#of which he has not written down anything related to the lore or detailed descriptions of the characters

[curiouschaosstarlight]

For the ask game; 3, 11, and 16 (yes I just randomly generated these don't hold me responsible for which ones they chose)

(I'm gonna assign these Gensh 'cause why not)

3. screenshot or description of the worst take you've seen on tumblr

I do not have and will not take a screenshot, but I think "everyone only woobifies Scaramouche because one piece of canon says he's nice to children, and they should stop writing" still pisses me off the most, genuinely. It's such a high-horse, full of shit take that you can only really have if you've been deliberately not paying any attention to canon. The ENTIRETY of Sumeru should have put this take in the ground where it belongs. And it ain't even the full tidbit of the thing being referenced either. I think you should honestly quit playing Gensh if you're not actually going to pay attention to the story and lore and get on a high-horse about how other people totes have it wrong. It's fine to have preferences for characters, but genuinely fuck off with the "any take I dislike is obviously wrong and shouldn't be written" shit.

11. number of fandom-related words you've filtered

Not-very-many, but that's because the lack of Gensh people I follow, so it tends not to be necessary. It's like...two or three things, currently? Could turn into more if I actually got more active (or if people would tag stuff I really don't like that doesn't really get tagged)

16. you can't understand why so many people like this thing (characterization, trope, headcanon, etc)

Polite Answer: A few characters I personally find boring or un-engaging, some headcanons I'm really not into, and one version of a take on a ship that baffles me.

Detailed answer under the read more;

I really don't see the whole wide appeal of characters like Barbara, Noelle, Nilou, Kokomi, Mona...to me, they're all just kind of generically cute and sweet. (And one character I forgot I kind of genuinely despise, but I think I get the appeal so I don't think I can put her here...) I guess I can kind of get it, but the more people angrily try to say how great they are and complain about That Sort Of Take while putting down other characters like Itto, the less inclined I am to even try to like them, and the more resentful I get instead. I also have zero interest in the "pop idol" facet of Barbara's personality, and was more interested in her in the story when she was doing her priest/nun role, since I'm EXTREMELY used to "cutesy bubbly girl who sings" and not very used to "cute-but-serious nun" characters.

(Also call Barbara fucking minor-coded again and I will find a way to rip through this computer screen I swear to god)

Next would probably be Childe being some kind of confident playboy. I think that's born of the English dub exclusively, and has no fitting place in any genuine part of his personality. It's hard to explain, but he gives me way more of an Innocent But Violent Kid vibe, particularly with his devotion to the Tsaritsa. (No this isn't child-coding, this is a description of trauma stuff) And I find that much more fascinating. (Also very funny to think his sex education might be a little lacking if he had to learn from other Harbingers or something) Also I have NO idea why people like him saying "girlie" so much. In every other language, he's far more polite and essentially says some form of "miss", and I haaaaaaate when people call me "girlie" so, so much. That's just a personal pet peeve of mine. Can't trust english fandom with anything.

And basically, in general, if it's the english fandom's version of the character, I pretty much exclusively don't understand it or its appeal. The takes of people that only engage with the english dub and nothing else are generally pretty bad and way off the mark for actual characterizations, especially with things like the Harbingers.

While I've since remembered some ship takes I genuinely dislike a bit, one that baffles me endlessly is Kazuha/Wanderer; specifically the version where they make a lot of parallels between Kazuha and Niwa, but think it's BadWrong to ship Niwa/Wanderer. Like, friend, bud, amigo, chum, pal.......what? You're very, very close to just writing straight up Niwa/Wanderer, what's your problem, why are you complaining?

(...I also don't really get why so many people like Wanderer/Mona. I kinda sorta get the basis, but I also just...don't...like Mona, as previously mentioned, and I don't really know what's so compelling about those two together.)

I'd generally advise to take mmmost of these with a grain of salt. I'm the type of person that can be tricked into liking anything so long as you get me writing it for whatever reason.

But I WILL grow to hate things out of spite also, so. you know.

