AMRT Chapter 32: The Benefit Of Sons
Posted: Sun Aug 15, 2004 6:41 pm
Hi folks! I'm honored to be part of the discussions of this underappreciated SRD work.
(I was finishing my dissection Friday night just as the Watch crashed. Good thing I saved my work! )
This chapter is a calm, sane experience after the intense adrenaline rush of the previous one. We--and Terisa--are given a temporary respite from all the crazy intrigue and danger of Orison.
Master Quillon: killed helping Terisa. Castellan Lebbick: ready to kill her himself. Master Gilbur: almost does kill her. Except...somehow Terisa managed to translate herself into a mirror, out of Gilbur's reach.
Now there is only peace and darkness as the translation whisks Terisa away to sleep. After a time, she wakes up and realizes she is no longer in the bowels of Orison, but in a completely different place.
She is in the Closed Fist, the secret playground of Geraden's childhood in the Care of Domne. Somehow, she has translated herself using flat glass without losing her mind.
Also at the Fist is Geraden, who has been waiting for Terisa. They have a joyful reunion, but Terisa then sees that something has changed in Geraden: the boy is gone, replaced by a man who seems almost like a stranger to her. The "metal of Geraden's character had been tempered by bitterness, polished by dismay."
Geraden thinks Eremis was able to force Nyle to go along with his schemes by threatening harm to Nyle's family. Eremis must have a mirror that shows the Care of Domne, allowing him to terrorize the Care by sending through any monstrosities he chooses. Terisa is alarmed by this, and thinks Eremis may attack any time now, since he knows she likely escaped to the Closed Fist. She tells Geraden about the day he tried to return her to her world, how she wound up at the Fist instead of her apartment or the champion's world. She had told Eremis that bit of information, but had withheld it from Geraden. Now it comes back to haunt her.
She tells him about Nyle's supposed corpse found in Eremis's suite, and how she thinks he is still alive. Terisa asks Geraden how he intends to fight Eremis with Nyle still in his clutches, but he shocks her by replying he isn't going to fight. Instead, he plans to stay here and defend his home. He knows he is truly an Imager now, so he's going to make a mirror and "kill any son of a whore who comes here and tries to hurt my family." Terisa tries to argue that the people of Orison need to be warned about Eremis, but Geraden dismisses the idea, saying that before he could even get halfway there, Eremis would have wrought Orison's ruin already. Geraden wants Terisa to stay with him to help defend the Care. He tells her "you can do the same thing with flat glass that I do with a normal mirror. Together we're two of the most powerful people in Mordant. All we need is practice." Needing rest and time to think, Terisa acquiesces to Geraden. They go off to meet his family in Houseldon, the central village and seat of the Care.
At the house of the Domne, we first meet Quiss, wife of Tholden--one of the Domne's sons. Quiss had "the bosom of Mother Earth and the shoulders of a stonemason" with "corn silk hair and sky blue eyes." A formidable woman. Yet she warmly welcomes Terisa in and offers clean clothes and a bath to our frazzled heroine. Quiss, you're awesome! All hail Quiss!
Then at last we meet the Domne, a man whose reputation as a great friend of King Joyse precedes him. In the first book, we got a sense of the tremendous respect everyone had for the Domne by the amount of trust they placed in his sons. So who is this mysterious man? The Domne is "a tall man, as lean and curved as an axe handle. He had Geraden's face, and Artagel's, and Nyle's, but more in some way, as if they were attractive yet inaccurate copies of him."
Whereas the other lords are military men used to politics and battle (except the foppish Armigite), the Domne seems to be a simple, unpretentious man who simply happens to be the father of a wonderful and generous family. Terisa immediately likes him. He is a polar opposite of her own father.
Leading Terisa to her bath, Quiss remarks that Geraden "never mentioned that you could have any man you wanted." Quiss's reference to Terisa's attractiveness is her oblique way of asking for Terisa's faithfulness to Geraden despite the opportunities her beauty presents to other men. Terisa avows her loyalty to Geraden, making Quiss very glad. Terisa is grateful to be in a place "where the people around her were moved by simple things like family and friendship and wool, rather than by treachery, ambition, and revenge."
I call the second part of this chapter "My Lunch With The Domne":
Terisa meets to eat with the Domne, who has a companion this time: his son Tholden, heir to the Domne's place, and a great bear of a man. Both men want to know what has caused Geraden to change into the closed, humorless man he is now, and they are hoping Terisa can tell them. She wants to pour out her thoughts, but feels it's not her place to speak for Geraden about something so personal.
