Subject: Did someone say Eddings?
Author:
Posted on: 2017-09-02 00:20:00 UTC
I'm here to talk about my favorite fantasy universe ever, then. Belgariadverse.
Note that I am biased in basically every way for this series, for a variety of reasons.
Did you have any other observations on the Belgariad and Mallorean? Because I will happily chatter on about it if anyone will indulge me.
With effusive apologies for failing at this last week. Hopefully I'm back on the ball from here on out.
Please remember that, when it comes to the state of the world, not everyone will agree with you. You're free to state, discuss, and defend your viewpoint (provided it does not violate the Constitution), but please don't use that fact to attack others.
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But forget the action figures. The only toy really worth having is the one shown above: the Lenovo Star Wars: Jedi Challenges Augmented Reality system. Let's not mince words: it lets you have a holographic lightsaber duel with Kylo Ren in your living room, which is all you've ever really wanted in life. It's a mere(!) $200, and available for pre-order now.
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In a crushing blow to the hearts of fans everywhere, the late, great Sir Terry Pratchett's hard drive has been run over by a steamroller - in accordance with his will. He said that he didn't want any of his unfinished works being published, and so Rob had it smashed at a steam fair in Dorset. Apparently it contained 'up to ten incomplete novels', though on the positive side, Pterry's normal work ethic was to finish one book before he started writing the next, so these were probably mostly just notes. I hope. :(
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In a world first, a new cancer therapy where the patient's immune cells are extracted, genetically altered, and put back in as anti-cancer agents has been approved by the USA. Reports are claiming 80+% effectiveness against a specific type of leukaemia. Sadly, it's not so good against more solid tumours (leukaemia is blood cancer), and as with all cancer drugs it can have serious side-effects... but, to my mind, this is the first step towards the disease-killing nanobots scifi has long been promising. Even if these ones are - ugh - biological.
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Fairly arbitrarily, I want to talk about David Eddings. I admit I love his (or their, rather - from all accounts, Leigh was co-author for every Eddings book) novels; I own the entire Belgariad+Malloreon, the Elenium+Tamuli, and the Redemption of Althalus. While his characters are mostly able to be described by a few words each, they do tend to be different words. Even his female characters (we all know male fantasy writers are terrible at them, pun on 'male fantasy' probably intended) aren't all the same - Polgara and Ce'Nedra are very different, and don't line up with Sephrenia, Ehlana, and Aphrael. (Sure, they're filling the same roles, but Sephrenia and Polgara have very different methods of playing guide, for instance.) So that's all good.
But... he really loves his 'lovable criminals'. You've got Platime and Stragen in the Elenium, Silk in the Belgariad, and, uh, Althalus, of course. And that's starting to feel like a problem, because what he doesn't love is portraying crime as bad.
That's okay (to an extent) when it's Althalus, who - possibly in response to criticisms, I don't know - goes out of his way not to kill people. Yes, he bonks them over the head and steals all their stuff, but that's less jarring (and he gets his comeuppance anyway). Silk is (spoilers, I guess?) more of a spy than a thief, so when he does crime, you know it's in pursuit of a larger goal.
But then you get the criminals of the Elenium - which I'm rereading at the moment, which brought this on - and they're... disturbing. The first conversation between criminal overlord Platime and Ehlana, Queen of Elenia is typical of this: Ehlana asks him if he's ever cut anyone's throat, and he says something to the effect of 'Oh, yes - it's a good way to find out what's in their purse, and I've always been very interested in that'. And Ehlana laughs it off.
Haha, this sympathetic character kills innocent people for their money. What frivolity. Sort of like the frivolity when the barbarian horseman Kring laments that he won't be able to rape any women if he joins up with the army rather than just raiding with his clan. Because rape is hilarious, right?
