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osprey_archerI’m barrelling along in Elizabeth Wein’s Lion Hunters series! In A Coalition of Lions, we take a comparative break from the whump. Yes, yes, the book starts with Goewin’s whole family dying as her kingdom falls to invaders, and we also hear an awful lot about that time her friend Priamos lost a battle and then got dragged in front of his conqueror naked and in chains. But that’s all in the past now! In the book itself, life is mostly pretty chill, aside from the fact that Goewin and her intended Constantine just can’t get along… which is extra awkward because Constantine is, currently, the regent of Aksum, where Goewin fled after the aforementioned fall of her kingdom.
But mostly Goewin spends the book meeting people and getting to know this interesting new country that she’s landed in, and through the magic of diplomacy everything works out surprisingly well for everyone. Also late in A Coalition of Lions we discover that Medraut is NOT dead (of course Wein couldn’t kill him; waste of a perfectly good woobie), but is hiding out in an isolated monastery where he refuses to talk!
But at the end of the book he comes back to the Aksumite capitol, and also his girlfriend Turunesh and their son Telemakos, and in The Sunbird Telemakos gets an extra helping of angst because Medraut still refuses to talk… except sometimes he talks in his sleep, and Telemakos hopes Medraut is talking about him, but NO, Medraut is talking to Lleu who has been dead for four years.
(Actually, Word of God is that Lleu is ALSO secretly alive, although apparently this fact is not established in the actually published novels. Given the general level of whumpiness in this series I’m honestly terrified what might have been happening to Lleu for, let's see, eight years by the end of The Empty Kingdom. Does he have amnesia? Or has someone been holding him prisoner? And is it Morgause?
The Sunbird is a return to form, at least in the sheer epic levels of whump, although it’s whump of a different kind than The Winter Prince: slavery instead of incest. Goewin sends her ten-year-old nephew Telemakos on a SPY MISSION to find the traitor who is breaking the plague quarantine, but along the way he gets captured! forced to work in the salt mines! blindfolded at all times, because the salt mine owner has a feeling that this kid is bad news and doesn’t want Telamakos to recognize him! and also he has his hands constantly bound at his sides, so he can’t take the blindfold off!!!!
You might feel that this would impair his usefulness as a slave, but HUSH, let not the realization of true whump admit impediments. This is some grade A suffering right here, with a lagniappe of utterly unnecessary guilt because Telemakos had the opportunity to look at the traitor! and didn’t take it! because the man threatened to cut out Telamakos’s tongue and cut off his hands if Telemakos looked at him!!! “IF ONLY I WAS BRAVER,” sobs Telemakos.
“OH MY GOD YOU ARE EXTREMELY BRAVE ENOUGH,” sobs Goewin, belatedly realizing that perhaps she should not have conspired with the emperor to send, let me repeat, a ten-year-old on an extremely delicate spy mission that involved crossing a desert with a single water skin (which sprung a leak, so he had to turn himself in or else die of thirst, which is how he ended up in the salt mines).
It’s fine, though. Goewin was clearly the pawn of the god of True Whump, and who can resist the blandishments of such a demanding god?
But mostly Goewin spends the book meeting people and getting to know this interesting new country that she’s landed in, and through the magic of diplomacy everything works out surprisingly well for everyone. Also late in A Coalition of Lions we discover that Medraut is NOT dead (of course Wein couldn’t kill him; waste of a perfectly good woobie), but is hiding out in an isolated monastery where he refuses to talk!
But at the end of the book he comes back to the Aksumite capitol, and also his girlfriend Turunesh and their son Telemakos, and in The Sunbird Telemakos gets an extra helping of angst because Medraut still refuses to talk… except sometimes he talks in his sleep, and Telemakos hopes Medraut is talking about him, but NO, Medraut is talking to Lleu who has been dead for four years.
(Actually, Word of God is that Lleu is ALSO secretly alive, although apparently this fact is not established in the actually published novels. Given the general level of whumpiness in this series I’m honestly terrified what might have been happening to Lleu for, let's see, eight years by the end of The Empty Kingdom. Does he have amnesia? Or has someone been holding him prisoner? And is it Morgause?
The Sunbird is a return to form, at least in the sheer epic levels of whump, although it’s whump of a different kind than The Winter Prince: slavery instead of incest. Goewin sends her ten-year-old nephew Telemakos on a SPY MISSION to find the traitor who is breaking the plague quarantine, but along the way he gets captured! forced to work in the salt mines! blindfolded at all times, because the salt mine owner has a feeling that this kid is bad news and doesn’t want Telamakos to recognize him! and also he has his hands constantly bound at his sides, so he can’t take the blindfold off!!!!
You might feel that this would impair his usefulness as a slave, but HUSH, let not the realization of true whump admit impediments. This is some grade A suffering right here, with a lagniappe of utterly unnecessary guilt because Telemakos had the opportunity to look at the traitor! and didn’t take it! because the man threatened to cut out Telamakos’s tongue and cut off his hands if Telemakos looked at him!!! “IF ONLY I WAS BRAVER,” sobs Telemakos.
“OH MY GOD YOU ARE EXTREMELY BRAVE ENOUGH,” sobs Goewin, belatedly realizing that perhaps she should not have conspired with the emperor to send, let me repeat, a ten-year-old on an extremely delicate spy mission that involved crossing a desert with a single water skin (which sprung a leak, so he had to turn himself in or else die of thirst, which is how he ended up in the salt mines).
It’s fine, though. Goewin was clearly the pawn of the god of True Whump, and who can resist the blandishments of such a demanding god?
no subject
Date: 2022-08-18 11:26 am (UTC)Me: So, what exactly is he going to do in the mines? Kick the salt with his feet?
Osprey Archer: You might feel that this would impair his usefulness as a slave, but HUSH, let not the realization of true whump admit impediments.
Me: Osprey Archer knows her readers!
no subject
Date: 2022-08-18 01:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-08-18 02:06 pm (UTC)I have, admittedly, zero context for any of this, but it feels like there has to be at least one easier way to find out who is breaking a plague quarantine (!). Still, who am I to question Her Most High Whumpiness, Goddess of Whump.
no subject
Date: 2022-08-18 03:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-08-18 08:36 pm (UTC)ETA: Oops, sorry, I read the first paragraph and rushed to reassure you. What happens to Lleu is interesting, whumpy, but also not a bad fate, all things considered.
no subject
Date: 2022-08-18 09:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-08-18 09:22 pm (UTC)