ALANNA: THE FIRST ADVENTURE, CHAPTER SEVEN: THE BLACK CITY, OR, IN WHICH THEY GO TO THE DESERT AND ARE NEARLY DEAD FROM PLOT DEVICE

The ride into the Southern Desert, it turns out, is long.  REALLY long.  You just wouldn’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly long it is.   Alanna spends most of it waiting on Lord Martin and Sir Myles and roughly twenty gazillion other people, because she is a page and dammit if pages ain’t gonna do them some work on their Duke-sanctioned field trips.  As they ride towards Persepolis, the city of the Great Southern Desert, they encounter several tribes of the Bazhir, who are MYSTERIOUS and PROUD and make their women wear VEILS and spend their lives riding and fighting in the harsh desert sun and crap.  (I know Tamora Pierce has stated that she based the Bazhir on the Bedouin, but they always read more like she saw Aladdin one too many times and went from there.)  Through these encounters Alanna notices that Lord Martin really seems to hate the Bazhir, and Myles is like “yeah well he has his reasons though!”  The reasons, apparently, are that the Bazhir are “unusual” and that some “renegade” tribes do not accept King Roald as their sovereign, mostly because his father, the Old King, killed a whole lot of them.  But that’s water under the bridge, surely!  Myles adds that no matter how much Lord Martin hates the Bazhir, he’s a very fair man.  Yeah, I guess, fair except for the RACISM.

After a week-long journey, they finally reach Persepolis. Alanna notices that the Bazhir are staring at her and Jonathan very intently.  She feels awkward about this, and continues to feel awkward through their arrival, their room assignation, and the beginning of the night’s formal banquet.  At that point Myles (who is already drunk) introduces Alanna to Ali Mukhtab, the governor of Persepolis Castle and the wearer of one very elegant vest.  He and Alanna have a weird conversation in which he compares her to a cat and she asks about the Bazhir.  Specifically, she asks why he, a Bazhir, is the governor of Persepolis Castle when Lord Martin hates the Bazhir.  (She’s even like “I know he’s fair and all” and he’s like “lol yeah fair my left TESTICLE”).  Apparently one of the few treaties the Old King drew up with the Bazhir before he decided to go the good old “kill ‘em all and let the gods sort ‘em out” route specified that the post of governor must always be held by a Bazhir.  He then leads Alanna and her friends to the Sunset Room, a room built specifically to watch the Black City.

The Sunset Room is missing an entire wall (for better watching purposes, one assumes), and faces west, hence its name.  They can just about see the Black City in the form of a tiiiiiiny speck on the horizon.  You’d think that someone would build a watchtower or something a few miles closer, you know, just to keep an eye on it properly.  Mukhtab tells the squires-and-one-page the story of the Black City: apparently when the Bazhir first came to the Eastern Lands from across the Inland Sea they were greeted by a clan of immortal demon… spirit… monster things called the Nameless Ones, who gave them arable land and cattle and took their souls as payment.  When the Bazhir realized that that was what they were doing they rebelled, burning the Nameless Ones in their own city.  Which… is still standing.  Of course.  Anyway, now the land the Nameless Ones gave them to farm is the Great Southern Desert and Bazhir youths still sometimes feel compelled to go to the City in the middle of the night, whereupon they are tied to their beds and starved to death, because apparently even that is better than facing the Nameless Ones.  Mukhtab then tells them that the Bazhir have another legend: that one day two gods, the Night One and the Burning-Brightly One, will come to the Black City and get rid of the Nameless Ones.  (The Bazhir are bad at names, apparently.)  Jonathan’s like “I wish there was a written history of the Bazhir and also please pay no attention to how intently I am staring at the Black City right now, thank you.”  When the boys go back to their rooms for the night Alanna wonders aloud who exactly the Nameless Ones were and Jonathan says that they are probably made up to scare children.  Alanna’s like, “By the pricking in my thumbs you are a fucking liar, Jonathan of Conte.”

Alanna wakes up in the middle of the night and speed-dresses, in a tremendous hurry for no particular reason.  She meets up with Jonathan, who seems to be in a similar hurry, in the corridor, and they ride out into the desert.  Towards the Black City.  Where people disappear forever.  Because they are CLEVER.

The Black City is, as advertised, quite black.  Once they are inside the gates Alanna suddenly remembers that pesky vision of the black city she’s been having since she was ten (really, Alanna? It took you this long?) and gets all antsy.  She tries to get Jonathan to leave, but he’s all “herp a derp busy looking at carvings.”  Because of their gay relationship she can’t just leave him alone and ride back to Persepolis, so they walk further into the city, towards an enormous temple at the top of a flight of stairs.  As soon as they reach the door Lightning starts humming, and Alanna tries to get Jonathan to leave once again, and he once again opts to stay and get his ass killed look around.  They approach the altar and suddenly ten tall, glowing, inhumanly beautiful men and women show up and start talking about eating them.  Yes, indeedy, it’s the Nameless Ones, who call themselves the Ysandir.  (And have names like Ylira and Ylon and Ylanda.  Presumably Yvette is on vacation.)  They are immortal and eat souls and plan to eat Jon and Alanna’s.

Luckily, they seem to be afraid of Lightning (and the Old Ones in general, as they refer to it as “one of their weapons”), which gives them time to raise walls of power and shoot purple lightning bolts and other Tortallan superhero crap.  Less luckily, the Ysandir are able to read minds, which means they quickly realize that Alanna is an Alanna instead of an Alan.  So they make her clothes disappear.  Jonathan gets a good eyeful of her naked (before lending her his tunic, because he is not yet Asshole Jon—best believe he wouldn’t have helped her cover up past book two) while the Ysandir lol themselves silly about a chick trying to defend a dude.  Which, okay, if we’ve learned anything about Alanna at this point it’s that she cannot stand people LAUGHING AT HER, the Ysandir are clearly doomed.  She holds Jonathan’s hand, and because of their mutual trust or the strength of their friendship or the purity of their gay relationship or something, they are able to raise a Wall of Power which spontaneously melts a couple of the Ysandir.  (They are immortal, but not the kind of immortal that can’t die.  Yeah, it’s never eally explained so don’t even bother trying to figure it out.)  Ylira tries to break their concentration in a way that I think is actually one of the most effective moments in the book:

“How long do you think she will last?” Ylira asked Jonathan, softly.  “Another few moments?  Not even that?  She is a girl.  She is weak.  She will give way, and then where will you be?”
It was the same small voice that taunted Alanna from within whenever she faced a taller, stronger opponent.