I think the problem I'm having is that Eddings is perfectly happy to admit that crime happens, but steadfastly refuses (especially in the Elenium) to acknowledge its consequences. I can accept a world like Middle-earth where there's no real crime to speak of (other than Bill Ferny swindling the hobbits over a horse). I can accept a world where criminals are bad people, or make bad choices, or are stuck in bad situations. But I'm having increasing difficulty with this one, where being a murdering pimp is viewed as absolutely fine so long as you're charming about it.
hS, grumpy grumble I guess?
I'm here to talk about my favorite fantasy universe ever, then. Belgariadverse.
Note that I am biased in basically every way for this series, for a variety of reasons.
Did you have any other observations on the Belgariad and Mallorean? Because I will happily chatter on about it if anyone will indulge me.
My thoughts on the Bel-Mal can basically be summed up in three words:
Eddings. Loves. Archetypes.
Take a look at the geography (always a special interest of mine). We know Eddings started with a map, and that's fine, though his* obsession with checking off literally every country on it can be a bit jarring once you notice it**.
*I'm using 'his' for simplicity here. It has never been clear to me how much input Leigh had in either the books she was credited for or the ones she wasn't.
**This is a commonality across the Bel-Mal, the Sparhawk books, Althalus, and the Dreamers series. It's least noticable in the Elenium, for reasons I shall come to.
But how those countries are made... in the real world, most countries*** are basically the same apart from the language. The differences between, say, Napoleonic France and Washington's America are very few - the people there spent their time in pretty much the same ways. Differences only really crop up in countries in crisis - revolutions, for instance.
***'Most countries at the same stage of development and under the same circumstances'. You can tell the difference between a sub-Saharan African nation and modern Spain, but throw Spain a decades-long famine and take away all its money, and the differences fade away.
Fantasy worlds aren't like that. Their countries have specialties, and don't really cross-pollinate them. Rohan in Middle-earth has its Riders; Gondor has its stone cities (to the point that various other nations refer to them as Stone-Lands). If Tolkien wrote modern England, it would be divided very neatly between rural farms and villages, and cities where everyone wears bowler hats.
Eddings goes beyond this. His nations aren't just specialised - they're archetypes. They pick their trait, and they stick to it right down the line. This is fine when the defining trait is 'infrastructure', or something else vague (Tolnedra); it's much more blatant when you run into Drasnia ('spies'), Nyissa ('snakes'), or - Aldur preserve us - Mishrac ac Thull ('being a slave').****
****Yes, this last is because the western Angaraks were split by their roles in Angarak society - but frankly, the other nations are just as specialised.
This is why the Grand Tour style of writing is so blatant in Eddings - every one of his series' is like that. It's least obvious in the Malloreon (where all the archetype nations are masked to an extent under 'being evil') and the Elenium (which drifts back towards specialisation, though the sequel series, the Tamuli, embraces the archetypes in spades), but it's still there.
This isn't necessarily a bad thing! It lets both author and reader latch onto those traits, so that you can immediately go 'aha, florid medieval speech - this must be an Arend'. But... let me put it this way: if Eddings wrote modern America, the flag would be an eagle, which would be the most common bird, and nobody would have a job because they'd all be out watching the eagles. And the nation anthem would just be 'Freedom - eagles - freedom - eagles' over and over until you pass out (from freedom!).
His characters have the same tendency. Silk is a sneak. Barak is a Viking. Ce'Nedra is... shrill. They pick up minor character traits that purport to round them out, but they remain very, very tightly focussed on their one-word, or at least one-line, characters.
And again, this isn't necessarily bad. I have a post in the works about ways to design (and stick to) characters, and 'pick a couple of traits and stick with them' is one of them. My Agent Kaitlyn is a bubbly wannabe-Hobbit; she doesn't need much more than that to stay IC. But... it's a bit much when it spans ten books.
How do I feel about the Bel-Mal? I adore it. I own all 13 books, and have read even the Tolnedra section of the Rivan Codex end to end (Nedra help me). I'm quite sad that we don't have more from the very, very early days - before Polgara was born, when Belgarath and his brothers hung out with Aldur - but I'm very pleased to have the series. Once I've finished rereading the Tamuli, I'll be back into Bel-Mal.