However, Terisa speaks her mind concerning Eremis. She tells them she thinks Geraden underestimates how dangerous Eremis is, that the Master may strike at the Care sooner rather than later to prevent Geraden attacking him first. This worries Tholden: how do simple farmer folk defend against attacks of Imagery?
Later, alone with Terisa, the Domne asks her thoughts on Nyle, and it leads to this observation: "Families. They are endlessly interesting. Elega and her father. Geraden and Nyle. Sometimes I think the fate of the world depends on how people feel about their families."
He asks Terisa about her own family. Because of the Domne's relaxed manner, Terisa is able to answer his questions despite the discomfort she always feels when talking about her parents. Her description of her father as someone who is only after money, social standing and political influence leads the Domne to joke that she has already met High King Festten. But her next reply stops him cold: "When I did something my father didn't like, he used to lock me in a closet until I got scared enough to stop crying."
His sympathy for Terisa moves The Domne to express his own frustration at King Joyse. He spends the rest of his chat with Terisa explaining how he and Joyse became friends. The Domne believes he provides a balance for the King. Because Joyse is a large-scale thinker who is always out there saving the world, he doesn't have time to stop and smell the roses; so he needs someone like The Domne who can counter with a smaller scale perspective, a person who doesn't lose sight of the importance of family and community in the face of war and world-shaking events. The Domne sees how potentially dangerous it is to want to "save the world" because if you have all that power but still can't save the things and people you love, then you just end up clinging to your power because that's all you have left. The last thing the Domne wants is to see Joyse turn into a tyrant.
The Domne mentions the King's radiant smile, a recurring motif in the story. He tells Terisa the King is still his friend and won't turn his back on him, despite everything that has happened. If Joyse can't even rely on his old friend, then perhaps the King truly is lost.
In her own way, Terisa at last decides she won't betray the King either.
So ends Chapter Thirty-Two.
I guess the intent of Terisa's visit to the Care of Domne is to show her and us what King Joyse is fighting for. To steal a line from the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Care of Domne is also "something precious in danger of being lost." Since the Care has no military force, it truly is defenseless, notwithstanding the presence of Terisa and Geraden. So perhaps King Joyse feels more responsible for the Domne's realm than anyone else's. The Care of Domne is the innocent Eden of Mordant...is Orison like a city of sin, then? It's a home for politics, sexual favors and back-stabbing power struggles, that's for sure. But that's how things get done in the "real" world, right?
Sorry if my summary seems a bit long, but almost every chapter of Mordant's Need is HUGE and full of meaty information. No empty calories here!
(I was finishing my dissection Friday night just as the Watch crashed. Good thing I saved my work! )
This chapter is a calm, sane experience after the intense adrenaline rush of the previous one. We--and Terisa--are given a temporary respite from all the crazy intrigue and danger of Orison.
Master Quillon: killed helping Terisa. Castellan Lebbick: ready to kill her himself. Master Gilbur: almost does kill her. Except...somehow Terisa managed to translate herself into a mirror, out of Gilbur's reach.
Now there is only peace and darkness as the translation whisks Terisa away to sleep. After a time, she wakes up and realizes she is no longer in the bowels of Orison, but in a completely different place.
She is in the Closed Fist, the secret playground of Geraden's childhood in the Care of Domne. Somehow, she has translated herself using flat glass without losing her mind.
Also at the Fist is Geraden, who has been waiting for Terisa. They have a joyful reunion, but Terisa then sees that something has changed in Geraden: the boy is gone, replaced by a man who seems almost like a stranger to her. The "metal of Geraden's character had been tempered by bitterness, polished by dismay."
Geraden thinks Eremis was able to force Nyle to go along with his schemes by threatening harm to Nyle's family. Eremis must have a mirror that shows the Care of Domne, allowing him to terrorize the Care by sending through any monstrosities he chooses. Terisa is alarmed by this, and thinks Eremis may attack any time now, since he knows she likely escaped to the Closed Fist. She tells Geraden about the day he tried to return her to her world, how she wound up at the Fist instead of her apartment or the champion's world. She had told Eremis that bit of information, but had withheld it from Geraden. Now it comes back to haunt her.
She tells him about Nyle's supposed corpse found in Eremis's suite, and how she thinks he is still alive. Terisa asks Geraden how he intends to fight Eremis with Nyle still in his clutches, but he shocks her by replying he isn't going to fight. Instead, he plans to stay here and defend his home. He knows he is truly an Imager now, so he's going to make a mirror and "kill any son of a whore who comes here and tries to hurt my family." Terisa tries to argue that the people of Orison need to be warned about Eremis, but Geraden dismisses the idea, saying that before he could even get halfway there, Eremis would have wrought Orison's ruin already. Geraden wants Terisa to stay with him to help defend the Care. He tells her "you can do the same thing with flat glass that I do with a normal mirror. Together we're two of the most powerful people in Mordant. All we need is practice." Needing rest and time to think, Terisa acquiesces to Geraden. They go off to meet his family in Houseldon, the central village and seat of the Care.
