My Favorite Tolkien Characters

I can already hear two questions regarding the title. First--Who cares what Marta's favorite Tolkien characters are? She hasn't even read Book of Lost Tales yet! And second, How on earth can you only choose ten from all of Tolkien's mythology?

It's true, I haven't read the Book of Lost Tales, but I'll get on that eventually. I have, however, read Silmarillion multiple times, the trilogy twice, and Hobbit twice. So I know... most of the Middle-Earth characters? At least a good portion of them.

As for why you should care about my opinion, you don't have to, of course, but as I've said before, I write about what I want to write about, whether other people care or not. So, without further ado...

10.

Actually, I have no idea.

9. 

Umm...

8.

As it turns out, it's really hard to limit Tolkien's characters to just ten.

7. 

Maybe... wait, no...

6. 

I'll just do favorite five, I guess!

5. Luthien

I can already hear one of my best friends cringing that I didn't put Luthien as my favorite, but that isn't a complaint about her. That's the thing--with these characters, I don't have much to complain about. The question is just which one charmed me more.

Anyway, with Luthien--this character could have been so easy to be a boring, perfect type. She's the most beautiful woman who ever lived, plus she makes music so lovely it changes the seasons, and then she's the daughter of a Maia spirit with a lot of her own magic. She could be too perfect to be interesting or even likable. However, I think Tolkien did an excellent job of not making her that way, by two simple feats: first, he never showed her fighting except against creatures more powerful than her, and second, he always made sure her victories were qualified victories. Take, for example, her fight against Sauron: when Sauron himself appeared, and she stood face-to-face against the great monster of the trilogy, she actually fainted, but her magic cloak caught Sauron by surprise, and she was able to recover herself just enough to chase Sauron away. It makes sense that she would be overwhelmed--Sauron was, after all, a Maia who was even more powerful than her mother--but through her own determination, quick wits, and a bit of luck, she was able to score a... qualified victory. She didn't vanquish Sauron completely (which would have been unbelievable), but she was able to get just enough of a victory to win the day.

Add to that, in the little bit we see of her, she's loyal, kind, and empathetic. She never thinks it's beneath her dignity to befriend anyone, including Beren and the dog Huan. She is also merciful--she asks Beren to spare the lives of elves who tried to kill her. Add to that she is resilient; it takes a lot for her to lose hope. And finally, she is clearly courageous--not just for facing Sauron, but also for countermanding her father's orders about Beren and bringing him in front of Thingol as a guest and not as a prisoner. I like Luthien dearly.

4. Sam

What? Sam isn't #1?

I don't think I need to elaborate on why Sam is on this list. There is no truer line in the entire movie trilogy than, "Frodo wouldn't have gotten far without Sam." Also, Sam has the spirit of the trilogy's story: "There's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it's worth fighting for."

Everything that everyone else loves about Sam, I love too. Loyalty, courage, hope--enough said.

My absolute favorite thing about this shot is that it shows both Sting (the sword) and Sam's pack with the cooking supplies and the "comforts of home". It shows the two sides of Sam's personality--both of which required courage. Source. 

3. Boromir

Remember that these are my favorite characters--not who I necessarily think are, objectively, the best characters. I have a peculiar quirk about my nature: if I a) expect to hate something and then like it (a la Frozen), or b) used to hate something and now like it, then I like it all the more.

I used to hate Boromir. Truly, hate Boromir. I was furious with him for trying to take the Ring from Frodo, and then for everything in between. I found him repulsive, irritating, abrasive, and just insufferable. The fact that Aragorn was my favorite member of the Fellowship, and he kept fighting with Aragron, added fuel to that loathing.

Then I grew up, started studying history a bit, and I realized that Boromir was far more complicated than I had first understood.

Source

2. King Thingol

This is the king of Menegroth in Silmarillion, and although he barely has any speaking lines, he's a truly awesome character full to the brim of contradictions.

And--dare I say it--he's hilarious.

Thingol is described as "ruling like a Maia",  because of the power lent to him by his wife Melian (who is a Maia). That is never said about any of the other elves--not even the ones who live with the other Maia. Furthermore, the description of Menegroth is thoroughly impressive--beautiful, powerful, filled with riches, most beautiful home outside of Valinor, etc. All of these are things that, for normal Tolkien characters, would lead to corruption (see Boromir and Thorin). Even one of the Noldor kings... whose name escapes me just now... he was the king of Gondolin... Turgon! King Turgon is described as ignoring the advice of one of the Valar because he had grown proud and now trusted in his city. Thingol, on the other hand, doesn't display any of that. He is still a tragic character (it is the Silmarillion, after all), but when he is corrupted, it isn't because of his own riches or power, but because of the curse that Morgarath put on the Silmarils. In other words, he is surrounded by power and temptations, but he isn't corrupted by it. How very... hobbitish of him.

That's the thing--although he is a very powerful person, the vibes I get from him aren't pompous. It is true that he mocks Beren's lineage, but I think that has more to do with his outrage that Beren thinks he's good enough for Luthien than anything else. And it must be remembered that, in Tolkien's world, the divisions between Elves and Men aren't exactly arbitrary. (It's not a Marxist class distinction--it's a division that doesn't really have a parallel in the real world. The distinction is based off of the fact that Elves were literally created first, and created to have a place in the Undying Lands, while Men were not created to have that place. It's a separation that is all too literal, which the movies did a decent job portraying.) Anyway, although Thingol clearly has rank and pomp and power, and although he definitely bars certain Elves from approaching him, he never feels as haughty as someone like Denethor. He seems willing to listen, to explore, to learn, and to be real.

