[Mercedes-Lackey] Re: The Halls have re-opened -- Party!

[Layla Voll]

**knocks on door with foot, holding pan of chocolate chip brownies*

Hello?  Am I early?  Not very fashionable, I know.

Anyway.... to begin with,  my favorite Joust book was the first, and I liked 
the books less as the series went on.  The first one, though, had the same 
sort of "setting up the world" quality that "Arrows of the Queen" has, or 
"Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone," and I enjoy those kinds of books, 
particularly because you get to discover all the neat background quirks of 
this new world.

So, that may partly explain why Ari is my favorite character.  In "Joust", 
he's probably the most complex character, particularly in his conflict over 
the evils of war: one the one hand, he is deeply loyal to his country and 
wants to protect the average farmer from the depredations of war. On the 
other hand, in "Joust" he is starting to recognize that the people who are 
ultimately in charge do not have his same noble motives in mind.  I also 
enjoyed a couple of the other characters who end up also defecting fom Tia, 
particularly Haraket and Baken, again perhaps because they, like Ari, are 
struggling to do the right thing in an imperfect world.

Vetch is very likeable, but, as someone who is now significantly older than 
Vetch was in "Joust," I found myself sympathizing and relating much more 
Ari's trials and dilemmas, like how best to mentor an initially hostile 
child, or how to manouvre through the court politics.  In later books, as 
Vetch comes into his own, Ari is less central, and, perhaps, a little less 
interestimg (now that he's not so conflicted).  Ari reminded me a little bit 
of Alberich, and their roles in the plot are somewhat parallel: in the 
Exiles books, Alberich has his own interesting moral dilemma, which he 
mostly works through, and is more of an advisor figure in later books.


Layla