#ask game #devoidofdog

[captaincrungus]

oh no all the rest of my art that i have is for an au which i have not yet posted about here

#unfortunately you might all have to listen to the insane ramblings of a man trying to explain his funny hedgehog au #of which he has not written down anything related to the lore or detailed descriptions of the characters #im that man

[newamsterdame]

a deadly education is tone-deaf at best and racist at worse; not the cure to jkr anyone was hoping for

Harry Potter’s massive cultural impact means that we haven’t seen the last of magic schools set in Britain, and we probably won’t for a long while. In some ways, the fantasy genre’s response to Rowling’s work is tiresome. In others, it’s exciting—because a generation of readers and writers have grown up to bring their own perspective to the limits of Rowling’s work and push it beyond the limits of its author. However, if you’re looking for a transgressive magic academy book that interrogates the limited morality, inclusivity, and perspective of Harry Potter, you should put Naomi Novik’s A Deadly Education back on the shelf and keep looking.

A Deadly Education tells the story of Galadriel “El” Higgins, a half-British half-Indian sorcerer attending a magic school where the consequences of any mistake might mean sudden death. El is a loner by nature and circumstance, but walking alone in the halls of Scholomance might mean being attacked and devoured by one of the school’s monsters. This puts El on a crash course with Orion Lake, the shining hero of her year who takes it upon himself to save the lives of his fellow students, including a less-than-grateful El.

The set up honestly sounds pretty good—a prickly protagonist, a heroic rival-slash-love interest, a deadly setting, and the potential for deep lore in magic and world-building. Unfortunately, not only does Novik fail to deliver on any of the premises’ strengths, she also chooses to weigh her narrative down with reductive, tone-deaf, and downright racist details.

El’s particular class of magic relies on language. El speaks English and Marathi, and picks up Sanskrit, Hindi, Latin and Old English in her study of language-based spells. It’s a little uncomfortable that Novik lumps dead and defunct languages like Latin and Old English together with actively spoken ones like Mandarin, Hindi, and Spanish, but that isn’t where Novik’s faux paus end. El approaches languages like computer programs to be downloaded onto her hard drive. Despite languages being the basis of her magic, she has no personal connections to the ones she’s speaking. She views other students and their languages the same way, identifying groups of students as “the Mandarin speakers”, “the Arabic speakers,” etc. Novik seems clueless about the relationships between the languages she’s building her world’s magic around, putting Sanskrit tombs in Baghdad and declaring that the Scholomance has a library aisle containing all of India’s languages. (About 800 individual languages are spoken in India, fyi.)

This clinical approach to diversity extends from language into character. El doesn’t try to make many friends, and honestly it’s not hard to see her classmates don’t try to befriend her, either. She doesn’t describe her classmates as people—she describes them as assets. And while that could be explained away by the premise that half her classmates won’t make it out of school alive, and El needs allies more than friends to survive, it doesn’t make it any better when El refers to others exclusively by the language knowledge they offer her. A character named Ibrahim has no personality or backstory, but he conveniently pops up when El needs someone who knows Arabic. A character named Kaito is thoughtlessly grouped in with the Mandarin speakers. An Argentine character exclaims in Spanish when she’s excited or relieved. There’s an uncomfortable distinction between the languages that get written out in the text—Spanish, French—and the ones that get narrated away—a character exclaims in Mandarin.

Novik goes out of her way to let us know that the population of Scholomance is diverse. There’s a group of South and West African students (only one of whom is named, and none of whom are important). There’s a “civilized” enclave of magicians in Toronto who value family and human life more than other groups. One character might graduate and go to Bangkok, but he’s looking to secure himself a place in Shanghai instead. Naomi Novik really knows the names of cities on at least four continents, and she’s not about to let you forget it!

But aside from names, languages, and cities, Novik has given no thought to what diversity means, or who these characters are if they come from diverse backgrounds. El calls on “Mandarin-speaker,” Yi Liu, exclusively by the name Liu. Is Liu meant to be this character’s first name? Or her surname? El doesn’t call anyone else by surname, but Liu is a Chinese surname, one of the most common in the world. El’s father is a Marathi-speaker from Mumbai, but El has no personal connection to Indian culture. Her father’s family prophesied that El would be a destroyer, and other than that rejection El has nothing to say about India or half of her culture. She refers to her Indian relatives in clinical English descriptors (my father’s mother, my great-grandmother, my uncles), even though she is purportedly fluent in Marathi and should know words like Panaji, Aaji and Kaka. El says that her Indian family is from an old Hindu enclave, and yet they have djinn as servants. (Djinn aren’t a typical part of Hindu cosmology, though they are a significant part of Islamic texts.)