Possibly the funniest example of this, at least to me, is the way he reacts to two different humans: Beren and then Turin.

With Beren, he is furious, makes all kinds of comments about how low Beren is compared to him, and then eventually arranges for Beren to die (because Beren wanted to marry Thingol's daughter).

But then, less than a decade later (which is not that long if you're about 2,000 years old), when Turin comes stumbling into Menegroth, Thingol actually gets up off his throne, picks Turin up, puts him on his lap, and announces he'll foster Turin until Turin becomes an adult. To quote the book, 

I especially love how nobody comments on this. No one says something to the effect of, "Um, excuse me, just a few years ago you were singing a very different tune." (This isn't a random change, either--it is the effect of accepting Beren's love for Luthien.)

I have also read Children of Hurin (which I do not recommend until you've read Silmarillion--it is unquestionably Tolkien's darkest story, and one of the single darkest things I have ever read), and there is a fascinating exchange between the king and a very shy Elven lady that goes something like this:

Shy Lady: I was sitting in a tree...

Thingol: [with a smile] Many of my subjects sit in trees, but they do not feel the need to tell me about it. 

That line was said by the Elven king who "ruled as a great Maia!"

This is all to say that Thingol just feels a bit like a classic hobbit. He cares dearly for his family and his home, and disdains the things that the rest of the characters are all after (at least at first). He's very powerful, but he never comes across as untouchable, unreachable, or arrogant (again, except at the very end, and as a result of a curse). I find him endearing and entertaining.

Source. Also, if I never see another anime drawing of Thingol and Melian, it will be too soon. 

1. Bilbo 

Oh, dear Bilbo. Funny, relatable, admirable, spunky, sarcastic, endearing, adventurous, wonderful Bilbo! 

I'm not sure what I love best about Bilbo. His wit? His spunk? The fact that he never stops being out of place on his adventure? The fact that he is a writer? The fact that he is constantly surrounded by powerful objects (the Ring and the Arkenstone) and is rarely controlled by any of them? (He was using the Arkenstone like a pillow!) The fact that his last line in the movie was, "I think I'm quite ready for another adventure!"?

The fact that, although he clearly has an adventurous streak, he is also able to settle down in the Shire for years and years? He's able to be both the adventurer and the person who took in and provided a good home for his relative? 

I think this is probably the biggest thing about Bilbo that fascinates me: even though his story was so similar to Frodo's, it was also the polar opposite. 

Think about it: both of them go on a quest centered around a powerful object, both of them lose dear friends (Boromir and Thorin, who are sort of the same character in a way...), and both of them return to the Shire to live there for a number of years, completely changed. For Frodo, that was part of the tragedy: he loved the Shire and wanted nothing more than to protect it and go home to it, but he never really could. Bilbo also went back, completely changed, but for his story, that was his success. He came back different, an oddball, not quite as respectable, but happy and loved. For me, that's a sense of optimism and hope that just touches my heart. 

Nor was this story written by some ivory-tower coffee-shop artist, either. J.R.R. Tolkien, it must be remembered, had a story with horrors similar to Frodo's: Tolkien fought at the Battle of the Somme, a battle in which the first day had 57,000 deaths on the British side alone (that's more than the US lost in the entire Korean War), and where he lost all but one of his close friends. (The entire campaign of the Somme had 420,000 casualties on the British side, which is still more than the VA records American soldiers dying in the entirety of WWII.) Tolkien walked away from that battle with trench fever, which recurred enough to force him to stay home. That's the person who wrote Bilbo's hopeful story. 

One thing that is clear about Tolkien's stories is that there are different ways to be heroes. They all have to have some things in common, obviously, but there is still variety among them. Bilbo and Frodo weren't the same person, and obviously their story wasn't exactly the same (the Ring was far more powerful closer to Mordor, etc., etc.,), but the fact that this kind of hope shows up in this quirky, ordinary character just makes me smile. Bilbo is no Aragorn, he's no Thingol, and he's no Boromir, but he's a hero nonetheless. 

Source

Upon review, I deleted about six paragraphs from this post because they all could be their own post. I loved Tolkien when I was a kid, and I respect Tolkien more and more as I grow up. So you'll probably be hearing a lot more about Tolkien from me. 

Oh, to my students who I now know are reading this... you know what to do, right? 

The Sandy Rainstorm (Updated!)

 To my students who I now know are reading this: stop reading this and go read Lord of the Rings. Or watch the movies. Or listen to the audiobooks. Or finish your homework. 

I had the remarkably pleasant experience of growing up in the Pacific Northwest, where the weather was notoriously mild. Sure, there's plenty of drippy days, but for the most part, it's not too hot and rarely too cold. Wisconsin got frigid each winter, and that year that Frozen came out it got colder than the North Pole on one day, but the nice trees and the fact that I spent most of my time indoors on the college campus anyway meant that it was far more bearable. 

Shenyang, as I've mentioned previously, is a little different. 

Even after three years here, the weather rarely ceases to catch me unawares, but today may have been the wildest I can remember. When I woke up this morning, I remember thinking that all the clouds certainly looked very dark, especially for after 6AM. I assumed it was rain, but just to be safe, I grabbed my pollution mask anyway.

At about 9AM, I looked out the window and saw that the sky looked yellow. Yellow sky. My students immediately joked that the aliens were landing. Then I noticed that rain was hitting the windows! The sky was completely covered with clouds, of course, but I was watching it wondering what in the world was in those clouds. 

