Coldfire re-read: When True Night Falls - chapters 12 and 13

[carmentalis.livejournal.com]

Slightly belated - it's chapters 12 and 13, for daring escapes, resistance against the government, and the sheer noise of sunlight.

As always, enjoy!


Plot Summary

Chapter 12
Damien feels paranoid, then discovers that it's not paranoia if they're really out to get you. He and Hesseth manage to get away, and with some careful maneuvering they manage to get horses and supplies. At the same time the Matria employs some paranoia of her own and sends an unwilling, sulking Toshida scrambling after the escapees. He, however, stands no chance against feisty sailors like Rozca and Rasya, who are firmly sticking with Damien.

Chapter 13
Jenseny is on the run, hampered by some rather specific difficulties with sunlight. But she manages to think clearly and keep focused, and escapes her hunters and assorted fae beasties. Then she sees a group of children and, since she has grown up without horror movies, approaches them with the hope that they'll welcome and help her.



Quotes

• Paranoia in action, he thought. The only reasonable course.
  Tarrant would have been proud of him.



• He would have been dead if not for Tarrant, several times over. And vice versa. It was a good thing to remember as they prepared to plunge into this unknown land, with nothing but faith and a tenuous alliance to sustain them.



• "On what legal pretext?" he asked calmly.
  Her eyes narrowed to amber slits. "A vision from God, Andir. A revelation. These people are evil, and they mean us great harm. They must be arrested immediately, so that the Matrias can deal with them. Pick whatever law you want to support your action, as long as you take them. Soon. That is the Will of the Lord. I-"



• "And if I remember your constitution aright, not even the Lord Regent of the Five Cities is above the law of the land. Verda?"



• Once when the Light was strongest (it had cracked across the valley like a bolt of cloud-to-cloud lightning, rainbow colors flashing in the clear night air) she had dared to ask the unaskable, namely if the creature that had killed her father was actively trying to find her. The way she figured it, maybe since the Light would help her see and hear so many other things it would help her with that, too.



• What future was there for her? Why had her father invested so much time and energy into seeing that she could take care of herself, when in fact the best she had to look forward to was a quasi-animal existence, homeless and companionless and living off berries until the snow came and there were no more of those, and then it would be freezing cold and there would be no food unless she hunted and no one at all to be with her, no one to help keep her going . . .



• The Light wasn't strong again for nearly two days. So she couldn't see what they really were, not until then. By then it was too late to run.

Thoughts

• The quiet resignation gets to me more than Damien's upset in the previous chapter. He seems to deal a lot better with anger than with disappointment.



• The rift between Toshida and the Matria is already quite prominent here. He seems to have done plenty of thinking since his little chat with Damien - his behaviour is markedly different than in the sections we saw from his POV before. I know we won't get to see it, but I wonder if the Matria ever realized this.



• Again on Toshida - we had a little discussion on his adherence to the law and rules before. It comes up again here - the Matria is bending the rules, which angers him considerably. He, on the other hand, follows the law even when it's as inconvenient as letting Rozca get away.



• With all the thoughts about the value of the horses, something occurs to me - who is financing the whole trip? For the ship, Damien has found investors, but whose money is he working on right now? Gerald brought his own horse, so that is dealt with, but Damien somehow is able to afford two others, which are pretty much priceless right now. Where does the money come from?



• Jenseny brings up an interesting question - just what was her father hoping to accomplish? He didn't teach her enough to really survive on her own, but was aware that she might need to be able to do it at some point.



• What did you think of the children Jenseny meets? I remember waiting for the Lord of the Flies-like revelation almost from the first sentence of that scene, so the last paragraph didn't come as a big surprise, but still...

On Monday we'll look back at the first book of WTNF, to look back at whether the Promised Land really is all it's been said to be.

Comments

[fyrie.livejournal.com]

Did Damien get funding for trip #1? And would he have had anything left over from it? I would suspect not. I'd also suspect Gerald would have a small fortune which he would use. Money is no object when you get to kick the hinney of your nemesis :)

[carmentalis.livejournal.com]

Damien getting pocket money from Gerald? :-D

They'd have had to arrange something before this point, though, or Damien is going to have to wait until Gerald meets up with them again. And Damien doesn't exactly have his things with him, so if he stashed a bit away somewhere that might just be lost.

[fyrie.livejournal.com]

I'm now trying to get beyond the image of Damien as a Jedi doing the *handwave* "you can go about your business" thing :D

[carmentalis.livejournal.com]

Thanks for sharing that one. :-P

[fyrie.livejournal.com]

Well, we all know Gerald is clearly a Sith ;)

[carmentalis.livejournal.com]

Must be the first Sith with a fashion sense, though. But... he does have the lightsaber!

[fyrie.livejournal.com]

I dunno ;) Vader had a certain style to him, Iron Lung aside.

[prettyarbitrary.livejournal.com]

Well, his sword glows.