Making El biracial seems like an afterthought, not something that affects her character in any way. It just creates some truly unfortunate optics, like when El goes on a three-paragraph description of how unnecessary she finds showers and how dirty she is at any given time. El’s father died making sure her pregnant mother (and therefore, El herself) would live, and yet El barely thinks about him. His name is mentioned once in the entire book. El complains that (presumably white) British people “assume she speaks Hindi” or call her the color of weak tea. But her Indian heritage is a veneer placed on top of a character who is otherwise just a default white protagonist.

All this adds up to a character (and a world), that reads as nothing so much as colonial. El feasts on the languages of others for her own edification, power, and survival, but she doesn’t see her classmates as people, and she doesn’t see language as a living thing related to real cultures. And I’m given to believe that Naomi Novik holds the same views, what with how she throws around the word “mana” as part of her world-building without considering its roots and real-life meaning to Polynesian and Melanesian peoples.

However, nothing makes the cultural tone-deafness of this book more evident than this passage:

Dreadlocks are unfortunately not a great idea thanks to lockleeches, which you can probably imagine, but in case you need help, the adult spindly thing comes quietly down at night and pokes an ovipositor into any big clumps of hair, lays an egg inside, and creeps away. A little while later the leech hatches inside its comfy nest, attaches itself to your scalp almost unnoticeably, and starts very gently sucking up your blood and mana while infiltrating further. If you don’t get it out within a week or two, it usually manages to work its way inside the skull, and you’ve got a window of a few days after that before you stop being able to move. On the bright side, something else usually finishes you off quickly at that point.

El’s pithy commentary about imminent death aside, I have a hard time reading anything but casual and thoughtless racism from this passage. The nefarious and deliberate myth of dreadlocks being unhygienic (and by extension, Black people being endemically dirty) is pervasive to this day. And Naomi Novik decides to include this passage in a book that has no major Black characters, in which dreadlocks never even come up in any meaningful way, just to remind us that in this magic world of hers, dreadlocks are dirty! Monster insects nest in them! The consequences are death! There was no good reason to include this passage, and all it does is draw on inaccurate and racist myths and perpetuate them into a world where anti-Black racism is never contended with. Although, I suppose, why would it? El never has need of any languages from the West or South Africans.

A Deadly Education bills itself as a subversive, even feminist, response to Harry Potter. But just like J. K. Rowling, Naomi Novik is a white author who uses other cultures thoughtlessly to build her own magic world. Other cultures and peoples exist, but only to serve the aims and needs of white (or mostly white-coded) characters. Novik has no empathy, no care and apparently no ability to Google anything about the cultures she wants to draw on. And the result isn’t just insulting—it’s boring. The world-building in this book is as dry and dusty as any history written by 19th century British colonizers.

Using some foreign names and making your protagonist biracial does not shield your work from racism. It does open you up to more pitfalls in depicting other peoples and cultures, if you don’t care to look out for them.

It would be nice to close by saying that despite its flaws, A Deadly Education is an enjoyable book. But it isn’t. It’s just a badly-researched, emotionless story told by rote.

#a deadly education #naomi novik #book reviews #quality text blog

[otherworldlybooksgoddess]

Five Exceptional Fantasy Books Based in Non-European Myth

Photo by Josh Hild

Don’t misunderstand me: I love reading well-written fantasy with roots in the familiar Celtic and English folklore of my childhood, but with the vast majority of High Fantasy being set in worlds closely akin to Medieval Europe, and a large amount of of Mythic Fiction drawing on legends of similar origin, sometimes the ground begins to feel too well trodden.  There is, after all, an entire world of lore out there to draw from.  That’s why I’m always thrilled to find excellent works of what I call “the Realistic Sub-Genres of Fantasy” based in or inspired by myths from other cultures.  Such books not only support inclusiveness, but also expand readers’ experiences with lore and provide a wide range of new, exciting realities to explore. So, if you are looking for something different in the realm of Fantasy, the following novels will provide a breath of fresh air.

