What happens when you revisit the woefully misremembered fantasy and science fiction of your youth? Joe Howley (Latin teacher) and Johannah King-Slutzky (historical researcher) ask adults to re-read their genre favorites from childhood. For the sixth installment in our series, we talked to bona fide adult Everdeen Mason, an audience editor at The Washington Post, about Robin McKinley’s high fantasy novel The Hero and the Crown. We spoke with Everdeen via Gchat about hating horse stuff (but loving one particular Horse Prince), the best way to boast about invulnerability to fire, and which pairings we ship instead of the book’s dopey male lead. (The following conversation has been gently massaged for clarity.)
JOHANNAH: Hi! I think we’re all here now.
JOE: Thanks for doing this!
EVERDEEN: No problem, thank you for having me. I hope you enjoyed the book.
JOHANNAH: We did, very much so.
EVERDEEN: Had either of you read it before?
JOE: No, we hadn’t. As I told Johannah earlier, I wish I had.
JOHANNAH: Which is a great introduction to our first question. Can you tell us a bit about the circumstances of your first reading this book and how you’ve grown with it over time?
EVERDEEN: My father gave me the book as a gift. When I was young, my dad would buy me these really nice hardcover classics as gifts, and I always felt really regal about it, like it was a tome and I was going to become so much smarter. I loved this book immediately. I’ve always been a big fantasy reader, but this was one of the first books I’d read that had such a relatable heroine.
JOHANNAH: How old were you approximately?
EVERDEEN: 11 or 12, I think. It was right before middle school and when I read it that first time, I loved it because it had all of the elements I loved: dragons, and romance, and adventure; but with subsequent rereadings the language really got to me, and then even older, the narrative structure.
JOE: How often would you say you reread it?
EVERDEEN: Shoot. When I was younger, probably once a year. Now not quite that much, but I’m a weirdo; I’m the kind of person where if I need inspiration, I’ll grab a book I love off the shelf and read a random chapter.
JOHANNAH: So you reread the book in parts.
EVERDEEN: Currently, yes.
JOHANNAH: Were there particular parts you felt/feel especially drawn to?
EVERDEEN: Hm — her initial meeting with Talat, the horse. When she starts to figure out the kenet [fireproof potion]. And of course her fight with Maur. Oh, and the final scenes with Luthe.
JOHANNAH: Yes! those were my favorite parts too. (Joe is saying: Aha! she liked Luthe! That was a subject of much debate with us.)
EVERDEEN: Oh no! are you on Team Tor??
JOHANNAH: NO I hate Tor. I am on Team Celibacy apparently.
EVERDEEN: That’s really interesting, because on this rereading I actually thought, why does she have to hook up with people? But when I was younger, I found it really valuable that she was so responsible and level-headed about her romantic decisions. That never happens in books about young women anymore. You never get the sense that it overwhelms her at all.
JOE: I really appreciated the degree of autonomy and choice she exercises and how her status as heroine/princess is not at all diminished by her not being a virgin when she gets with the prince.
JOHANNAH: Yeah Joe was really struck by the de-emphasis of virginity in a way that I was not. I’m curious if that was something you noticed when you were reading it when you were younger. I don’t think I would have noticed that was unusual for the genre.
EVERDEEN: No, I didn’t. It made a lot of sense to me. Like you have sex when you’re ready and you’re in love. When I was a teen was when that was most impactful to me.
JOHANNAH: When she and Luthe have sex I was caught off guard because it seemed so little a part of her life before.
EVERDEEN: That scene with sexuality never mattered to me. It could have been the same without it. It didn’t matter to me until I was much older and I could impose my own views of sexuality on it.
JOE: I think it probably struck me because I now know, in retrospect, that I read a lot of tacitly chauvinist male-oriented genre books as a teenager.
EVERDEEN: What actually stood out to me was that she wasn’t lovelorn. So many fantasy books with young women have so much romantic angst. And that’s fun, sometimes, if I’m in the mood for that.
JOHANNAH: Yeah that’s all Tor’s deal in this book and he sucks.
EVERDEEN: But even as a girl I appreciated this character who was like, I need a purpose, I have to define myself by this purpose I made myself, I think I’m just gonna spend four years preparing to slay dragons.
JOHANNAH: That was one of the things that made the section where she’s developing the kenet so great. It was so purpose-driven and methodical which is one of the things I like about fantasy books.
JOE: She’s kind of… a nerd? A nerd hero? But then she kills dragons so maybe that makes her a jock. Hmm.
JOHANNAH: She’s more of a jock in my mind. Normally I hate using this comparison, but it kept coming to mind when reading this book, I felt very strongly that she was a Gryffindor.
EVERDEEN: Oh she’s totally a Gryffindor. And Galanna is a Slytherin. Oh! Galanna really bothered me this time around and she never had before.
JOHANNAH: REALLY.
EVERDEEN: I get really bored when authors use attractiveness and vanity as markers of character. I’m just tired of the whole trope where to be a good strong woman you have to not be pretty, or not try to be pretty. You can feel vaguely sad about the fact you’re not pretty but you can’t do anything about it or else you’re vain and then you won’t have enough virtue to slay dragons or have powers or whatever the thing is.
JOHANNAH: We are on 100% the same page, I ranted to Joe about this for a bit in our pre-chat meeting. I think this trope has gone out of favor in the last 10 years maybe. It felt soooo dated– I liked Galanna!
EVERDEEN: Yeah me too! I wanted more of her.
JOE: I definitely felt bad for Galanna.
JOHANNAH: Number one, Aerin burns her eyelashes off in her sleep so Galanna has cause to be angry. Those are your EYES. They are sensitive! And she kills dragons by stabbing them in the eye so she KNOWS eyes are important…. Relatedly, loved Perlith. He was petty in a really fun way. To use another fantasy comparison– they’re the Lannisters.
EVERDEEN: I would read a whole book about Galanna and Perlith just being dicks.
JOE: For most of the first half Galanna was the big evil nemesis, and the royal court was the entire universe. That felt authentically #teen. And if this were a Game Of Thrones-style book, this would have all been foreshadowing that Perlith would be King and would be a total fascist. But no: he’s just a dick.
JOHANNAH: So Everdeen, I would like to know your character rankings. Who are your favorites and who do you dislike?
EVERDEEN: Hm. Aerin, Talat, Luthe, Teka the nursemaid (I know she doesn’t do much but she has a great attitude)–
JOE: This is wild to me, I didn’t even think of Talat as a character.
EVERDEEN: WHAT. Talat has his own journey to redemption.
JOE: I really struggled for a while with all the horse stuff.
EVERDEEN: I know, I don’t even like horses in real life. I just like THIS horse.
JOHANNAH: Talat is my MVP so I don’t get it.
JOE: I’m just, you know, a former teen boy.
JOHANNAH: But we *all* hate horse stuff. Hate horses. Hate reading about horses.
JOE: Guys, horses are cool.