From 9 to about 11:30, the sky went from yellow to orange. I did the best I could to capture the color, but my cell phone didn't really get the bizarre color. It wasn't just the sky either, by the way - orange light was filtering down into the classroom. The light coming in through my windows was orange. Everything looked tinted orange. 

Finally at about 11:30, it went back to yellow, and then back to a normal gray shade. I was still a bit baffled, and I asked a few of my friends what on earth that was, and they all told me the same thing: Sandstorm and raining at the same time. Some of them speculated that a little bit of pollution was in the air, too. 

The pictures below kind of show how weird it was, but my iPhone can't capture color at all. 

This was at about 9, when the sky was yellow. Not gray, yellow. 

This is a bit better, but it was fully orange. 

If you look in the shadow of my reflection, you can kind of see how intense the orange was. It was unreal for me!

That is just not something that I've ever seen before. Oh, I've seen sandstorms before, but I haven't seen one where the sky went Blogger orange before! 

Update, 3/23:

According to the Associated Press, it was the worst sandstorm in 10 years, and it got south to Beijing. It began in the Gobi Desert (that explains the color, I guess) and some schools there closed. It looks like we got off light!

I think we have another sandstorm today too, by the way. It's not nearly as bad, however - just an off-yellow in the sky. 

Did Fantasy Writers Remember the Key Element of Tolkien's Characters?

Let me start off by saying that I do not quibble that I'm just as guilty of this as anyone else, and that this is definitely something I am going to keep in mind for all my post-Darkwoods fantasy books.

So, I was musing to myself on the classic comment that all fantasy books post-Tolkien all take some tropes, inspirations, or something similar from Tolkien's work. (To which I say--no kidding. Tolkien defines the fantasy genre. That's what happens when you're the first popular writer of a new genre.) As I was musing about it, though, I realized that there's one very important trope/concept/archetype/whatever that... well, that it seems like no one has picked up.

(Since writing that last sentence, I finished reading Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, and I realized that book did have this trope.)

To illustrate my point, allow me to mention the two main characters in Lord of the Rings, that being Frodo and Aragorn. Both of them are, in different ways, a type of "chosen one" character. Frodo is "chosen" to carry the Ring because of fate, while Aragorn is "chosen" to be the new king because he was born to be the king.

Mostly, though, think about the end result of their choosing: for Frodo, the end result is to get rid of his choosing and go back to normal (at least as much as possible). Aragron, in sharp contrast, ended up keeping his choosing, and staying as king until he died.

These are two different types of heroes, different types of "chosen" heroes, and they have a different purpose for their choosing. Aragorn needs to rise from obscurity to become king, but Frodo is pulled from being normal and just wants to go back to being normal. (He never does go back to being fully normal, but for him, that's part of the tragedy.)

Now, ask yourself this - which one of these "chosen" type of heroes do you see most frequently represented in modern fantasy writing?

I see the Aragorn one represented a lot. But the Frodo one? The one who wants to lay that choosing down, put it aside, and go back to a humble life? The closest I can think of is Mrs. Frisby, arguably Harry Potter, and Redwall heroes. 

Contrast that, if you will, with the Chronicles of Prydain (which I have not read, so there might be a Frodo character in there somewhere that I'm oblivious to), that ends with the main character being crowned High King (is that really a spoiler? The last book in the series is The High King). There is also this series about Maerad and her brother, which I found slightly irritating because it's all about how the main characters are so super much more than their fantastical comrades. (It wasn't enough to just leave the meaninglessness of their pre-fantasy life behind and join the fantasy world - oh no, they had to be superior even for the fantasy world. I know Harry Potter kind of did the same thing, but it wasn't nearly as irritating or in-your-face in that series.) At the end of that one, the characters do lose their super special powers, but Maerad "mourns" the loss of those powers. Even the Percy Jackson and the Olympian series, when the first prophecy about Percy ends, the closing immediately finishes with a new prophecy. I know the point of that was to foreshadow the next series, but a side effect was to take away from the "done-ness" of Percy's prophetic role in the story. (And oh look, he was part of the next prophecy, too. I didn't finish that series because of the staggering number of love triangles in it, so I have no idea how that one ended.) 

Then there was that 2020 Mulan travesty, where the entire problem (as said by many people I'm not linking to because I don't like linking to articles with swearing in them), was that she was born special with qi, and not that she had to learn and work her way up. I remember seeing all the furious reviews and wondering if I was the only one who wasn't especially surprised by that, because it seemed like a natural culmination of where I thought the fantasy genre had been going. I can't remember anyone else saying this, but thinking about Mulan in a fantasy context makes Mulan yet another "chosen one" character (and this is an example of exactly how bad a "chosen one" hero can be). 

There are even more that I can think of for this as one gets into realms of fantasy meant for an older audience. 

The point of all this is that the kingly heroism of Aragorn has been kept, but the simple heroism of Frodo has sort of been lost. When you have a glut of Aragorn heroes, fantasy becomes a bit too egotistical. To some extent, it's going to be egotistical because part of the point of fantasy is that it's supposed to make the reader feel more powerful than the circumstances they're trapped in. It's supposed to help your courage and your imagination. It's supposed to help you push on when it feels like things are crushing you down. It's supposed to make you feel stronger. But at the same time, this long list of Aragorn-style heroes and a dearth of Frodo-style heroes is, in my view, having some negative effects for the genre. Aragorn is no good if there is no Frodo. In reality, some heroes are Aragorn and some heroes are Frodo - not everyone can be Aragorn, and that's fine. The fantasy genre needs to revere the Frodo heroes as much as the Aragorn heroes. 