At the house of the Domne, we first meet Quiss, wife of Tholden--one of the Domne's sons. Quiss had "the bosom of Mother Earth and the shoulders of a stonemason" with "corn silk hair and sky blue eyes." A formidable woman. Yet she warmly welcomes Terisa in and offers clean clothes and a bath to our frazzled heroine. Quiss, you're awesome! All hail Quiss!
Then at last we meet the Domne, a man whose reputation as a great friend of King Joyse precedes him. In the first book, we got a sense of the tremendous respect everyone had for the Domne by the amount of trust they placed in his sons. So who is this mysterious man? The Domne is "a tall man, as lean and curved as an axe handle. He had Geraden's face, and Artagel's, and Nyle's, but more in some way, as if they were attractive yet inaccurate copies of him."
Whereas the other lords are military men used to politics and battle (except the foppish Armigite), the Domne seems to be a simple, unpretentious man who simply happens to be the father of a wonderful and generous family. Terisa immediately likes him. He is a polar opposite of her own father.
Leading Terisa to her bath, Quiss remarks that Geraden "never mentioned that you could have any man you wanted." Quiss's reference to Terisa's attractiveness is her oblique way of asking for Terisa's faithfulness to Geraden despite the opportunities her beauty presents to other men. Terisa avows her loyalty to Geraden, making Quiss very glad. Terisa is grateful to be in a place "where the people around her were moved by simple things like family and friendship and wool, rather than by treachery, ambition, and revenge."
I call the second part of this chapter "My Lunch With The Domne":
Terisa meets to eat with the Domne, who has a companion this time: his son Tholden, heir to the Domne's place, and a great bear of a man. Both men want to know what has caused Geraden to change into the closed, humorless man he is now, and they are hoping Terisa can tell them. She wants to pour out her thoughts, but feels it's not her place to speak for Geraden about something so personal.
However, Terisa speaks her mind concerning Eremis. She tells them she thinks Geraden underestimates how dangerous Eremis is, that the Master may strike at the Care sooner rather than later to prevent Geraden attacking him first. This worries Tholden: how do simple farmer folk defend against attacks of Imagery?
Later, alone with Terisa, the Domne asks her thoughts on Nyle, and it leads to this observation: "Families. They are endlessly interesting. Elega and her father. Geraden and Nyle. Sometimes I think the fate of the world depends on how people feel about their families."
He asks Terisa about her own family. Because of the Domne's relaxed manner, Terisa is able to answer his questions despite the discomfort she always feels when talking about her parents. Her description of her father as someone who is only after money, social standing and political influence leads the Domne to joke that she has already met High King Festten. But her next reply stops him cold: "When I did something my father didn't like, he used to lock me in a closet until I got scared enough to stop crying."
His sympathy for Terisa moves The Domne to express his own frustration at King Joyse. He spends the rest of his chat with Terisa explaining how he and Joyse became friends. The Domne believes he provides a balance for the King. Because Joyse is a large-scale thinker who is always out there saving the world, he doesn't have time to stop and smell the roses; so he needs someone like The Domne who can counter with a smaller scale perspective, a person who doesn't lose sight of the importance of family and community in the face of war and world-shaking events. The Domne sees how potentially dangerous it is to want to "save the world" because if you have all that power but still can't save the things and people you love, then you just end up clinging to your power because that's all you have left. The last thing the Domne wants is to see Joyse turn into a tyrant.
The Domne mentions the King's radiant smile, a recurring motif in the story. He tells Terisa the King is still his friend and won't turn his back on him, despite everything that has happened. If Joyse can't even rely on his old friend, then perhaps the King truly is lost.
In her own way, Terisa at last decides she won't betray the King either.
So ends Chapter Thirty-Two.
I guess the intent of Terisa's visit to the Care of Domne is to show her and us what King Joyse is fighting for. To steal a line from the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Care of Domne is also "something precious in danger of being lost." Since the Care has no military force, it truly is defenseless, notwithstanding the presence of Terisa and Geraden. So perhaps King Joyse feels more responsible for the Domne's realm than anyone else's. The Care of Domne is the innocent Eden of Mordant...is Orison like a city of sin, then? It's a home for politics, sexual favors and back-stabbing power struggles, that's for sure. But that's how things get done in the "real" world, right?
Sorry if my summary seems a bit long, but almost every chapter of Mordant's Need is HUGE and full of meaty information. No empty calories here!