The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wrecker

In this beautifully written novel, Wrecker draws on both Middle-Eastern and Jewish mythology to tell the stories of two unwilling immigrants in Edwardian New York and the unlikely friendship that springs up between them.  Chava, an unusually lifelike golem created for peculiar purposes, has only days worth of memories and is practically childlike in her innocence.  Ahmad the Jinni has lived for centuries, but is trying to reclaim his forgotten past. The former is as steady and calm as the earth she’s made from while the latter is as volatile and free-spirited as the fire within him.  Both must learn to live in an unfamiliar new culture and find their places in a city too modern for myths even as they hide their true natures.  It’s a wonderful metaphor for the experiences of immigrants everywhere, who often find themselves feeling like outsiders—isolated and even overwhelmed— as they struggle to adapt to life in an alien society.  

Full of memorable characters, vivid descriptions, and interesting twists, The Golem and the Jinni takes readers on a journey that is driven as much by internal conflict as external action.  The setting of 1900’s Manhattan is well-researched and spectacular in its detail.  Wrecker blends two old-world mythologies into the relatively modern Edwardian world with a deft hand.  The result is not only fascinating, but also serves to illustrate the common early-twentieth-century experience of an immigrant past colliding with an American future.

The Tail of the Blue Bird by Nii Ayikwei Parkes

One part Detective Mystery and one part Magical Realism, this novel invites readers to experience modern-day Ghana in a way that is both authentic and profound.  When Kayo, a forensic pathologist just beginning his career, is pushed into investigating a suspected murder in the rural village of Sonokrom, the last thing he expects is to have a life-changing experience.  Soon, however, he gets the acute sense that the villagers may know more than they’re letting on. When all of the latest scientific and investigative techniques fail him, even as odd occurrences keep dogging his steps, Kayo is finally forced to accept that there is something stranger than he thought about this case.  Solving the crime will require more than intelligence and deduction; it will require setting his disbelief aside and taking the traditional tales and folklore of an old hunter seriously.  Because whatever is happening in Sonokrom, it isn’t entirely natural.  

This novel is brilliant not only because of its deep understanding of Ghanaian society and realistic setting, but also because of Parkes writing style.  The narrative is gorgeously lyrical and everything within it is described with a keen, insightful eye.  The dialogue is full of local color, and while some may find the pidgin English and native colloquialisms difficult to follow, I found that the context was usually enough to explain any unfamiliar terms. Sometimes the narrative feels a little dreamlike, but that is exactly the way great Magical Realism should be.  The Tail of the Blue Bird insistently tugs readers to a place where reality intertwines with myth and magic, all while providing an authentic taste of Ghanaian culture.

The Deer and the Cauldron by Jin Yong

During the reign of Manchu Emperor Kang Xi, China is in a state of barely-controlled sociopolitical unrest.  Many of the older generation remember the previous dynasty, and there still remain vestiges of a resistance movement hidden among the populace.  As his forces continue to hunt down the malefactors, called the Triad Societies, the boy-emperor turns to his unlikely friend and ally: a young rascal known only as Trinket.  This protagonist is a study in contrasts: lazy yet ambitious, cunning yet humorous, roguish yet likable, foul-mouthed yet persuasive. Born in a brothel, Trinket has made his way by his wits alone.  At age twelve, he accidentally sneaked into the Forbidden City—a bizarre occurrence in itself—afterward befriending Kang Xi.  Now, rising quickly through the ranks, he is on a mission to (ostensibly) find and weed out the Triad Societies, and he uses the opportunity to infiltrate various organizations, playing their leaders against one another for his own gain. With a dangerous conspiracy brewing in the Forbidden City itself, however, he is forced to choose sides and decide what is most important to him: friendship, fortune, or freedom.   Supernatural occurrences, daring escapades, and moments of deep introspection abound as Trinket struggles to navigate the perilous maze his life has become.

This novel is like a gemstone: bright, alluring, and many faceted.  At times it may seem somewhat simple on the surface, but looking closer reveals new depths and multiple layers.  Full of intrigue, action, horror, and even laughs, The Deer and the Cauldron mirrors not only the complexities of its setting, but those of the China the author himself knew during the Communist revolution. By blending together history, fantasy, realism, humor, and subtle political commentary, Yong not only beautifully captures these social intricacies but also creates a narrative that is as thoroughly engaging as it is unapologetically unique.

Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel

Magical realism related to food has almost become a movement in itself, with novels like Aimee Bender’s The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, Joanne Harris’ Chocolat, and Sarah Addison Allen’s Garden Spells all finding their places in readers’ hearts.  Originally published in 1992, Like Water for Chocolate helped create this fascinating trend, and it has become something of a modern classic in the fantasy genre.  

