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Geez, when did Deverry turn into Hamlet?
Jul. 18th, 2006 11:25 amSo I picked up the last book of the Dragon Mage series while I was at Chapters on the weekend-
As an aside, Chapters is a place I should never, ever go. I find far too many things to spend money on.
-Anyways. Now, of Kerr's Deverry books, I do admit that I've only read the "Days of..." duology and the previous two books of the Dragon Mage, The Red Wyvern and The Black Raven, so perhaps Kerr has all along been killing off characters like no tomorrow in her books and I've just not really known it.
In the civil-wars section of The Fire Dragon, however, she really goes all out.
War is a-brewing! Yay! Braemys is causing some trouble still, and challenges Maryn and his ragtag group of followers for the High Kingship. Also, Princess Bellyra is near to popping - her third kid's on its way, and, well, we all know about the postpartum depresion that hit her after the last two. Unsurprisingly, it hits again. Fun times.
During the actual battle between the two groups, a bunch of redshirts die. Oh well.
Then Branoic dies, doing something ridiculously heroic. Oops. Ends up taking a sword to the face which cuts his mouth nearly in two, dies choking in his own blood. Kinda grisly.
Lillorigga, his dweomer-talented fiancé (who is pretty much the main character of this point in time, by the by) back home, sees this in a vision. Poor gal.
Poor Branoic! We liked him. He was a nice guy.
Oh, and Maddyn the bard got poisoned on some rotten meat before all this, but he lived and gets sent home with a bunch of messengers and stuff.
The war ends up won, anyways, and Braemys and folk go to the north, out of the Deverry lands for good. They might become the Horsekin eventually, although I'm not sure of the fact.
Maryn goes home triumphantly!
Lilli finally spurns him from her bed (she'd been his mistress, too; Branny knew about it and was okay with it - another thing that made him a good lad!), getting up enough gumption to send him away. She's tired of being one of the sources of the princess's hurt.
Bellyra, in the meantime, has been pining over Maddyn. She hates Maryn now, pretty much, and wishes that she could just run away with the bard. (Maddyn, for the record, wishes the same!)
Maryn hears some rumours about Lyrra and the bard, and calls her down to shame her in front of all the people in the broch. Bad move. She's defended by her women, by the blacksmith (who the king knows is above honour), and by other folk. They did share a kiss, admittedly, but no-one ever found out about it. Anyways, he's forced to admit he was a dolt by calling her out, and then!
And then, in all his manly wisdom!
Decides it would be best to send his depressed wife back to one of his holdings. To be 'regent', and all. Mostly, it's just so he can try and entice Lilli back to be with him, because OBVIOUSLY, if Lilli can't see how sad the princess is, then she'll sleep with him!!!
Bellyra takes this well. She takes it so well, in fact, that she throws herself off of one of the towers. Death #2!
Poor Bellyra. She was nice, when she wasn't being bitchy due to depression.
Next up is Oggyn, the king's councillor! He hangs himself in shame, as he had been the source of the rumours. Death #3.
Lillorigga finally makes the connection over the curse on Maryn that her mother had cast - she's the only one who can break it, because it had been bound with her brother's blood. Yay for blood ties!
So she does, in a spectacular wielding of dweomer. But! In the process, she also irreparably damages her lungs, which had always been weak. She also dies, choking on her own blood!
Geez. Is the bloodbath over yet?
Not quite.
Maddyn's death is mentioned in passing - but it's from old age or something, so it's okay. Apparently him and Nevyn escaped to Bardek at some point. No-one knows if Nevyn ever died (but if he was four hundred at that point, I'd say it's unlikely he died then).
Finally, 13 years after the civil wars, Maryn dies prematurely. The bards say it was due to an old wound opening up, but he was never wounded in battle. It was actually due to the same lung disease that killed Lilli - she had passed it to him when they were doing the dirty! Her mother's curse played out after all, even if it happened over a decade more than the time she likely had wanted it to occur.
So, yay! Five major characters die in the span of less than thirty pages.
