The Heralds of Valdemar series

That's what the library is for, man. I've read the entire Collegium Chronicles plus the Herald-Spy books without paying a dime for it.

There are hundreds of years to cover between Last Herald-Mage and Vows & Honor, though, with the only book in that period prior to Chronicles being Brightly Burning. About the only thing that couldn't happen in that time is the complete dissolution of Valdemar. Anyway, it's about the journey, not the destination.

There's that too. I don't actually mind interquels, personally, I was just trying to address Fighteer's complaint in a way that solves it for him, rather than just saying "like interquels more''. :p

Yeah, well, you ninja'd me.

Since I brought it up, thoughts on Brightly Burning? Interesting to have what is entirely a tragedy in this series, though it's been forever since I've read that one.

It's been ages since I've read it, as well. It's a little too hard on the melodrama for me. The plot is essentially "kid's life sucks, then sucks really really bad, briefly doesn't suck for a bit, just long enough to soften him up before his life to hit a new low before he burns a mountain (and himself) down".

At least when Vanyel went through his Trauma Conga Line, he was old enough (for most of it) to understand what he was getting into and was able to make an informed choice. Lavan just gets shit on for the whole plot and he doesn't deserve it and there's nothing he could have done about it. Then they kill the only person he's still capable of really caring about in front of him. Then he dies.

It's just... depressing.

That about sums it up, doesn't it? Everyone dies. Except the mentor, whasisname, Herald Pol? He just goes blind.

It's the complete opposite problem that I have with Chronicles and Herald Spy. No one important has died yet. Not that I want tragedy for Mags, it's just Lighter and Softer than I'm used to, especially since a nation of assassins is a prominent faction.

I went and looked through my books again and found where it references Elspeth's age. The beginning of the second book of the Winds trilogy says she's 26 at the time. Which, by our previous logic, would make Talia 32 and Skif around 34.

Definitely not how I tend to think of those characters at that time, but there you have it. Unless anyone wants to posit another Continuity Snarl like the date of the Tedrel Wars (which take place somewhere between 10 and 40 years before the Arrows trilogy, depending on which source you use), that's probably the final word on the subject.

I'm not about to try and pin the Tedrel Wars down precisely, but I'm certain they're closer to 10 than 40 years, since they mark the beginning of Selenay's reign. She marries Daren and has twins after By the Sword; she's certainly not 60-something in Arrows.

edited 23rd Apr '16 7:34:45 PM by HeraldAlberich

Yeah, I tend to agree with you. The Tedrel Wars are pretty much literally impossible to pin down exactly, as we get at least four different, incompatible versions of events (from the Exile books, Take a Thief, By the Sword, and the Arrows trilogy) that straight up can't be reconciled. The best we can do is pick which version we like best. I'd personally go with the Exile books, as that's where we actually see the Tedrel Wars happening. Which puts about 9 or 10 years between the end of the Wars and the beginning of Arrows — Selenay gets married almost exactly a year after the end of the Wars, gets pregnant not long thereafter (so call it another year before Elspeth is born), and Elspeth is seven at the beginning of Arrows. There's some wiggle room in there (we don't know exactly how long it takes Selenay to get pregnant, and we don't know how close to her eighth birthday Elspeth is when we first see her), so 10 years is a nice round number.

Too bad that number isn't ever actually used anywhere. Though I suppose if you're being generous, you could say that Arrows (which says 15 years) is talking about the beginning of the Wars, rather than the end.

edited 23rd Apr '16 9:26:30 PM by NativeJovian

I can excuse some Writers Cannot Do Math when comparing Arrows' and By the Sword's timelines, but I'm quite confused by Take a Thief's conception of the Tedrel Wars as 20-30 years before, since she wrote that one just before the Exile books. *shrug*

To return to an earlier point:

One could say the same about being spymaster and King's Own, which according to Dallen is precisely why Nikolas (and Alberich) are good at it—no one would suspect them of having time to do both.

Well, part of the job description of the King's Own is political maneuvering, so picking up information about what's happening in courtier circles is definitely part of that. Being good at teaching people weapons and being good at being a spy is... less related.

Not really. The job of Monarch's Own is essentially a combination of confidant and sanity check on the Monarch; other than that they do what they're good at. Acting as Court spy is Nikolas' extra duty (and Amily's, because she's Nikolas' daughter and Mags' wife and they were extremely influential on her development). Talia, meanwhile, was really selected to be Elspeth's Queen's Own, not so much Selenay's - she was Chosen because she knew how to handle bratty littles. After she handled that, she turned out to be a decent diplomat, so she gets sent around when Valdemar Calls For Aid. But she doesn't immerse herself in Valdemaran court intrigue like Nikolas, or even like Talamir.

