Bujold's Five Gods
Nov. 8th, 2023 02:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethRecently I have been rereading The Hallowed Hunt, Paladin of Souls, and The Curse of Chalion.
In that order, which is backwards of publication and partly backwards of chronology.
I liked reading Ista's story first, she doesnt seem at all mad if you already know what she means.
They're very good books but I think I found the actual curse part the least interesting. Though reading it this time it doesnt seem entirely like a deliberate curse, more like it turns existing things up to eleven to match the intensity of the one it spilled from, only without moderation it goes all wrong all the times. Which is interesting in the subtle corners. But quite a lot of non subtle things happen. The bits about his health failing is very curse shaped.
I dont read many books that dont have some kind of impossibility in them and then I get most interested in the more possible parts. Maybe I should try regular ordinary fiction again.
Except you dont tend to get speculative theology in regular fiction. ... bad theology yes, making up a religion from a blank page not so much. And I like how such exercises make you really think about morals and values, defamiliarise all assumptions, and in this case make you really sympathise with the bastard offspring of a demon, god of disasters and all things out of season. Like sure the neighbours think he's the devil but the books make the Bastard make perfect sense. It's interesting.
I also like the 'no hands but ours' answer to the problem of evil. Evocative, and keeps the focus on what real people can actually do, even if it do get supernatural as well.
This time of reading I am once again older than the characters. 'Mad' Ista might consider herself landed in her middle age with all her first try at life stolen by her illness, but she's still younger than me. Relatable and a teensy bit depressing at the same time.
Ista does get to be a main character though. That's what screwed her over so bad in the first place, so not to be wished for, but it's also why she can set out on a pilgrimage with a dozen guards, a girl to do her hair and put her clothes on, and a Divine dedicated to her own personal salvation, and still get told off for not bringing enough people. And get fussed over at every stop, who specifically want her to be there. She might not much like being Entertained everywhere she goes, but it's a bit like being welcomed, so not all bad.
I can get an hour's Nice Walk a week, which is better than last year and not nothing, but does somewhat limit where one can go.
As ever it's easier being rich.
Not easy though, everyone in Curse of Chalion hs to contend with bad employees at best flattering for position and at worst getting them drunk and stuffing their head with lies. Very difficult to manage. And they're only kids.
It seems like it'd be easier being powerful, too, but the characters with the theoretical power in these books - kings and queens and royals and such - are the ones most heavily constrained. It has things to say about power and privilege, privilege being to be looked after, power being the ability to look after. Not quite sure I'm summarising that right. But the story keeps crashing into the limits of both. Says interesting things.
Add the Hallowed Hunt and what it has to say about royalty and how it relates to the people gets... complex. The story has a sort of parisitic king, supported by magic, so the monarchy goes on forever, eating its heirs. But that seems contrasted with the hope of a good king, rather than a necessary criticism of monarchy as an idea.
I do end up reading *many* books about kings and queens and stuff, and many of them come down on the side of Just Find The Right Boss and Be Saved, and that's... problematic, so having a horror king at least makes a nice change of pace. Possibly a good start.
Like the queen who fed demons on all virtues and then put the demons in her children, considering the result much imoroved. That's a horror not limited to kings, the idea the best she could do for her kids was fill them with being someone else. Interesting ideas in that soup.
Chalion the book is about one great souled man allowing the gods to do huge things. Which is a very hero protagonist book, and I liked reading it. But I'm kind of turning it around in my head now to how else you could tell it. Like, Caz showed us all these other interlocking stories that he arrived into like a cleansing flood. But you could tell it with all the little stories clicking together, having just a moment of god light to push back the darkness, and Caz taking the baton for the final ride. I don't know, it seems like it would be trickier to tell, but more of the view the story says the gods have, where we're all getting their attention.
The books were good but as per usual make me want to turn the story over and write on the back.
Which is what fanfic is for, if I ever get the words on the page.
In that order, which is backwards of publication and partly backwards of chronology.
I liked reading Ista's story first, she doesnt seem at all mad if you already know what she means.
They're very good books but I think I found the actual curse part the least interesting. Though reading it this time it doesnt seem entirely like a deliberate curse, more like it turns existing things up to eleven to match the intensity of the one it spilled from, only without moderation it goes all wrong all the times. Which is interesting in the subtle corners. But quite a lot of non subtle things happen. The bits about his health failing is very curse shaped.
I dont read many books that dont have some kind of impossibility in them and then I get most interested in the more possible parts. Maybe I should try regular ordinary fiction again.
Except you dont tend to get speculative theology in regular fiction. ... bad theology yes, making up a religion from a blank page not so much. And I like how such exercises make you really think about morals and values, defamiliarise all assumptions, and in this case make you really sympathise with the bastard offspring of a demon, god of disasters and all things out of season. Like sure the neighbours think he's the devil but the books make the Bastard make perfect sense. It's interesting.
I also like the 'no hands but ours' answer to the problem of evil. Evocative, and keeps the focus on what real people can actually do, even if it do get supernatural as well.
This time of reading I am once again older than the characters. 'Mad' Ista might consider herself landed in her middle age with all her first try at life stolen by her illness, but she's still younger than me. Relatable and a teensy bit depressing at the same time.
Ista does get to be a main character though. That's what screwed her over so bad in the first place, so not to be wished for, but it's also why she can set out on a pilgrimage with a dozen guards, a girl to do her hair and put her clothes on, and a Divine dedicated to her own personal salvation, and still get told off for not bringing enough people. And get fussed over at every stop, who specifically want her to be there. She might not much like being Entertained everywhere she goes, but it's a bit like being welcomed, so not all bad.
I can get an hour's Nice Walk a week, which is better than last year and not nothing, but does somewhat limit where one can go.
As ever it's easier being rich.
Not easy though, everyone in Curse of Chalion hs to contend with bad employees at best flattering for position and at worst getting them drunk and stuffing their head with lies. Very difficult to manage. And they're only kids.
It seems like it'd be easier being powerful, too, but the characters with the theoretical power in these books - kings and queens and royals and such - are the ones most heavily constrained. It has things to say about power and privilege, privilege being to be looked after, power being the ability to look after. Not quite sure I'm summarising that right. But the story keeps crashing into the limits of both. Says interesting things.
Add the Hallowed Hunt and what it has to say about royalty and how it relates to the people gets... complex. The story has a sort of parisitic king, supported by magic, so the monarchy goes on forever, eating its heirs. But that seems contrasted with the hope of a good king, rather than a necessary criticism of monarchy as an idea.
I do end up reading *many* books about kings and queens and stuff, and many of them come down on the side of Just Find The Right Boss and Be Saved, and that's... problematic, so having a horror king at least makes a nice change of pace. Possibly a good start.
Like the queen who fed demons on all virtues and then put the demons in her children, considering the result much imoroved. That's a horror not limited to kings, the idea the best she could do for her kids was fill them with being someone else. Interesting ideas in that soup.
Chalion the book is about one great souled man allowing the gods to do huge things. Which is a very hero protagonist book, and I liked reading it. But I'm kind of turning it around in my head now to how else you could tell it. Like, Caz showed us all these other interlocking stories that he arrived into like a cleansing flood. But you could tell it with all the little stories clicking together, having just a moment of god light to push back the darkness, and Caz taking the baton for the final ride. I don't know, it seems like it would be trickier to tell, but more of the view the story says the gods have, where we're all getting their attention.
The books were good but as per usual make me want to turn the story over and write on the back.
Which is what fanfic is for, if I ever get the words on the page.