YES.  YES.  YES.  All those moments that Alanna’s had throughout this book when she feels inadequate because she’s a girl, all those moments when she thinks she’s a bad person, or a dirty fighter, or not worthy of such-and-such an honour, all those moments when she whines that she’s not good enough, not strong enough, not fast enough, and—when she has proven that she IS all of those things, and more—just not enough of a boy, they all lead up to this fucking moment, when she realizes that the person telling her that she’s worthless, she’s no good, she’s going to fail because she’s a girl and that’s terrible, is wrong.  And that maybe if that person who says she can’t do it is wrong, maybe the voice in her own head that tells her that she’s weak is wrong too.  Connecting your own internalized misogyny with the way you are treated by the world around you—or, rather, connecting that outside voice to the inside one—is a HUGE FUCKING DEAL and I am SO glad Tamora Pierce put that in.

Moving on.

 Jonathan and Alanna manage to kill a few more of the Ysandir before they properly retaliate.  A couple of them gather together and start to collect power, which is described as forming in a “small, evil ball.”

It looks pretty much nothing like that, I imagine, but wouldn’t it be cute if it did?  Alanna and Jonathan set a load of them on fire, until only two (Ylon and Ylanda) are left.  They say special nonsense words to collapse the Wall of Power.  (Really, guys?  YOU COULDN’T HAVE DONE THAT BEFORE?)  Alanna and Jonathan aren’t strong enough to fight them, even with their special gay relationship powers, so Jonathan asks Alanna to become what she was the night she saved him from the fever.  Which she does.  They start speaking to the Goddess in their grownup lady and dude voices, and the Goddess answers them, basically telling Alanna to USE THE SWORD YOU GREASY HIPPIE.  Alanna does, swinging Lightning in their faces while Jonathan chants and crap, and together they blow up the last two Ysandir.  And promptly pass out.

Jon and Alanna wake up a few hours later, sore as balls and itching to get out of the Black City. They ride out to an oasis a few miles away, where they can rest and talk.  Specifically, talk about that whole Alanna-has-a-vagina issue.  Alanna explains about the switcharoo she pulled with Thom, and he is duly impressed.  She asks if he is going to tell anyone, and he’s like “dumbass, we just blew up demon-thingies together, you vagina is not that big of a deal.”  She is so grateful she cries, which freaks Jon out a little.  They have a beautiful time together in the oasis, except one awkward moment when Alanna’s like “isn’t it weird that Duke Roger seemed so eager to send you to certain death?” and Jon’s like “TAKE IT BACK,” but everything is fixed a few minutes later when, as they’re falling asleep, Jon asks who she thinks he should choose as a squire come Midwinter.

Alanna sat up on her elbow.  A week ago she would have told him to pick Geoffrey or Douglass.  But she had not been to the Black City then.  She had not proved to the Ysandir that a girl could be one of the worst enemies they would ever face.
But what if she had not gone to the Black City?  Duke Gareth had mentioned that, with a deal more practice, she could become one of the finest swordsmen at Court.  In archery she hit the target every time.  The masters who taught her tactics and logic told her she was sometimes brilliant—Myles said she was far more intelligent than many adults.  She had bested Ralon of Malven, and in some strange way she had won her sword.
All at once she felt different inside her own skin.
“Me,” she said at last.  “You should pick me.”

It’s quite a nice moment—not quite as FUCK YEAH as the one earlier with the Ysandir, but equally important to Alanna, who suddenly realizes that she’s not just not weak, she’s fucking badass.  To her surprise, Jonathan completely agrees, and they have the book’s final gay moment when she kisses his hand and pledges her fealty.  They go to sleep under the stars, and will presumably awake to find they have a lot of ‘splainin’ to do to the people they’ve left behind in Persepolis.  The book ends with the words “The Beginning.”  ‘Cause it’s the FIRST adventure, get it?  Oh, Tamora Pierce, you so clever.

Will Alanna and Jon’s gay relationship continue into squiredom?  Will Duke Roger continue his poor-concealed attempts to seize the throne?  Is Alanna going to eventually fake puberty to disguise her lady voice or what?  Find out next time in the first chapter of In the Hand of the Goddess!  Which as of yet does not have a snappy make-believe title, but I bet when it does it’ll be really funny.  No, seriously.

ALANNA: THE FIRST ADVENTURE, CHAPTER SIX: WOMANHOOD, OR, IN WHICH ALANNA TELLS GEORGE A SECRET, NEARLY DIES, GETS A LETTER, WINS A DUEL, AND IS INVITED ON YET ANOTHER SPECIAL PAGE FIELD TRIP. IT IS AN ACTION-PACKED ADVENTURE THRILL RIDE, BASICALLY.

“Womanhood” is the longest chapter of Alanna: The First Adventure, and it would have been a lot shorter had Alanna ever read Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret.  Just sayin’.

So Alanna’s doing her sword fighting thing, learning to not be shitty at life, and she wakes up one morning and realizes that there are things happening in her special region.  Mysterious, bloody things.  She freaks out—shockingly—and quickly realizes that she can’t tell any of the Palace healers.  So she decides to ride out into the Lower City to find George, because if there’s one person to whom you can confide your secret double life as a lawbreaking vagina-owner, it’s the King of Thieves.  Rather than actually go inside the Dancing Dove and talk to anyone, she breaks into George’s rooms via the roof.  George hears her coming and nearly slits her throat.  Apparently people who break into his rooms don’t get the one-ear warning.  Alanna tells him that she needs to see a female healer, and George is all “you’ll need to give me a little more than that, brosef.”  And so she tells him.

Alanna swallowed hard.  “I’m not a boy.”  It was incredibly hard to say.  “I’m a girl.”
“You’re a—you’re a what!” George yelled.
“Hush!  D’you want everyone to hear?”  She scuffed her foot against the floor.  “I thought you’d guess.  You have the Gift.”
“And your Gift shields you.  Alan, if this is a jest, it’s a poor time for one.”
She glared at him.  “D’you want me to take my clothes off?”

NO, ALANNA.  And then it comes out that she’s apparently seen George naked like ten thousand times before.  Apparently either Tortall has no nudity taboo or the Dancing Dove is like the Shortbus of imaginary medieval countries.

