beccastareyes (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
beccastareyes) wrote2012-08-23 02:40 pm
beccastareyes) wrote2012-08-23 02:40 pm
100 SF/Fantasy Stories 015: Will of the Empress by Tamora Pierce
I'll blog more later, but have a book for now.
I read most of Tamora Pierce's Song of the Lioness Quartet as a teenager, before the modern YA trend got started. And, well, she writes a good blog and is sort of local to me, and I have several friends who are fans of her. And, honestly, once I got past my teenaged years, I got a lot less insecure about reading 'kids books'.
So, I picked up her other world of books, the Magic Circle ones, which follow four orphaned youngsters from different backgrounds who end up having a semi-rare sort of magic for a certain craft or set of things. (Sandry, who is nobility and discovered she has thread magic when she was hidden to protect her from plague-related riots; Daja, from a isolated group of traveling merchants who learned she has a gift for metal and fire and general smithcraft; Briar, a street kid who has the ultimate green thumb; and Tris who was disowned by most of her family because she couldn't control her weather-magic.) The first quartet details how the four of them became each others' family, the second about them leaving the temple that was their home for four years and adjusting to being teen prodigies in an adult world. The first book in the Circle Reforged set (which has two books so far) is about the four of them meeting up and butting heads as they realize that all of them have changed and that changes relationships.
The main thrust of the external conflict is that Sandry has been living with her father's side of the family (her uncle), and managing lands she inherited from her mother (in the neighboring country of Namor) remotely. Berenene, Sandry's cousin on her mother's side, is the Empress of Namor, and really likes the idea of a rich young noble heiress she can marry off to an ally, and has been exerting pressure where she can to get Sandry to come visit her court. And if Sandry is a gifted mage has connections to three other gifted mages, all the better.
Sandry is as stubborn as her cousin, though, and her friends have her back, despite the difficulties they've been having.
One thing I like about this book is that it comes across as rather feminist in scope. Not just that there's no shortage of Female Characters Doing Things, but the book hits an important theme. One of the reoccurring bits of plot is that many Namorese permit a custom where a man can kidnap a woman with the intent of coercing her into marriage. Pierce never draws the parallel to rape and rape culture, but it seems clear to me. One of Sandry's first actions is to end such a coerced marriage for one of her vassals who had to run away from her 'husband' and sneak into Sandry's rooms to get justice -- while a well-off family might be able to protect its daughters from such a thing, a poor family was at the mercy of whoever fancied a wife. Not to mention victim blaming: a girl shouldn't go out without guards or with a strange man and a poor woman should be flattered if a better-off young man wants to wed her. It seems pretty obvious that Sandry is going to be a big target, as a single woman whose husband would gain her lands on marriage, and she only has the protection of her cousin (who wants to see her married off, but to the right person) and her friends. There's a lovely passage where the wife of one of Sandry's relatives basically points out the Schroedinger's Rapist argument: that an environment where no woman can trust that a man isn't dangerous means that they'll mistrust even the men they might love.
The other thing is the intersection of class and sexism. Berenene permits this practice to continue because, as Empress, the few attempts made on her were done in a way that wouldn't hurt her in case she broke free before the contract was signed. After all, no one wants to piss off an Empress. As a result, shielded by her power, Berenene is contemptuous of other women who could get trapped in such a state, in a way that Sandry (who, after all is both noble and a mage, and can defend herself in ways that most people can't) isn't. On the other hand, the more Sandry shows that Berenene can't mess with her, the more Berenene responds to this threat against her power with more power, giving you a sense that her position isn't secure as all that.
There's also plenty of other things on the main theme of cool magic and friends that grow up but are still your friends and healing from trauma and diverse characters.
I read most of Tamora Pierce's Song of the Lioness Quartet as a teenager, before the modern YA trend got started. And, well, she writes a good blog and is sort of local to me, and I have several friends who are fans of her. And, honestly, once I got past my teenaged years, I got a lot less insecure about reading 'kids books'.
So, I picked up her other world of books, the Magic Circle ones, which follow four orphaned youngsters from different backgrounds who end up having a semi-rare sort of magic for a certain craft or set of things. (Sandry, who is nobility and discovered she has thread magic when she was hidden to protect her from plague-related riots; Daja, from a isolated group of traveling merchants who learned she has a gift for metal and fire and general smithcraft; Briar, a street kid who has the ultimate green thumb; and Tris who was disowned by most of her family because she couldn't control her weather-magic.) The first quartet details how the four of them became each others' family, the second about them leaving the temple that was their home for four years and adjusting to being teen prodigies in an adult world. The first book in the Circle Reforged set (which has two books so far) is about the four of them meeting up and butting heads as they realize that all of them have changed and that changes relationships.
The main thrust of the external conflict is that Sandry has been living with her father's side of the family (her uncle), and managing lands she inherited from her mother (in the neighboring country of Namor) remotely. Berenene, Sandry's cousin on her mother's side, is the Empress of Namor, and really likes the idea of a rich young noble heiress she can marry off to an ally, and has been exerting pressure where she can to get Sandry to come visit her court. And if Sandry is a gifted mage has connections to three other gifted mages, all the better.
Sandry is as stubborn as her cousin, though, and her friends have her back, despite the difficulties they've been having.
One thing I like about this book is that it comes across as rather feminist in scope. Not just that there's no shortage of Female Characters Doing Things, but the book hits an important theme. One of the reoccurring bits of plot is that many Namorese permit a custom where a man can kidnap a woman with the intent of coercing her into marriage. Pierce never draws the parallel to rape and rape culture, but it seems clear to me. One of Sandry's first actions is to end such a coerced marriage for one of her vassals who had to run away from her 'husband' and sneak into Sandry's rooms to get justice -- while a well-off family might be able to protect its daughters from such a thing, a poor family was at the mercy of whoever fancied a wife. Not to mention victim blaming: a girl shouldn't go out without guards or with a strange man and a poor woman should be flattered if a better-off young man wants to wed her. It seems pretty obvious that Sandry is going to be a big target, as a single woman whose husband would gain her lands on marriage, and she only has the protection of her cousin (who wants to see her married off, but to the right person) and her friends. There's a lovely passage where the wife of one of Sandry's relatives basically points out the Schroedinger's Rapist argument: that an environment where no woman can trust that a man isn't dangerous means that they'll mistrust even the men they might love.
The other thing is the intersection of class and sexism. Berenene permits this practice to continue because, as Empress, the few attempts made on her were done in a way that wouldn't hurt her in case she broke free before the contract was signed. After all, no one wants to piss off an Empress. As a result, shielded by her power, Berenene is contemptuous of other women who could get trapped in such a state, in a way that Sandry (who, after all is both noble and a mage, and can defend herself in ways that most people can't) isn't. On the other hand, the more Sandry shows that Berenene can't mess with her, the more Berenene responds to this threat against her power with more power, giving you a sense that her position isn't secure as all that.
There's also plenty of other things on the main theme of cool magic and friends that grow up but are still your friends and healing from trauma and diverse characters.