I suppose it's not that big of a deal, but I haven't read anything that kills off major players like that in... Well, ever, really. XD
As an aside, Chapters is a place I should never, ever go. I find far too many things to spend money on.
-Anyways. Now, of Kerr's Deverry books, I do admit that I've only read the "Days of..." duology and the previous two books of the Dragon Mage, The Red Wyvern and The Black Raven, so perhaps Kerr has all along been killing off characters like no tomorrow in her books and I've just not really known it.
In the civil-wars section of The Fire Dragon, however, she really goes all out.
War is a-brewing! Yay! Braemys is causing some trouble still, and challenges Maryn and his ragtag group of followers for the High Kingship. Also, Princess Bellyra is near to popping - her third kid's on its way, and, well, we all know about the postpartum depresion that hit her after the last two. Unsurprisingly, it hits again. Fun times.
During the actual battle between the two groups, a bunch of redshirts die. Oh well.
Then Branoic dies, doing something ridiculously heroic. Oops. Ends up taking a sword to the face which cuts his mouth nearly in two, dies choking in his own blood. Kinda grisly.
Lillorigga, his dweomer-talented fiancé (who is pretty much the main character of this point in time, by the by) back home, sees this in a vision. Poor gal.
Poor Branoic! We liked him. He was a nice guy.
Oh, and Maddyn the bard got poisoned on some rotten meat before all this, but he lived and gets sent home with a bunch of messengers and stuff.
The war ends up won, anyways, and Braemys and folk go to the north, out of the Deverry lands for good. They might become the Horsekin eventually, although I'm not sure of the fact.
Maryn goes home triumphantly!
Lilli finally spurns him from her bed (she'd been his mistress, too; Branny knew about it and was okay with it - another thing that made him a good lad!), getting up enough gumption to send him away. She's tired of being one of the sources of the princess's hurt.
Bellyra, in the meantime, has been pining over Maddyn. She hates Maryn now, pretty much, and wishes that she could just run away with the bard. (Maddyn, for the record, wishes the same!)
Maryn hears some rumours about Lyrra and the bard, and calls her down to shame her in front of all the people in the broch. Bad move. She's defended by her women, by the blacksmith (who the king knows is above honour), and by other folk. They did share a kiss, admittedly, but no-one ever found out about it. Anyways, he's forced to admit he was a dolt by calling her out, and then!
And then, in all his manly wisdom!
Decides it would be best to send his depressed wife back to one of his holdings. To be 'regent', and all. Mostly, it's just so he can try and entice Lilli back to be with him, because OBVIOUSLY, if Lilli can't see how sad the princess is, then she'll sleep with him!!!
Bellyra takes this well. She takes it so well, in fact, that she throws herself off of one of the towers. Death #2!
Poor Bellyra. She was nice, when she wasn't being bitchy due to depression.
Next up is Oggyn, the king's councillor! He hangs himself in shame, as he had been the source of the rumours. Death #3.
Lillorigga finally makes the connection over the curse on Maryn that her mother had cast - she's the only one who can break it, because it had been bound with her brother's blood. Yay for blood ties!
So she does, in a spectacular wielding of dweomer. But! In the process, she also irreparably damages her lungs, which had always been weak. She also dies, choking on her own blood!
Geez. Is the bloodbath over yet?
Not quite.
Maddyn's death is mentioned in passing - but it's from old age or something, so it's okay. Apparently him and Nevyn escaped to Bardek at some point. No-one knows if Nevyn ever died (but if he was four hundred at that point, I'd say it's unlikely he died then).
Finally, 13 years after the civil wars, Maryn dies prematurely. The bards say it was due to an old wound opening up, but he was never wounded in battle. It was actually due to the same lung disease that killed Lilli - she had passed it to him when they were doing the dirty! Her mother's curse played out after all, even if it happened over a decade more than the time she likely had wanted it to occur.
So, yay! Five major characters die in the span of less than thirty pages.
I suppose it's not that big of a deal, but I haven't read anything that kills off major players like that in... Well, ever, really. XD
