When I first read the book it seemed blindingly clear that Therru is the next Archmage -- so therefore a mage-to-be, whatever else she is. Her being a child of Segoy complicates that, and without getting into spoilers the last book complicates it further... I have thoughts and theories about this, but it's fair to say the question of what kinds of power she has isn't a simple one!
I still have no intuitive sympathy for the "this ending weakens what the rest of the book is doing" response -- I can see it intellectually, but it's like someone seeing red where I see white. To me, it's been heavily foreshadowed (Therru is an uncanny child of whom a great wizard has said "They will fear her", and a future woman of Gont in a book where we've been told that's somehow the key phrase to finding the next archmage), so in that sense it's absolutely in keeping with what the book's doing. And I don't really get the idea that it's a betrayal of anything in the book for power to come to the aid of weakness in the face of Aspen's power. Sometimes I do find it overly pat -- one of UKLG's "I must do plot resolution now and here's a dragon I left lying around earlier" moments. Sometimes I find it highly satisfying.
The thing I've never liked is Kalesin turning out to be Segoy. It makes the world smaller. More on this if we end up talking about The Other Wind, maybe.
When I first read your reply above I was also standing in the film soc queue, intermittently discussing the feral intensity of the film soc queue with three delightful elderly ladies who had raced me for first place in line... so I missed the answer to my question about the books on your shelf. Sorry! I look forward to hearing more of them, as and when.
(And also, not to break totally from the thread topic, I'm still smiling to myself at odd moments as I remember bits of that film. Most absurd and most delightful; and as the film soc notes say, so innocent. Almost the last moment someone could make a film about Nazis being merely sinister buffoons).
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Re: Entirely full of spoilers
Date: 2024-03-19 01:09 am (UTC)I still have no intuitive sympathy for the "this ending weakens what the rest of the book is doing" response -- I can see it intellectually, but it's like someone seeing red where I see white. To me, it's been heavily foreshadowed (Therru is an uncanny child of whom a great wizard has said "They will fear her", and a future woman of Gont in a book where we've been told that's somehow the key phrase to finding the next archmage), so in that sense it's absolutely in keeping with what the book's doing. And I don't really get the idea that it's a betrayal of anything in the book for power to come to the aid of weakness in the face of Aspen's power. Sometimes I do find it overly pat -- one of UKLG's "I must do plot resolution now and here's a dragon I left lying around earlier" moments. Sometimes I find it highly satisfying.
The thing I've never liked is Kalesin turning out to be Segoy. It makes the world smaller. More on this if we end up talking about The Other Wind, maybe.
When I first read your reply above I was also standing in the film soc queue, intermittently discussing the feral intensity of the film soc queue with three delightful elderly ladies who had raced me for first place in line... so I missed the answer to my question about the books on your shelf. Sorry! I look forward to hearing more of them, as and when.
(And also, not to break totally from the thread topic, I'm still smiling to myself at odd moments as I remember bits of that film. Most absurd and most delightful; and as the film soc notes say, so innocent. Almost the last moment someone could make a film about Nazis being merely sinister buffoons).