Myself included. 

I started this post a while ago, but I decided to finish it now because of this bit of news that has me extremely apprehensive: Netflix has bought the rights to Redwall, and they're making a movie and a TV series about it. 

What. Could possibly. Go wrong. 

Among my many concerns (not least of which my lack of faith in Netflix's ability to tell the difference between ideologies and motifs), I'm not so sure that the Redwall goals of simplicity, peace, and normalcy are going to be adapted well into Netflix's series. That sort of goal just isn't used in modern fantasy these days. Modern fantasy (at least in the last several years) has been a pretty serious ego trip, and that's just not what Redwall was. 

Feel free to debate me on this one, because I'm sure I'm being unfair to a lot of fantasy books out there. (Not the Pellinor one, but others.) But it's just something I've noticed and something that has been bothering me. And now with this new Netflix movie and series in the making... I'm nervous. 

Chinese New Year - Happy Year of the Ox!

 I don't think anyone is missing the Year of the Rat.

This was my second Chinese New Year in China, and I thought it was even better than last year's. People always have super creative and colorful lights in their apartment windows, and when you live in the midst of 60-odd highrises, it's especially colorful. 

For context, here is what my apartment complex looks like without all the lights (this was about 3 weeks ago):

And here is what it looked like just a few nights ago, from the same angle:

Some of the windows up close:

Chinese New Year day was a Thursday, and this was probably one of my favorite things about it:

The ordering screen on the app

Here's the still picture. 

Anyway, that evening, a bunch of our friends came over and played Jackbox TV. We toasted the new year, ate some yummy food (and brownies!), and then enjoyed the fireworks display that exploded right next to our patio window. 

After everyone left, I went out walking (like I did last year) to enjoy the fireworks display. I'll try not to spam you with too many repetitious pictures, but I got about 70, and I love most of them. It super beautiful yesterday. 

I can see my window in this picture!

Now, last year (and the year before that), our school had China Week the week before Chinese New Year break, and part of that included everyone dressing up in Chinese clothes. We didn't do that this year (because we're back in online schooling again, ugh), which means I don't have a Chinese New Year picture this year. In lieu of that, I'll just post this picture from October:

Yes, this is me.

If you want the story behind that picture, you'll have to keep up with my Travel Blog!

Anyway, happy Chinese new year, everybody! Hopefully everything gets back to normal soon.

The Healer's Apprentice - Melanie Dickerson, Book 1

All right, almost a month later, I'm finally getting around to a book review! Because it is best to begin at the beginning, let's start with The Healer's Apprentice: 

So in my last blog post, I waffled on about the differences in genre, the different expectations, etc., etc. but upon further reflection, I realized that that was all unnecessary for this book review, because this one is obviously supposed to be a fairy tale. The only aspects that throw this off are the extremely specific time and place locations in the beginning of the first chapter - Spring, 1386. Hagenheim. The Harz Mountains, Lower Saxony. I wish she hadn't done that, because for me, that immediately puts me in the mindset of historical details (who's the emperor, where is this place, was it real, are these real people), which makes me start wanting to evaluate it as historical fiction with all those expectations. 

In that vein, I put all the locations into Google Maps. The Harz Mountains and Lower Saxony are in the north of Germany, but the only Hagenheim I found was in the south of Germany, near Munich:

Having said all of that, the moment you read the back cover, this comes across as a fairy tale. Not necessarily the main lady's story, but definitely the main gentleman's story: he is betrothed to a mysterious woman who is in hiding because a demon-summoner has a personal vendetta against her father. 

I just don't think you can get more fairy tale than that. 

Anyway, to the story: Rose is a woodcutter's daughter who has been apprenticed to the town healer (hence the name of the book, The Healer's Apprentice). For those who don't know, apprenticeships were part of life in a guild in a medieval town. The guild was basically a group of craftsmen and craftswomen who worked together in a town to set prices, set quality, and train new artisans. Apprentice was the first step in working in a guild, and once you finished apprenticeship you became a journeyman, and then after journeyman you became a master. Apprentices learned the ins and outs of their trade by living with a master and working for them for free until they became journeymen. (Do I need a source for that? I've heard that in so many places that it feels like common knowledge.) Anyway, Rose, the main character, starts off working as an apprentice to Frau Geruscha, who is never called journeyman or master throughout the book, which sounds like it might be a mistake, but there's a side to this character that makes me think it was intentional (to be mysterious). I think, if we're being pedantic about history, that it might have made more sense for her to be called an apothecary's apprentice, but "healer" is definitely a more fairy-tale-sounding name than apothecary. So, fine. 

Almost immediately in the story, Rose meets Wilhelm, Earl of Hamlin and son (and heir) of the Duke of Hagenheim. Wilhelm has just returned from studying for two years at a university with his brother, and is engaged in a search to locate the evil sorcerer Moncore. According to the story, Moncore was raised in a monastery and became the advisor to another duke, the Duke of Marienburg--but then that Duke of Marienburg died, and his son became the new Duke of Marienburg and expelled Moncore for his use of demon magic. (Spicy!) Moncore swore revenge on the new Duke of Marienburg by vowing to kill the duke's daughter, Salomea. Wilhelm is in the mix because he had an arranged betrothal to Salomea, so it is his duty to protect her, which means hunting down and stopping Moncore. As for Salomea, she is hidden away somewhere until Moncore can be found and killed. 