The narrative centers around Tita de la Garza, a mid-twentieth century Mexican woman possessing deep sensitivity, a strong will, and a special talent for cooking.  Born prematurely, Tita arrived in her family’s kitchen, tears already in her eyes.  It is in that room where she spends most of her childhood, being nurtured and taught by the elderly cook, Nacha.  The relationship that flourishes between Tita and her caregiver is a special gift, as it provides the girl not only with the compassion and support her own mother denies, but also with a passion and skill for creating incredible, mouth-watering dishes.  At Nacha’s side, Tita learns the secrets of life and cookery, but she also learns one terrible fact: thanks to a family tradition, she is destined never to have love, marriage, or a child of her own.  Her fate, rather, is to care for her tyrannical widowed mother, Mama Elena, until the day the older woman dies.  With a vibrant, independent spirit, sixteen-year-old Tita flouts this rule, falling deeply in love with a man named Pedro who asks for, and is denied, her hand in marriage.  Undaunted, the young man agrees to wed one of Tita’s older sisters, Rosaura, instead, as he believes this to be the only way he can be close to the woman he loves.  Thus begins a life-long struggle between freedom and tradition, love and duty, which is peppered throughout with supernatural events and delicious cuisine.  So great is her skill in cooking that the meals Tita prepares take on magical qualities all their own, reflecting and amplifying her emotions upon everyone who enjoys them.  Controlled and confined for much of her existence, food becomes her outlet for all the things she cannot say or do.  The narrative itself echoes this, by turns as spicy, sweet, and bitter as the flavors Tita combines.  At its heart, this is as much a tale about how important the simple things, like a good meal, can be as it is a story about a woman determined to be her own person and choose her own fate.

Cuisine is fundamental to this novel, with recipes woven throughout the narrative, but that is only a part of its charm.  In the English translation, the language is beautiful in its simplicity.  The characters often reveal hidden depths, especially as Tita grows up and is able to better understand the people around her.  Heartfelt in its joys and sorrows, Like Water for Chocolate glows with cultural flavor and a sense of wonder.  It’s a feast for the spirit, and like an exquisite meal, it never fails to surprise those who enjoy it.

The City of Brass by S. A. Chakraborty

When I first read this novel, I found the early chapters enjoyable and engaging, but felt the story was no more than a typical, if especially well-written, work of mythic fiction.  The deeper I got into the narrative, however, the more wrong I was proven.  The City of Brass is anything but ordinary. While basing her work in Middle-Eastern lore and history, Chakraborty nonetheless manages to create a setting and story that are both wonderfully unique. Lush, detailed, and bursting with magic and intrigue, this book spans the lines between several sub-genres of fantasy without ever losing its balance.  

Beginning in eighteenth-century Egypt, the narrative follows a quick-witted antiheroine. Nahri doesn’t live by the rules of her society.  She doesn’t believe in magic or fate or even religion.  Orphaned for most of her life, survival has required her to become a con artist and a thief.  As a result, she is practical and pragmatic, a realist who has never even considered donning rose-colored glasses, and the last person who would ever expect anything supernatural to occur. Which, of course, means that it does, but the way in which it is handled is intricate and interesting enough not to feel trite. When Nahri’s latest con—a ceremony she is pretending to perform and doesn’t believe in even slightly—goes awry, and the cynical young woman finds herself face to face with a Daeva.  Magical beings, it transpires, are real after all, and this one is furious.  To both of their dismay, he’s also bound to Nahri, who soon realizes that he has an agenda of his own.  In return for rescuing her (and refraining from killing her himself) Dara, the Daeva warrior Nahri accidentally summoned, wants her to pull of the biggest con of her life: pretending to be the half-human heir to the throne of his people.  Worse still, she soon realizes that Dara, whose mentality sometimes seems a little less-than-stable, actually believes she may be exactly who he claims.  He has something planned, and his intentions may not be in her best interest.  Dragged unwillingly into a strange world of court intrigue, danger, social upheaval, and magic, Nahri quickly discovers that some things remain familiar.  People are ruled by prejudices, the strong prey on the weak, and she can’t fully trust anyone.  The stakes, however, are higher than ever, and Nahri will need all of her wits, cunning, and audacity if she wants to survive.