JOHANNAH: Talat transcends horses.
EVERDEEN: Yeah he’s actually just a person. He’s the prince of horses.
JOE: Talat has something that few others have: a real psychological journey that can’t be explained away by some magic crap. He’s hurt deeply and then nurtured and loved, and regains his confidence and achieves greatness.
EVERDEEN: Also the scene where Aerin needs Talat to take her wounded father off the battlefield and he won’t go. A THOUSAND TEARS.
JOHANNAH: That was so emotional. Okay, so, keep going with character rankings though. Aerin, Talat, Luthe, Teka…
EVERDEEN: Galanna, Arlbeth, Perlith, those magical cats and dogs. Fucking Tor.
JOE: Those magical cats and dogs are top of my list, no question. I guess everyone hates Tor?
EVERDEEN: I don’t hate Tor. He’s really dopey but very responsible.
JOHANNAH: He’s so emo. I imagine him with a big black forelock that falls into his eyes.
EVERDEEN: Tor is actually a horse, Talat is the real king.
JOE: Tor is a horse, this is extremely correct.
JOHANNAH: IF ONLY. Talat would be a great king.
JOE: I saw Tor as a young Channing Tatum, hunky and earnest but not that complicated. Tor felt to me like a stand-in for boring vanilla fantasy male hero types.
EVERDEEN: He’s the prototype for Peeta Mellark [in The Hunger Games], he’s just there to love you when you have time. I actually don’t hate Tor, I’m just alarmed by how dense he is. He’s like 12 years older than Aerin and is like, “What is this feeling? my heart is beating and I’m feeling possessive. I must brood.”
JOHANNAH: This is a good segue to our next question, which is: why is the kingdom falling apart? Has it been mismanaged or is it just because the crown is gone? How responsible are the leaders as people?
EVERDEEN: It’s implied it’s because the crown can’t keep demon mischief away. But really I imagine it’s because everyone is locked in the castle fretting.
JOHANNAH: Are they too xenophobic and self-ensconced?
JOE: They don’t know about the existence of an ultra-powerful evil wizard because their xenophobia about northerners/mages has made them completely ignorant of magic.
JOHANNAH: I agree. But it feels a bit sloppy to me that if xenophobia is why they have a weak connection to magic, which in turn is why their empire is falling apart, that that has no bearing on Aerin’s effectiveness as a hero. As in, I think it would have worked better if Aerin had warned her people about something and they didn’t believe her because she’s different. There are never any political repercussions to her (real or imagined) sense of being dismissed.
JOE: In fact, when she returns a hero and becomes queen, they literally forget they ever hated or feared her.
EVERDEEN: Agreed. A lot of the political stuff seems tacked on. It’s a coming of age novel with the trappings of high fantasy.
JOHANNAH: How would you say she comes of age? How does she change over the course of the book?
EVERDEEN: She’s waiting in the wings for people to define her, in the beginning. She wants to hear about her mother and she wants acknowledgment from her father. Then slowly, systematically, she decides to go and get something to do.
JOHANNAH: She definitely gains confidence over the course of the book, but so much of that is because Luthe gives her things — puts her in the silver lake so she becomes immortal, gives her a sick sword…
EVERDEEN: But I think her coming of age is before that.
JOHANNAH: What’s the critical moment then?
EVERDEEN: It’s when she goes and leaves the town to test her kenet without telling anyone and walks into a bonfire.
JOHANNAH: But that happens at the very beginning of the book. If that’s the moment she changes psychologically, why do we need the rest of the book?
JOE: It’s a process. It starts with small independent risks and learning lessons on her own from them but then she has to go and reconcile with her ancestry to achieve self-knowledge.
EVERDEEN: You could also argue that the big moment is taking down Maur’s skull. For some reason, facing the evil wizard wasn’t that important to me.
JOHANNAH: Me neither. Agsded was the Big Bad but those are never that exciting. Maur was way scarier. I am afraid of Maur.
JOE: The wizard is just a checkbox on the to-do list. Maur is the real deal.
JOHANNAH: Agsded is the dark side of Aerin’s lineage, which is a great idea in theory, but we never get a good picture of what her mother is like and how her magic blood could turn Aerin evil, which would have made the threat of her uncle (who shares her face) more menacing.
EVERDEEN: But she was so scared of being “of the north” that there’s some catharsis in her facing Agsded and taking him down.
JOHANNAH: I understand her northern lineage makes townsfolk dislike her. But does she ever worry that she’s secretly a bad apple because she has this blood?
EVERDEEN: I don’t think it’s that. I think it’s proving that you belong some place on your own merits when clearly you have something aiding you, and coming to terms with that.
JOHANNAH: What do you mean? Aerin wants to believe she would succeed without her magic/northern blood?
EVERDEEN: This is a reeeeeallly roundabout way to make it about me, but for example, I used to feel that pressure a lot when I was kid at the private school I went to — or with certain jobs, that people would think I got there because of affirmative action — and so because of that I never joined things like the National Association of Black Journalists. I was really paranoid about getting help, or using the resources people were giving me, and it wasn’t until I was older that I could get over it and accept the duality that I can be legitimate but also benefit from some system. It doesn’t mean I didn’t earn it.
JOE: That makes a lot of sense for me looking at the second half of the book. Aerin knows she’s a witch but doesn’t do anything witchy — in the first half, she tries to become like a knight instead. Then in the second half she’s like, oh yeah, also I can be a witch and that’s great.
JOHANNAH: Oh, I never thought about that. It never occurred to me that her interest in violence (or chivalry or whatever) was a way of distancing herself from her mother.
I want to circle back to something you mentioned earlier on. Are there any parts of the book that stick out to you when you’re trying to shore up your resolve in your life as a creative person?
EVERDEEN: Her failing at her kenet recipe — when she cries over these charred bits of wood and she almost dies killing that first dragon because she didn’t think things through. We don’t encourage single minded devotion to a skill anymore.
JOE: I really appreciated that her end goal was not, like, sharing her kenet on Twitter, it was going and killing f’ing dragons.
JOHANNAH: I am always impressed with characters in fiction who are good at not boasting.
EVERDEEN: If I made kenet I would be such a dick about it.
JOHANNAH: Yeah, same. I would jump into a ball of fire during dinner.
JOE: I have a follow-up question about this. Clearly a large part of this book is about a particularly female side of adolescence. But is there a gender aspect to Aerin’s hard work on a personal skill/project for no fame/reward?
JOHANNAH: I don’t think so. I never felt like Aerin is succumbing to social pressure not to boast. It’s just her character to do things until they’re really impressive and THEN show off. Keep in mind she still wants to show the courtesans a dragon’s head.
EVERDEEN: I don’t think it’s gendered either. She wants recognition, like we all do, but she has an understanding that she has to toil away.
JOHANNAH: I don’t even think Aerin NEEDS to be a girl. Is that crazy?