This is a story based on a fairy tale, but honestly, the story itself was so engrossing that I completely forgot which fairy tale it was when I was reading it. So I'm not going to share it here--that made the twist ending... actually a twist. 

Anyway, Rose ends up befriending Wilhelm and his two siblings, Lady Osanna and Lord Rupert, the latter of whom promptly starts romancing her. He has a bad reputation, but it seems as though he is willing to improve his life for her. Wilhelm - despite already being betrothed (admittedly to a woman he has never met) - also starts falling in love with Rose. The conflict is obvious. 

A couple of things I really enjoyed about this story:

First, the characters are a lot of fun. Rose goes through a bit of teenage angst, but only a bit, and it's balanced out by her determination to do well at her job and do the right thing. Wilhelm is sweet and chivalrous, but also business-like and task-oriented, which is a charming contrast. Frau Geruscha, the healer to whom Rose is apprenticed, also has an intriguing character, and I appreciated that there was emphasis on her relationship with Rose. That was actually something I appreciated very much - it's a romance novel that has more elements than just the romance. But the best character, easily, was the villain. Towards the end of the book, we get a glimpse into Moncore's head, and it's deliciously frightening. There's a darkness to his perspective that I'm not used to encountering in Christian fiction - not that I'm complaining. A villain should be dark. 

Which segues nicely into the next part I enjoyed - the structure of the plot. I must admit I'm surprised that I'm typing that, because there really is no external plot outside of Rose and Wilhelm, and I generally prefer there to be an external plot. But in this case, it's still enjoyable. Basically, in addition to Moncore, there is a secondary villain (I won't spoil it, although it's probably obvious), and a secondary conflict that sort of takes up the reader's attention for most of the middle of the book. He's all about things like social rules, reputation, and all these other... not harmless, but not exactly threatening, concerns. The main villain, Moncore, is kind of there, but he isn't front and center. The reader is thinking about society and human rules. Then, towards the end, we're suddenly thrust into Moncore's point of view with absolutely no warning. All of a sudden, all the environment goes from worrying about society to demonic threats and death and out-of-control violence. It's no longer playing by rules, but rather by what the villain wants. The story goes from being about a human society to being about otherworldly, supernatural, terrifying threats. It's like being doused with a bucket of cold water, and it's awesome. I absolutely love this sort of thing. I love it when readers/viewers have been caught up in one conflict and then have a moment where you remember suddenly that this conflict is trivial compared to the one you've forgotten. 

Something else I liked, which I thought was super clever, was replacing fairy-tale magic with demons and witchcraft. I thought this was clever because the idea of literal spiritual warfare, with demons and angels physically impacting the world, was a significant part of medieval life. Think of Joan of Arc, who believed that she was hearing the voices of angels, or the famous play Dr. Faustus, which was the story of how demons and angels influenced a famous scholar. This was a small adaptation, but it was very clever and useful for connecting different genres. 

One more element I thought was clever relates to music. It seems to be a think in all Disney fairy tales that the princesses sing and have little animal friends. Rose has an animal friend - a dog named Wolfie - but the nice singer in this story is Wilhelm, not Rose. I thought that was clever and made it feel more like a fairy tale.  

Another review I read said that this story was very immersive. I... sort of agree. I think some of the settings were immersive, like the description of the Hagenheim Castle's main hall. Other ones, though, were less so. One that stood out to me was the description of Rose going to her family's home:

...Rose trudged along the path outside the town wall, delving a short way into the forest to her father's wattle-and-daub cottage. She opened the front door to the smell of peas and pork fat cooking over the fire. (26)

This is the first time we've seen Rose's house - the first time we've been outside the town, even. That was the entire description. I was not immersed in that. I have no idea what it's supposed to look like just from this. I know what it smells like, but not what it looks like. 

Having said that, what I did find immersive were the characters. I was genuinely engaged with their concerns, with their pain, and with what they wanted. That was where I was immersed. I think that's fine, as long as you are immersed in something. 

Now, a word about the historical elements, because there were a few. I'm going to keep this short, because I don't think they matter for the story, but I'm going to mention them anyway because... well, because I teach history, frankly. 

The one that really stood out to me was the secondary plot for Rupert, Wilhelm's younger brother. At one point in the story, he says, "'I think I've persuaded Father to make me the new bishop'" (50). This is interesting, because this was absolutely a thing. Younger sons who didn't have inheritance would be appointed by their families to serve in the church, usually in high offices that they weren't qualified for. This was because church offices meant you could own land and still be wealthy and provided for. Yes, this was absolutely a thing. 

Two hundred years before this story begins. 

This story is set in 1386, and the question of who got to appoint bishops in the Holy Roman Empire - known to history as the Investiture Controversy - was settled in the Holy Roman Empire in 1122. (Short version, the church had to choose the person, but they didn't get the land and money until the king gave it to them.) This is all to say that I don't think the Duke would have been able to force the church to accept Rupert, and almost certainly not as a bishop. There still would have been church-related options available to Rupert, but probably not like that. 

I don't think this matters for the sake of the story - especially because the rules of being a bishop actually do play a very important part of Rupert's story - but I mention it because it seems to be another instance of not recognizing how much time passed in the Middle Ages. By no means do I think Melanie Dickerson is to blame for this - it just seems to be something that comes up in popular culture a lot. (See the first costume on this video, starting at about 1:30, to get what I mean by that.) 

