[LMB] HH Chapter 24

[Tzivia Adler]

chiming in a bit late, but i suppose better than never ...   and somehow it 
got really, really long.  just as well i waited till i had time to type it 
up.     ziviya

From: "Kalina Varbanova" <kikibug13 at gmail.com>

> I like this chapter - it's a great example of and "everything clicks
> into place" one.
>
yes, it does.  all the pieces of the puzzle finally fit, from ijada to 
learned oswin and everyone in between.

> It starts with Ingrey chosen to be the Hallow King... Horseriver, though 
> half his faces seem furious, finds it necessary to  - is that "smirk"? - 
> at Ingrey. And be glad that oblivion is still  his.
>
actually i find it rather interesting that horseriver's different faces have 
different reactions, from rage to 'ageless, dignified endurance'.   i wonder 
which face was that last?  perhaps from someone who might actually have made 
a good king.  ingrey is going to need lots and lots of endurance for his own 
kingship, however short it may be.

as to oblivion - the original king who was smothered but not beheaded may 
want it, but waht about those other faces?  and i don't think it was 
a -smirk- so much as 'i'm done here, no matter what you manage to do'.

the rainbow of the hallowed kingship itself seems to have given ingrey the 
same charisma that it have horseriver - ingrey had previously goggled upon 
his cousin like a puppy who wanted to be noticed, and now ijada and fara are 
bothing goggling at him.  only, horseriver seemed smug at the attention. 
ingrey felt eaten alive.  why couln't he have felt ... built up?  stand tal 
on a mountain of approval, and all that.

does anyone remember mile's speech to the crew chanting 'naismith! 
naismith!' something like, i stand high bec. i am raised upon your skill, 
while mentally he said, i stand taller than you cuz you're so dumb...

> Meanwhile, Ingrey finds it very difficult to anchor four thousand
> souls in the realm of matter... ...
> It also just like Ingrey to imagine, very quickly, his and Ijada's
> frozen bodies, and no help at all to their quick and hopeless, and
> fruitless, demise.
>
you know, ingrey's bleakness is very entertaining to read about, but i am 
really, really glad i don't know anyone as permanently pessimistic as him.

on the other hand, he tries to tell her to 'save yourself!', which is the 
final words of too many action heros in too many movies.  feh.  i suppose 
being in love is a reason for this, but still.  she can make up her own mind 
as to when its time to run.

> Of course, Ijada herself manages to keep her head - possibly with the
> aid of her knowledge that Ingrey lacks
yes, he seems to be the only one without any guidance dreams.  the only time 
he 'faints' and meets the 'lord of autumn', its to do the task at hand.  and 
later he is warned, 'if you deny me in front of this small company, what 
will you do later?'

but he has no dreams to advise him.  hardly seems fair.  prince jokol might 
not have had dreams either, but the daughter of spring seems to give him 
generous help anyhow.  hmmmm. i wonder if his beautiful beregia (sp?) had a 
dream that he had to go on a voyage and do a great deed before he could 
marry her?  and the greatest deed she could think of was getting rid of fafa 
before he tried to curl up on her feet :)

>- and tries to lend him
> strength - by physical touch, and possibly their shared heart, at the
> top of the dead marshal's standard -
and advice.  she gives him advice while he is to busy panicking to think. 
they make a good partnership here, brains and brawn.  wasn't ingrey supoosed 
to be clever and curious?  why isn't he thinking of any solutions?  maybe 
he's too cold, this panicky autumn evening.

>while he gets the chance to  invite ... the five mortals who will bring the
> gods, to the kingdom that is now _his_.
>
not so much gets the chance as urged by the shivering ijada.  he argues 
(he -always- argues!)  that he is only a king of ghosts and shadows , soon 
to join his subjects.

does anyone know where the phrase ghosts and shadows started?  i seem to 
find httat phrase in lots of fantasy books, including hte title by l*ckey .