This novel was thoroughly enjoyable, and in fact prompted me to buy the following books in the trilogy as they became available. Chakraborty’s style is lyrical, her world building is superb, her plot is intricate, and her characters are well-developed.  She not only frames unfamiliar words and ideas is easily-comprehensible contexts, but weaves those explanations smoothly into the narrative. The culture, mythology, and history surrounding her tale are all carefully researched, but the tale itself is nonetheless unique. What begins feeling like a fairly ordinary mythic fiction novel will pleasantly exceed readers’ expectations.

So, while we, as fantasy readers, love the works of authors like J. R. R. Tolkien, Marion Zimmer Bradley, and Charles de Lint, there is also a plethora of other enchanting books to enjoy.  Exploring magical realism and mythic fiction based in cultures and folklore from all around the globe ensures that our to-read lists will always hold something unexpected and exciting to surprise us.  So, if you’re starting to feel like you’re in a bit of a reading rut, or if you’re simply looking to expand your horizons, open up new realms of imagination by opening up one of the novels above.  Who knows see where it will lead you?  You may just discover a new favorite to add to your bookshelf.  Happy reading!

#book #books #novel #novels #fantasy #mythic fiction #magical realism #non-European #culture #cultural #review #reviews #fantasy literature #literature #book lover #book lovers #bookworm #international #suggestino #suggestions #African #Mexican #Middle-Eastern #myth #mythology #legend #lore #Asian #Chinese #Central American

[gurguliare]

I would love your thoughts on Dirhavel, vocaroo or text? Just because you were recently blogging about Hurin and I suppose this is kind of related. :)

A lot of my interest in Dirhavel is in his sources. The most detailed description we get of who he consulted in composing the Narn is from a pretty early stage of Tolkien’s legendarium-composition, which, let me just paste that here:

…this lay was the work of a Mannish poet, Dirhavel, who lived at the Havens in the days of Earendel and theregathered all the tidings and lore that he could of the House ofHador, whether among Men or Elves, remnants and fugitivesof Dorlomin, of Nargothrond, or of Doriath. From Mablung he learned much; and by fortune also he found a man namedAndvir, and he was very old, but was the son of that Androgwho was in the outlaw-band of Turin, and alone survived thebattle on the summit of Amon Rudh.(2) Otherwise all that timebetween the flight of Turin from Doriath and his coming toNargothrond, and Turin’s deeds in those days, would haveremained hidden, save the little that was remembered amongthe people of Nargothrond concerning such matters as Gwindoror Turin ever revealed. In this way also the matter of Mim andhis later dealings with Hurin were made clear. This lay was allthat Dirhavel ever made, but it was prized by the Elves andremembered by them. Dirhavel they say perished in the last raidof the sons of Feanor upon the Havens. His lay was composedin that mode of verse which was called Minlamad thent / estent.

Okay. So the first glaring Problem is Mablung: we know Mablung didn’t escape Doriath in the final timeline. But of course Mablung is in all other ways the ideal source for the Narn poet—we need that Mablung’s eye view on Nienor and Morwen on the trip to Nargothrond, Turin as he was that final morning in Brethil, etc. There’s another possibility, I suppose, which is that Dirhavel talks to one of the unnamed riders who form the rest of Morwen’s escort and (perhaps?) escape the clusterfuck at Nargothrond to ride out with Mablung again when he goes seeking Nienor and Turin in Brethil—but that’s not super satisfying, unless we can come up with anything else about the rider. We could also think in terms of people Mablung might choose as a confidante. Beleg’s out. Melian’s out, unfortunately. Hmm. Well, let me not string you along, I obviously have an idea here, although it’s a stupid one: NELLAS. Maybe a) Mablung started talking to Nellas after the trial/Beleg’s disappearance, since no one else was going to keep her updated and she was not going to stop creepily staring at him from a tree until he gave her an answer … b) it developed into a genuine friendship?? … c) Nellas took inspiration from Nienor and disguised herself as one of the riders who go with Mablung to Brethil? Or just legitimately went as a volunteer, who cares. Or like, everyone knew she was going along as a volunteer, but she still went in disguise, because it made her feel better.