George takes a moment to absorb this new information, then tells Alanna that he is going to take her to see his mother, a trained healer who used to be a priestess of the Goddess.  She takes Alanna into her study and asks her what’s wrong, and then just about kills herself laughing when Alanna tells her that she’s bleeding from her bikini area.  She tells Alanna that this is not a medical emergency and is just something that happens when you own a vagina for the correct amount of time, and Alanna—guess what!—freaks out.  She’s all I HAVE THE GIFT I CAN MAKE MY VAGINA NOT DO STUFF and Mistress Cooper’s like NO YOU CAN’T DERPYHOOVES, because apparently that pisses the gods off or something.  She gives Alanna an anti-pregnancy charm (even though Alanna insists that she doesn’t intend to have sex at any point, ever—oho, my dear, just wait until your fake homosexual liaison is finally consummated), and then takes her hand to read her future and is all “aw, shit, you’re chosen by the Goddess, SUCKS TO BE YOU.”

And it does suck to be her, because when she gets back to the Palace Duke Gareth grounds her for riding into the Lower City without permission.

She doesn’t get out again until after her thirteenth birthday, when Sir Myles asks her to ride out with him to his estates for a sleepover field trip excursion.  He tempts her by telling her that there is a ruin near his castle that dates back to the Old Ones, the people who founded Tortall.  Duke Gareth gives his permission (in a dressing gown fit for Chrestomanci himself) and within a few days Alanna and Sir Myles are trit-trotting out to Olau, a barony nearly due south of Trebond.  Alanna briefly gets a little homsesick because Olau reminds her of home, except it’s full of orchards and fields instead of bloodthirsty Scanran raiders and the castle has windows that don’t let in the wind.  That seems like a great reason to NOT be homesick, tbh, but okay.

On their second day at the Barony, Myles and Alanna hike out to the ruin and Myles tells her about the super awesome paper he is writing about the way the Old Ones lived.  He is apparently particularly interested in the way they… cooked.  He is like that Sociology graduate student who spends long hours at the grad bar, drinking scotch and talking about his thesis and totally killing your buzz.  Myles also lets slip that he was compelled to bring her out to Olau via prophetic dream.  (Those pop up a lot in Tortall, no big.)  Alanna is weirded out, which is odd, as everyone who meets her can’t seem to stop talking about her special ~destiny.  They reach the ruin, and Alanna’s ~destiny directs her to a big black door in what used to be the armoury.  She promptly moves it using special touched-by-the-Goddess strength.  It opens onto a dark, forbidding tunnel, which Alanna naturally bounds joyfully into, using her Gift to light the way.  She finds a neat-looking sword with a crystal on the pommel and examines it while Myles bellows outside about a sudden storm on the rise, which he says is some kind of supernatural god-storm or some bullshit.  Alanna’s all “yeah, whatevs, lookin’ at this sword I found,” and then the dark tries to strangle her.

Yep.

Suddenly the light of Alanna’s magic went completely out.  Darkness swirled around her in long tentacles that tightened on her body.  She opened her mouth to scream for Myles, and no sound emerged.  She fought to breathe and fought to throw her magic into the stifling blackness, but nothing happened.  She tried to shove it away with her arms and legs and found the blackness had bound her tight.  It was squeezing her ribs, forcing the air from her lungs… She was dying, and she knew it.

Alanna accepts her own death—dude, like two pages ago you couldn’t even accept that you were bleeding from the twat, suddenly you’re accepting your own death?—and then the crystal on the pretty sword she found lights up and, like, sucker punches the darkness off of her.  Or something.  Anyway, she doesn’t die, and Myles is like, “Keep that, I was probably compelled to bring you here because of that life-saving sword with the crystal on the butt.”  Alanna does keep it, and names it Lightning.

Back in Corus, people notice Alanna’s new sword, and she tells them all that she picked it out of Myles’s armoury, instead of telling them that she found it while barreling into a tunnel and getting into a wrestling match with the dark.  (She tells George the truth, and his only reaction is “lol you accepted something?”)  Duke Roger asks to inspect the blade, and when he does he freezes up and twitches and has some kind of crazy evil sorcerer reaction to it.  He’s like “WHERE THE FUCK DID YOU GET THIS IT IS MAGIC AS BALLS” and Alanna plays dumb.  She also realizes that she really, really hates Duke Roger, because apparently the way to get on Alanna of Trebond’s bad side is to mess with her stuff.  SHE JUST DOESN’T LIKE OTHER PEOPLE TOUCHING HER THINGS.

Shortly after this, Stefan the Hostler brings Alanna a secret letter from Thom, who sends them via George.  Thom tells her about having moved from the Convent to the Mithran cloisters, and warns Alanna not to trust Duke Roger.  Yes, Thom, that is certainly something that could conceivably happen.  Thom also mentions that Duke Roger is one of the few living sorcerers powerful enough to send the Sweating Sickness to Tortall, and that he is next in line for the throne should Jonathan die.  George mentions this to Alanna as well, and Alanna pooh-poohs them both.  However, she finds herself working stronger, more complicated spells in her free time, almost as though she actually believes them and isn’t a complete tool.  Almost.

While Alanna works spells and pretends not to hate the Duke, Jonathan keeps going down to the Lower City to drink with the riffraff.  I’m sure that what Pierce was trying to set up here is that Jonathan is a king who cares about the common man, but the Dancing Dove is full of con artists, thieves, swindlers, cutthroats, and ladies* of negotiable affection.  I feel like sending the privileged, sheltered heir to a vast and wealthy kingdom to a den of iniquity as his first exposure to the working class gives him a slightly crooked** idea of what the poor are actually like.  Jonathan is going to be knighted soon and everyone wants to be his squire.  (Note: it is also revealed at this point that Alex was chosen to be Duke Roger’s squire, which makes Alanna side eye at him a lot.)  Everyone wants to be Jonathan’s squire, especially Alanna, but she’s all I’M A GIRL ANGST ANGST I’M NO GOOD AT SHIT ANGST ANGST HE’LL NEVER WANT ME AS HIS SQUIRE ANGST ANSGT FOREVERRRR.  Kid, you have a magical sword and you’re destined as fuck, I think you’re gonna be okay.