EVERDEEN: No. The book would have been almost the same if she were a guy. We would have to hear less about hair or darning socks or whatever. And she’s forced to wear ankle ribbons. What would they do instead if it were a guy?
JOHANNAH: Make him get frosted tips.
EVERDEEN: I guess it would be less impactful because if Aerin were a man he would be doing exactly what everyone expected by learning sword play and dragon hunting.
JOHANNAH: Oh yeah. Duh!
JOE: I’m not sure anything I’ve read with an adolescent male protagonist was effective at dealing with adolescence. Those books must be out there, please let us know in the comments.
JOHANNAH: Joe, I’m telling you, Merlin books are the best books in the world for dealing with adolescence.
EVERDEEN: It would be interesting to have something where a character does question tropes of masculinity. Like I don’t want to fight, I want to become a fashion designer.
JOHANNAH: Merlin books. Everyone read books about Merlin immediately.
JOE: Sounds like someone’s in the pocket of Big Merlin.
JOHANNAH: I would love that. Big Merlin? Hello? I will endorse you publicly, email me.
JOE: I came away from this book wishing I’d read it as a preteen, feeling like maybe it would have made me less clueless.
EVERDEEN: I would like to think that I am a better person from having read this book as a kid.
JOHANNAH: Can you tell us more about how your reading of this has changed over time?
EVERDEEN: When I was young it was just a great adventure story. As I got older I found myself reading it and searching for answers in it, which is how I came away with a lot of the stuff about perseverance. I also found myself drawn more to the relationships between people. Robin McKinley is good at writing little intimacies between people (and horses). I enjoyed that more when I got older.
JOHANNAH: Do you think you always interpreted Aerin’s differentness through the lens of race or is that something you became more conscious of as you got older?
EVERDEEN: No, I didn’t interpret it as race at all. But I also think it’s because, and this is super embarrassing, I just thought everyone was white, because that’s what fantasy books are.
JOHANNAH: I mentioned race because you had said earlier that you saw Aerin’s not belonging as having to do with your experience in private school and needing to prove you got there on your own merit.
EVERDEEN: Yes, when I was older, but in my case my difference was race and the ripple effect of that. In Aerin’s case it wasn’t. It was her own ability to use magic. Perhaps you could call that a racial difference in the world of Damar.
JOE: It flirts with being one. It’s an Other status that has visual markers for sure.
EVERDEEN: Yeah, you know what, that’s my own thing where I always conflate race with color. I suppose a different race could look exactly the same and just be magical. Interestingly I latched onto that as a kid and didn’t even think about it as a race thing.
JOE: This is definitely one of those things that fantasy has always had the option of dealing with. Tolkien didn’t make the elf/man thing in any way track to human race issues, but he was also an old white 20th century dude.
JOHANNAH: I want to clarify I was never suggesting this book exclusively be read as a parable of race. Just that one’s race might color the experience of feeling left out the way Aerin does.
JOE: That’s another strength of the book, that could keep coming back to it and getting more of it. Can I nerd out on this for a sec?
EVERDEEN: Go, go!
JOE: In modern education we almost never read the same books over and over, we read different books in elementary, middle, high school, etc. Maybe you reread one or two of them in college, but from what we know of the ancient Greeks and Romans, they would read Homer over and over again. As their education got more sophisticated they still returned to the same core texts. Ancient teachers even talk about how when you are a young student you are reading Homer and seeing how the language works, or how the poetry is effective, and then you are more sophisticated and you can begin to draw moral lessons from it, and reflect on its philosophical content. And I think that’s an experience we don’t really have today, unless we maybe go to church and read the same scripture from childhood to adulthood.
EVERDEEN: I love that you say this, because I’m a serial rereader of books. Some of my friends think it’s so weird.
But oh! One question for you guys: Reading this book this time around, I felt myself being annoyed about the physical description of Aerin because my brain is full with lots of other teen books where they’re like, “This person is physically unattractive in this world because she is tall and has milky skin, and flowing hair and piercing eyes,” so like, they are basically a model.
JOHANNAH: Yes that definitely annoyed me. And she is clumsy and shy. I am not a huge fan of Aerin. I don’t hate her, but elements of her bother me.
EVERDEEN: As an adult I can see she’s flawed, but I can’t separate her now from how much I loved her at age 12.
JOHANNAH: Yeah, that was something I wondered about when reading this book because this book reminded me of one of my own favorites from that age, the Taran/Black Cauldron series.
EVERDEEN: OMG.
JOE: Whoa, yeah.
JOHANNAH: I haven’t reread those in a while but I used to. I stopped because I had a bad reaction; it was heart wrenching for me. The Black Cauldron is and probably always will be great, but I LOVED the third book in the series, Taran, Wanderer and it didn’t hold up as I got older. I kept wondering if The Hero And The Crown would have been my Taran, Wanderer. I also wanted to compare Eilonwy to Aerin but that might’ve just been the hair and the tower.
EVERDEEN: The comparison is there but their characters are so different. Eilonwy is one of my faves because she specifically doesn’t fall into the ‘shy/quiet/insecure’ thing.
JOHANNAH: That was another series where the two characters loved each other all along, they realized. That trope has always annoyed me. (I like it in movies though. Sound of Music cough cough.)
EVERDEEN: In real life the guy you’ve been friends with the whole time does not turn out to be a babely king. He just stays weird.
JOE: So is Aerin into Tor the whole time?
EVERDEEN: No, I think she realizes she has a responsibility to be queen.
JOHANNAH: I think she got dickmatized by Luthe and that makes her physically and emotionally horny for more.
EVERDEEN: Actually when I was young I used to wonder why she couldn’t just go be a mage queen with Luthe. They make it seem so obvious, like okay, we must part now, and I’m like…why.
JOE: Yeah, there’s Fantasy Reasons why she can’t BE with Luthe, but I thought the idea of like having a practice relationship where you learn what romantic feelings are was a pretty sophisticated move for this kind of story.
JOHANNAH: I assume that in future books she is with Luthe. Can you confirm?
EVERDEEN: No! There’s a book called The Blue Sword that was written first but takes place waaaaay in the future and Luthe is mentioned as being alive but Aerin is a legend.
JOHANNAH: WHAT.
JOE: Maaaaan.
JOHANNAH: This….no.
EVERDEEN: Yeah! I thought she was being pragmatic and being like, oh I’ll just date Tor now, and then he’ll die, and since I’m basically immortal I can hang with Luthe after.
JOE: And “Luthe should hold on to the dragon stone in case we need it” is classic “In the next book we will need it” shit. Anyway I got the sense that for most of the story, she knew Tor was into her, but was just avoiding that whole part of life entirely.
JOHANNAH: She clearly knows Tor is into her and is repressing it, which is a jerk move.
EVERDEEN: I’m still not convinced she loves Tor. That’s one thing that has never made sense to me, from childhood to adulthood. She’s like, “My love for Luthe made me realize my love for Tor,” and I’m like why did it do that. Your love for Luthe should have made you realize Tor is annoying and that you and Luthe could just take over Damar with magic.
