enemy retreats for no apparent reason, and if that all sounds kind of wishy-washy and anti-climatic, you’ve probably read this book.

Once it's all over, Alanna decides to search for Thor on the battlefield, using her special purple tracking magic.  (Oh, yeah, apparently magic ain’t just for healing and killing demons anymore.)  She finds Thor, who has been violently blinded and says that Jem Tanner betrayed the Tortallans by knocking him out and then… I dunno, inviting the Tusaine army over to their side of the river?  Maybe for tea or something?  Whatever, the point is, Jemnoxious is a bad bad man and Thor is going to die from blindsies.  Alanna uses her magic to help ease his way into the afterlife so he doesn’t feel any pain, but forgets that she’s recently been using it to track the dude she just mercy-killed and starts to faint.  She sees a vision of the Black God reaching out to her and is like “sup bro, if I’m dying right now I don’t actually care because I’m hella tired and I just had to put the dude who was my best friend for ten seconds to sleep like an elderly poodle.”

Aaaaand then the chapter ends.  CLIFFHANGER.

Is Alanna seriously going to die?  (Nope, too much book left.)  Does anyone mention her and Jon’s awkward horse-spooning?  (Not to their faces, I’d wager.)  Is Jemnoxious really as obnoxious as all that?  (Dude, he has “noxious” right in his name.  RIGHT in there!)  Find out next time in CHAPTER SIX: CAPTURED!, OR, KIDNAPPED! WAS ALREADY TAKEN SO WE WENT WITH THIS

* Please note: This is untrue.  I know what “gadding about” means.  I just always assume covert homosexual shenanigans.

** Sometimes I think about the fact that I hate battle scenes and gushy descriptions of clothing and fucking HORSES OH MY GOD and wonder what the hell I’m doing in this genre.  Then I remember it has dragons in it and I feel better.  True story.

IN THE HAND OF THE GODDESS, CHAPTER FOUR: A CRY OF WAR, OR, ALANNA GOES ON A ROAD TRIP AND GETS FORCE-KISSED BY GEORGE AGAIN, JESUS, GEORGE, WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?

[Sorry about the radio silence, guys!  I’ve been having computer troubles recently, some of which are ongoing and most of which stem from the fact that said computer is six years old and has had multiple litres of soda spilt on it.]

It’s April all of a sudden, and George has apparently been making good on his promise to spy on Tusaine.  The results are in, and a war is imminent.  Alanna is bummed about this not because of the encroaching death or destruction or even the simple monetary cost of killing lots and lots of people, but because the Drell River Valley is apparently a really shitty place to fight, due to all the mountains and hazardous terrain and such.  This scene is pretty dull—I think we all knew a war was coming—except for the part where George continues to be fucking creepy:

The thief’s fingers touched her chin gently, making her look up.  Alanna blushed.  He hadn’t kissed her since Jon’s birthday almost a year ago; but he let her know—with little touches, with softness in his eyes when he looked at her—that he was stalking her.  Jonathan looked at Delia in much the same way.  That Alanna got such attention from George terrified her.

My reaction, in list form:

1. Ordinarily I would say that “stalking” is just an unfortunate choice of words, but given that George routinely has Alanna followed and spied on, it is actually bang on.
2. What the actual FUCK, George???  Alanna has made it pretty clear that she doesn’t want you to fucking touch her.  Whether that discomfort is due to her having ~secret feelingz~ for you or not is fucking irrelevant, SHE DOES NOT WANT YOU TO TOUCH HER.  What the fuck is your problem?  You are one of the few people she can be herself with, why are you fucking it up by making her so goddamn uncomfortable?  Why are you being such a dick?  Ugh.  I used to ship this, people.
3. That semi-colon does not go there and it is making me angry.

Alanna brings the news to Myles, ensuring he won’t reveal her source by bringing up the fact that he has roughly ten thousand drinking buddies in the Lower City, most of them thieves and forgers and general scallywags.  Myles is understandably distressed—probably not even about the terrain—and comments that the King of Tusaine would never have come up with the idea without the input of his dastardly brother, Duke Hilam.  This is definitely just an offhand comment that will not prove to be integral to the plot at any point.

Talks are had, muster is called, and the troops assemble at the Palace. They are about to leave when Duke Gareth, who is supposed to be in command, is thrown from his horse and trampled to fuck.  While everyone is milling about and freaking out Alanna slips away to have a heart-to-heart with Stefan the Hostler, who is being mysteriously perceptive and accenty as per usual.  He says that none of the usual hostlers saddled the Duke’s horse, and that a burr was found caught in its blanket.  He also mentions that since Duke Gareth has caught an unfortunate case of both-legs-broken-by-a-goddamn-horse-neosis, Duke Roger has been given command of the army.

How special.

Before she leaves, Alanna is told by Stefan (who knows goddamn everything, apparently—we should ask TPierce to give him his own book) that she has a visitor waiting for her in the library.  Surprising approximately no one at all, it is George!  Dressed as a monk!  In the Royal Palace!  Where he could easily be recognized and executed!  Dude will go a long way to get his sexual harassment on, my stars.  They rehash Alanna’s conversation with Stefan and he asks her to be careful while she’s killing foreigners.  It’s actually kind of sweet, at first.  However, this is George Cooper we’re talking about, and all conversations are basically a set-up for fun Tortallan pickup lines like Nice Tunic, Alanna, It’d Look Great On My Bedroom Floor, and Is That A Magical Sword In Your Pocket Or Are You Just Happy To See Me?  (It is a sword, George, stop makin’ it weird.)  George says he might be giving up his life of crime to get married soon.  Alanna, oblivious as ever, is like “yeah, right, what are you going to do with your ear collection, store it in her hope chest?”  George responds with a tiresome “oh but the girl I want already KNOWS about my ear collection, wink wink nudge nudge.”