In April—this is in Alanna’s fourth year, for those of you keeping score at home—Lord Martin of Meron arrives at Court.  (Fief Meron, by the way, is apparently better known as the Great Southern Desert, a land that was already populated by an indigenous people, the Bazhir, before Tortall conquered it.  And now it’s a “fief” that just happens to be roughly as big as the northern half of the kingdom and home to a number of nations and tribes.  Good show, Tortall.)  He’s come North to propose a trip for all the soon-to-be knights, so they can meet the Bazhir and learn their ways before they inevitably kill them as adults.  Which is all kinds of horrifying.  Lord Martin was an expert swordsman in his youth, and Captain Sklaw takes his arrival as a sign from the gods that it’s Humiliate Alanna Time once again.  He pits her against Lord Martin’s son, Geoffrey, in a free-style practice duel, and she kicks his ass, proving that all those late nights with Coram’s sword have started to pay off.*** It’s a BFD and everybody claps.

Later that night, Jonathan goes to see Duke Gareth to ask him if he can take Alanna on the trip to the Great Southern Desert.  His explanation for why he wants to do this:

“Because he’s my friend.  Because I always know where he stands, and where I stand with him.  Because I think he’d die for me, and—and I think I’d die for him.  Is that enough?”

Before the squires (and one page) leave on yet another Tortallan field trip, Duke Roger calls them all into the Great Library for a special man-to-man talk.  There is, apparently, a place called the Black City in the middle of the desert which is totally evil and from which nobody leaves alive.  He hints that since he is the best and even HE doesn’t dare to go anywhere near it, a bunch of pansy-ass babies like THEM don’t stand a chance.  He is wearing a very pretty sapphire necklace, which he fiddles with as he talks to them, and which makes Alanna sleepy and dopey when she looks directly at it.  He closes his lecture with “I know when a sword is too heavy for me to lift,” almost as though he is challenging them (or rather Jonathan, who he is looking directly at).  This disturbs Alanna deeply, because sure, he’s next in line for the throne, and yeah, he’s been repeatedly named one of the few sorcerers in the Eastern Lands who would actually be able to send the Sweating Sickness from a great distance, and okay, she’s been having weird awkward hostile feelings toward him and his moustache since they both arrived on the scene, but that doesn’t mean anything, right?  Right?  Right?

Will Alanna’s newfound fencing skills come in handy in the desert?  What’s the dealio with this Black City crap?  Will anyone ever stop being derpy about Roger’s repeated attempts to kill Jonathan? (Nope.)  Find out next time in CHAPTER SEVEN: THE BLACK CITY, OR, IN WHICH THEY GO TO THE DESERT AND ARE NEARLY DEAD FROM PLOT DEVICE

* There may also be men, although they are never mentioned.  In the Beka novels there are certainly a few male sex workers kicking around, although they seem to be an exception to the rule, but perhaps that’s one of those kooky Tortallan customs that died out between King Roger and King Roald, like lady knights or not killing LBGTQ people.

** See what I did there?  Ah, this is why I make the big blogging bucks.

*** This could be a euphemism.  But it’s not.

ALANNA: THE FIRST ADVENTURE, CHAPTER FIVE: THE SECOND YEAR, OR, SUDDENLY: TITS!

After her fun excursion into the Land of the Dead Alanna sleeps for three days, which is a fun way for her to avoid answering any and all awkward questions about her magical lady-voice.  Luckily, nobody actually asks any questions at all, not even Jonathan, which leaves the road clear for Alanna’s next big problem: puberty.

The pages are supposed to go on a trip to neighboring city Port Caynn for the day.  Hopefully the cooks have all packed them special lunches with treats, as is appropriate for field trips.  Alanna is packing in front of the mirror when she suddenly realizes that her chest is moving.  In the “it’s perfectly natural” way, not the “an alien baby is clearly about to burst right out of this mother” way.

Yes indeedy, it seems we have a case of SUDDENLY: TITS.

She freaks the fuck out and starts screaming for Coram to get her bandages!  Oceans and oceans of bandages!  Coram figures out what’s going on (he’s a sharp’un) and he’s like, bro, you can’t fight this shit.  You can be a woman and a warrior, it’s fine.  No she cannot, Coram, because it is ILLEGAL.  Her being a girl was the basis of you wanting to drag her back to Trebond by her hair in the first chapter of this goddamn book.  I usually side with Coram whenever Alanna gets crazy, but he’s not being very consistent here.  He should just tell her to stop shouting about how much she hates her tits before she wakes up the whole goddamn Palace.

So Alanna is now touchier than every about people trying to take her clothes off (which… happens a lot? Jesus, Alanna, do you needs an adult?), and eventually goes nuts when Raoul tries to get her to go swimming.  Raoul’s pretty chill about the whole thing, but Alanna is consumed with guilt and apologizes.  Raoul responds thusly:

“I was teasing you,” he admitted.  “Sure, you got mad.  You’ve a right to do as you want.”
She looked at him in shock.  “I do?”
Raoul frowned.  “I hadn’t meant to say anything, but since I have the chance- Alan, you seem to think we won’t like you unless you do things just like everyone else.  Have you ever thought we might like you because you’re different?”

Which: no, Raoul, most people do not think that their friends like them because they start randomly shouting at them.

The pages all ride back to the Palace, where they run into new arrival Duke Roger of Conte.  He is Jonathan’s cousin and seems to be the mysterious “someone” mentioned in the last chapter who is meant to teach the pages magic.  He is also clever, charming, and handsome as ballsacks*, and everyone pretty much instantly jizzes their pants over him… except Alanna, who, true to form, has a ~strange feeling and is all “idk I dislike him.”  And everyone is like “bro, you trippin’.”  BUT IS SHE?  (Spoilers: nope.)

Duke Roger calls all the pages in, one by one, to see if they have the Gift or not.  Alanna is the last person to be called in, and continues to have ~strange feelings.  The Duke asks her about the Sweating Sickness and stares very intently at her; she tells him about being trained by Maude and her healing Gift and tries very hard to master the urge to scratch his eyes out.  The Duke is playing with his wizard’s rod (NEEDS AN ADULT) the whole time and it gives Alanna a headache, but she manages to get out of it unscathed, albeit deeply, deeply unsettled.  Coram talks to her afterwards and asks if he read her mind.  When Alanna says no, Coram says that she must be protected by the gods.  Predictably, Alanna’s like “lol no.”  Dumbass.

