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petroniaHeavy spoilers for book 3, mid-level spoilers for, um, random other books.
Part 2, the rest of it (May-Aug 1551): WELL THAT WAS A BIT OF A COCKUP
I should expand on the Mirage of Blaze thing. XD; Meticulously researched historicity aside, Mirage is all clan warfare, all the time, per the parable of Buccleuchs and Kerrs, so structurally speaking it’s almost inevitable that you get the same kind of plot arcs - here’s a group, here’re their territory, goals, certain enemies and uncertain alliances, internal power dynamics, leadership - frequently terrible, just as frequently charismatic. And into these pre-made situations walks Our Protagonist, unable despite aloofness to disguise his charisma and officer quality, anymore than a magnet can discard the trail of iron shavings in its wake. /rolls about/ The game is up as soon as he opens his mouth at a meeting or fights a skirmish, and then the extant leadership has to figure out what to do about it, short of bashing him over the head and dumping him in a ditch. From memory, Kagetora hears a lot of recruitment pitches, of varying calibre. Usually right after that, dudes start getting creepy about him.
So, yanno, my deja vu at everyone making Immediate Assumptions(tm) re: what Gabriel desperately wants Lymond for (which is funny until you remember these are men of the world who have unconsciously arrived on consensus, as it were, on some srsly weird vibes - again). Literally everyone; I think the only person who doesn’t is Oonagh. God, Oonagh. There is a woman who is screwed by being born a woman, or in her era, or not high enough in the aristocratic food chain; she shouldn’t need to front a man to get things done, though with her personality she could have fallen into that trap equally in any era. She’s a lot more likeable in this book than in the last, if only because - Dunnett being Dunnett - one gets to know her better. She makes a lot more sense once you realize she’s older than she seemed at her introduction, just as Lymond does once you realize he’s younger. To what degree one unconsciously relies on such markers for coherency, in real life... You find her trying to regroup, to regain a sense of self, and events don’t really give her a chance; though, like Lymond, she’s most herself in a crisis anyhow.
In some weird way, Oonagh’s arc balances out the Lawrence of Arabia-esque austere masculinity of the rest of part 2. Pregnancy and the rest. Don’t get me wrong: we are now on track for a clusterfuck of epic proportions. Angelique got out of the seraglio just fine - it was France that put the screw in. Speaking of, you do get to find out who spread the word about Oonagh and Lymond - it was Cormac, the slime.
Lymond’s age is now a joke in-text as well as out XD;; If this were an LJ WIP there would be a POLL.
Because I have read Mirage of Blaze, let alone the first two books in this series, I am plotting Jerott Blythe’s feelings re: Lymond, over timein Excel, and it sort of makes me want to give him a cookie. Or a promissory note of future delivery of cookies, perhaps, when the predictive line of best fit indicates he’ll need them.
Part 3, chapters 1-4 (Oct-Nov 1551): SYBILLA GROUNDS LYMOND FOR LIFE
I like how every time Lymond comes home Mariotta is like >:3c ~ufufu~ I know I’d make an excuse to drop by with a bowl of popcorn. There is an adorable scene with a small child, which actually has been a recurrent leitmotif (it’s usually Princess Mary; she’s got Lymond’s number. I have an awful suspicion she didn’t mention the whole “Mr. Crawford with the riddles who has been an occasional presence since I was 4 crops up a few months later with different hair” bit to anyone because she assumed it was obvious). Meanwhile, Lymond has more lands - his original lands if you want to quibble - and is building a ninja village. I am pretty sure this also happened in Mirage of Blaze and everyone got motorcycles in the end.
Philippa: Oh, honey. This is how it starts, you know: eavesdropping on double agents while being someone’s houseguest. Next thing you know you’re on the lam in Krakow with a band of mercenaries and a price on your head.
I’m cut up over Tom Erskine, and for that matter Gideon Somerville :(( it’s a shock when characters one likes simply up and die for no good story-related reason, even though that was the period context.