[prettyarbitrary.livejournal.com]

Wait, I misread that as "does he have the lightsaber?"

And since I just watched Return of the Jedi last night, the image is even stronger than usual. Thank you. Gerald absolutely needs a melodramatic, swirly black cape.

[carmentalis.livejournal.com]

Now I'm wondering whether the colonists brought Star Wars with them and whether there ever were Vader-shaped demons running around.

[prettyarbitrary.livejournal.com]

That would make Erna so much cooler!

[elflady-2001.livejournal.com]

Regarding the rift between Toshida and the Matria, I always felt she was too arrogant to realize what was happening between them. Frankly, the Matria got on my nerves!

And I was completely leery of the children that Jenseny meets from the get go. I felt as you did and was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

On another note, I recommended the Coldfire Trilogy to two friends just this week and both were intrigued when I described (without spoilers) how interesting the relationship is between Damien and Tarrant. They both whipped out their slash goggles. :P

[carmentalis.livejournal.com]

Arrogant is a good word for the Matria. So sure that she's secure in her position - though if she's as revered as it seems, then it's perhaps an easy assumption to make. Still, she feels a lot like a high religious official -a bit too removed from real world matters to really have an idea how what she does will be interpreted.

The kids are just... I waited for them to hold a conch, I really did.

I'm currently trying to get a friend into reading the trilogy for reasons other than the slash. Somehow, he's decided it must be satire because he insists that things like the mind link and Gerald's compact with evil simply can't be taken serious. :-D

[fyrie.livejournal.com]

You know, the Matria's just so feline. So utterly sure of her superiority that she doesn't even regard the ones that provide for her as anything more than playthings that can be put away when bored.

[carmentalis.livejournal.com]

You know, that's the odd thing. Hesseth strikes me as highly feline, but the Matrias never did. They're off, somehow, at least compared to the cats who've owned me so far. She only does the arrogance, without the elegance and occasional purring. That's like a cat who howls for the tuna can 24 hours a day.

[elflady-2001.livejournal.com]

I'm sure there are plenty of readers who thought that the relationship between Damien and Tarrant was nothing more than extremely complex and in the end, a very enduring albeit 'not your usual' grudging respect-type friendship. It seems that's what the author intended and when I first read the trilogy, I didn't go into it with slash goggles. But there was something in me that just thrilled to the exchanges between the two of them and I had to go there. :P

Now I'm really looking forward to the Coldfire short story I've been hearing about. I hope C.S. Friedman puts it out soon! :)

[carmentalis.livejournal.com]

Friedman certainly sounds baffled that so many people see the slash. :-P But I agree, if you don't go into it with a bias (or with plenty of recs from people who tell you to read it for the slashiness), it's very deep friendship, the kind where you'd expect a Thelma & Louise ending.

I just hope we won'T end up writing fix-that-short story fics, in addition to all the fix-that-ending fics!

[prettyarbitrary.livejournal.com]

Even if you don't go into it with your slash goggles on, there's still a very sensual, physical aspect to their relationship, though, and the language Friedman uses regarding it sometimes borders on the erotic.

I suppose a hundred years ago, readers would've thought nothing of it, as it wasn't uncommon (which does make reading old lit extra-fun!...unless you're reading Oscar Wilde, in which case you know it's not an accident at all). Such tones make it into all of her writing that I've read. Does she just have that sort of style? Or (my theory) is it an undercurrent that comes of her apparent fascination with sexuality?

On a related note, if you haven't read The Madness Season, do. The protagonist reads a touch like a kinder, more vulnerable Gerald, and while there's no sexual violence to speak of, the resolution is...weird.

[elflady-2001.livejournal.com]

Even if you don't go into it with your slash goggles on, there's still a very sensual, physical aspect to their relationship, though, and the language Friedman uses regarding it sometimes borders on the erotic.
Yes, that's it! It seems to me that we always see Gerald through Damien's eyes and Damien himself describes Gerald as tall or lithe or seductive or words to that effect, he even comments to himself about Gerald's perfect skin! Of course, Gerald himself said that he becomes what people need him to be in order for him to get the most bang for the buck in terms of fear. I can't recall the exact quote but for Damien, Gerald became the most subtle creature of all, civilized evil and seductive. *rawr!*

[carmentalis.livejournal.com]

What blends into it a bit for me is that there is no real female protagonist, who'd end up in the rescuee/follower role most of the time in similar stories. Whenever there's a dramatic rescue needed, Damien gets to drag Gerald to safety. There are the temper tantrums, the quiet comfort scenes after sulking... with a male/female protagonist pair, it would not be anything remarkable, but with these two it gets a somewhat different spin.

I read The Madness Season a while ago, but I can't say it particularly grabbed me. None of her other books did, for that matter. Possibly a case of wrong expectations, but I didn't like the sci-fi settings she created.