Fun fact: Tamora Pierce originally wrote Song of the Lioness as a single adult fantasy novel.  In that novel, Duke Roger was a Depraved Bisexual who would fuck anything, and who also proved himself to be a child molester when he used the above scene as an excuse to make a move on Alanna.  I am really glad she cut that part out of this book, because 1) ewww, 2) do we really need any more Depraved Bisexuals?  Particularly Child-Molesting Depraved Bisexuals?,** and 3) seriously, ewwwww.

Alright, so after this there’s a bit about George buying Alanna a horse, because she's still riding a pony and ponies are not very knightly mounts.  It is very boring and drags on for far too long, so I won’t be recapping it in any detail.  Here are the important bits: Alanna takes Jon with her down to the Lower City to meet George; Alanna’s new horse is named Moonlight and she’s really beautiful and graceful and blah blah blah (horses are so dull. SO DULL.); Jonathan and George recognize one another and for whatever reason do not mind that one of them is the heir of the realm and the other is the thieviest thief in it; George gives Jon a horse as well, who Jonathan names Darkness.  So yay, everyone is happy and hopefully we never have to hear about bloody horses again.  God help me when I eventually do Wild Magic.

Sometime after this the pages are finally due to start sword practice.  They are taught by a man named Captain Aram Sklaw, who talks like a pirate and has the eye patch to back it up.  He makes fun of all the pages, telling them all that they are fat or lazy or too interested in reading books and thinking and stuff to be any good as swordsmen.  His critique of Alanna: she is short.  Well played, Sklaw.  The pages are made to make their own practice swords and wear them at all times, even in the bath, since if they are caught without them they will be punished.  On the practice courts Sklaw keeps picking on Alanna, who is not only short and a closet chick, but- oh shit- really, really bad at fencing.

And, see, this is one of the elements of the Alanna books, and Tamora Pierce books in general, that appeal to me just as much now as they did when I was younger: Alanna is not born fucking good at everything.  So often in fantasy novels you find characters who are just born good at things, whether it’s swordsmanship or magic or stealing or making friends with adorable plot devices.  There’s never any explanation given for their talents, and they never have to work at them or strive to be better.  Tamora Pierce heroines are usually not automatically fantastic at anything.  They have skills, sure, but they spend time honing them and becoming good at what they do, instead of just rolling out of bed as fencing masters.  They work.  Alanna is not as good an example of this as, say, Kel is later on, but she is still, initially, really fucking bad at swords.

So bad that in her fist real practice duel another page beats her in about ten seconds.  Yikes.

She’s understandably humiliated- knights are not supposed to be bad at swords, dammit!- so she finds Coram the next morning for dawn watch and talks to him about it.  Coram tells her that there are three kinds of swordsmen: those who are born good, those who fail, and those who learn the sword.  Her problem is that she is not a natural.  Unless she wants to fail, and probably die, she will have to learn the sword, which means practicing all the time.  Instead of reacting to this with a temper tantrum, as she would have in the beginning of the novel, Alanna asks to borrow his broadsword.  It’s bigger than she is, but if she wants to learn the sword she wants to do it right.

Alanna of Trebond, you may grow up into a fully functional adult.

Will Alanna learn the sword?  Is she really trippin’ regarding Duke Roger?  Will the onslaught of puberty ever cease?  Find out next time in CHAPTER SIX: WOMANHOOD, OR, IN WHICH ALANNA TELLS GEORGE A SECRET, NEARLY DIES, GETS A LETTER, WINS A DUEL, AND IS INVITED ON YET ANOTHER SPECIAL PAGE FIELD TRIP.  IT IS AN ACTION-PACKED ADVENTURE THRILL RIDE, BASICALLY.

* Please do keep in mind that this is a Tamora Pierce book, where “handsome” means “tall and old, with unfortunate facial hair.”  In this case it is a moustache.  Moustaches are always ugly.  No one should ever have one, including you.

** This is not to say we don't need more bisexuals!  Bring on the bisexuals, particularly in fantasy lit, where they tend to be a bit thin on the ground.  Just, you know, make them not evil.  Or child molesters.  Please.

ALANNA: THE FIRST ADVENTURE, CHAPTER FOUR: DEATH IN THE PALACE, OR, IN WHICH EVERYBODY GETS SICK AS BALLS AND UNIMPORTANT PEOPLE DIE

You’d think that a chapter with a dramatic title like “Death in the Palace” would get right to the death at the beginning- you know, start off with a bang.  Instead we are treated to a mini-section about Duke Gareth lecturing Alanna about how fighting is wrong and true nobles never fight with their hands and blah blah blah.  This could easily have been stuck onto the end of the last chapter, but I guess Tamora Pierce wanted Alanna and Jon’s significant ambiguously gay moment to stand alone.  Alanna has to write a formal apology to Ralon’s father (who is presumably off buying his son a box of tissues for his many, many tears) and is restricted to the palace for two months.  No more sneaky eleven-year-old beers for our hero.

And now is there death?  Haha, no.  First we need to know about all of Alanna’s friends becoming squires!  After Midwinter (which is like Chistmas, but with no Jesus), Gary, Alex, and Raoul are no longer pages and Alanna helps them move into their new quarters.  She spends a few sentences missing them, but then she finds out that Jonathan is just as good at math as Alex (who used to help her in math class- yes, the pages in this medieval kingdom have math class, presumably they also have recess and sock hops), and they start hanging out a lot more, thusly:

“Many evenings after that they could be found in each other’s rooms, their heads bent over a map or a piece of paper.”

Yep.

March comes around and finally, FINALLY, there is some goddamn death in the goddamn Palace in the form of the Sweating Fever.  All of a sudden everyone is sick, from the people of the Lower City to the Queen.* The pages are the last ones to get sick, Raoul being the first of Alanna’s close friends.  Alanna remembers the conversation she had with Maude about her Gift of healing; she starts to feel guilty about not using it to help people, and decides to… continue not using it to help people.  Like you do.

Gary, Alex, and Francis (remember him? I didn’t!) are the next ones to get sick.  Francis, conveniently enough, is the sickest, falling into delirium on the very first day.  Because he hasn’t had any lines yet he’s pretty much a goner and, sure enough, he’s the first one to die.  Alanna’s all FUCK I COULD HAVE SAVED THE SHIT OUT OF HIM and angsts a bit.  (But only a bit.  You’ve got to save your feelings for people with dialogue.)