The other historical elements are quite interesting, but they come across more as world-building than as any sort of historical commentary, so I'm not going to bother researching and sourcing them. I didn't bother researching the Investiture Controversy - I already knew about it - and there are some other parts that I know are accurate because I've been to museums and volunteered at one and learned it there, but anything I didn't know to be true, I didn't bother investigating. Because the back of the book felt like such a fairy tale, and the villain was an obvious fairy tale villain, it just never felt necessary. 

I don't want to give away the ending, so I'll just say this: the big twist ending is a pretty good example of what makes me nervous about combining historical settings with fairy tale expectations. Having said that... it didn't bother me too much in this one. The total fairy tale element, and the complete immersiveness of the characters, made it possible for me to ignore it. I could totally tell that this was supposed to be a fairy tale. 

To summarize, I enjoyed this story. I liked the characters, and I liked the twists on expectations. The summary being so strongly a fairy tale helped me deal with my struggle over combining the genres. I'm still nervous about other books like this (there are 11 more books in this series, after all), but this one was... fine. There was no question about what you, the reader, was supposed to be taking away from this story, and it was definitely an enjoyable read. It is for older readers, so probably 15 and older (definitely not my target audience for Darkwoods), and if you fall into that category, I recommend you check it out. I think you will enjoy the story! 

Genre Crossovers

This probably won't be posted for months, but I'm going to start this now...

I stumbled across an author named Melanie Dickerson, who has written mostly romance novels... many of which are medieval-themed. 

If you catch her page on Amazon, you'll notice that her longest series is a fairy tale/historical fiction/romance/Christian series. That combination of genres in and of itself made me highly nervous. Each reason could be a blog post on its own, but for the sake of clarity, here are a few of them:

• I do not like most modern-day Christian fiction. See this from the Babylon Bee to understand my reasons. 
• I get nervous about the combination of historical fiction and fairy tales, because the expectations, suspension of disbelief, and whole point of each genre is completely different (I would argue even opposite)
• I don't like modern romance books. (Give me Pride and Prejudice, where it honestly is a surprise who Elizabeth ends up with! Or at least, it legitimately might be, if not for the fact that everyone has known the story for the last 100 years...) 
• I'm not crazy about some of these adaptations of fairy tales. The last one I paid any attention to was a TV series, which... which started off just fine, but the story had nothing to do with the fairy tales, and... it wasn't what I was looking for in fairy tales. I liked Once Upon a Time all right at first, but it didn't stay up to the same quality, in my opinion. Then there are the live action Disney remakes, which... gag. 

But of course, moth to flame. The books had pretty covers, the openings were smoothly written, and I love fairy tales. (Which are not fantasy, by the way, but that's another issue altogether.) 

I haven't read all of her books, and I haven't even read all of the series I'm going to review. It's supposed to be chronological, but I get a very distinct feeling that it isn't entirely necessary to read them all to properly understand the stories, and in honor of my savings account I did not read all of them. I'm just going to review the ones I have read. 

Why these books? I do read a lot of fiction, so why don't I write reviews for all of them? There are a couple of reasons (to be discussed anon), but generally speaking, I think I had a lot to say about these.

So, without further ado...

Okay, as I was writing this, I realized I can't launch into these reviews without at least explaining myself as far as the genre crossovers are concerned, because that's going to come up a lot in my reviews of these books. 

What is Suspension of Disbelief? 

It all begins with suspension of disbelief. I think when people consider suspension of disbelief, people tend to think of breaking the laws of science (magic in fairy tales, etc.), or for how time gets warped (i.e., falling in love in one dance, a la Disney Cinderella). In short, it is when the reader is willing to accept something in the story, without too many questions, that would never happen, or be terrible, or end differently, in real life. You, the reader, are willing to accept magical wands in Harry Potter because of different rules for the book's universe; therefore, you suspend your disbelief about the magical wands. If, on the other hand, a bunch of magical wands suddenly showed up in Little House on the Prairie, you would roll your eyes and stop reading the books. 

The thing that I think some modern readers either don't realize or simply disagree with me on (probably just disagree with me on, but hear me out) is another category of suspension of disbelief--what qualifies as right and good. What are good goals, basically. What makes a good outcome. 

The best example of this that I can think of is the ending to Return of the King. In the end, Aragorn is of course crowned king because he is the last descendant of the kingly line of Gondor. His ancestry makes him the right person for the throne. In a fantasy story, this is perfectly acceptable, because of what it embodies--strengthening of the kingdom, renewal of an ancient ideal, things being put right. You can accept this from Lord of the Rings, because that's part of the rules of the world that's been created--part of all things being put right means putting a king from the right family in power. 

However, imagine hearing that in a story that is supposed to more closely mirror real life. Can you just hear the cringe? The idea that one person is "rightfully" the king, not because of anything they did, not even because of anything their father did, but because of somebody their long-distant ancestor was... that makes many of our modern sensibilities recoil and protest. After all, wouldn't Faramir have been an equally good king? Possibly even a better one, if you think about it? His followers were willing to die for him (and murder for him), he managed parts of Gondor during bleak times, and his people knew him. Why is Aragorn preferable? Aragorn is preferable because he comes from a line of kings, and Faramir does not. That means that Aragorn must be king in order for all to be put to rights. 

In our modern world, and in stories that are supposed to closely reflect our modern world, that is completely unacceptable. But in a fantasy story (heavily inspired by values and expectations from a completely different time in history), we can suspend our disbelief and suspend our expectations and accept it. 

