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Daaaaaaaaine!
Jun. 10th, 2012 02:03 pmOh, Daine. Daine, Daine, Daine. Daine was my favorite, favorite TP heroine back when I first read the Tortall books; I have LOTS OF FEELINGS about her and her world and will probably carpet you with posts.
What's awesome about Daine? EVERYTHING. She had a wonderful angsty past! Which included a period of living with the wolves! Because she could TALK TO ANIMALS! And not just talk to animals, but transform into them and heal them and resurrect dinosaur skeletons in order to go on a palace-destroying rampage!!! I reread the first three books in the series approximately a million times.
The fourth book in the quartet, however, I read only once. Daine and Numair's sudden romantic entanglement disturbed me. He was her teacher! And kind of a father figure! Maybe an older brother figure. And then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, for no apparent reason they're making out on a ledge and pledging eternal devotion!
It's something of a let-down, thus, to realize that Daine/Numair was more than adequately foreshadowed in Wild Magic. Daine has a painfully obvious crush on Numair from the first. She blushes and won't look at him the first time they chat; she nearly starts crying when he leaves her and Onua at the palace.
(Numair, I feel constrained to add, doesn't appear to return her feelings at this point - after all, she's thirteen! - but that doesn't really matter; their eventual romance is adequately foreshadowed by Daine's feelings. Whoever heard of a YA book where the heroine doesn't get the guy, after all? Protector of the Small aside!)
This doesn't mean I've changed my opinions on Daine/Numair - I still find it massively displeasing - but at least it isn't completely random.
What's awesome about Daine? EVERYTHING. She had a wonderful angsty past! Which included a period of living with the wolves! Because she could TALK TO ANIMALS! And not just talk to animals, but transform into them and heal them and resurrect dinosaur skeletons in order to go on a palace-destroying rampage!!! I reread the first three books in the series approximately a million times.
The fourth book in the quartet, however, I read only once. Daine and Numair's sudden romantic entanglement disturbed me. He was her teacher! And kind of a father figure! Maybe an older brother figure. And then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, for no apparent reason they're making out on a ledge and pledging eternal devotion!
It's something of a let-down, thus, to realize that Daine/Numair was more than adequately foreshadowed in Wild Magic. Daine has a painfully obvious crush on Numair from the first. She blushes and won't look at him the first time they chat; she nearly starts crying when he leaves her and Onua at the palace.
(Numair, I feel constrained to add, doesn't appear to return her feelings at this point - after all, she's thirteen! - but that doesn't really matter; their eventual romance is adequately foreshadowed by Daine's feelings. Whoever heard of a YA book where the heroine doesn't get the guy, after all? Protector of the Small aside!)
This doesn't mean I've changed my opinions on Daine/Numair - I still find it massively displeasing - but at least it isn't completely random.