The next morning, Alanna gets the news that Jonathan is sick and calling for her.  She runs to his room and finds it full of smoke and incense and priests of the Black God chanting and, like, flagellation and moaning and ten kinds of freaky shit.  She freaks out and goes to get Myles, which is a little weird considering Myles is a minor knight with little influence.  Can’t she get Duke Gareth to go wave them out, or find George and make him cut off all their ears?  She tells Myles that she has the Gift and wants to help Jonathan.  Apparently all the healers in the Palace who try to cure people of the fever find themselves quickly drained of magic.  Myles charges into the room, orders out all the writhing death priests, and talks to Duke Baird, the royal healer.  Baird tells Alanna that the fever seems to be magical in nature, sent by an enemy sorcerer to drain healers and kill people, and mentions that he finds it interesting that the fever only struck the heir to the throne after all the Palace healers were out of commission.  He instructs Alanna to use her Gift to give him energy, just to test her strength; she nearly zaps him, convincing him that she is, in fact, strong enough to start putting the hurdy-gurdy on Prince Jonathan.  She uses the opportunity to have another gay moment with him, holding his hand and stroking his temples and basically doing everything but crooning Spanish love songs into his ear while licking his neck.  Seriously, Tortall must be the most open-minded place in the Eastern Lands.

She nurses Jonathan, with Coram and Myles taking shifts to help her, and he eventually coughs up the stuff in his lungs; his fever continues to rise, though, and for whatever reason Alanna continues to not use her goddamn magic.  King Roald and Queen Lianne (who is still weak from her own bout of fever) eventually come and visit to be like, “yo, why is this eleven-year-old taking care of our only son and heir?”  Alanna tells them that she did not mention her Gift when she first arrived because her mother and father both had it too, and when she died when the twins were born her father decided not to let either of them have anything to do with magic.  (So apparently Maude taught them on the sly?  Good to know.) (Also, it has been mentioned several times throughout the Tortall books that untrained mages end up kill people and blowing shit up accidentally, what the fuck, Lord Trebond needs a World's Best Dad award for sure.)  She says that even though she doesn’t want to be a knight who uses magic- it feels like cheating- she can’t keep letting her friends die.  A noble thought, that.  After all, next time it might be someone who talks.  King Roald mentions that Jonathan also has the Gift, and that if when he gets well he is going to hire ~someone to teach the pages about magic.  BUT WHO.

After they leave, Jonathan’s fever gets worse, and Alanna finally bites the bullet and casts a spell.  She calls on the Great Mother Goddess, and briefly sees that city from the first chapter again before starting to glow purple and speak in an adult (female) voice and other creepy shit.  Myles is in the room and notice all this, especially the adult female voice thing.  The Goddess speaks to Alanna- apparently her voice hurts Alanna’s ears, which is probably meant to convey divinity and power but makes me think that she’s just got one of those loud, flat, foghorn voices that make people sound like they’re yelling all the time- and tells he to call Jonathan back from Death.  And so Alanna sinks into Jonathan’s consciousness and into a place between life and death, and the Dark God’s all, SUP.  (He is dressed in a robe with a hood; it does not say if he is an anthropomorphic skeleton with a weakness for cats, but I have to assume he is.)  Alanna’s like, I’d like my friend back now and also if you could not kill me that’d be super.  The Black God’s like LOL K, because he’s cool like that.  Jon takes Alanna’s hand and Alanna notices that when he talks to her it’s in a grown man’s voice.  Why this happens is never really explained, so let’s just assume ~destiny and leave it at that.  

Anyway, they zoom back up into the world of mortals, where Jonathan now seems to be healthy and Myles is thinking very hard about the fact that he just heard Alanna talking in a lady-voice and Jonathan talking in a man-voice.

But he won’t get the chance to ask about it, because Alanna passes out as soon as she reenters her body.

Will Myles figure out the whole lady-voice/man-voice thing?  What mysterious sorcerer sent the Sweating Fever to Corus?  How many more gay moments can Alanna and Jonathan have?  (Lots.  The answer is lots.)  Find out next time in CHAPTER FIVE: THE SECOND YEAR, OR, SUDDENLY: TITS!

* Myles, notably, is not sick; this is actually only notable because he tells Alanna that he is too full of wine for there to be room for sickness, which I find interesting in the same way that I find Coram’s alcoholism interesting.  In her early books Pierce seems to be pretty blasé on the subject of alcohol dependency: everybody drinks and people who drink too much are just jolly drunks, whereas in the later books most of her main characters are said to drink water or fruit juice rather than alcohol and a few characters are described as having overcome alcoholism.  Hell, eleven-year-old Alanna’s pounding back beers in the Dancing Dove; eleven-year-old Kel is drinking sensible hot toddies in her room.  It seems that Pierce had a change of heart regarding alcohol consumption between writing Song of the Lioness and most of her other books.  I wonder if we’ll ever get an update regarding Coram’s drinking habits and whether or not he’s quit, as Myles seems to have done in the later books.  Just a thought that got too big for a parenthetical aside.

ALANNA: THE FIRST ADVENTURE, CHAPTER THREE: RALON, OR, IN WHICH BULLYING IS FOUND TO BE WRONG, JONATHAN IS AMBIGUOUSLY GAY, AND ALANNA FALLS DOWN A LOT

So, bros!  Were you aware that bullying is wrong?  If not, Tamora Pierce is here to teach you a lesson.  Namely, that bullying is not highly recommended.  Which is a lesson I’m sure no Tamora Pierce fans ever learned firsthand.

Remember that kid with the Nick Carter hair and bad teeth?  Alanna does, and so she isn’t surprised when he corners her in the stables and tells her to clean up his horse.  He leaves without waiting to see if she’ll actually do it; Stefan the hostler watches her and tells her that he’ll have to tell Duke Gareth that Ralon didn’t take care of his horse, which will get him into trouble and inevitably lead to Alanna’s teeth getting kicked in.  She says she knows and leaves, leading Stefan to conclude that Alanna is brave, but stupid.  Ralon ends up getting a month of punishment stable duties, which is beautifully fitting.  Alanna’s friends speculate on what could have happened and Alanna’s like LOL DUNNO WASN’T THERE NO CLUE.  Good job derailing their suspicion, brosef.