> he decides to give his _royal_ permission to the divine Presence ... to 
> enter. And the ghosts, shaken by a shiver of expectation,
> stop crowding them - just as needy, but their dispair held by a
> somewhat puzzled hope. I loved that - despair held by hope; and the
> hope itself is puzzled. It does bring up a feeling of expectation.
> Relieved in the next passage, true, but explicitly seeming an eternity
> to the shivering Hallow King and his Standard Bearer...
>
i didn't quite pick up on the ghosts' astonished hope.  i had focused more 
on the -presence- at the gate.  they were waiting 'impaitiently as 
supplicants on the king's feast day.'  they had been waiting for centuries, 
after all, but i still felt a double take at this line.

also ingrey wanted to sing hymns to call them in, much as cazaril did after 
the daughter's miracle, but he only managed to call permission to come in, 
and that only fater a major effort.   it seems the son is not as generous in 
helping his champion as the daughter was.  caz came down with a bad case of 
poetry, but ingrey didn't.  on the other hand, it is even less in ingrey's 
character to be poetic than it ever was in caz'.  ijada will never had 
poetry to her nose :)

> Jokol's manical smile... I like that image, it really fits together
> with Fafa and his poetry and his falling in love with such a lady...
> And he greets the lost warriors, the ghost, as though they are his
> lost cousins... (I only got this comment on this reading, believe it
> or not... I guess the chapter is sooo action-packed that I ignore the
> comments that are otherwise consistent ... )
>
i dind't pick up on it at all until you pointed it out!  it is squeezed in 
between his bits of dialuge: heloo, this night night will make some song!  i 
wonder if he started composing it yet :) :) :)

> Lewko's theory, humbling - but reasonable - that the five of the
> newcomers are to act as funeral sacred animals. I like that. I can
> also imagine the five of them arguing on their task for two days - and
> Ijada's hurrying ahead not only for the sake of getting to Ingrey
> faster, but to get away from the arguments :)
>
oh yes, oswin wil argue with anyone - didn't he marry hallana so they could 
continue their arguments into indecent hours?  [ did anyone read fire logic 
and earth logic, in which two characters went to bed and had a wonderful 
time - arguing for ages :) that book was so much fun ]

i liked lewko's line, i have been a saint, and this isn't it.  it made me 
laugh, and then laugh harder when he pronounced his conclusion to the 
argument.  humbling indeed!  although, to participate in 4000 funeral 
miracles in one night isn't in any way demeaning.  is it?

ingrey suggested that tehy not delat - the ghosts stared at him with 
'yearning silence, as if he were thier last hope of heaven'.  which in fact 
he was.  did he realize taht yet?

i also liked the line, it matters less where i begin, as -that- i begin.
starting a hard, scary thing is almost always harder than continueing once 
started.
and of course, the ever-bleeding wrist wound comes into use again...

> I like the ceremony of release - the Hallow King giving a living
> touch, a drop of his blood - and maybe a touch of the royal miasma too
> - then Oswin, Hallana, Biast, Jokol, and Lewko collecting the ghosts
> to respectively the Father, the Mother, Son, Daughter, and dratsaB.
>
3 parts at the start of the ceremony i liked -
1- the first ghost tried to reasssure ingrey, who must have looked awfully 
nervous.  apparently the duty of king to subject runs from subject to king, 
after all.  if you have a king who holds up his side of the bargin...

2- oswin experiencing his god for the first time (he said in an earlier 
chapter that he had never met his god, didn't he?) and being completely 
over-whelmed by it.  apparetnly being the funeral animal is not humbling at 
all.

