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The Halfling's Gem, R. A. Salvatore
GAH finally managed to get my hard drive backed up so I could install updates. WinXP had an update out that apparently on some machines broke XP so bad you had to reinstall from the start, much like what happened a few months ago with my Vista laptop, so I elected to flirt with danger and not update until I'd gotten ALL MY ART backed up. WHereupon I found that someone who I'm not naming but whose name rhymes with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
myrialux had managed to pack all my cables in one box, separately from their components for some inexplicable reason that not even he can explain now for the move, which resulted in a lot of interesting language as I set up various electronic things in my apartment and had to deduce which cable when with what. Anyway, the upshot is that the AC adapter for my MyBook backup thingybopper went missing, and I had to order a new one.
But it's all backed up now and, as I expected, a newer patch or update fixed the problem with the broken update, and there seem to have been absolutely no problems. So far.
But all that's beside the point. So today, in addition to the forgettable book (Elfshadow), I also finished The Halfling's Gem book 3 of the Icewind Dale Trilogy. At the end of the previous book, one of theparty members ensemble cast was kidnapped by a nasty assassin on the orders of rachelmanija's favoritely-named character, Pasha Pook, a Thieves' Guild guildmaster in some faraway city. The TOTALLY NOT A HOBBIT halfling Regis had stolen a gem from him previously, which allowed the wielder to persuade others, and the guildmaster naturally wanted it back.
Or at least I assume he was kidnapped at the end of the previous book. I have no memory of it whatsoever. Then again, I had no memory whatsoever of the fact that one of the other characters seemed to have died, falling with a flaming dragon into an abyss. Although never fear, he's not dead. If you haven't figured it out by now, in this trilogy at least, R. A. Salvatore is like Kubo Tite of Bleach fame: completely unable to kill off any character on the side of good.
Anyway. So The Halfling's Gem opened with Cattie-Brie left behind yet again as the two surviving members of the party, Drizzzt and Wulfgar, head off after Entreri the assassin and Regis the halfling. Why, I'm not entirely sure, because there's been lots of talk about how Regis is such a good friend of theirs, but he's been so completely useless most of the time that he's been in hardly any scenes with the rest of them, so it's really not that believable that the rest of them would care so much as to go after him, professing friendship as their reason. (And honestly: you know this guy with a gem that hypnotizes people into agreeing with him, which you've seen him use on others a number of times, and who's just this really nice guy, and is a great friend despite you seeing him wheedle stuff out of others with this gem, but you personally would risk your life to save him, honest, and you have no suspicions that maybe he's used the gem on you? Or perhaps I'm just less trusting than they are.)
At any rate, after the thought-to-be-dead dwarf shows up again[1], reunites with his adopted daughter and learns what's happened, they set off after the other two, meet up during a pirate fight where Cattie-brie shows again her desire not to kill people because she's the chick (but at least she showed sense and targeted the catapult that was doing damage to the other ships and did some good during the fight), and they head off into the most incredibly stereotyped Arab-esque desert nation I have ever come across AND THAT IS SAYING QUITE A LOT BECAUSE I GREW UP DURING THE '80S READING ALL SORTS OF DERIVATIVE CRAPPY FANTASY. Ahem.
The first city they land in is full of bathhouses (with mixed male and female bathing), veiled almost-naked women dancing with snakes, camels, thieves, bandits, turbans, sewers, people test-firing weapons into live slaves, beggars, and dishonest merchants with stupid accents setting the party up for attack by bandits under the pretext of selling them camels and advising them of the "bestest" way to go. After a pointless bandit attack that serves mostly as one play session in the campaign that likely spawned this book, they end up in a city of thieves and desperadoes, and I can't even BEGIN to think about the horrible economics of this setup.
They eventually contront Pasha Pook, fight a lot, get sent into another dimension and fight a lot where Cattie-brie gets to sacrifice herself to save the rest because she's thedisposable member of the party chick, but is saved at the last minute by Drizzzzt because have I mentioned the Kubo Tite thing, and then they fight a bunch of were-rats and win the day.