Part 3, all the rest (well into 1552): WELL THAT WAS A BIT OF A COCKUP (AGAIN)
Did I say this didn’t get as messed up as Mirage of Blaze? Actually, I didn’t say it, but if I implied it I take it back. XD;;
This book has done a number on my sleep/wake pattern this weekend, so I really wasn’t gaming it in the middle - try that at 5AM after you’ve been reading for 10 hours straight. I did stop and have a think, though, after I was done being shocked and appalled at the clusterfuck re: Joleta and the Trodd and Will Scott and all the rest, and of course as soon as one thinks about it one realizes the corners don’t line up. I mean, it is set up to be a tale of Lymond’s relapse - like, maybe he likes hoes! Maybe he don’t want a wife, maybe he’s psycho! I’ll stop quoting Dre now - and he’s messed up enough while drunk that you think perhaps this is the time the shit cascade goes over the lip of the dam. But alcohol doesn’t make Lymond abandon his ethics; the big fuckup before this one was that horse race in France, a matter of being so keen to spring the trap that he stopped caring about the aftermath. And he’s always 100% likely to leave Richard twisting in the wind: not an amiable trait, but there you have it.
High-level metagame tell (which I'd wager is intentional): Lymond reacts to Joleta in his room pretty much just as Philip Marlowe reacts to Carmen Sternwood in The Big Sleep. What the overlap between Dunnett’s readership and Chandler’s is, I don’t presume to know, though Dunnett must have studied the great noir dames. ^^; Signally, even knowing from page one that Carmen is unhinged and stupid (which Joleta is not), the reader doesn’t suspect her - she’s in the role of victim, societally, and therein lies the red herring. After that, though I came to this rather late, the key is that the only people in the entire book Trotty could conceivably have had gossip about are Joleta and her duenna. (What doesn’t make sense is that Philippa would have then broached this topic with Graham Reid Malett; even if she was dissembling, man, AWKWARD.)
So, for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rondaview’s benefit: I called the incest, because I’ve read too much manga, and the whole Joleta-likes-to-scar-her-paramours bit was Chekhov’s Smoking Gun. XD;;; But I didn’t call both Maletts being utter congenital sociopaths and sexual predators, basically, because why would you go that far. You know Gabriel is a sanctimonious manipulative dick through the entire book, because uhhh he was a sanctimonious manipulative dick through the entire book. He as good as sold Oonagh into slavery! MORALITY PROTIP converting someone to the priesthood != acceptable reason to sell someone else into slavery. And he schemes up a storm back in Scotland, though no worse than yr avg Douglas. I thought it was pretty likely that he was angling for Lymond and St. Mary’s to take back to Malta, after someone else pulls the trigger on the Grand Master (everyone was waiting for the other idiot to do it, basically... and still it feels like a hanging thread that Homedes doesn't get iced, though I'm sure it's all v. historical). None of which explained Lymond’s virulent emotional response - plotting is par for the course in his environs, he didn’t know about Oonagh, and there was no reason for him to get that upset at someone trying to convert him to the Faith XD;; I mean, it’s not like it was ever in danger of working. It’s when one finds out about Joleta that one realizes, this is more fucked up than that, and Lymond knows it.
Having read The Big Sleep a buttzillion times, I’ve sometimes wondered whether Marlowe would have had an easier ride if he did have sex with Carmen; from the evidence here, the answer would be a resounding no. No, Lymond fucked up on this front. It wouldn’t have made a difference to the Joleta piece, but he should’ve walked out and been on time for the rest, let alone saved Richard the agony. XD; A fuckup of degree rather than kind, like Janet getting knifed at Midculter, but a fuckup nonetheless. It’s always the Weasleys getting the brunt of it.
Anyway: PREGNANCY. Is not precisely the theme of the book, because - just as Queen's Play is sorta "Nietzsche's Appollonian and Dionysian: a Case Study" - there's a gendered parallel streaming of Awful Happenings. Much as everything that happens to the female characters is quease-inducing (film noir isn't the most feminist of genres either), the "austerely masculine" side of things is a litany of all the ways a man can fail at being a warrior, a protector, self-domination, and on and on in extended tragedy. That being said, Lymond drops his "irritating mannerisms" for the vast majority of the book to match, and it's a good look on him. He would also just like to have his goddamned music on him, is that too much to ask. Francis Lymond, countryman of Belle and Sebastian, The Cocteau Twins, and The Pastels; I would buy you an iPod, if only I could.