JOE: I dunno, I totally bought “Luthe as practice relationship,” that seemed legit to me!
JOHANNAH: Yeah I bought it too. I just didn’t think Tor should be her next object of affection. And I wanted her relationship with Luthe to be sordid. They are tender but also, he’s a thousand. I want them to roleplay or something.
EVERDEEN: She embarks on a dangerous affair with Perlith, scandalizing the nation.
JOHANNAH: Yeah, I ship Aerin/Perlith.
JOE: I ship Talat/tasty meadow grass.
EVERDEEN: Cat queen/dog queen in a forbidden interspecies romance.
JOHANNAH: YES. Oh I did appreciate that the cat is the king and the dog is the queen. Smash gender stereotypes!
EVERDEEN: I assumed they were all girls which I understand makes no sense.
JOHANNAH: No, it says cat king. I was very conscious of this.
Like I said, I have a hard time buying Aerin being with anybody because I never got a sense of her being a romantic or sexual person even though she does both. I don’t know what her interiority is like.
JOE: Like Everdeen said at the top, romance is definitely not her main focus. Her main focus is figuring out who she is and killing dragons.
JOHANNAH: Yeah that’s good. I would have appreciated that as a kid. I hated romance in my fantasy books. Hated.
JOE: Same!
EVERDEEN: I didn’t hate it but then I started to feel pressure, like am I supposed to be in love? Will it hurt?
JOHANNAH: On that note, do we have any last thoughts?
JOE: Everdeen, thank you for making me read this book!
EVERDEEN: No problem, this was really fun.
The Aerin/Luthe/Tor thing was my first adolescent glimpse into the fact that no, you can legit love multiple people at once, and that one doesn’t negate the others, and I really still adore it for that.
Also I was always under the impression that she was still around in Blue Sword, just not quite as physically manifest as Luthe when there were other people to deal with.
I have that exact same impression about Blue Sword Aerin.
I do too. There’s a bit somewhere about … a glimpse of red hair in a forest?
And that she did occasionally make some magicali-ish public appearances – like when Harry sees her in the fire and so does everyone else.
YES. And the idea that she can do the responsible thing because Luthe will still be there when she’s done, and they can have their relationship… that struck home to me. Aerin doesn’t give him up; she just puts it on hold. That shaped my world.
Hee, yes. I’m not saying that HatC *made* me into the nonmonogamous just-solve-love-triangles-by-having-them-both* chick I am today, but it sure didn’t hurt.
*Except for Witches of East End, where they’re brothers and it’s a whole creepy Six Degrees of VC Andrews thing, so just DECIDE ALREADY THAT GIRL.
YES! Thank you.
I still read this book once a year, Everdeen, even though I now read the “pale gorgeous redhead in a kingdom of mildly brown people thinks she’s ugly” trope and the “super special destiny girl thinks she’s a useless failure” trope and a few other tropes herein and groan aloud.
In addition to everything you guys said about purpose-making and purpose-finding, I appreciate the fact that Aerin, who has to go it somewhat alone for a while, always recognizes the ways in which she’s not going it alone and the ways in which her relationships–with Tor, with Talat, with her father, with Luthe, even with the magical dogs and cats–are her strength.
Also, “I will love you until the stars crumble, which is a less idle threat than is usual to lovers on parting,” COME THE FUCK ON, SO CHEESEBALL WRONG AND YET SO GLORIOUSLY RIGHT.
AHHHH I love that line. That plus the bit where Aerin stares at the pulse beating in the hollow of Luthe’s neck because she can’t bear to make eye contact as they say goodbye basically formed my idea of Romance when I was a kid.
Team Luthe!
I AM HERE FOR ALL OF THE ROBIN MCKINLEY DISCUSSIONS. Ahem. I have to admit that I’ve always preferred The Blue Sword, but really, I have been continually rereading McKinley’s books since I was 10, so I am so happy to see this.
One question for the other Mckinley fans – I know that Aerin is a legend in The Blue Sword, but that book mentions that there are people living with Luthe that don’t appear in that novel, and I thought that it was heavily implied elsewhere that Aerin was/is one of those people. Am I imagining things? I haven’t been rereading the Damar books quite so often anymore.
if anyone who loves Damar has not read the Water short story collection, there is an excellent story in there that is basically just McKinley writing a fanfic of her own works in which someone who lives in the equivalent of modern England manages to abandon her unsatisfying life and go live in Blue Sword-era Damar by means of magic/time travel/something, and it is probably good that I did not get to read that when I was ten because it would have become my life goal. In any case, it is an excellent story.
Yay, yes! More McKinley. I really thought Aerin was somewhere nearby in Blue Sword but just not ready to get involved in everyone else’s bs. A good excuse to reread? Not going to complain. So happy I have that one in hardback or it definitely would be in poor shape by now.
I had to buy a hardback copy of Beauty in college after I wore out the paperback version I’d had as a kid. Now I only buy McKinley in hardback. 🙂
I checked out the books over and over from the library before I bought them, and now I really want the exact same editions (with the same dust jackets too). I’ve worn out several copies of Beauty, though, because I liked one particular paperback edition. 🙂
The one where she’s wearing a yellow dress on the cover?
YUP. And yeah, I know the prettiness factor is a concern. But it’s such a nice picture! And really, my favorite thing about Beauty is the way the family and village are written to be supportive and good relationships all around. There are awkwardnesses, but overall it’s a pretty positive environment and I appreciate her figuring out her role in all that.
Y E S to the story from Water. I’ve owned Hero and the Crown since I was about 10, so I’m probably lucky that replicating kenet and/or boning an immortal, sad-seeming magician haven’t been life goals.
Legit – let’s just do this series with every single one of her books.
I will always be here for discussing Outlaws of Sherwood at length. It does not get enough love.
HERE FOR OUTLAWS OF SHERWOOD. I love that book so much, and the scene between [spoiler] and [spoiler] on the battlements toward the end is, I think, my favorite romantical thing ever.
Yes! I am rarely susceptible to romantical things, but the Outlaws ones get me.
I agree!
Also, I read Hero and the Crown well before I read Blue Sword, which may account for my being more partial to the overall story in HatC (though I love Harry and Corlath as well, and Harry’s particular badassery).
I think that at the age I read these, I was a little uncomfortable with the sex scenes with Luthe in HatC and a lot more comfortable with the “maybe I will kiss this man at the end of the book” romance in Blue Sword. Though now I am more uncomfortable with the “let’s kidnap this girl out of her bedroom because my magical rage is telling me to and also now I have a crush on her” plot threads in Blue Sword. Not to mention the excellent points others are making about colonialism and the optics of having a white heroine in both of these books.