Cattie-brie gets more screen time, but in the fights swings wildly between not wanting to kill and killing without angst. She also smacks Wulfgar around when he even thinks about looking at other women - even when they run through the baths - and starts to flirt with Drizzzzt in between smacking Wulfgar and holding his hand. I was warned about this occurring, so was steeled against it, but it still annoys the hell out of me that she's doing this.
In other romantic news, we find near the beginning that the woman who is the magical ruler of some city and who is TOTALLY NOT GALADRIEL, who earleir wouldnt' allow Drizzt into her city because he was a drow, but magically appeared to him and explained that it totally wasn't what she wanted to do, but she couldn't afford to piss off anyone else and he TOTALLY UNDERSTOOD THAT AND WAS OK WITH THAT ... carries around a magical heart-shaped locket with a picture of Drizzt in it that warms when it gets near him. GAH. She gives it to Bruenor, the dwarf, as a way to track Drizzt and Wulfgar, but it apparently doesn't occur to her to, say, take the picture out before giving it to him so she doesn't have to get all embarassed about it.
And from a writing point of view, this comes out of nowhere. Later in the book, it's mentioned that Drizzt has spent some time with her, but it reeeally should have occurred the other way around.
So. We're setting Drizzt up as Total Romantic Hero here. And total female character count: one who hits on the other eligible male when she's supposed to be in love with one, and a grown woman ruler of an entire city who nevertheless acts like a 14-year-old. Oh, and one paragraph of a woman in veils dancing with a snake, the sight of which earns Wulfgar a smack from the girl hitting on Drizzt. :/
I'm also getting tired of the rhythm of Salvatore's writing in this one ... paragraph, paragraph, paragraph, paragraph, PORTENTIOUS ONE-SENTENCE PARAGRAPH OF EMPHASIS. Paragraph, paragraph, paragraph, paragraph, PORTENTIOUS ONE-SENTENCE PARAGRAPH OF EMPHASIS. Paragraph, paragraph, paragraph, paragraph, PORTENTIOUS ONE-SENTENCE PARAGRAPH OF EMPHASIS. It's not like that in every scene, but it happens enough that it's noticeable and annoying.
ETA: I forgot that Cattie-brie's other function, besides smacking Wulfgar, is to give Drizzt a metaphorical boot in the backside with some good advice on being true to himself when he starts having a crisis of conscience over wearing this mask that disguises him as a non-drow elf. Which, y'know, prevents the group from being noticed and lynched for having a drow in it. So he eventually tosses the mask and goes about as himself and instead of getting almost lynched, as happens in every other book where people see him, this time they're kinda sorta OK with him. The message Salvatore's trying to convey is unfortunately undercut by previous books. And by him having all were-rats be evil, by nature of their being were-rats.
--
[1] You discover that flames don't harm you. Your response is to either (a) possibly consider that the drow's blade, which has the power of frost and you picked up, has something to do with it; or (b) shrug and say "Huh. Maybe this armor has some special properties" and forget about it. *headdesk*
myrialux had managed to pack all my cables in one box, separately from their components for some inexplicable reason that not even he can explain now for the move, which resulted in a lot of interesting language as I set up various electronic things in my apartment and had to deduce which cable when with what. Anyway, the upshot is that the AC adapter for my MyBook backup thingybopper went missing, and I had to order a new one. But it's all backed up now and, as I expected, a newer patch or update fixed the problem with the broken update, and there seem to have been absolutely no problems. So far.
But all that's beside the point. So today, in addition to the forgettable book (Elfshadow), I also finished The Halfling's Gem book 3 of the Icewind Dale Trilogy. At the end of the previous book, one of the
rachelmanija's favoritely-named character, Pasha Pook, a Thieves' Guild guildmaster in some faraway city. The TOTALLY NOT A HOBBIT halfling Regis had stolen a gem from him previously, which allowed the wielder to persuade others, and the guildmaster naturally wanted it back.Or at least I assume he was kidnapped at the end of the previous book. I have no memory of it whatsoever. Then again, I had no memory whatsoever of the fact that one of the other characters seemed to have died, falling with a flaming dragon into an abyss. Although never fear, he's not dead. If you haven't figured it out by now, in this trilogy at least, R. A. Salvatore is like Kubo Tite of Bleach fame: completely unable to kill off any character on the side of good.