One Guardian writer exemplified this conflict by analyzing Lord of the Rings in the same way, with the same expectations, he he would a piece of nonfiction or a story that is meant to reflect on specific parts of our world rather than universal moral truths. The entire article is worth reading if only to understand how not to read Lord of the Rings, but to summarize, he observes that in all the stories, you only hear the point of view of the good guys. One quote that stands out:

Both books are one-sided recollections made the Baggins family... A balanced telling might well have shown Smaug to be much more of a reforming force in the valley of Dale.

 In other words, the author points out that a story is not reliable if you cannot hear both sides of the story. This is completely true--if you are studying a historical event or maybe a story about World War I. But it does not apply in a fantasy book--it's not part of the expectations the author has for the reader. It's not important to a fantasy story. (It can be included in a fantasy story, don't get me wrong, but it's not essential--at least, not in the same way that it is essential to a more real-world story. A fantasy story doesn't need this, but a historical or "realistic" story normally does.) 

Here is a quote that just sums up the problem beautifully:

The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings aren’t fantasies because they feature dragons, elves and talking trees. They’re fantasies because they mythologise human history, ignoring the brutality and oppression that were part and parcel of a world ruled by men with swords.

But he's not mythologizing human history. He's writing a story that has nothing to do with the rules of human history (human behavior, yes, but that's not the same as human history). When you read Lord of the Rings, you aren't supposed to be looking for a blueprint or guidelines or theses on to how to study history, how to run a kingdom, or how to solve some kind of geopolitical issue of the day. (You're supposed to be looking for personal courage, a sense of hope amid darkness, and other personal advantages.) 

These different expectations lead to a different--a significantly different--suspension of disbelief. It would be self-defeating to approach a fantasy in the same way you'd approach a historical fiction because the different expectations and different rules lead to a significantly different disbelief that needs to be suspended. 

Suspensions of Disbelief in Fairy Tales

I know I spent the last section waffling on about fantasy and Lord of the Rings, but the genre is very closely connected to fairy tales. I remember reading one paper (I can't find it now--if I find it later, I'll link to it) that struggled to describe the difference between fairy tales and fantasy stories in any meaningful way. One thing that both of them have in common, to be sure, is that they do not have practical how-to's or realistic expectations of rulers--or even realistic depictions of the world. 

One absolutely classic example of a fairy tale with expectations so wholly and completely at odds with our world is The Goose Girl, which, in summary, is about a servant usurping her mistress's place as a princess. The princess, because she is a princess, is good and kind and gentle, while the servant, because she is a usurper, is bad. But again, in a fairy tale, this is part and parcel of the genre. The good people are rewarded for being good by becoming princesses or simply being born princes or princesses; the rest of the fairy tale world is in order when everyone else respects them for their goodness and follows them and is loyal to them accordingly. There is also an arranged marriage in this story, which still leads to everyone living happily ever after because it is what is supposed to be. 

These are concepts that us modern post-Enlightenment readers would never accept, if anyone ever suggested letting them become a reality. However, we aren't supposed to view those details as the real point--the real point, which we are supposed to take out of the story and share in our world, is that goodness and patience will be rewarded, while liars will be found out and discredited. 

Granted, Goose Girl came from a time period with different expectations of how countries were meant to be governed. (Wikipedia says the Brothers Grimm published their first anthology in 1812. That is certainly after the Enlightenment, and after serfdom's decline in England and France, so it's possible the people who told them that story didn't hold to those values; and even if they did, I cannot possibly imagine that people back then were stupid enough to think that all rightful princesses were also good princesses. Nonetheless, the story comes from Germany and not England or France, and it was told by people who weren't necessarily part of philosophical and political revolutions inspired by the Enlightenment as early as 1812, and Wikipedia is still Wikipedia, so...) Let's instead look at a modern fairy tale, and turn our attention to Disney. 

The easy option here is Cinderella. (The good one.) I know it gets a lot of flack for having the "love-at-first-sight" business, enhanced by a musical number, even, but in a way, that doesn't really matter. The prince has no character because he isn't a character--he is a reward. You're not supposed to watch it and think that it's a commentary on healthy relationships; you're supposed to watch it and recognize that the main character was good (even when people around her were bad), and kind, and pleasant, and she was rewarded for those things. Totally illogical and unwise for a modern young adult reader looking for a husband or wife, but that isn't what you watch the movie for. 

The remake ignored that, and tried to be more logical and realistic. And we all know how that turned out. Yuck. (And don't even get me started on the other remakes.)

The point is, part of the suspension of disbelief in a fairy tale is a suspension of some logic and a lot of cynicism about people in power. 

Suspension of Disbelief in Historical Fiction

Historical fiction is supposed to represent and portray the particular struggles a certain group of people at a certain time faced. That means people need to behave in ways that are logical and influenced by their time, reflect common sense, and generally need to be explained in terms of how to navigate specific, real-world problems. 

Anyone who's ever studied history knows that history is a deeply cynical topic, for two reasons. First, there are a lot of scenarios where there really are no good guys. No horses in the race. Things don't change like we want them to (French and Mexican Revolutions come to mind), rightful kings are like John Softsword or Edward II of Caernarfon or (good grief!) Richard II, and honorable people frequently find themselves between two bad choices. Heroes have fatal (and often disgusting) flaws, and rulers who start off strong and good do not end that way. 

That story in fairy tales--about the "rightful king" being on his throne--is, in real life, often used as a justification and defense of awful tyranny, and rarely used in support of real justice and fairness. 

Not all of history is like that--Alfred the Great, the English barons and the Magna Carta, and the life of George Washington all stand out, and there must be others (that I can't think of just now because it's late at night)--but so often you hear about "heroes" and "the Great's" of history being horrific people who did brutal things to achieve their goals.