I think tiny_bookbot sums it up well in the next thread down: I want to make sure that I’m thinking critically about these books even as I remain immensely fond of them. But I think it’s also good to go back and remember how few books like these were available when they came out. Fantasy adventure novels with a female lead? Well-written fantasy adventure novels with a female lead? There’s still not as many of them as there ought to be, but there especially wasn’t back when I first stumbled across these in the school library. Here’s to continued critical thinking and much better representation in publishing.
In a related Problematic Favs tangent, I recall as a kid being so put out that the Beast in Rose Daughter stays a beast instead of transforming into a prince (as he does in Beauty ), whereas adult-me is like Y E S, CORRECT CHOICE, YES.
My headcannon is that the end of Rose Daughter is her response to the Disney Beauty and the Beast, where the grumpy Beast you’ve come to love is transformed into a hideous ken doll prince and you wonder how this is at all a thing that Belle wanted. At the very least he could have had the same hair color as the Beast, Disney, what were you thinking?!
I like The Hero and the Crown but Rose Daughter is my whole heart. I took a while to accept that the Beast hadn’t changed (like, literally to understand that that had happened). I sort of had grow up into that idea. I agree, it was so much the right thing to do with that Beauty and that Beast, and ahhh, the fact that she brings him home with her is so beautiful.
I read The Hero and the Crown young enough that I basically didn’t pick up on any of the sex scenes. I was naive enough to not imagine anything after a Fade to Black, though, so…
Corlath is probably my #1 lit crush. Way over everyone (No thank you, Mr. Darcy). Sure, the story has it’s issues and he makes some terrible decisions but… but… *heart eyes emoji*
He’s filled with angst and brooding and jealousy! Plus an appreciation of Harry’s badass sword and horse powers.
Ah, I always preferred Innath – he seemed like he had a sense of humour…
One of my very first crushes. Him putting on her sash – swooooon. And then not going, “I put on your sash so now everyone thinks we’re engaged so you have to marry me, that’s just the way it is,” but instead saying, “I’ll give it back if you want but, you know, that’s kind of option . . . B? for me? But totally, whatever you decide.”
The weird thing is, I grew up in the Midwest, which was flat and green (and whiiiiiiite). When I first read this, the whole thing about how she’d never felt at home in Basically England and when she got to Basically India she was like, “OH YES I love this place even though it’s wild and empty and totally bananapants as far as weather and really everybody else who’s Basically English hates it, I’m weird,” I was like, “Well that’s interesting.”
When I was 22, I moved to the Southwest and immediately went “OH I’m home.” Now I live in the desert and there are billboards in Spanish and I bake for six months out of the year and there’s even a rainy season and I would never go anywhere else. it’s like this book either predicted or shaped my heart.
I have always read Aerin being alive and with Luthe in The Blue Sword. She is mostly immortal, after all, and she does appear in the bonfire, and again there’s a glimpse of her after Harry brings down the mountain. She just knows to stay back, since it’s no longer her story.
I haven’t read Water yet but now I really really need to. I think it’s A Knot in the Grain that has the short story where we meet the Lily from Luthe’s throwaway comment, and I loved it when I found out that there was more Damar out there. I’m such a fangirl. Sigh.
It’s the last story in Water, and it’s closer to a novella than a short story if I remember right. I read in an interview or blog post or some such thing that the Elements series has been progressing very slowly because McKinley starts out writing a short story and then it turns into a novella and then suddenly we have Sunshine, which I think was supposed to go into the Fire collection originally. I’m okay with this trend.
I don’t think it is implied — no one has any idea she’s still alive. How THAT worked, when she didn’t grow old, I don’t know. They keep Luthe and his companions nice and mysterious, as it would be.
BRB borrowing Water from the library right now.
The Blue Sword is my #2 go-to comfort book (#1 is Persuasion), and I get the same sense that Aerin’s hanging around in the background of the forest somewhere.
That story in Water made me WEEP.
GDI, this post finally made me break my “no fanfiction this Lent” rule.
I gave up fanfiction for Lent three years ago and the folder that my AO3 notifications are routed to is still called DON’T READ ME, IT’S LENT. I take great glee in ignoring that instruction. But I hope that the fanfic-less Lent is a good experience for you! I love fanfiction, but sometimes it can be good to take a break.
I’m not sure if it’s doing any good, as I seem to have replaced it with online flash games.
Hmm. I suppose now if anyone tries to suggest you should be reading Real Books instead of fic, you can explain that it fits the part of your brain that would otherwise be taken up by online flash games?
I really loved both the Hero and the Crown and The Blue Sword as a kid, and I still think they’re awesome in many ways, but looking back at them, they’re both really white savior-y. I mean, does your heroine always need to be the only white person in a kingdom full of people of color (and in the Blue Sword, a member of an occupying colonialist power, as well)? I really wish I could still love them as much as I once did.
Yeah, there is some problematic stuff there that makes me fidgety, and the fact that Aerin is half-Damarian mitigates it slightly but not entirely. It’s more disquieting in Blue Sword where the colonialist stuff is really front and center, and Harry wasn’t even raised within the culture. Aerin might be visually other, but at least culturally she’s Damarian through and through.
I’m still fond of them, I just read them more critically now.
Yeah, and I feel like there are better ways of making Aerin Other than making her white. If you read Damar as an analogue for India (which I think is pretty obvious in The Blue Sword) making Aerin’s mother Mongolian or something would make a lot more sense and still be visibly different.
But on the other hand, she and her brother go full native at the end. They may have helped save Damar, but then Damar takes them over completely. Besides, at the end it’s made clear that the empire has to give up on conquering Damar and treats it as an equal state (embassies, etc).
Also, a major theme is “we’re really more alike than different”. After all, they’re all human, as opposed to the orcs or whatever coming from the North. I really, really want to know more about the North.
FWIW, here is one glimpse of her awareness of that tall white woman trope/issue from her acceptance speech from the Newbery Award:
“[…] It’s not that I am tall and light-skinned myself that has made my subconscious carry around all these years a picture of a tall, pale woman carrying a sword and defying something undefiable; although the large clumsiness of Harry and Aerin is certainly an addition by this author. Eowyn was beautiful and gracious and graceful — but never mind. Tolkien really didn’t know much about women; but I will always be grateful for the hard, pure light this one scene shed on my own girls-saving-the-universe fantasies.”
She also talks about the influences of The Man Who Would Be King and The Sheik – she doesn’t address the disgusting racial elements of those in the speech, but she does bring up some of the gender stuff – it’s a long essay but worth reading:
http://web.archive.org/web/20130605154645/http://…
A few of my friends decided to try to read The Sheik after reading that speech and found it utterly repugnant (stockholm syndrome with a mysogynist rapist added to colonial racism) but it did make some of her colonialist influences clear even if she was trying to transcend what she knew was wrong about them wrt gender.
I love her books, but it’s worth knowing what has been simmering in the background.
This is a really good point.