…Hmm. Anyway, my point is, I like the idea of Nellas among the refugees in Sirion, and I like the idea of her making Dirhavel promise that he’ll list “Mablung” as his source, not “Nellas, who hates publicity.” I think it fits well in a few other ways—we know she spoke (and passed on to Turin) the beautiful ancient Doriath dialect or whatever, and one of the few pieces of information we’re given about Dirhavel is that he “has great skill in” Sindarin, which suggests to me not just fluency but mastery of multiple registers and a linguistic interest in Sindarin’s character as a language: maybe he got some material from Nellas, or it was what allowed him to talk to Nellas in the first place, or ideally both. Also, I have no basis for this actually, but Nellas seems like the kind of person who would be a really good mimic, A+ impressions—I hope this played a role in her teaching Turin about animals—and again I think it would be cool if there really was this feeling of Nellas like, channeling Mablung for the purposes of getting his testimony, in kind of the flip of Beleg summoning her for Turin’s trial.

Downsides to this theory: CoH specifically says that “Nellas of Doriath never saw [Túrin] again, and his shadow passed from her.” I don’t want to take this from Nellas!! I want to let his shadow pass from her! Still, I feel like ‘burning voyeuristic curiosity’ is distinct from ‘helpless loyalty to a memory,’ so maybe I can fudge it.

Moving on, I’m also suuuuuuuper interested in what “the people of Nargothrond” means here tbh. GWINDOR SURVIVED AND WENT TO THE HAVENS jk I love the freaking jab about “the little that… Gwindor or Turin ever revealed” too much to tamper with his post-mortem reticence, at least for the duration of this theory post. But, so, people from Nargothrond… I mean, I guess what puzzles me is the idea that it’s specifically Nargothrond’s survivors who know what happened to Mim, for example. Does that mean there were survivors in the area up to 5 years after the sack?? I guess that makes sense, now I think about it—people living off the land/going from part-time woodelf back to full-time woodelf, people who were left for dead in the battle—but I had never considered it before and it’s kind of weirding me out. Or do we imagine that Glaurung reserved a subset of the prisoners for his own slaves? That’s. Uhhh. Weird. I really don’t know what to picture for “witnesses to Mim’s death,” although I guess they could just have found the body after Hurin left. That’s a little more reasonable. That said what would make way MORE sense would be for Mim to have been one of the sources, given how many private Turin-Mim conversations are recorded. I realize Androg is supposed to have been eavesdropping but did he REALLY relay ALL of his eavesdropping to his adult son. Also, if you were Mim, would you not take this golden opportunity to pointedly enter your own “death” into the historical record

“I actually just camouflaged with the hoard because I was wearing so much shiny shit at that point. But listen, I saw his face, he WOULD have killed me if he hadn’t been busy playing hackey-sack with the Nauglamir. What do you mean he threw himself into the ocean somewhere near here, why would the ocean kill him, this isn’t safe”

…As for Dirhavel himself, I don’t know if I have a ton of headcanons. I guess I was thinking of him (??) as the kid of refugees from Brodda’s house, although man, now that I say that that feels like the kind of thing that would absolutely be mentioned if ‘true.’ Okay, here’s my thinking: I imagine him growing up in the Havens, not having ever been himself enslaved by the Easterlings, even as a child, and I also assume he was at least late 30s/40 when he died, so it would make SENSE if his parent(s) escaped in the 490s, and… hm. I guess that’s not super strong evidence. Because he’s listed as a man of the House of Hador and not, say, a man with a Hadorian mother and a Haladin father or something, I was thinking it would make sense if both his parents came from Dor-lomin and knew each other before Sirion, which was much more of a melting pot, but there’s really a bunch of unjustified assumptions I’m making there that don’t stand up to close examination, so, eh. On the other hand it’s kind of cute. Look. Whatever. I’m going to arbitrarily say I also picture him being related to Asgon. OH the other reason I was thinking about Brodda-refugees was because I was like, “where would the special affinity for Sindarin have come from,” and we know Brodda specifically seized most of Hurin’s holdings/people, and like sure everyone spoke Sindarin by then but I imagine nowhere moreso than in Hurin and Morwen’s service? To be polite to all the elf ambassadors constantly tramping through the garden if nothing else? So, that is my still deeply shaky basis. Thanks.