She expects Ralon to take revenge, and so he does.  First he tries to strip her naked and throw her into a lake, which is a big HELL NO due to the whole crouching tiger, hidden vagina issue.  Luckily her friends attempt to drown him.  Which is a totally proportionate response!  He then pinches her in the Great Hall and makes her drop a tray, which prompts Myles to have a little (non-drunk) talk with her about how bullying is wrong.  Or, rather, deliver a one-sided monologue about how the Code of Chivalry is too hard on the young’uns, while Alanna stares at him and wonders if he’s been into the brandy after all.  She tells him that she plans on fighting back (good luck, kid, you’re like two feet tall), because otherwise he will continue to pinch her and try to get her naked.  Myles is like “well, if you have to hit, hit low.”  That’s the Tortallan zero tolerance policy: kick ‘em in the balls.

Ralon finds her the next day and, as predicted, beats the shit out of her, even though she does manage to get a direct blow to the testicles first.  She tells Coram that she fell down, and he’s like, “shyeah, and I’m the Emperor of Carthak.”  He goes to get her a steak, and she has a pity party about how a real boy would never have been beaten up.  Which makes no sense, because Ralon clearly targets younger, smaller dudes to rough up.  What the fuck, Derpyhooves.  Her motley crew show up and are shocked by the fact that she seems to have been run through a meat processor and vow to avenge their wee Alan, although they also vow to make sure he doesn’t know about it in case he hits them in the testicles too.  Gary goes to talk to Stefan, who tells him what happened and says that George will make sure that Ralon never comes back from the city with a full purse again.

He also mentions that George collects ears.  Presumably they are pinned to a corkboard and displayed in the common room of the Dancing Dove.

Raoul beats Ralon up, and Ralon tells Duke Gareth.  This is against the page’s moral code or something, so everyone starts leaving the room when he enters.  Ralon retaliates by breaking Alanna’s arm, because everyone reacts appropriately in Tortall.  Alanna is sent to Duke Gareth, who is basically like “JUST FUCKING PUNCH HIM IN THE FACE OR SOMETHING JESUS.”

And then Raoul beats up Ralon again.  Because that worked real well the first time.

Time passes, Alanna practices wrestling and boxing, and after her splint is taken off in mid-October she takes a midnight ride to the Dancing Dove.  She is greeted by a redhead with huge cans.

This turns out to be Rispah, George’s cousin. She takes him to George, who is carousing with drunkards, like you do, and who is weirdly distant when he sees Alanna.  He says he hears she’s been having problems with Ralon; when she says that that’s why she came into the city he takes her upstairs, still acting weird and awkward.  He asks if she wants him to make sure Ralon suffers some kind of “accident”; Alanna gets all huffy and nearly leaves because how could he think that of her?  No, Alanna just wants to learn how to effectively beat him to a pulp, that’s all.  Because the commoners, they know the dirty kind of fighting.  George calms down and starts teaching her to go for the eyes.

After a few weeks of lessons George buys her a beer (JESUS GEORGE SHE IS ELEVEN WHAT THE FUCK) and is all “so you ready to do some punchin’ yet?”  She is, so she drinks her beer (ELEVEN.  ELEVEN!) and the next night she calls Ralon out on the practice courts, calling him a liar, a sneak, a coward, and a bully, and also a lizard and a weasel and assorted other things.  He freaks out and starts swinging, but she swings faster, and ends up breaking his nose.  He starts crying like a chump, and she tells him that if he ever touches her again she’ll kill him.  He whines for a bit, then leaves Court like a little bitty baby.  And that’s the end of Ralon of Malven… or is it???  (Ha, just kidding, it is.) (Unless it’s not!) (No, it is.) (Maybe???)

Myles comes to see her afterwards, telling her that Coram and her friends are bragging about her totally creaming Ralon’s punk ass.  She tells him that she threw up afterwards, admitting that she hated administering such a gloriously thorough beating and that she feels like she is as bad as he was.  Myles responds with what basically works out to “bro, he broke your arm.”  And then Alanna has this weird internalized misogyny freakout:

No matter what Myles said, she had used fancy tricks to beat Ralon, that was all.  She was still a girl masquerading as a boy, and sometimes she doubted that she would ever believe herself to be as good as the stupidest, clumsiest male.

Oh, God, where to even start with this.  First of all, WHAT.  Second of all, you are an eleven-year-old who just successfully beat up a fifteen-year-old.  That’s like an elementary school kid beating up a high schooler (or incredibly precocious college student).  Third of all, those “fancy tricks” involved sticking your thumb in his eye and stepping on his foot, it’s not like you whipped out a blackjack.  Fourth, SERIOUSLY WHAT.

Anyway, Jonathan comes in and is like “you’re not a bully because he started it and also is like ten feet taller than you, so shut up.”  And then they have the first of many Tender, Ambiguously Gay Moments.

Suddenly Alanna felt a lot better.  “Thanks, Highness.”  She grinned.  “Thanks a lot.”
He put a hand on her shoulder.  “You may have noticed my friends call me Jonathan, or Jon.”
Alanna looked up at him, not sure what was going on.  “And am I your friend, Highness?”
“I do believe you are,” he told her quietly.  “I’d like you to be.”  He offered her his hand.
She took it.  “Then I am—Jonathan.”

Those two dudes would get so teased at my middle school, just sayin’.

Who will provide the necessary conflict now that Ralon is gone?  Will Alanna and Jon continue to act like boyfriends?  Does George owning an ear collection technically make him a sociopath?  Find out next time in CHAPTER FOUR:  DEATH IN THE PALACE, OR, IN WHICH EVERYBODY GETS SICK AS BALLS AND UNIMPORTANT PEOPLE DIE.

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.

ALANNA: THE FIRST ADVENTURE, CHAPTER ONE: TWINS, OR, IN WHICH WE MEET ALANNA, HER MOTLEY CREW OF NAY- AND YAY-SAYERS, AND LEARN THAT SHE HAS A ~DESTINY

Oh, Alanna: the First Adventure.  The book that started it all, the book that told us that YES, girls CAN be knights, YES, women ARE strong and capable, YES, writing female-fronted YA fantasy novels IS a lucrative career move.  We also learn about menstruation, mysterious desert spirits, and ear collections.