Lymond’s unspoken ~*feelings*~ about Jerott: apparently I kind of... called... it? something? I didn’t mention this earlier because I thought I was out to lunch. I HALFWAY THINK YOU’RE GENUINELY NOT SUPPOSED TO NOTICE, BUT WHY BURY SHIZ IN THE BOOK IF YOU DON’T WANT PPL TO NOTICE. There was just some interesting narrative technique happening in that section, okay.
Obviously, I wasn't able to keep up with the word lists and the plot at once. XD; On a reread, maybe. I did greatly enjoy "primaeval ooze", that was a corker.
Part 2, the rest of it (May-Aug 1551): WELL THAT WAS A BIT OF A COCKUP
I should expand on the Mirage of Blaze thing. XD; Meticulously researched historicity aside, Mirage is all clan warfare, all the time, per the parable of Buccleuchs and Kerrs, so structurally speaking it’s almost inevitable that you get the same kind of plot arcs - here’s a group, here’re their territory, goals, certain enemies and uncertain alliances, internal power dynamics, leadership - frequently terrible, just as frequently charismatic. And into these pre-made situations walks Our Protagonist, unable despite aloofness to disguise his charisma and officer quality, anymore than a magnet can discard the trail of iron shavings in its wake. /rolls about/ The game is up as soon as he opens his mouth at a meeting or fights a skirmish, and then the extant leadership has to figure out what to do about it, short of bashing him over the head and dumping him in a ditch. From memory, Kagetora hears a lot of recruitment pitches, of varying calibre. Usually right after that, dudes start getting creepy about him.
So, yanno, my deja vu at everyone making Immediate Assumptions(tm) re: what Gabriel desperately wants Lymond for (which is funny until you remember these are men of the world who have unconsciously arrived on consensus, as it were, on some srsly weird vibes - again). Literally everyone; I think the only person who doesn’t is Oonagh. God, Oonagh. There is a woman who is screwed by being born a woman, or in her era, or not high enough in the aristocratic food chain; she shouldn’t need to front a man to get things done, though with her personality she could have fallen into that trap equally in any era. She’s a lot more likeable in this book than in the last, if only because - Dunnett being Dunnett - one gets to know her better. She makes a lot more sense once you realize she’s older than she seemed at her introduction, just as Lymond does once you realize he’s younger. To what degree one unconsciously relies on such markers for coherency, in real life... You find her trying to regroup, to regain a sense of self, and events don’t really give her a chance; though, like Lymond, she’s most herself in a crisis anyhow.
In some weird way, Oonagh’s arc balances out the Lawrence of Arabia-esque austere masculinity of the rest of part 2. Pregnancy and the rest. Don’t get me wrong: we are now on track for a clusterfuck of epic proportions. Angelique got out of the seraglio just fine - it was France that put the screw in. Speaking of, you do get to find out who spread the word about Oonagh and Lymond - it was Cormac, the slime.
Lymond’s age is now a joke in-text as well as out XD;; If this were an LJ WIP there would be a POLL.
Because I have read Mirage of Blaze, let alone the first two books in this series, I am plotting Jerott Blythe’s feelings re: Lymond, over time
Part 3, chapters 1-4 (Oct-Nov 1551): SYBILLA GROUNDS LYMOND FOR LIFE
I like how every time Lymond comes home Mariotta is like >:3c ~ufufu~ I know I’d make an excuse to drop by with a bowl of popcorn. There is an adorable scene with a small child, which actually has been a recurrent leitmotif (it’s usually Princess Mary; she’s got Lymond’s number. I have an awful suspicion she didn’t mention the whole “Mr. Crawford with the riddles who has been an occasional presence since I was 4 crops up a few months later with different hair” bit to anyone because she assumed it was obvious). Meanwhile, Lymond has more lands - his original lands if you want to quibble - and is building a ninja village. I am pretty sure this also happened in Mirage of Blaze and everyone got motorcycles in the end.
Philippa: Oh, honey. This is how it starts, you know: eavesdropping on double agents while being someone’s houseguest. Next thing you know you’re on the lam in Krakow with a band of mercenaries and a price on your head.