And then we get this gem of a conversation:

Alanna wiped sweating hands on her tunic.  She had a feeling she knew what he was leading up to, and she wished he would stop.  “Good luck, George.  I don’t think a woman like that exists.”
George stood.  Gripping her shoulders, he pulled her off the table.  “I’ve already found her, and you know it well.”
[blah blah blah stuff about rank Alanna can’t marry a commoner AND THEN]
“No husband at all will do me the most good.  I don’t plan to marry, and I certainly don’t plan to fall in love.”
“So you say now.  I’m a patient man, lass.  If need be, I’ll wait years.  And I’ll not speak of this to you again.  I only wanted you to know I’m yours to command.” He grinned.
Alanna tried to push away.  Her heart was thumping rapidly and she felt giddy.  She couldn’t let this go any further.  “We can go on being friends like before?”
“Friends, and good ones.  Confess it, lass, you’d miss me sorely, were I not about.”
Alanna made the mistake of looking up into his laughing eyes.  That was the problem, right there: she was not nearly ready for what she saw in his face.  She looked down, afraid.  “I—I won’t let it ruin our friendship, George,” she whispered.
“And I won’t speak of it again till you ask it.  Look at me, Alanna.”
Alanna looked up.  George kissed her, pulling her close.  His mouth was warm and comforting.  Alanna had not forgotten the last time, and she had discovered that she liked his kisses.

(There are going to be a few spoilers below, just a heads up.)

Here's the thing about Tamora Pierce's romantic subplots: they are usually creepy.  Not because they almost always involve older men and younger women (that's fairly standard for a medieval-style universe and not overly squicky for me anyway), but because they all seem to involve the protagonist being taken by surprise.  Tamora Pierce prides herself on writing determined, self-sufficient, motivated young women who excel in male-dominated fields and refuse to sell themselves short because of their sex, usually in settings where their sex makes them second class citizens.  And that's great, and she SHOULD pride herself on that—I know it was a big deal for me as a young reader to find fantasy novels starring young women who went out and did the whole rescuing-people finding-things saving-the-world-from-utter-destruction shtick that makes fantasy the ridiculous genre I love.  But very few of her heroines ever seem to make the first move in a romantic capacity- they are always taken by surprise, and sometimes described as struggling to get away before "relaxing" into the kissing, one of my least favourite romantic tropes.  Even Aly, who is meant to be very balls-out and flirtatious, never seems to actively pursue anyone.  The only exceptions I can think of right now are when Alanna eventually sleeps with George, a sexual encounter she suggests and initiates (and even then that's after he surprise-kisses her and she struggles), and when Daja kisses Rizu (and I don't know if Pierce approaches that differently because it's a same-sex relationship and she herself is presumably heterosexual).  Even Kel's relationship with Cleon, which is one of the better relationships in the novels—not in a "we are meant to be together forever" way but in a "this is a very pleasant first romance which will not end in death and/or mutual enmity" way—is one that begins when he surprise-kisses her.  She had never even considered having a relationship with him prior to that one kiss.  And it's not a creepy kiss, and it does not involve dubious consent (sit DOWN, George), but within the broader scope of all the other surprise-kissing that happens within the Pierce canon, it's all rather troubling.  This could be a your-kink-is-showing thing, in much the same way that all of Pierce’s romantic interests are older*, taller** gentlemen, but either way it would be nice to see it subverted in one of the newer books.  And it would be super to never see any of the oh-I-don’t-want-your-smooches-wait-you-have-pursued-me-long-enough-now-I-like-it crap again.  The Alanna books were and are pretty damn progressive in a lot of ways, but as an adult who has both witnessed and been subject to some pretty terrible predatory behavior in the name of “romance”, I am truly unnerved to reread the scenes I thought were so fucking romantic as an eleven-year-old and realize they are actually sketch as fuck.

Anyway.  Duke Roger is put in charge of the army, and Alanna ends up stationed with Jon by the Drell River Falls, an area of the Valley that’s not due to see much fighting.  Jon is pissed about this.  They are under strict commands by King Roald to avoid crossing the river to reclaim the right bank.  Alanna is pissed about this.  They ride out a day late and it takes them twelve days to reach the Drell River.  Presumably everybody is pissed about this, but not as pissed as Duke Gareth, who is left alone in the Palace to nurse his broken legs and sigh longingly over the hand-painted portrait of Coram he keeps tied to his belt at all times.

How long will it take Duke Roger to start trying to kill Jon and Alanna?  Will George try to invade the Tortallan Army dressed as an ice cream vendor just to give Alanna some more surprise sugar?  Is it just me or is “we want this totally sweet river back, brah” kind of a dumbfuck reason to go to war?  Find out next time in CHAPTER FIVE: BY THE RIVER DRELL, OR, JON IS GAY AGAIN, SOME FIGHTING OCCURS, AND ALANNA MINGLES WITH COMMON FOLK WHO DON’T WANT TO STICK IT IN HER.

* Except Nawat, who is FOUR.  Jesus.

** No exceptions to this rule so far.  I was holding out hope for Kel/Owen, but apparently he is married to one of Wyldon’s daughters.  Tamora Pierce: not a fan of short bros.