3-  when biast comes to stand for the son, he asks if he should call ingrey 
'sire'.  the ever-practical ingrey says, you needn't call me anyting, as 
long as you to teh task at hand.  i love that line.  ingrey is -so- not a 
politician!

towards the end of hte ceremony, ingery came to the darkathans, with no 
spirit animals:  he signed htem all the same, they thanked him all the same, 
and he sent them to their gods, all the same.

that repetition just made me all shivery.

the wolfcliff woman who indulged herself with a kiss on his lips was just 
charming, if rather dead.  the contact chilled ingrey but seemed to warm 
her:   a fair trade.      -that's- not  a typical ingrey thought, is it?

not all the ghosts want to go to heaven.  ingrey can't force them.  he gives 
them the bit of blood, all the same.  there's that line agian.  oswin says, 
'the meaning of yes is created by the ability to say no.'
i think i want to put that line on an icon...

> The old kings had two tasks - to lead their people into battle, and to
> return them to their homes. Horseriver failed in the second.
he has to lead them home again, yes.
wencel worse than failed.  if you go by terry pratchet's rule of war - 
subtract your casualties from theirs, and if the number is positive, then it 
was a glorious victory - that would be a failure for the weald.  but wencel 
went further than that.

he lost their hope of heaven, and kept his own life going (even if only by 
accident) until he got tired of living, and in sundering himself he would 
consign all his once loyal followers to fading ghost-hood.  wencel not only 
lost the war, he lost the spirts of his followers.  that is beyond dreadful. 
( the spirits of random enemy darkathans would also be sundered, but 
collateral damage like that somehow never makes it into the acount...)

> It is really not nice for somebody who lived that long to leave their
> responsibility to their heirs. Horseriver, from that point of view,
> lost all claim to my pity.
is that the first time he lost your pity?  i don't think he ever had mine.

> Horseriver's madness and despair, I think, are used by Ingrey to point
> out to Biast what Biast should know to be wrong, and to know what is
> right.
that's interesting.  i know ingrey was trying to find out what biast would 
be like as king, like at the trial, but i didn't notice this one.

>  He first tries to separate at least  one of the souls from the Horseriver 
> amalgam, the one of the boy he once knew...  but he does fail.
i found that very frustrating.  horseriver may be a rotten soul, but what 
did poor wencel ever do?  the other over-ridden souls had no choice, either. 
why can't they be sepearted out?  some faces look to the gods with longing, 
some are bitter.  can't they choose to be sundered or not?  or did their 
choice-in-death disapear at the same time their choice-in-life disappeared 
when they were over-ridden.

a bit later - biast isn't jealous of of ingrey's kingship anymore.  he is 
too drained to want it.     a good author thinks of these details, like four 
beads on a long thread:  not many sentences for biast thinking about 
ingrey's hallow kingship, but they do pop up through the chapter instead of 
one paragraph dump at the end.

before ingrey releases the bannerman, he asks for a moment of time.  the 
bannerman signals that all his time is ingrey's.  i would like to know more 
about this guy who is gracious - and curious - beyond death, even beyond all 
his contemporaries' final deaths.

> And then, an old-fashioned wedding ceremony. All the elements about it
> are perfect, I don't feel the need to comment on it.
well, i do :)  ingrey thinks ijada should marry a king - this made me think 
of miles telling ekaterin she should have a planet.  bujold's heros do htink 
big for the ladies in their lives.  why make do with cramped wishes? :)

2 princes and a princes for a royal wedding, good.  the 3 temple divines of 
good character - that detail was missing from ingrey being a witness for 
ijada, lo these many chapters ago...  and a poet who will immortalize this 
moment before we get back to civilization, and can't wait to tell his own 
bride about it ;)    which will he turn into a saga first, the whole night 
or just this chunk of it?  and which other - or rather, how many-  saga is 
really a chunk of another, longer one?

'you can have all the ceremonis later, with better clothes or whatever - as 
long as their with me.'    that is just so sweet.  of course a girl likes a 
wedding with 3 months of work on the gown...  why should ijada miss all the 
fun of angsting over a wedding, even if she's already married?

when ingrey tries to persuade further, ijada touches his lips to stillness. 
very nice, but she nearly knocked him over!  so she pushed the banner-pole 
lower..  ingrey still wobbles after they jump, but she helps him.  a good 
sign for their marriage.

he starts to make it a quick kiss, but she stretches it out.  this seems to 
be another fantasy standard.  why, are the men all shy?  or the women all 
bold?