Anyway. So The Halfling's Gem opened with Cattie-Brie left behind yet again as the two surviving members of the party, Drizzzt and Wulfgar, head off after Entreri the assassin and Regis the halfling. Why, I'm not entirely sure, because there's been lots of talk about how Regis is such a good friend of theirs, but he's been so completely useless most of the time that he's been in hardly any scenes with the rest of them, so it's really not that believable that the rest of them would care so much as to go after him, professing friendship as their reason. (And honestly: you know this guy with a gem that hypnotizes people into agreeing with him, which you've seen him use on others a number of times, and who's just this really nice guy, and is a great friend despite you seeing him wheedle stuff out of others with this gem, but you personally would risk your life to save him, honest, and you have no suspicions that maybe he's used the gem on you? Or perhaps I'm just less trusting than they are.)
At any rate, after the thought-to-be-dead dwarf shows up again[1], reunites with his adopted daughter and learns what's happened, they set off after the other two, meet up during a pirate fight where Cattie-brie shows again her desire not to kill people because she's the chick (but at least she showed sense and targeted the catapult that was doing damage to the other ships and did some good during the fight), and they head off into the most incredibly stereotyped Arab-esque desert nation I have ever come across AND THAT IS SAYING QUITE A LOT BECAUSE I GREW UP DURING THE '80S READING ALL SORTS OF DERIVATIVE CRAPPY FANTASY. Ahem.
The first city they land in is full of bathhouses (with mixed male and female bathing), veiled almost-naked women dancing with snakes, camels, thieves, bandits, turbans, sewers, people test-firing weapons into live slaves, beggars, and dishonest merchants with stupid accents setting the party up for attack by bandits under the pretext of selling them camels and advising them of the "bestest" way to go. After a pointless bandit attack that serves mostly as one play session in the campaign that likely spawned this book, they end up in a city of thieves and desperadoes, and I can't even BEGIN to think about the horrible economics of this setup.
They eventually contront Pasha Pook, fight a lot, get sent into another dimension and fight a lot where Cattie-brie gets to sacrifice herself to save the rest because she's the
Cattie-brie gets more screen time, but in the fights swings wildly between not wanting to kill and killing without angst. She also smacks Wulfgar around when he even thinks about looking at other women - even when they run through the baths - and starts to flirt with Drizzzzt in between smacking Wulfgar and holding his hand. I was warned about this occurring, so was steeled against it, but it still annoys the hell out of me that she's doing this.
In other romantic news, we find near the beginning that the woman who is the magical ruler of some city and who is TOTALLY NOT GALADRIEL, who earleir wouldnt' allow Drizzt into her city because he was a drow, but magically appeared to him and explained that it totally wasn't what she wanted to do, but she couldn't afford to piss off anyone else and he TOTALLY UNDERSTOOD THAT AND WAS OK WITH THAT ... carries around a magical heart-shaped locket with a picture of Drizzt in it that warms when it gets near him. GAH. She gives it to Bruenor, the dwarf, as a way to track Drizzt and Wulfgar, but it apparently doesn't occur to her to, say, take the picture out before giving it to him so she doesn't have to get all embarassed about it.
And from a writing point of view, this comes out of nowhere. Later in the book, it's mentioned that Drizzt has spent some time with her, but it reeeally should have occurred the other way around.
So. We're setting Drizzt up as Total Romantic Hero here. And total female character count: one who hits on the other eligible male when she's supposed to be in love with one, and a grown woman ruler of an entire city who nevertheless acts like a 14-year-old. Oh, and one paragraph of a woman in veils dancing with a snake, the sight of which earns Wulfgar a smack from the girl hitting on Drizzt. :/
I'm also getting tired of the rhythm of Salvatore's writing in this one ... paragraph, paragraph, paragraph, paragraph, PORTENTIOUS ONE-SENTENCE PARAGRAPH OF EMPHASIS. Paragraph, paragraph, paragraph, paragraph, PORTENTIOUS ONE-SENTENCE PARAGRAPH OF EMPHASIS. Paragraph, paragraph, paragraph, paragraph, PORTENTIOUS ONE-SENTENCE PARAGRAPH OF EMPHASIS. It's not like that in every scene, but it happens enough that it's noticeable and annoying.