I also loved these books growing up, but now can’t separate them from their orientalist elements. Back then I gave the Blue Sword to my best friend, who happened to be a first generation immigrant from India. The look on her face when she very nicely explained that she didn’t enjoy it…..it was a wake up call for little me, especially about my priveleges as a white person. But I still think they were very well written books!
Yep – I read HatC first and would probably like it more anyway because of that, but I haaaated the way Blue Sword turned a thriving nation into a colonial outpost, even before I picked up on the white savior complex.
10% of the way through this I determined that this book will be coming to live with me.
I am so here for this discussion. I will totally be trying to foist The Hero and the Crown and The Blue Sword on my niece in about a decade, and I want to be able to have an intelligent conversation with her about it. Colonialism and the “white savior” trope will definitely be something to discuss, as will a practical angle on love, romance, and responsibility.
I interpreted Aerin in The Blue Sword as maybe not so much on the physical plane any more, but still present in some fashion – kind of a demigod.
TEAM TOR! Because he is not afraid to let Aerin shine. He knows she’s better and stronger than he is and that is how men should be.
But also yeah, now the race stuff in Hero and the Crown and The Blue Sword bothers me. In the Blue Sword, Damar is surrounded by desert and Harry is an English (or perhaps Welsh) woman (with 1/4 Damarian blood) and is sent to what is clearly a British colonial outpost and saves everyone. And Aerin is a redhead who saves a bunch of black-haired people. IDK.
I mean, I feel like you do know! It legitimately sucks and is racist and lazy, and once you can see that shit, you can’t unsee it. I have the same problems, only more, with the Song of the Lioness Quartet, and those books basically raised me. In a way it feels like a similar conundrum to “my beloved relative embraces X racist hiring practice/makes transphobic jokes/fill in the horrible blank.” You love them, but… but…
Have you read some of the more recent Tamora Pierce novels? I’m lacking quotes, but I know she’s spoken/written somewhere about how her understanding of the importance of representation has evolved, and also how the publishing industry has changed in ways that allow her to put that representation in place.
It’s one of the things that I find interesting about looking at an author’s career as opposed to looking at a relative’s racist/etc remarks: the books that they wrote in the 1970s/80s/90s are frozen in time, but their writing and their understanding continues to change. I think I’ve seen some interesting comments on this from both Neil Gaiman and Diane Duane as well. I don’t want to say that we shouldn’t continue to think critically about the books that they wrote in the past and demand better, because that’s the only way that both people and the publishing industry is going to change, but I think it’s also good to be able to look at the time at which a book was written and the ways in which the writer’s views and works have changed since.
I haven’t, but it’s good to hear that she’s thinking about it and your point is well taken. People do learn and change, and I think looking at whether their work reflects an increase in their fairness and generosity is, itself, a fair and generous thing to do.
Oh thank goodness! I loved Tor when I read the books too. I’m a sucker for the Peeta characters.
Seconding all the observations about problematic race/colonialism stuff in both books, but man, this book kind of blew my mind when I read it at age 10. I loved how internal Aerin was as a heroine, the extent to which she lives inside her head and is okay with being alone with her thoughts. And I love how WEIRD it gets. The battle with Agsded, the final bit with Maur’s head–all of it was just so much more strange than the other YA fiction I read usually dared to be. Unabashed weirdness.
I might have taken home the copy that was in my 5th grade classroom’s reading rack and kept it forever. Miiiiiiight have.
Haha, that’s how I acquired my copy of The Blue Sword – I borrowed it from my 5th grade classroom and forgot (“forgot,” maybe?) to bring it back. I feel a little bad that I deprived others of the opportunity to read the book, but I still have that copy & have read it at least once a year every year since, so I’m not that sorry.
I felt bad at first. But I read it and reread it and reread it and then both my younger sisters read it and acquired their own copies, and I loaned it to a couple friends, so I felt like less of a book-miser in the end.
Same Same Same down to the taking home the 5th grade classroom copy.
Except my amazing teacher saw that I was the only one who had ever checked it out from our little reading shelf, and that I had checked it out FIVE TIMES. She handed it to me as I walked out of her classroom on the last day of 5th grade. Thanks, Ms. Albertine, for encouraging weird girl fantasy reading!
Its one of the first books I remember reading that I really, evocatively, rememeber pushing through each chapter and where I was each time I opened it.
I still have the same copy and that paperback is completely split, worn out, and almost unreadable.
I love how 5th grade is turning out to be the perfect moment of Robin McKinley discovery.
Yeah, I liked her internal quality too. The part that stuck with me the most was when she’s starting to get her recipe right, and she sticks her hand over a flame and isn’t burned and the narrative says, “Kenet. It existed.” Such a brilliant but quiet moment of triumph.
I love the quiet moments of triumph for McKinley’s heroines, where you really sense the frustration they’ve been going through, and the deep satisfaction finally making one small bit of progress. It’s so beautifully realistic.
Talat/tasty meadow grass is my new OTP
Talat/mik-bars
So I read this as a tween (10? 11? 12?) and was sort of into Tor because I imagined him as Orlando Bloom (and Pirates of the Caribbean had come out pretty recently so) and I remember that the night after Aerin defeats whatever she defeats Luthe is like “lol I must warn you if we sleep together tonight I don’t plan on sleeping!” and I remember thinking that was the MOST UNSEXY THING TO SAY, EVER. And I know she is like “I don’t plan on sleeping either lol!” But still. I just remember feeling like it was a weird thing to say and slightly rapey sounding???? But maybe my tween self was not sophisticated enough for their flirting? Anyone else feel weird about it?
I was icked out/in denial because he’s her teacher and he knew her mother.
Thank you. I’m glad I’m not the only teen who had these high ethical standards (he’s sooooooo oooooold)
I loved that line, but am and forever will be an unapologetic Luthe fan girl.
Books dealing with male adolescence, also in a fantasy context: Ursula Le Guin’s The Beginning Place. Painfully poignant ….
Robin McKinley’s protagonist wheelhouse is “person coming of age who’s never quite fit in their prescribed role [and may have arcane powers to grow into, or discovery of what their purpose may be],” which is 400% what I craved growing up. While these days I do roll my eyes at her particular “once u come into yr own, u’re BEAUT and everyone will recognize this” trope (seen especially in Hero and the Crown and Beauty ), I absolutely love that she places so much emphasis on kindness, resoluteness, and being oneself. I also think it’s wonderful that a grown-ass woman can write adolescent protagonists in such a way that their myopic worldviews are believable — these kids never recognize when people believe in them or are into them until it’s spelled out to them, because they’re oblivious to the thought that such a thing COULD happen…which, I don’t know about y’all, but that’s exactly as I recall my existence for a lot of formative years.
+1
Plus Spindle’s End, right? Where she never does get revealed as “beautiful” but all that kindness comes home to roost and saves the day, plus That Thing Wot Makes Me Cry If I Think Too Hard About It (there I go), and how she doesn’t even have to be the ding-dang princess at the end. BEST.