> Then the release of the marshal. ... he stayed  around long enough to see 
> all his charges released, and seeing the  joining of the two who shared 
> their hearts with the magic of the forest ...  He is my third-favourite 
> secondary character (right after Jokol and Hallana).
>
heh - right up there with teh favorites, yes.   although to be fair, he 
didn't particularly have a choice aobut being last, did he?

> ...
> I also like Lewko's thoughts on imagining the same tiring and horrible
> trip _with_ Fafa...
roflol

> Then there is a settling conversation between Biast and Ingrey. I
> think Biast is disproportionately frightened of the idea that Ingrey
> may want the Hallow throne, but then, I have not been under the
> influence of Ingrey's royal charisma...
>
i'm not sure it was disproportionate.  ingrey is, in fact the hallow king. 
biast is not.  why should ingrey give it up?  as far as biast knows, no 
reason.  if ingrey were king, queen ijada's trial could be over -real 
quick-, with positive resutls.   biast wants to be king.  how does he know 
that ingrey doesn't secretly want it too?  ingrey is off-caste enough about 
other things.  he argues with anyone, he deals with rough people and 
polished people as suits, with sword or bribe or - when hetward uses ingrey 
to givesthe bribe, there is a strongly implied threat along with it.  if 
ingrey insisted on keeping the throne, would hetwar back him?  or would he 
try a civil war to put a kin-staghorne back on teh royal, non-hallow throne?

it is ingrey who realizes that his hallow kingship is bound by space and 
time, but he does not inlighten biast.   neither does he meekly hand over 
the wolf standard to teh prince.  (has ingrey done anything meekly since he 
worked for hetwar?  not in this book, certainlly)

not until ijada asks his permission to fire the forest does he sort of 
reassure biast. he tells her, it is only my realm till dawn.  tomorrow it is 
yours again.
author does not mention if biast took the hint.

other interesting points:  hallana calling the horses, and oswin being not 
surprised when they answer...    teh burning banner tossed in the air, and 
the banner pole coming down as a hundred burning pieces - instant forest 
fire ...   ingrey saing its time to go.  definetly.  briskly even.  that is 
just so snarky of him.  ...  later on, lewko helps ingrey walk to the 
campfire, adn hallan's muttering 'dratsaB' is more alarming htan ingrey's 
weakness ... lewko being uncertain about taking this group of people on the 
road, but 'he can count to five' , and at least fafa didn't come!

i usually skip scenery paragraphs, but somehow i caugt 'the bloody light 
reflected off hte charcoal colored clouds.   that line is just so suited to 
the whole chapter... and it means fire will be put out by rain, which is 
good.  we don't want ijada's dower land completely destroyed.

the last conversation between biast and ingrey. i shall pursue a courtiers 
ambition - pause to let biast sweat - and marry an heiress, and retire to 
her estate.  if she doesn't get hanged.
biast says if you can't trust me and hetwar (which i'm not sure ingrey does 
in this particular case, either one)  at least trust oswin and lewko. 
surely they 2 will get her justice, and maybe even mercy.  and mercy means 
something more after horseriver's sundering, than it did at ijada's original 
trial.
somehow hallana is not mentioned.  does she have no influence, even though 
she is a double divine?

finally, biast comes right out and says he will not contest ingrey if he 
watns the kngship.  and ingrey finally comes right out and says his kingship 
was loaned, was over no one still breathing, and lasted only one night. 
then he gave it back.  and all kings have to give it back, eventually. 
that's where horesriver went so wrong.

ziviya, who did not think of many of htese paragraphs until kalina triggered 
my brain.  so thanks, kalina you were great! 



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