ETA: I forgot that Cattie-brie's other function, besides smacking Wulfgar, is to give Drizzt a metaphorical boot in the backside with some good advice on being true to himself when he starts having a crisis of conscience over wearing this mask that disguises him as a non-drow elf. Which, y'know, prevents the group from being noticed and lynched for having a drow in it. So he eventually tosses the mask and goes about as himself and instead of getting almost lynched, as happens in every other book where people see him, this time they're kinda sorta OK with him. The message Salvatore's trying to convey is unfortunately undercut by previous books. And by him having all were-rats be evil, by nature of their being were-rats.
--
[1] You discover that flames don't harm you. Your response is to either (a) possibly consider that the drow's blade, which has the power of frost and you picked up, has something to do with it; or (b) shrug and say "Huh. Maybe this armor has some special properties" and forget about it. *headdesk*
no subject
This will get worse. You will think progress is made on this point, AND YOU WILL BE WRONG!
She also smacks Wulfgar around when he even thinks about looking at other women - even when they run through the baths - and starts to flirt with Drizzzzt in between smacking Wulfgar and holding his hand. I was warned about this occurring, so was steeled against it, but it still annoys the hell out of me that she's doing this.
Again, IT GETS EVEN WORSE!!! Err...have someone there to prevent you from clawing your eyes out and/or ripping books in half. it will also get bad on the Wulfgar front later on.
And it totally isn't a double standard! Drizz't is special! Sooper Speshul, even! Of course she is compelled to flirt with him despite having a perfectly decent guy already! He's the hero!
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One of my squicks too, especially when (as with Catti-Brie) there was also sheer adoration and hero worship. Actually, it's why I couldn't get into Trudi Canavan's second trilogy a little while back. They had been separated (but in touch) for 10 or so years, but when they were reunited, she was still clearly influenced by their past relationship. (Oddly, her Black Magician trilogy also did mentor/ward, but while he was still 15~ years older than she was, he wasn't aware of her beyond her being another guild student until she was around 17, and she never had any adoration or hero-worshipping going at all.) The whole "raising your wife" thing is really popular in fantasy for some reason, though. And with various fandoms. (Wolverine/Jubilee and Wolverine/Kitty Pryde have been scaring me since I was about 15.)
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Yes.
I mean, canons can sometimes (though not often) pull it off (though it's really hard to do that without any kind of power imbalance, even for a good writer) but I have yet to see fandom come up with one that doesn't make me backpedal like lightning. There's one or two that could work very carefully, but...
I think Kenpachi/Yachiru is worse than most because he changed her diapers and she currently fits on a shoulder. (I mean, sure, we know she's probably a fair bit older than the 5` that she looks, just like Hitsugaya isn't 10, but...)
no subject
I actually had to drop Lois McMaster Bujold's The Sharing Knife when the age difference between two characters was revealed, it squicked me so hard. Completely unexpectedly, too - I had no clue that it would hit me that hard.
no subject
I used to have icons of several mentor/ward relationships, but then I learned that people assumed that it meant I shipped them, as they were popular fanon pairings, and I couldn't quite handle that. (And have since become paranoid about icons with 2 characters if the idea of the pairing squicks me out and there's a chance people would think that.)
no subject
What I find fascinating (and I've read all three available books so far) is that the longer the story goes on, it is clearly Fawn's common sense which grounds the visionary and sceptic side of Dag
SPOILEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEER
(who can be pretty emo, but with reason as his family and camp seem to haven't accepted him for what he is for 20 years at least - especially his mother and brother).
END SPOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOILEEEEEEEEEEEER
So it doesn't read as an imbalance of power all that much.
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Seraph was 16 and Tier was 32 I believe, also coming back as an old warrior from the war to settle in his hometown. If you liked other McMaster Bujold I recommend at least reading the first via library loan, I believe you miss out on a good romantic sociological fantasy.