Though I do wish the Eddingses didn't have such an obsession with marrying every single character off. Hands up who remembers the name of Beldin's wife!
hS
Well. How to respond beyond "Wow, this is very thorough and I appreciate every letter of it".
I will be the first to admit that I'm incredibly biased about this series; having it read to me before I was born and being named after one of the characters has that kind of an effect.
However, the archetypes thing is interesting to have you focus on. They aren't actually based entirely on archetypes, as I recall, but instead on real-world societies in various time periods - for example, the Roman Empire and medieval France (bet you can guess which one of those goes where) to name two of them. And we do get to see a certain amount of evolution in the standalones - we generally think of Drasnians as quick-witted spies, but Dras himself was considered nothing of the sort.
(And florid speech can indicate more than just the Mimbrates and, as I recall, Wacites - there was that one island of people in one of the last books. Granted, they were descended from Mimbrates and had tried their hardest to keep as close to that culture as was humanly possible, but they weren't quite still Mimbrates.)
Another reason for the specializations, in most cases, is their religions. These men have modelled themselves after the gods they follow (or tried to keep themselvs from being killed by one); Arends are hotheaded warriors because Chaldan encourages it, the various Angaraks are under the rule of Torak One-Eye and would like to not be smited - and on top of that, they're not so much tribes as they are social classes, making Angarak society better fleshed-out than almost any other in that universe... am I making sense here?
(Also, her name is Vella. D'you remember what she is?)
But taken to the next level. Cherek definitely out-Vikings the Vikings, and insofar as Nyissa is Egyptian, it's Egypt on snake-derived steroids. In fact, it's 'Egypt if Egypt was reconstructed entirely from Cleopatra being bitten by an asp'. I'm exaggerating slightly, but not a whole lot.
And then there's Sendaria, which is literally Fantasy Adventure Starting Village-land. Yes, there's ostensibly more to it... but that's why it exists.
Your points are well-made and well-taken - though of course they don't apply over in the Tamuli, where the titular continent is first introduced by way of a nation that's essentially Arendia all over again. And again, I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing - I think that Eddings made a deliberate decision to stake out one end of the Fantasy Realism spectrum - the end opposite the one George R.R. Martin took his cues from.
(I remembered Vella being turned into a blue-banded hawk, which was the only reason I remembered her existence. Then I looked it up. So hey, I got one fact about her...! I've read the Belgariad more than the Malloreon, so yeah, a lot of Mal stuff isn't really in my brain.)
hS
PS: Annoyingly, I'm irrationally fond of both Maragor and the Wacite Arends. Maybe it's because they don't stick around long enough to show off their bad sides? ~hS
Sendaria also exists to have people that aren't as out of control as the rest of the world - their specialty is being practical, to use your formatting. They're the Only Sane Men of the Belgariadverse.
And it makes sense that my points wouldn't apply in the Timuli, given that I've never read it. I can't take that into consideration. (It is fun to picture Garion as an Arend, though. Which duchy, I wonder...)
I've also read the Belgariad more, though not by much. And I also happen to like the Marags and Wacites. Pity about the whole destruction thing; so much potential...
As you say, it exists to be the baseline for the rest of the world. If Garion began his journey in Vo Mandor, taking him to Val Alorn would be too big a shift - you literally couldn't fit them into the same worldview. But he doesn't - he starts among the Sendars, who have nothing interesting going for them (^_~), and so makes for a perfect baseline.
From an internal perspective, it's also the House That Pol Built. I think I'm right in saying that Sendaria is literally the nation she put together to serve as the perfect place to raise Belgarion when he finally showed up. It kind of shares that with Riva, which was pretty much built out of nothing to be the home of the Orb.