I actually wrote my senior BA thesis on BEAUTY/SPINDLE’s END and Gail Carson Levine’s FAIREST/ ELLA ENCHANTED looking at the ways they do and do not succeed as feminist fairy tales. BEAUTY failed for me in that in the end, she does become beautiful which is disappointing, particularly because I was comparing it to Levine’s FAIREST where she doesn’t become beautiful in the end.
But yes, SPINDLE’S END is amazing.
Yeahhhh Beauty definitely fell into the “you just don’t see your own beauty!!!” camp, but then of course she’s beautiful. It was my first McKinley, and one that bewitched my elementary school heart, and at that age of course (THANKS, SOCIETY) we learn that we want to grow up to be beautiful, and books like Beauty tell us that maybe we’re beautiful even if we don’t think we are, or that maybe recognizing your own beauty takes time and distance, or or or.
I should reread Spindle’s End — it’s been years. My vague recollections are: “wasn’t that one really long, comparatively” but also the blacksmith dude fulfilling the “person who loves you for you and has been there the whole time but THANK GODDDD is not an entitled Nice Guy about it in any way and now that you finally realize it and it’s mutual, SOME KISSING?” trope that R McK does so elegantly.
Of all her books, I remember Beauty being my least favorite. It’s been years, but I also remember thinking that Rose Daughter was the far superior retelling of Beauty and the Beast. I reread that one many times.
I’m really glad I didn’t happen upon Sunshine until I was a bit older, because whoa! That is not a book for tweens. But, I like that she had an older, more mature character who was much more sure of herself and comfortable with her identity. I feel like that helped me a lot in my late high school/early college years.
The Rest of Us Just Live Here by Patrick Ness has some excellent boy angst about romantic love and friendship love and and mental health – and moments of humor, too. It’s tangentially fantasy because it’s about the kids who aren’t The Chosen One(s), so there’s Chosen One stuff going on in the background, and the kids are vaguely aware of it, but it’s not their thing. You wouldn’t have run across it in your adolescence because it just pubbed last year, but it’s definitely worth a read.
Yes, I was just coming down to recommend this! It’s a great satire of fantasy tropes, but it is also very much like reading the letter that the author wished he could write to his teenage self. I’ve recommended to a couple friends, and each of us was surprised to find something really personally affirming.
Patrick Ness is pretty wonderful, I think. His A Monster Calls had me weeping, it was so vivid emotionally. The Rest of Us is on my list.
Also, as a YA librarian I have to testify that there is a ton of recent YA literature that effectively addresses male adolescence. However, most of it is realistic fiction, which may not reach as wide an audience of young men as Ye Olde Fantasy and Science Fiction novels.
Do tell. My son is in that age range, and he doesn’t like fantasy or scifi.
I am here for you with the realistic fiction readers advisory!
In no particular order:
It’s Kind of a Funny Story – Ned Vizzini – funny moments inside a serious story
Swim the Fly trilogy – Don Calame – a veritable laff-riot the whole way through
Something Like Normal – Trish Doller – soldier home on leave from first tour
Where Things Come Back – John Corey Whaley – a mystery and so much more
Sex & Violence and Perfectly Good White Boy – both by Carrie Mesrobian, both excellent
Crash & Burn – Michael Hassan – an amazing 600-page monster
The Beginning of Everything – Robyn Schneider – Ezra goes from varsity star to debate team nerd after a car accident shatters his knee
Somebody up There Hates You – Hollis Seamon – a cancer book that is pretty much the antithesis of The Fault in Our Stars
Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock – Matthew Quick – major angst
We Are All Made of Molecules – Susin Nielsen – a he said/she said story narrated by 2 teens whose parents move in together
Scar Boys – Len Vlahos – finding your path through music
The Vigilante Poets of Selwyn Academy – Kate Hattemer – smart kids revolting against the reality TV show that has taken over their school
Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda – Becky Albertalli – Simon is in love with a boy he’s never met
The Unlikely Hero of Room 13B – Teresa Toten – first love, as experienced by Adam, who is nearly crippled by his OCD
Plus there’s also Andrew Smith and, you know, John Green, not that he needs much advertising.
Most of these books are written with high school readers in mind, so depending on your tolerance for language, drinking, etc., you may want to preview.
I think Aerin gets with Tor because she needs to save her kingdom in another way — be a good queen, support Tor’s position, heal the nation, etc. It’s about duty, not necessarily love. She does love Tor, but more familily than romantically. It’s duty, love of country, and love of Tor — and bonus knowing she’ll be back with Luthe when the time comes.
That was my reading, too. Luthe was her Grand Passion relationship; Tor is her stable, comfortable partnership in which they work together to rule the kingdom and get things done.
I think Tor freaks people out, because in this story, he is the “princess” i.e. the supportive side character/potential love interest. So many books have girl friends and girlfriends that play this exact character. But we’re still not so used to guys in that role.
When McKinley published HandC it caused a stir because the protagonist was a girl and it sold well. (In fantasy, gasp! and the author was a woman! Dogs and Cats living together! etc.) And there was sex in it. Are You There God It’s Me Margaret was still controversial, not to mention Forever, which was already around 10 freaking years old.
I loved/love these books and McKinley as an author, but I sometimes I compare the types of books available today with the ones from my childhood and get a little jealous.
Robin McKinley has written in her blog that Aerin and Luthe do get together after Tor dies and Aerin retires… So they are ultimately together
having not read the article yet: omg hero and the crown. i checked this book out probably once a month for my entire childhood, and never owned it, until i went to powell’s in portland last year and found the exact same edition i had read as a child.
i missed so much of the story the first dozen times i read it, while simultaneously finding the writing style easier to handle – when i read it again just last month the broken narrative was much more confusing than i remembered…
okay, now i’ve read the article, perfect perfect perfect. so many points about luthe (yay!) and tor (boo!) that i’ve had a hard time articulating for years. on this last reading i *totally* understood why she went back to tor, to protect damar and because she could have an entire eventual future with luthe after tor’s death. but it’s a shame that we never got that book.
also, as a kid, i literally never noticed the sex scene with luthe? i’m not even sure i ever realized there was a romantic relationship between them at all. i was (who am i did, *am*) pretty oblivious to that type of thing, though, so maybe it shouldn’t come as a surprise.
Nono, me too. I didn’t work out until YEARS later that the scene with Luthe was sexual (romantic yes, but sexual nope).
Gaah, Robin McKinley is still one of the authors I return to continually forever. Interestingly, I had intensely conflicted feelings about both Hero and the Crown and, to a lesser extent, The Blue Sword growing up. Like, I found them a little scary and unsettling, especially HandC. The fever dream like quality, how the dragon infects the nation post-death, the extent of her injuries. There was always something haunting in the writing. But, even though they upset me and I would have strange dreams after reading until two am, I could never stay away for long and would come back to try again every couple of years until I finally just bought copies. Also, if you aren’t keeping up with McKinley’s current publications, Pegasus is a joy and literally the best interaction I have seen for describing a race that is Other. (It ends on a cliffhanger that has not been resolved but is STILL WORTH READING. Just.. you know… be braced, there have been sequel slow downs. )
Can we talk about all the Robin McKinley all the time? My top three are probably this, Beauty, and Spindle’s End. SO GOOD.