I’m cut up over Tom Erskine, and for that matter Gideon Somerville :(( it’s a shock when characters one likes simply up and die for no good story-related reason, even though that was the period context.
Part 3, all the rest (well into 1552): WELL THAT WAS A BIT OF A COCKUP (AGAIN)
Did I say this didn’t get as messed up as Mirage of Blaze? Actually, I didn’t say it, but if I implied it I take it back. XD;;
This book has done a number on my sleep/wake pattern this weekend, so I really wasn’t gaming it in the middle - try that at 5AM after you’ve been reading for 10 hours straight. I did stop and have a think, though, after I was done being shocked and appalled at the clusterfuck re: Joleta and the Trodd and Will Scott and all the rest, and of course as soon as one thinks about it one realizes the corners don’t line up. I mean, it is set up to be a tale of Lymond’s relapse - like, maybe he likes hoes! Maybe he don’t want a wife, maybe he’s psycho! I’ll stop quoting Dre now - and he’s messed up enough while drunk that you think perhaps this is the time the shit cascade goes over the lip of the dam. But alcohol doesn’t make Lymond abandon his ethics; the big fuckup before this one was that horse race in France, a matter of being so keen to spring the trap that he stopped caring about the aftermath. And he’s always 100% likely to leave Richard twisting in the wind: not an amiable trait, but there you have it.
High-level metagame tell (which I'd wager is intentional): Lymond reacts to Joleta in his room pretty much just as Philip Marlowe reacts to Carmen Sternwood in The Big Sleep. What the overlap between Dunnett’s readership and Chandler’s is, I don’t presume to know, though Dunnett must have studied the great noir dames. ^^; Signally, even knowing from page one that Carmen is unhinged and stupid (which Joleta is not), the reader doesn’t suspect her - she’s in the role of victim, societally, and therein lies the red herring. After that, though I came to this rather late, the key is that the only people in the entire book Trotty could conceivably have had gossip about are Joleta and her duenna. (What doesn’t make sense is that Philippa would have then broached this topic with Graham Reid Malett; even if she was dissembling, man, AWKWARD.)
So, for
rondaview’s benefit: I called the incest, because I’ve read too much manga, and the whole Joleta-likes-to-scar-her-paramours bit was Chekhov’s Smoking Gun. XD;;; But I didn’t call both Maletts being utter congenital sociopaths and sexual predators, basically, because why would you go that far. You know Gabriel is a sanctimonious manipulative dick through the entire book, because uhhh he was a sanctimonious manipulative dick through the entire book. He as good as sold Oonagh into slavery! MORALITY PROTIP converting someone to the priesthood != acceptable reason to sell someone else into slavery. And he schemes up a storm back in Scotland, though no worse than yr avg Douglas. I thought it was pretty likely that he was angling for Lymond and St. Mary’s to take back to Malta, after someone else pulls the trigger on the Grand Master (everyone was waiting for the other idiot to do it, basically... and still it feels like a hanging thread that Homedes doesn't get iced, though I'm sure it's all v. historical). None of which explained Lymond’s virulent emotional response - plotting is par for the course in his environs, he didn’t know about Oonagh, and there was no reason for him to get that upset at someone trying to convert him to the Faith XD;; I mean, it’s not like it was ever in danger of working. It’s when one finds out about Joleta that one realizes, this is more fucked up than that, and Lymond knows it.Having read The Big Sleep a buttzillion times, I’ve sometimes wondered whether Marlowe would have had an easier ride if he did have sex with Carmen; from the evidence here, the answer would be a resounding no. No, Lymond fucked up on this front. It wouldn’t have made a difference to the Joleta piece, but he should’ve walked out and been on time for the rest, let alone saved Richard the agony. XD; A fuckup of degree rather than kind, like Janet getting knifed at Midculter, but a fuckup nonetheless. It’s always the Weasleys getting the brunt of it.