One thing that bugs me about the Belgariad is the language, or rather the lack thereof. It feels like all these city prefixes - Vo for Arendia, Val for Cherek, Tol in Tolnedra, Mar for Maragor, Sthiss in Nyissa... we can probably ignore Rak, and definitely Thull, but Yar might count - might point back to a common proto-word, perhaps something like Yaal... but I'm pretty sure they're just sounds that he pulled from the country names/out of nowhere. And don't ever make my mistake and try to figure out what 'Cthol' means... 'Cthol Murgos' and 'Cthol Mishrak' might point at 'land, region' (of the Murgos/of Eternal Night), but then what about Rak Cthol? 'Landcity' is a stupid name, and it would make much more sense as the 'Darkness' component of Cthol Mishrak... but then the country is called 'Murky Murgos', which is dumb. And so on and so on.
Similarly, names. Belgarath's name Garath suggests that naming yourself after your hometown was normal in the early days - and, incidentally, that he can't have used the name in Gara - but no-one else ever uses that convention, instead naming their countries after themselves. He names one daughter after himself and/or in memory of his hometown, but then the other gets a male magical prefix and a name (-daran) that doesn't connect very clearly to either -garath or -edra.
It's obvious that there were rules he followed - double-Ls in Arendia, Ses in Nyissa, voiceless consonants (rh, kh) in Drasnia - but equally obvious that they were essentially random. And that drives me batty. It's not actually a problem (it's not like language in our world follows particularly obvious patterns, even though they're there!) but it always bugs me.
This comes to a head over in the other series, the Elenium, where everyone has names in Fantasyspeak - except the protagonist, Sparhawk, who inexplicably has one made out of two English words...
hS
I too am sad about The Great God Pterry's Mighty Mass Storage Device. However, if you're going to do it, a steamroller is the right way to go.
As for portraying crime as bad, I've never read Eddings's books. So I have no idea what I'm talking about. With that disclaimer out of the way...
Sympathetic!=moral. And honestly, I don't think it should. The question is whether the narrative portrays their actions as unambiguously good. If the narrative doesn't, or doesn't pass judgement on the characters, than it can be quite interesting.
But then, I myself have a soft spot for sympathetic characters with... different morals, or who are just outright awful to a greater or lesser extent. This really shouldn't surprise any of you, because I play 40k, and Sons at that.
-Thoth (grumbling in response to your grumble with my grumble)
Your sympathetic!=moral point definitely holds for, say, Althalus (the fact that the book is entitled The Redemption of Althalus says what it thinks about his initial moral state). But in the Elenium, the protagonist and most of his chums are Church Knights - literally warrior monks. (This is also the only series I've read where they spend half a book trying to ensure the right guy gets elected pope; it's an odd series.) I think my problem is that everyone is super fine with the whole rape and murder thing. The literal knight in shining armour? Fine with it. The idealistic young queen? Fine with it. The eventual fantasy Pope? Absolutely fine with it.
Literally the only people who suggest that being a criminal might be considered a bad thing are the criminals themselves.
hS
...Yeah, then we have a problem.
I mean, it's fantasy, so there's always the argument of moral dissonance between our world and theirs, but rape has been, even historically, considered a fairly serious crime in the vast majority of cultures from what I recall (although some allowed for mitigating circumstances of various sorts in which it would be allowed, again IIRC). But if we're talking Church Knights, warrior monks, in a church order that is clearly not!Catholicism, that sort of morality is just weird. I mean, that's the sort of thing not!Catholics should probably object to.
If you're going to make everyone fine with this sort of thing, you should have a reason why they are. And you have to consider what that says about the world, and how that connects to your worldbuilding.
Playing with moral dissonance between the world and the reader is fun (again, 40k player here: this opinion shouldn't surprise you), but even if no character ever lampshades the weird morals or tries to change them (because if we only ever told that story, it would be really boring) there needs to be a reason for that morality.
Also, there's no point in having a sympathetic-but-immoral character whose morality is never discussed or even considered. It's boring, and more than a little weird.
That's amazing! It might be the first step to curing not just cancer, but who knows what else? Exciting stuff.
Sad to hear that about Sir PTerry's hard drive, but understandable. I wouldn't want anything of mine being published that I hadn't signed off on, either.