We open in Trebond, a fief in medieval Europe modern Tortall, where Lord Trebond is telling his twin children, Thom and Alanna, that he has made his decision and they need not discuss it.  A half page of exposition tells us that the decision in question is the decision to send Thom (a dude) to the royal palace to become a knight and Alanna (a not-dude) to a convent in the north to become a lady.  We learn that Thom wants to be a sorcerer, and Alanna wants to be a not-lady.  We also learn that the twins are redheads with purple eyes and basically identical, which is not surprising because this is a fantasy novel and all twins in fantasy novels are identical.  Why?  Because CONVENIENCE, that’s why.  They moan about their respective fates for a few sentences- Thom doesn’t want to lean to hit things with sticks, Alanna doesn’t want to learn to put her shoulders back and take small steps, etc- and then BAM, they hit on the idea of changing places.  Thom will go to the convent to become a sorcerer (because the Priestesses of the Goddess, conveniently, accept young boys to train as sorcerers until they get old enough to be sent to the Mithran cloisters).  Alanna will go to the capital, Corus, as “Alan,” and train as a knight.  (They make this decision on remarkably short notice, something I never noticed as a sullen middle school student.  Apparently they are going to be sent away the very next day, which, dudes, you wait until now to figure this shit out?  Poor planning skills.)  In order to pull this off they need to convince two people: Maude, the village healer who trained the both of them in sorcery, and Coram, the sergeant-at-arms who taught them both to hunt and ride. They do not worry about convincing their dad, because their dad is a dipshit who doesn’t care about them and won’t notice if they both disappear.  Trebond: We know good parenting.

The twins go to see Maude to ask for her help, and she broods for a few paagraphs.  She knows that both twins have the Gift of magic and also knows that they are both way more powerful than she is; however, while Thom loves magic and wants to devote the rest of his life to fighting demons and casting spells and raising the dead to make his sister’s life a little more complicated than it already is, Alanna hates magic and has to basically be pistol-whipped into trying new spells.  Polar opposites, those two.  Like the goddamn Odd Couple.  With this in mind, Maude casts a spell to see the future in her hearth fire and find out if she should encourage them or send them back to their chambers without gruel or whatever they eat in Trebond.  When she does this Alanna has a vision of a dark city in the fire (even though Maude is the only person who’s supposed to See anything with this particular spell) and feels a sudden overwhelming rush of fear for no apparent reason.   This is only the first of many sudden overwhelming rushes of feeling over the course of the quartet.  Whatever Maude sees in the fire (could it be… DESTINY???) convinces her to help them.  The twins are appropriately psyched.

The next day (seriously, dudes, POOR PLANNING SKILLS) Thom forges two letters (one for Thom to go to the convent, one for “Alan” at the Royal Palace), while Maude cuts Alanna’s hair and gives her a lecture on learning to use her magic to heal as compensation for all the killing she plans on doing.  Alanna’s like “lol whatevs, magic is for cocks.”  She (Maude) also hints that she (Alanna) is somehow touched by the gods.  Bet that won’t be important later in the series.

Alanna, with her hood up to pass as Thom (apparently Coram and Maude are the only people who can ever tell them apart facially), starts to ride south with Coram, while Thom goes north with Maude.  He is wearing skirts because he needs to pass as Alanna long enough to fool Coram, the villagers, and their father, who might be watching from a window or something.  Haha, like Lord Trebond would bother watching his children ride away forever.  He’s got BOOKS to read, yo.  Alanna keeps her hood up until she and Coram are miles away from the castle, at which point she’s all TRUTHBOMB I’M ALANNA AND I’M GOING TO BE A KNIGHT BECAUSE OF ~DESTINY ALSO PASS THE BREAD PLEASE.  Coram, who is a burly salt o’ the earth type, freaks out and tells her he is going to send her back and tell her father.  Dude, he won’t care, we just went over this.  Alanna tells him that if he tries to send her back she will make him see visions for the rest of his life.  Since Coram has a crippling fear of magic and all magic-related things, this does not go over well.  She has also filled his travel flask with fine brandy, because Coram is a drunk and she is wily.  He broods about things for a while- she’s a girl! But she’s good at hunting and archery and knight stuff!  But it’s illegal or something!  But Thom would be, like, the shittiest knight ever and also he never stops whining! But what if someone finds out!  But ~destiny! Etc- and keeps a-pullin’ on the brandy flask, and by the time they stop in at a roadside inn later that night he is smashed.  The next morning’s hangover convinces him to go along with the whole thing because his head hurts, dammit.

It must be absurdly easy to make Coram do stuff if all you have to do is wait for the hangover.  Bro’s drunk like all the time.

They make it to Corus, and it’s all very new and magical for country mouse Alanna, who goggles like a bush baby at all the people and the stuff and the one dude with the big nose and hazel eyes who winks at her before disappearing.  Coram tells her that he is a thief, and she has trouble believing it because he seems so nice.  Oh, bb, just you wait.  She and Coram make their way to the Palace, where their horses are taken by Stefan the hostler (we know he’ll be important later because he gets an actual name) and they are sent in to see Duke Gareth of Naxen, the page training master who Coram has apparently met before.  I wonder what he made Coram do hungover.

Will Alanna successfully complete her training?  What challenges will her new life at the Palace bring?  Did I just make a gay joke about Coram and Duke Gareth?  Find out in the next chapter, 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.

Song of the Daffodil: The First Adventure

"I suppose he could have changed," Neal said dryly.  "I myself have noticed my growing resemblance to a daffodil."  The other pages snorted.
Kel eyed her friend.  "You do look yellow around the edges," she told him, her face quite serious.  "I hadn't wanted to bring it up."
"We daffodils like to have things brought up," Neal said, slinging an am around her shoulders.  "It reminds us of spring."

A few nights ago I was talking to my fiance about how I wanted to start a book blog, maybe one in the same vein as BSC Revisited, but wasn't sure what series I would write about.  Then I remembered that I still own pretty much every Tamora Pierce book published, and that I read Lioness Rampant so many times as a child that it started to fall to pieces.

And so: Welcome to Song of the Daffodil, a Tamora Pierce snark/review/nostalgia blog.  (Snarevstalgia?  Let's make that a word.)

I plan to review the books in more or less chronological order, starting with Alanna: the First Adventure and going through The Immortals, Protector of the Small, and the Emelan books.  I also plan to include a short summary of the books as I remember them prior to the reviews proper, and am sure than my fond memories of them as the Best. Books. Ever. are about to take a fearful beating (though I think Neal is still pretty ballin').

(Ballin' is good, right?  I am not up on the hip kid slang, these days.)