I specifically liked Foundation and Closer to Home of the Mags series, and not really the other ones - Mags has seriously worn out my interest in him, and his plotline about the nation of assassins just was kind of flat to me. The interesting part of the two is (via Lackey's incredible ability to make mundane life seem awesome) that we see the founding of "modern Valdemar" as seen in interesting books like Take a Thief, and such issues as the status of women in Closer to Home. (Hm. Maybe someone should do a story about the culture clash between Haven - particularly the Heralds, who have a distinct set of subcultural mores regarding women and sexuality - and the Valdemaran nobility? *gets cracking on a submission for the next anthology* )

The Monarch's Own is a position within the Valdemarian court — they have a seat (and a vote) on the ruling council, and they have a role to play in many official court functions — so every Monarch's Own has to have at least some familiarity with noble politics and the general goings-on at court. They aren't spies in the sense of being James Bond / Solid Snake infiltrators into enemy strongholds and sneaking out with secret documents, but they certainly do a more mundane kind of information gathering, even if it just boils down to being aware of court gossip and keeping an eye on things that interest the crown.

Talia certainly does keep tabs on the Court and the Council, but less via intrigue than by using her Empathy to "read the room." She has a scene in Winds of Fury, at a point when she's well settled into the Queen's Own role, where she does exactly that during the Council meeting about Elspeth's return and abdication.

Yeah. Talia isn't as active in the Court as Nikolas, though obviously she's more active than Talamir (but then, Talamir was really not in any condition to perform his duties in Exile's Valor); her style is more to keep an empathic read on the room. She's on the Council, but she isn't actively involving herself in the social whirl - she focuses more on the "personal confidant" part of her duties.

So, Alberich's books are my favorite. In fact, much of everything that involves Karse manages to be entertaining.

Karse is definitely interesting, and it's really a pity that we never really get a good look at its internal politics. You could set an entire trilogy in Karse's Deadly Decadent Court at basically any point in its history and there'd be interesting stories to tell about it.

Re-reading the Mage Winds, on the first book. Got to the part where Elspeth got a map for the Plains and is patting herself on the back for finally forging her own path. Not just a scene before, we had a pair of shamans discussing, "How might we manipulate this rube for our own ends?"

Other people complain about Elspeth's middle-finger-to-fate attitude, but I love the schadenfreude.

Elspeth's whole "fate is for jerks" thing annoys me not because it's an unsympathetic sentiment, but more because it's basically Elspeth's personal Idiot Ball. Yes, it would be nice if the people planning her life out for her would actually include her in the conversation, but she's willing to cut off her nose to spite her face. The path being set for her gets her where she wants to go. She just doesn't like the fact that someone else choose the path.

I'd be more forgiving of that attitude if it was a personal goal, but she's literally trying to save her kingdom from being overrun by a magic-powered mass murdering psychopath. Throwing tantrums about not being able to do things your own way when the fate of Valdemar is on the line is just stupid, selfish, and immature.

The really frustrating thing is that the books seem to acknowledge this, and Elspeth actually apologizes for it on occasion... but only after she's already gotten her way and refuses to actually adjust her behavior. Having her say "okay, yes, I was being unreasonable, I'm sorry" while continuing to be unreasonable is extremely annoying.

Probably the best thing to come out of it all was later on in the Mage Storms trilogy, where the whole "intervention of the gods" thing comes up again and Elspeth basically goes "hey, wait a minute—" and someone interrupts her to say "yes, we know, you hate this shit — that's why the gods are coming clean up front this time, so you don't fuck things up by insisting on going your own way against all sense".

I wish I hadn't read the Mage Storm trilogy first, because having that comment with context would've been faaan-tastic.

I loved that part in Mage Storms where Elspeth gets called out on her Screw Destiny tendencies.

The thing is that her attempts to mess with her fate end up steering her across Clan K'Sheyna , who are, "coincidentally", desperately in need of an outsider to break their rut and help them against Mornelithe Falconsbane.

If Elspeth had followed the plan that Gwena was so clumsily trying to shepherd her into, Falconsbane might well have destroyed K'Sheyna and been too powerful to stop by the time anyone got around to noticing. So she essentially lucks her way into accidentally saving the world.

Of course, we find out later that the gods had been planning all along to use Falconsbane as a tool to retrieve Ma'ar's memories from the Cataclysm as a hedge against the second Cataclysm, but considering that Elspeth's frowardness helps to advance that plan, I'm calling shenanigans on them being "caught by surprise".

Edit: It seems, now that I think about it, that there is a plan to handle Falconsbane all along, because at the end of Winds of Fate, he's defeated (but not killed) by a force of Shin'a'in Swordsworn who have clearly been raised specifically for that purpose. So Elspeth doesn't really Screw Destiny so much as force them to adapt the plan a bit. The biggest difference is that she would have been off safely in training rather than putting herself on the front lines.

Edit 2: Tenses are freaking annoying when writing about writing.

edited 17th Jun '16 12:01:47 PM by Fighteer

It's open-ended how much of Elspeth's rebelling against The Plan (of the companions) was actually part of a bigger The Plan (of the gods), but that's sort of par for the course with gods and their Mysterious Ways. (Except when Karse's hard-to-spell god decides that subtly is for chumps and just rains down some divine justice on fools.)

On the one hand, the gods pretty clearly steer everything so that all the various cultures and magical traditions are able to get together and prevent a second Cataclysm, and Valdemar establishing ties with the Hawkbrothers via Elspeth certainly helped that process. On the other hand, the Star-eyed Goddess is certainly capable of giving her followers marching orders to get their asses to Valdemar and offer their assistance, and Valdermar can generally be relied on to be reasonable about that sort of thing, so Elspeth making that unnecessary was more of a bonus than a linchpin of the plan.