Part of what makes fairy tales fairy tales is the idea of all things lining up the way they are supposed to, but a study of history shows that that rarely happens. Suddenly, when you're forced to choose between one king or another king, one side or another in a war, you need to have as many facts as possible. You need to consider the logical outcome of either side. You need to know the policies, the actions, the belief in legality and individual rights. This information helped lead people to support Henry of Bolingbroke instead of Richard II, or Edward of York instead of Henry VI, or Henry Tudor instead of Richard III. And even then, was Richard III really a worse king than Henry Tudor? He probably murdered his nephews, but as far as his subjects were concerned, was he any worse than Henry Tudor? And after all, the Tudors gave additional power to the dreaded Star Courts. But even the story of the Star Courts is a convoluted story, because at the beginning, they were popular and were expedient ways to dispense justice, but over time became tools of oppression.

These are questions that just don't come up in fairy tales, but must come up when studying history. A historical fiction novel that doesn't address these moral dilemmas of how people in power behave (kings or whatever local power happens to be relevant to the story) is not believable.

So, what belief do you suspend when reading historical fiction?

Someone (I've no idea who said it first) once said that studying history is like visiting a foreign country. When you visit a foreign country, you leave your own cultural expectations behind (to the best of your ability) and expect to encounter the new country's customs. History--and, by extension, historical fiction--means recognizing that the characters will have different expectations, different mores, and different reactions to events because they are colored by their times and culture. 

To some extent, that is similar to a fairy tale, in that it doesn't follow your rules. However, it follows someone's rules, someone who was real and really there. In the case of the aforementioned kings, a proper historical fiction would portray the expectations of kings at that time, demonstrate why Richard III did not meet them, and why Henry Tudor did, bad royal lineage and all. A good king in a fairy tale, if his role as king is discussed at all, is just good and kind and not selfish; a good king in history is far more complex, and sometimes a person can be a good king but be a very bad man. 

Can you see why I'm nervous about combining these two genres?

A Word on Fantasy and Reality...

I can already hear my mom's chastisement, so I'm going to put this in here:

• Of course there are good people in history, and even good people in power. My only comment is that it is not common. Personally, I would like to see historical fiction focus on those good people (Alfred, Washington, etc.), or, at the very least, when you have a bad person in history, portray them as bad and as something to be avoided. But this is one of those concepts that deserves its own blog post. 
• Both fantasy and fairy tales reflect reality, which is why I used the phrase "real life" instead of "reality" in my paragraph (pedantic, but I'm tired and that's the best I can do just now). Fantasy and fairy tales reflect values, emotions, and (especially according to Tolkien), desires. However, the connection between fantasy and reality is extremely complex and runs too far afield for this blog post. If readers want, I'll expound on this concept too, but Tolkien already has, and I have nothing to add to the master. Just read Tolkien's essay, or a summary and analysis of it here. 

Oh, look at that. It didn't take me a couple of months. It only took me two weeks. 

The Secret of NIMH--I Finally Saw It, and Here Are My Thoughts

 I haven't seen many Don Bluth movies, despite my better sense telling me I need to, but today, I finally sat down and watched The Secret of NIMH.

I should preface this by saying that I started by reading the book, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, on the bus to and from work the last week. It's a charming book, and the heroine is amazing. 

So I saw the movie today. 

I already knew about the gem, which was not in the book, but I'd had no opinion on it. I've heard that it's meant to symbolize the unknown and the supernatural, which I had no problem with (I mean, I'm me), but I didn't know what it actually did in the movie. 

Well, I watched the movie, and while I don't normally say things like this... the book was better than the movie. 

First off, Jeremy. The crow shows up twice in the book, and he's foolish and constantly after shiny things, but he isn't annoying. In the movie, he's in every other scene, and he is incredibly annoying. He spends half of his lines fussing about not having a girlfriend, which is just irritating. In my roommate's words, he's a bit like Jar Jar Binks. 

Now, I could deal with that, if they didn't cut out all the story about the rats to make time for Jeremy. The story of how the rats escaped and set up their home under the rosebush--just a few minutes. There's no explanation of how they have the tools, how they learned how to read, how they first came to NIMH, or any of that. Just, they got injections, they got smart, and they escaped. 

The big thing they left out from the story was Jenner and Nicodemus' friendship. In the book, they were best friends even before NIMH, and they made such an effort to stay together during and after NIMH. This made Jenner's betrayal so much more painful and poignant in the book. In the movie, he is always a bad guy, immediately. 

So instead of getting a complex, challenging story about a best friend's betrayal, we get entirely too much time dedicated to Jeremy whining about not having a girlfriend. Fabulous. To be clear, Jeremy gets more time than Jenner does in the movie. 

Then, there's the gem. Like I said, I knew about it going in and had no real opinion on it. Now that I've seen it... it kind of bothers me. It just felt so out of place with Mrs. Frisby's character. I thought the point of Mrs. Frisby was that there was nothing special about her except for her love for her family and her courage--that was what enabled her to be a hero, and not some kind of magical gift. The gem sort of took that away; she almost became another "Chosen One" heroine. They tried to say that it was really the courage in her heart that made the gem work, but the magical powers of the gem sort of defeated the purpose. At least for me. If they wanted to represent the power of the unknown and the supernatural, then they could have played it differently. 

The whole movie wasn't terrible--especially not the parts without Jeremy--and the animation was spectacular. I just think that the deviations from the novel weakened the main heroine.