Anyway: PREGNANCY. Is not precisely the theme of the book, because - just as Queen's Play is sorta "Nietzsche's Appollonian and Dionysian: a Case Study" - there's a gendered parallel streaming of Awful Happenings. Much as everything that happens to the female characters is quease-inducing (film noir isn't the most feminist of genres either), the "austerely masculine" side of things is a litany of all the ways a man can fail at being a warrior, a protector, self-domination, and on and on in extended tragedy. That being said, Lymond drops his "irritating mannerisms" for the vast majority of the book to match, and it's a good look on him. He would also just like to have his goddamned music on him, is that too much to ask. Francis Lymond, countryman of Belle and Sebastian, The Cocteau Twins, and The Pastels; I would buy you an iPod, if only I could.
Lymond’s unspoken ~*feelings*~ about Jerott: apparently I kind of... called... it? something? I didn’t mention this earlier because I thought I was out to lunch. I HALFWAY THINK YOU’RE GENUINELY NOT SUPPOSED TO NOTICE, BUT WHY BURY SHIZ IN THE BOOK IF YOU DON’T WANT PPL TO NOTICE. There was just some interesting narrative technique happening in that section, okay.
Obviously, I wasn't able to keep up with the word lists and the plot at once. XD; On a reread, maybe. I did greatly enjoy "primaeval ooze", that was a corker.
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crying, this was supposed to be a quickie comment
Date: 2011-05-09 06:12 am (UTC)(kay i swear i wrote the above line before getting to the part in your post where you talk about mariotta...also...getting popcorn, bawling. there's just something about this series that makes popcorn go-getters out of all of us i guess!)
CLIFFS NOTES VERSION:
- you'd do well with your excel sheet. Jerott and Lymond should just. nnnnnngh. is all I'm going to say about that.
- This book has done a number on my sleep/wake pattern this weekend, so I really wasn’t gaming it in the middle - try that at 5AM after you’ve been reading for 10 hours straight. STORY OF MY LIFE. WAIT TILL YOU GET TO PIF OH MY GOD.
- the only thing I called was the fact that Joleta was pregnant when she snuck up into Lymond's room and threw herself at him. totally didn't see the incest coming AT ALL; when the cross wound cut into Gabriel's shoulder was revealed I blinked and mouthed in astonished revulsion before then proceeding to spam applegnat with a thousand exclamatory emails hahaha.
- None of which explained Lymond’s virulent emotional response .... It’s when one finds out about Joleta that one realizes, this is more fucked up than that, and Lymond knows it. OMG I DIDN'T EVEN REALIZE THIS. YOU'RE RIGHT, LYMOND SHOULDN'T HAVE BEEN SO WORKED UP. IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW.
- How did you call Lymond's unspoken feelings for Jerott? No srsly. You know, in retrospect, I think I am the worst possibe Dunnett reader I know; the first book went whistling way overhead because I found it so hard to keep track of the various characters and character names, and during the subsequent books, even though the reading got easier, I was so choked with urgency to know what happens next goddamnit!?!?!?!?! that I blazed right by the details. Suffice to say Lymond's feelings for Jerott came as a surprise to me. And what section is that? The one where Lymond is all likehahahahaha okay fave scene in the whole book
longer thoughts to come tomorrow morning after I've had my eight hours worth of rejuventating sleep. :D
no subject
Date: 2011-05-09 06:13 am (UTC)His deep and abiding manly patriotism?
no subject
Date: 2011-05-09 06:18 am (UTC)I'm always interested in WHY she buries all those Jerott clues around the place and through subsequent books. You have one brother figure. You have several acolytes. How come suddenly the need for a -- well. I guess it's true what they say about boon companions, you find them when you aren't looking for them.
Philippa and Kate are so lovely.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-09 09:00 am (UTC)OK, out of curiousity, how old do you really think Lymond was in GoK? (I mean really think. Don't say nine.)
I'm stuck writing a hell essay atm, am going to come back here and comment helplessly all over the place as a treat when I'm done.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-09 11:05 am (UTC)Oh god, you say that now, you're only on book three. XD
no subject
Date: 2011-05-09 01:49 pm (UTC)In actual seriousness? XD; 20-23. I started off at 25 and just kept revising downward. At the end of GoK I would have put it at the upper end of that range, now I'd put it at the lower. It's sorta why I'm worried about Philippa; it's still all very Nancy Drew for her, but she's only a teeny bit younger than Lymond must've been during the actual post-Solway Moss plot.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-09 02:05 pm (UTC)HE JUST STOOD THERE AND LET GRAHAM WHIP HIM WILLINGLY. BINGO.