Certainly, the alliance between Shin'a'in, Tayledras, and Valdemar (plus Karse and Iftel, for what it's worth) is part of the gods' plan, but their careful manipulation of Ma'ar's spirit through the ages so that it would be in the exact place at the exact time needed to transfer its memories to a friendly soul so they could be used to prevent the second Catalcysm approaches Xanatos Roulette levels of craziness.

At that point, you have to wonder why the gods would go to such elaborate lengths to be subtle, only to have it become blatantly apparent that they are taking a direct hand in the end anyway. Way to send a mixed message, Kal'enel.

Which brings me to another point: the elaborate masquerade that the Star-Eyed Goddess and her hubby V'kandis go through to disguise the fact that they seem to be the gods of just about every place, even though they wear different guises each time. What the actual flip, you two? Is religious strife among mortals something you actively encourage for your amusement?

From a Doylist perspective, it's probably just Mercedes Lackey trying to retcon her way out of Early-Installment Weirdness, but taken as an unbroken continuity, it looks very suspicious. For example, Need's flashbacks in Winds of Change mention a sisterhood that worships a triune goddess, at a point when the grand design of Velgarth's cosmology had to have been present in Lackey's mind.

edited 17th Jun '16 12:30:20 PM by Fighteer

The gods seem to operate on a principal of minimum intervention. They'll do what they have to to protect their chosen peoples, but they'd rather than said peoples deal with problems without relying on divine assistance. This is why they let a corrupt, evil theocracy rule Karse for centuries and then suddenly zapped the current chief asshole with a literal bolt of lightning and put a member of the true faithful on the throne, but didn't just poof a magical shield are Karse to protect it from the second Cataclysm with no effort needed on their part. In other words, they won't let their people be screwed by things beyond their ability to deal with, but they won't just do everything for them, either.

Regarding the gods, the impression I got was always that the two main ones we see aren't every deity that actually exists, just that they're two of the most "hands on", as it were. Other religions certainly exist, and I don't think they're necessarily either 1) objectively wrong, or 2) worshiping one of the two actual deities that actually exist, just in a strange roundabout way, it's just that we haven't necessarily gotten up-close and personal with those gods for whatever reason.

The main difference seems to be that the two gods we see have entire cultures worshiping them almost exclusively, while everywhere else we see is either a mixed-religion region (Valdemar and most of its immediate neighbors), or else made up their own shit that's probably not actually true (the Eastern Empire), so they're probably a bit more willing to intervene on behalf of an entire people that are all faithful to them.

The only other mention of deities that I can recall is one scene in Mage Winds where it's implied that a Mother Earth figure briefly speaks through Solaris in order to yell at Tremaine, and it seems to be a separate being from the Star-Eyed Goddess.

edited 17th Jun '16 1:07:26 PM by NativeJovian

I'll concede that we don't see enough of Velgarth's cosmology to know for certain whether there are only two gods or a whole panoply, of which we only get to meet two directly. Frankly, Kal'enel and V'kandis seem to be unusually powerful in whatever hierarchy might exist. Early-Installment Weirdness notwithstanding, in the Tarma and Kethry series, we see that minor gods and major demons seem more or less interchangeable, with Gods Need Prayer Badly in effect, so there could be a whole host of lesser spirits flitting around granting prayers in exchange for worship, with two overdeities keeping an eye on things.

There is a moment in one of the Mage Winds books when Kal'enel directly addresses the Companions, calling them "children of my other self", or some such — I forget the exact wording. This very strongly implies that many of the deities that are worshiped by various cultures are her aspects rather than independent entities. Either that or her "other self" is V'kandis, and he's got responsibility for Valdemar as well as Iftel and Karse. (The Firecat-Companion similiarities would seem to support that idea as well.)

What we do know is that the gods decided that the resurgence of the Cataclysm was enough to break their non-intervention ideologies and get hands-on, resulting in bolts of divine retribution, the influence of Kal'enel's Avatars, and so on. Of course, Iftel was always something of an exception, as V'kandis applied a pre-emptive Deus ex Machina to that entire nation in preparation for the Mage Storms.

It also seems to have caused them to lift their enforcement of Medieval Stasis, as Valdemar seems to make a pent-up and unusually sudden leap to steam technology in the same time period in which the gods start to relax their boundaries in other areas. I wonder if they anticipate the forthcoming loss of magic power and decide to allow the mortals some comforts to replace it.

I suppose it irks me, given what I know of human nature, that the peoples of The Alliance would calmly accept more or less literal divine intervention and then go on about their lives as if the gods aren't on-call for major emergencies. That sort of thing can induce all kinds of crazy beliefs in people, and I'm a bit surprised that we don't encounter all sorts of riled up religious zealots, fake prophets, and cult leaders in the wake of the Mage Storms.

Also, we don't see Solaris and Tremane until Mage Storms, so you're citing the wrong subseries.

edited 17th Jun '16 1:13:42 PM by Fighteer