MY PEOPLE!!! I will never understand why Robin McKinley isn’t better known. I love her so deeply. One of my closest adult friendships sprang from a mutual love of her books. We were so happy to find someone else who knew and loved them!
The Blue Sword and The Hero and the Crown were a huge influence on me growing up. I’ve been too busy for a new book lately so I’m in the middle of a slow re read of Blue Sword right now (they’ve just gotten to Luthe)(I love Luthe). I read it about once a year and love how my read changes each time. This time around I’ve noticed how very careful she is with the kidnapping. In particular there’s a bit about Corlath and the riders “abducting” women in the past but only after “securing enthusiastic consent well in advance” (that’s an almost direct quote). Between that acknowledgment of the direct language of consent (ages before the current conversation around that concept) and the great care Corlath takes to treat her as an honored guest, including explaining to her explicitly that that is what he’s doing, I think it does a really great job of upending the traditional narrative of those kinds of stories.
And the men in the Damarian aristocracy get the diminutive ending! Women are “sol”, men are “sola”! That thrilled my 11-year-old self beyond belief! So much love!
(Also, because the article brought it up: Prydain > Narnia. And I’ll fight you about it.)
I didn’t see anywhere in the article where Narnia was brought up. Which part?
Prydain is mentioned, not Narnia. The Lloyd Alexander books mentioned. They’re not even really a direct comparison, I just connected to the Prydain books way more than the Narnia books. This was my goofy joy about two of my lesser known childhood book worlds showing up together.
Got your back on the Prydain thing. I love Lloyd Alexander’s books fiercely, and never understood how few people seem to have read them. Of course the Chronicles of Prydain are my favorite.
Okay, which one of you wrote down all the books I read as a child and gave them to the Toast for this series?
Like many here, I am of the “read this annually for about 10 years” camp, along with Tamora Pierce’s first two quartets. Robin McKinley will always be one of my favs, even though reading Deerskin messed me up pretty good as an 11-year-old.
I recognize that Deerskin is terrifying but I love it for some reason? I’ve never understood quite why.
I have forgotten so, so much of this book (I was anywere between 15-20 when I read it). I remember her making the fire thing and fighting dragons, and also being scandalized because she was with the first dude then went back to the other dude. It completely went over my head that they Did It; I think it was the age difference I was scandalized by.
“EVERDEEN: No. The book would have been almost the same if she were a guy. We would have to hear less about hair or darning socks or whatever. And she’s forced to wear ankle ribbons. What would they do instead if it were a guy?
JOHANNAH: Make him get frosted tips.”
I made the weirdest snort noise in the library.
It only occurred to me on my last rereading that Damar’s people aren’t white,which is super embarrassing (and probably partly because I read H&C before Blue Sword). And it made me think that (Despite the white-savior aspect which is more apparent in BS) its actually pretty transgressive to be picturing the whole stereotypical princess-novel court as people of color,given that its basically the standard narrative of the overlooked weird child coming back to save them all.
Thank you to this article series for the following things:
1) Giving me several books to add to my list of books to read. The Hero and the Crown seems like it would have been right up my alley, so I’m surprised I didn’t ever read it. The Half-Made World is outside my usual wheelhouse, but looks interesting enough.
2) Giving me a way to spend 2 hours at work when I should have been working ooops.
3) Making me want to get my hair feathered and go hang out with the 1984 Dune cast due to that awesome author pic.
4) REALLY making me want to go back to university and take some more literature classes so smart people who have thought about books and their historical/cultural context can help me think about them more. (Really enjoyed lectures on the Once and Future King, for example.) I’ll just have to look forward to more Toast articles instead.
YES THE HERO AND THE CROWN. This book is legitimately one of the most important in my life. I discovered it when I was in 6th grade, and struggling with depression and anxiety so bad I can’t believe I thought it was normal, and that I was able to act normal enough that nobody noticed I was a walking disaster of a human being. I’m comfortable saying this book saved my life.
Robin McKinley is one of those authors I will buy a new book on the first day in hardback at full price without even knowing what it’s about. She is a treasure. Her husband of 23 passed away recently, and her blog have just been heartbreaking since then.
ALSO, as someone who was 6′ by the time she was 12, I take huge exception to this: “This person is physically unattractive in this world because she is tall and has milky skin, and flowing hair and piercing eyes,” so like, they are basically a model.” No, sorry. Being an extremely tall gurk at a young age does not make you a model; it makes you gangly, awkward, and very very hungry all the time, as well as a prime target for bullying because it’s impossible to blend into a crowd. I’ve grown into my limbs, but I’m still pretty clumsy and feel awkward when surrounded by shorter people.
YES THE HERO AND THE CROWN. This book is legitimately one of the most important in my life. I discovered it when I was in 6th grade, and struggling with depression and anxiety so bad I can't believe I thought it was normal, and that I was able to act normal enough that nobody noticed I was a walking disaster of a human being. I'm comfortable saying this book saved my life.
Robin McKinley is one of those authors I will buy a new book on the first day in hardback at full price without even knowing what it's about. She is a treasure. Her husband of 23 passed away recently, and her blog have just been heartbreaking since then.
ALSO, as someone who was 6' by the time she was 12, I take huge exception to this: "This person is physically unattractive in this world because she is tall and has milky skin, and flowing hair and piercing eyes,” so like, they are basically a model." No, sorry. Being an extremely tall gurk at a young age does not make you a model; it makes you gangly, awkward, and very very hungry all the time, as well as a prime target for bullying because it's impossible to blend into a crowd. I've grown into my limbs, but I'm still pretty clumsy and feel awkward when surrounded by shorter people.
>It would be interesting to have something where a character does question tropes of masculinity. Like I don’t want to fight, I want to become a fashion designer.
I read hundreds of these when I was a kid. Fantasy, sf, and realistic. I read so many they blur together. Not all of them are about Merlin, of course.
Boy doesn’t want to be a soldier, or a farmer, or to take over his father’s business. He doesn’t want to be careful and responsible and do the same thing every day. He wants to be a magician, or an artist. (Maybe a writer? People who think about getting away from their restrictive lives and becoming free spirited artists sometimes grow up to write books.)
Has anyone read the Dark is Rising series? That is from an adolescent boy’s perspective. It is a fantastic series.
If I had been paying attention and not neck deep in other stuff I would have admitted to naming my first child Aerin (which burden she bears lightly, even though she is not tall, or red haired, or at ALL interested in horses) on account of this book. She turns 22 in a week.
My second daughter got a book too – she’s Alice.
YES! Thank you.