Re: crying, this was supposed to be a quickie comment
Date: 2011-05-09 02:26 pm (UTC)I think the virulent emotional response from Lymond is at least partly recognition, because Graham is a mirror-Lymond, he has Lymond's ability to sway the hearts of men etc, but unlike Lymond doesn't repress and control that power. It's Lymond's greatest horror really. Even the Graham/Joleta relationship turns out to be a grotesque version of Lymond/Eloise, complete with incestual undertones and Joleta's eventual death caused by her brother. Of course Lymond slept with her.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-09 02:48 pm (UTC)Obvsly there is no one true Lymond, TY ambiguity inherent in authorial style-- but my reading is that Jerrot to Lymond is basically Will Scott if he'd managed to get out into the world and sprout. I mean. Friendship and resultant loyalty is there, and perhaps friendship seems remarkable because we don't see Lymond confess to it that often, but there is too much inequality in that relationship for it to be even a meeting of the minds, let alone anything more. XD
Or to put it another way, I think his relationship with Jerrot eases Lymond's total burden of loneliness only by about 0.1%, which is less than Kate eases it, for example.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-09 02:56 pm (UTC)Re: crying, this was supposed to be a quickie comment
Date: 2011-05-09 03:11 pm (UTC)No no, that section was the (completely unlooked-for) justification for my call. XD; I'm talking about... the actual passage in which Jerott first appears, come to think of it. Other than featuring some beautiful descriptive writing, this scene thru the arrival at Birgu, Gabriel's introduction (where you have to read the initial assessment as being Lymond's), and the first council meeting with Homedes hews more closely to Lymond's POV than any time previous - and for that matter afterward, at least in book 3 - close enough that it felt like it was very carefully not falling into 3rd person limited. And I really noticed that, because these books normally rely so much on outside perspectives of Lymond: the camera is always on him, never with him. But here you have a character introduction where the camera stays with Lymond as he stands and stares at someone for fifteen minutes in the candlelight, thinking about how the two of them have and haven't changed. It is a bit unusual. XD
There is some confirmation later on that Lymond at least feels friendship toward Jerott, because there're only two categories of ppl Lymond gets truly verbally unpleasant with:
1) He thinks you're genuinely evil.
2) He thinks you're genuinely worthwhile.
2a) He likes you enough that your opinion affects him, and your opinion of him is currently low (probably for good reason). If you assume he has assholery N, he will display assholery N+1, rather than explain/apologize/etc. which would imply that this situation actually bothers him on any level. This is the Richard death spiral in GoK. He also does it with Philippa.
2b) He's emotionally affected by stuff that has NOTHING to do with you, but he's taking it out on you because he figures you can handle it. This is the Will Scott death spiral in GoK.
From time to time in tDK Jerott gets both 2a) and 2b) barrels. XD;; Sybilla even explains it to him and he's like... but dude that's not okay... bawling of course it's not okay, it's terrible.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-09 03:42 pm (UTC)You don't think Lymond needs a BFF-like sorta character? I thought he desperately needed one. XD; At the end of book 2 I had a mental casting call on. His best friendships are with women but women can't follow him everywhere he goes.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-09 04:12 pm (UTC)But that is kind of the thing, though. Insofar as Lymond has feelings for Jerott, they seem to be rooted in uncomplicated (by Lymond's standards) boyhood-era emotions; and it's not anything he can't handle, which is good for him in its own way. I'm not sure how significant it is at this point, in the grand scheme of Lymond as it were XD I would expect him to do just that: handle it.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-09 04:34 pm (UTC)Re: crying, this was supposed to be a quickie comment
Date: 2011-05-09 08:49 pm (UTC)1) awkward manly hug physical comedy
2) iirc it was JEROTT'S IDEA to have Lymond whipped in the first place
Re: crying, this was supposed to be a quickie comment
Date: 2011-05-09 10:44 pm (UTC)Gosh, whatever happened to Eloise? I hope we get some backstory filled in in books 5 & 6.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-09 10:46 pm (UTC)Re: crying, this was supposed to be a quickie comment
Date: 2011-05-09 11:10 pm (UTC)Now that you mention it, it is rather strange, innit? I can't think of other scenes where Lymond goes and gets all misty-eyed with nostalgia, insofar as "staring and thinking about the days of yore" constitutes nostalgia at all, on a Lymond scale.