I was going to throw in some bullshit meta at the end here about blah blah the longest lay from those days not because more stuff HAPPENS in the Narn but because of the human preference for some granular description in the language whereas elves save the details for the telepathic music video, and also about the elves prizing the Narn because elf musicians never INTERVIEW people, the survivors of Nargothrond have never been INTERVIEWED before, no one ever talks to us!! It’s so enlivening. Then I decided I wouldn’t type it out. Then apparently I typed it out anyway. I do love the Narn being composed in Sirion because it really captures something about Sirion’s feeling of ill-defined urgency, like, we know we have to do SOMETHING… it’s all down to us… but what…… and in what timeframe… oh god, are we going to have to talk it out. I like the mechanical constraints—it can’t be a Numenorean reconstruction or whatever because it’s too immediate and living a piece of history, and he wants it to be history, and yet the Narn is in some senses about the end of history for Beleriand, or the end of its great bastions, so how do you get it written? Well, by engineering one more pause for breath. Okay. Sirion. And Dirhavel running around in the middle of that is someone I FEEL like I have a very clear image of, even if I haven’t actually talked about hypothetical personality at all here, nor would I because I suck at textual ghosts. Cute, though.

#Anonymous #no one expects the fannish inquisition #silmarillion #holy shit this is long. #'maybe i should go back and put in some thoughts on andvir--' 'MAYBE NOT' #dirhavel #nellas #sirion

[fic-dreamin]

Wonderful Read for Travel to Andalucía Spain I read this years ago in Spain, when visiting the exquisite Alhambra Palace in Granada, and the elegant prose and stories were a wonderful complement to my experience. Go to Amazon

I am fascinated with the many stories about the inhabitants ... I am fascinated with the many stories about the inhabitants of the Alhambra in Granada. I knew the overview history, have toured the site, and find Irving's experience there and his viewpoint of the history and his Spanish contemporaries very interesting. I doubt many would be as absorbed as I have been because the book carries me back to exploring the site and enjoying the Andalusian countryside. Go to Amazon

This nearly 200 year old work is a treasure trove for those who share the Alhambra On returning from Spain this spring with fresh memories of The Alhambra of Grenada, I downloaded Washington Irving's work. I wish I had read it before visiting The Alhambra. In these not so dusty pages one views the political and social background of The Alhambra, and hence, all of Spain. The halls, terraces, fountains are richly discussed in this work, mixed in with the Ghostly visions and stories there associated that Irving relates. The stories alone are as fresh as modern television, rich fodder for the imagination. Go to Amazon

Well worth the time I hadn't read anything written Washington Irving had written anything other than the short stories about Rip Van Winkle and Sleepy Hollow. I was very surprised to learn, during a tour of the Alhambra, than he lived there and wrote a this book based on his experiences. I couldn't wait to read it and, while the style is a bit old-fashioned, the stories are excellent. Go to Amazon

The great Alhambra in Granada! Wonderful memoirs of Washington Irving's visit to the Alhambra in Granada in the 19th century. This former Moorish stronghold has so many tales to tell and Irving takes us around this great city of Granada in Southern Spain and into the Alhambra to bewitch us and bring us to long forgotten, extraordinary places, long into the night Go to Amazon

My wife and I both loved these stories My wife and I both loved these stories! We read whilst traveling through southern Spain, which really brought the emmensely entertaining stories to life. Irving's knowledge and tireless research of the rich history of this region as well as the local lore that he gleaned, not to mention his aptly detailed descriptions of the Alhambra itself, all of which he compiled while living there within it's walls, make this work a unique treasure, as is evidenced by the commemorative statue and placard to him on the premises. His command of the English language and turn of phrase are superb! Go to Amazon

Four Stars I enjoy reading the classics. Go to Amazon

great stories told beautifully Really beautiful stories. If you have been to the Alhambra then reading this will be like a walk down (a very pleasant) memory lane. The book includes a lot of the history of Andalusia, and the Muslims in Spain, which recent historiography has re-assessed, so take this book for what it is: a great collection of received history of southern Spain as of 1830 (or so). The writing and stories are compelling enough that this book started a global interest in the Alhambra! Go to Amazon

What a wonderful book to go with my wonderful visit to the Andalusia cities and the Alhambra in Granada. A hit It is bigger and thinner than I expected. I ... Five Stars Truly a work of great beauty, it recreates the once glorious story of ... had fun reading while I was actually in the Alhambra Interesting as a Point of Reference Alhambra in early 19th century Amazing classic. Four Stars

#With an Introduction and Explanatory Notes (Classic Reprint): Washington Irving: 9781528242981: A