Saturday, January 28, 2012

IN THE HAND OF THE GODDESS, CHAPTER ONE: THE LADY IN THE FOREST, OR, ALANNA REHASHES HER BACKSTORY, MEETS A DEITY, AND RECEIVES A MAGICAL CAT

I’ve got to just come out and say this: I have never, never liked In the Hand of the Goddess.  I know it’s a fan favourite, and I know it features the consummation of Jon and Alanna’s gay relationship, and stuff, but my God is it dull.  In a nutshell: “I think the Duke is evil but I have no proof.” “But what about all these evil things he’s done?” “NO PROOF I SAY. Also there’s a war or something, Iunno.”  DULL.  As well, it is the book that kicks off my hatred of Jonathan (although it’s The Woman Who Rides Like a Man and, later, First Test that really put on the finishing touches).  A note to all would-be writers: If you make a romance one of the central story arcs of your book, please make sure both parties are basically likable and do not dedicate about fifty percent of their page time to temper tantrums.

Right.  With that out of the way, let’s start the book!

When last we saw our heroine she had just defeated a tribe of immortal wizard-demon-things, showed a member of the royal family her unmentionables, and been named squire to a prince of the realm.  In the Hand of the Goddess opens with Squire Alanna riding through inclement weather in an unnamed forest with a three-hundred-year-old document for Sir Myles, because not rain nor sleet nor snow nor gloom of night will stay this vertically-challenged ginger androgyne from the swift completion of her appointed document-related duties.  (By the way, that document is not mentioned again.  Given Myles’s interest in the Old Ones’s cooking habits, I have to assume it is a centuries-old grocery list.)  As she rides she thinks about her past four years masquerading as a boy, conveniently summarizing the entire first book for any readers who skipped it.  If only Tamora Pierce had used that strategy for the Beka books.  At one point a spider lands on Alanna’s glove and she freaks out, because apparently she is terrified of spiders.  Funny, I don’t remember that being in the- ah, right, she goes into the Chamber of the Ordeal at the end of this book, need to get some extra fears up in hurr.  She spots a willow tree with very thick branches and decides to camp under it for the night; she’s just about to turn in when all of a sudden there is a tiny black kitten staggering out of the bushes to meet her.  A tiny black kitten with purple eyes.  She is momentarily concerned, thinking the cat is supernatural, but is pretty much immediately swept away in a sea of “d’awwww lookit his little pawsies.”  Which is valid.  Kittens are fucking precious.



Look at that shit.  Do you give a fuck about the supernatural right now?  I don’t.

She is about to fall asleep again (this time with a cat for company), when suddenly she starts sneezing, as she does when magical things happen.  (Dude, this is Tortall, magical things happen like every three pages.)  A tall woman in a cloak and hood has materialized by her campfire, asking if she can take shelter with her under the tree.  Alanna pretty quickly realizes that something’s up, because the chick sounds familiar and her face is “too perfect to be quite real.” I’m sure you’re supposed to imagine her as incredibly beautiful, but this just reads as Uncanny Valley territory to me.



This woman is watching you in the shower.

But yeah, turns out that Alanna's mysterious visitor is the Goddess, AKA the female head of the Tortallan pantheon and owner of that weird voice she's been hearing in her head for the past few years.  Just takin’a day off, comin’ to the woods to visit her Chosen One, ykhig.  Alanna is suitably unnerved, which prompts the Goddess to start a plot-propelling discussion of all the things she is afraid of.  The first one is the Chamber of the Ordeal, the room in which all Tortallan squires spend an overnight vigil prior to knighthood; Alanna mentions Jonathan’s face after his own Ordeal, saying he “looked like some part of him died in there.”  It was the nice part, Alanna, just so you know what happened when he starts yelling at you a book from now.

The mention of Jonathan leads in a totally natural and not at all asspully way to a discussion of Alanna’s second fear, her “fear of love.”  The Goddess is all “I don’t get why you hate the idea of boning so much, Alanna, boning is awesome.”  (She says this in a very floaty “warmth of a man’s touch” way, but she means boning.)  Alanna says that she doesn’t want to be distracted by love; she also mentions that her father was deeply in love with her mother, and when he died (oh yeah btw that happened, okay) he was still calling for her even though she’d been dead for years.  She says she doesn’t want to give any part of herself away, because her father did that and he never got himself back.  That's sad and stuff, but what I'm curious about is how did she handle reading he father's will?  Would anyone have noticed that it listed a son and a daughter, or would they just think Lord Trebond was a bit addled as usual?  Or did he stay true to his jerkass self and just not mention her?  Inquiring minds want to know.

Her third fear, according to the Goddess, is “Roger, Duke of Conte.”  What, not spiders?  She starts yelling about how the Duke caused the Sweating Sickness and told Jonathan to go to the Black City, and the Goddess nods along and is like “yes that is all true.”

… Wait.  You’re a central figure of the Tortallan pantheon, worshipped by pretty much everyone in the realm, you know this dude’s out to steal the Tortallan throne, and you are clearly able to take on a physical form and come into the mortal realm, and yet you use this power to harass a teenager about boning instead of appearing to, oh, I don’t know, SOMEONE IN CHARGE to give them a heads up about the evil sorcerer trying to kill the Crown Prince?  The fuck kind of goddess are you?

Anyway, the Goddess is like, “You’re dealing with your fear of the Duke by remaining vigilant and protecting your prince, and time will cure the other two fears.”  But not the fear of spiders, is what I’m getting from this.  She then takes a burning ember out of the fire and tells Alanna to take it from her hand.  She does, and finds that even though it’s burning, it’s cool to the touch.  And comes with a built-in loop so she can put it on a chain.  I can’t make this shit up.  The Goddess is handing out tokens from Claire’s.  She gives Alanna her hand to kiss, tells the wee kitten to take care of Alanna, and then disappears.

Back at the Palace, Alanna’s friends are besotted with Faithful, which is the name that Alanna gives her new totally-not-supernatural-because-lookit-his-little-punim kitten.  (Gary wants her to name the cat “Raoul.”  You’re weird, Gary.)  He starts following Alanna everywhere she goes—except Duke Roger’s classroom.  When Duke Roger eventually sees him, Faithful freaks out and tries to scratch his eyes out, only barely held back by Alanna.  Because that is very helpful, giving the crossdressing lawbreaker an animal companion that makes more people pay attention to her.

Jesus, Goddess, your gifts SUCK.

Will Faithful continue to be the World’s Worst Familiar?  Will Alanna get over her fear of boning?  How tacky does that ember thing really look?  (Like one of those light-up Christmas necklaces, presumably.) Find out next time in CHAPTER TWO: DUKE ROGER OF CONTE, OR, IN WHICH DIPLOMACY IS VERY DIFFICULT, A DUEL IS HELD, AND SYMBOLIC CHESS IS SYMBOLIC

No comments:

Post a Comment