And once again, your numerical/chronological breakdowns are hugely helpful. In the future I will keep these guidelines in mind the next time Lymond appears to rape an adolescent girl and/or is an asshole to various ppls around him. XD although lol, Lymond is a shit to you = you are a worthwhile human being just SMACKS of little kiddie sandbox romance syndrome. XD XD
lol at "Richard death spiral". Also, thank you for articulating that paragraph about the gendered parallel streaming of Awful Happenings. One of the biggest problem areas that applegnat alerted me to when I first started this series was the horrid things that happen to the girls. I spent a lot of time groping about for some explanation of it in my mind but you've put it down so elegantly that it hardly bears thinking any more. YAY.
(Speaking of omglasgosalgojalgsj whuutttttt OONAGH THOUGHT SHE SLEPT WITH LYMOND BUT IT WAS ACTUALLY GABRIEL ALKSGJLKASGJKLSGJ!????)
Why do you halfway think that Dunnett doesn't mean for us to notice Lymond's unspoken ~*feelings*~ about Jerott? (sorry going to stop picking your brains about this book soon ahahaha.)
Okay I've posted this elsewhere but I just want to repost it here because I think it is slightly hilarious. So without further ado, words or phrases used to describe Jerott Blyth in the Disorderly Knights:
handsome; magnificent; beautifully built and hard as iron; magnificent eyes (twice); handsome, smouldering knight that Francis always dragged around with him; curling raven hair and hawk nose; beautiful young man
CRYING, WHY IS JEROTT BLYTH SO BEAUTIFUL YOU GUYS
Picking at book 4 as I write this... it starts with AN ONSEN EPISODE
Date: 2011-05-10 02:16 am (UTC)I never claimed I saw him as mature. XD (When his interview with Joleta degenerated into a hair-pulling catfight in Jenny Fleming's parlour I actually said aloud, "Well, Lymond, that was mature - NOT.") He's sort of a failure at being tsundere, though. Tsundere are cute because they're obvious, and Lymond is anything but obvious. Also, these are hefty levels of ~tsun for a very little bit of ~dere. Like a super-dry martini that has three drops of vermouth in the gin for flavour.
BUT IT WAS ACTUALLY GABRIEL
INORITE I am damned if I understand this, unless Gabriel was also prey to the destroy-your-reflection psychology that caused Lymond to sleep with Joleta, and/or he's duty-bound to commit three horrible acts before breakfast the next day. MAYBE HE THOUGHT SHE WAS HOT, IDEK.
Why do you halfway think that Dunnett doesn't mean for us to notice Lymond's unspoken ~*feelings*~ about Jerott?
Because... you gotta throw the reader a bone, I mean COME ON. XD; There is making people work for it, and then there's subtlety to the point of total obfuscation. I wasn't sure if I was just reading into things, except one thing that hasn't happened thus far in this series is me reading into shiz that just wasn't there. It's always been there. XD;;
words or phrases used to describe Jerott Blyth in the Disorderly Knights
My favourite is actually Sybilla being like SCREAMING WHY DO WE MAKE OUR BEAUTIFUL MEN GO INTO THE PRIESTHOOD, THIS IS TERRIBLE GENETICS
no subject
Date: 2011-05-10 04:03 am (UTC)ONSEN EPISODE
dropping comments on posts months after they've been posted
Date: 2011-08-18 05:16 am (UTC)i don't know if i could even rec them to a person who isn't into the GAY THING sfhjlks like what would i even say when they came to me with questions about the whipping....!?
Re: dropping comments on posts months after they've been posted
Date: 2011-08-18 03:25 pm (UTC)EVERYTHING EVER CAN BE BLAMED ON LAWRENCE OF ARABIA.
Re: dropping comments on posts months after they've been posted
Date: 2011-08-18 03:45 pm (UTC)GOD
IT'S INCREDIBLE / I LOVE IT