The Heralds of Valdemar series

Also, I just assumed Rolan was the same Companion, same lifespan, just endlessly long lived and bound to different Monarch's Own, up until he bit it in the Tedrel Wars. Unless there was something I missed.

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I wrote up fictions-within-fictions for my own setting, heavily inspired by Valdemar stories: Lori & The Quest and The Beasts Of Ipsoth. The first one is basically just Elspeth's journey in Winds Of Fate.

Rolan has appeared at least twice in two time periods, with at least one other Monarch’s Own’s Companion in between. He’s in the Mags stories (Collegium Chronicles, Herald Spy, and Family Spies), about 50-100 years after Vanyel’s time, and he’s the brand-new replacement for Taver, who is the one who dies in the Tedrel Wars. Rolan, as Talia’s Companion, is still extant in the most recently set stories. I don’t remember if he’s named in Vanyel’s time or if that’s someone else.

The quote from Arrows (but again, Early-Installment Weirdness) indicates that there have been many deaths and replacements before Taver was replaced by Rolan—the same Rolan as centuries before? A namesake? We don’t really know, other than that “normal” Companions and Heralds reincarnate into each other’s forms regularly.

Anything else we’ve been saying about how often Rolan shows up is speculation, really.

oh hey I didn't know there were forums here.

The Valdemar Wiki says on its page for Taver that there are four Monarch's Own Companions who rotate and the only ones known are Rolan and Taver. Given that Taver is present in the Vanyel books, Rolan is in Brightly Burning, and Taver's in the Alberich books, these two definitely swap in and out but I don't know where "four" comes from.

Hi there, Joysweeper. I've appreciated your edits to the Valdemar pages (and also to one of my babies, Star Wars: Scoundrels).

Rolan is in the Collegium Chronicals/Herald Spy/Family Spies collection (notably replacing Taver in the Vanyel books about 50 years before), and also in Brightly Burning; the two are separated by around 150 years with no books between them. If there really are four Grove-born that rotate, either Rolan lasts that long, or all four are killed in that time period. Either is plausible, I guess, although I lean toward the former as it's a peaceful time. Another 200 years pass before Exile's Honor, when Taver is killed and replaced by Rolan. Having two other Grove-born in that gap makes a bit more sense. But it's still plausible that there are only two of them. (Other parts of the Valdemar Wiki speculate this, such as the bottom of Rolan's page.)

My sister preordered Valdemar for me on Amazon; the release date was the 26th so she was aiming for our delayed Christmas yesterday. Current estimated arrival date is February 13. I wonder what happened with the print run, or maybe at Amazon. And it’ll probably end up arriving sooner.

Ah well. This thread doesn’t get enough activity to really worry, but tag spoilers, please. And I’ll avoid The Founding of Valdemar on my watchlist.

Edited by HeraldAlberich on Dec 31st 2023 at 8:33:14 AM

What I'd like to see in a fic is the Heralds going La Résistance. Like something really destructive hits the capital, throwing Valdemar into chaos, and the surviving Heralds need to adopt ronin tactics as they find each other and rebuild civilization.

Don't get me wrong, I love The Good Kingdom trope and Lackey portraying order as a good thing. But Heralds always having a country backing them up neuters a lot of interesting conflicts they could otherwise have (or forces their countrymen to act monstrously OOC to enable such conflicts).

I, too, took forever to finish Into the West, and I similarly felt like it came up short. Also, the introduction of the Hawkbrothers... and them specifically saying that they'll strike it from the record... it just feels weird that we keep meeting the Hawkbrothers and it's "totally the first time". Also, I find myself wondering where all the Poomers went. I mean, we do get to see the Empire chronologically later. Probably just like the Sleepers, where Misty introduced it because she felt it was cool, and just coincidentally, no one mentions it in the future because presumably things got struck from the record to protect the future from that knowledge.

I have Valdemar checked out from the library. Now to start that... also found out that the libraries have The Valdemar Companion, but someone requested it, so I returned it.

The Poomers specifically, given how they're produced I just imagine that everyone who knew how to produce them was killed in the destruction of the Imperial Capital.

And I'll say that having read Valdemar... I was rather underwhelmed. The arrival of the Companions and the founding of the Heralds were fine but a lot of the surrounding material was... eh.

Now in my case I'm a little spoiled but I've heard "Sun and Shadow" and "Windrider Unchained" and they both imply the events around them played out over a much longer time not the space of a single afternoon.