The Bone Doll's Twin, Lynn Flewelling
Oct. 5th, 2010 11:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yelosonMy friend loaned me this book which was a fun and intriguing read, though it definitely had some problematic elements. I'm interested enough to keep reading the rest of the trilogy at least.
So, you have this kingdom that has a prophecy that as long as a Queen rules, it shall never fall. Problem is, the last Queen was insane and tyranical - so after she passes, her son takes over in her place.
Which was working well for about 20 years, but things like famine, plague and drought constantly assail the land, and while he's not as much of a tyrant, he's still doing stuff like killing off female nobles who might inherit the land and beginning a pogrom against wizards.
That said, the one relative he won't kill, is his sister. Who ends up giving birth to twins - a boy and a girl. A few wizards, led by prophecy, have arranged to perform forbidden magic to hide the girl - the boy dies but the girl takes the form of a boy until they can establish her rule.
They succeed, mostly. The problem is they were supposed to prevent the boy from having his first breath (so the "spirit doesn't enter" the body) and fucked up. Which means instead of a simply a dead child, they've got a dead-ghost child that's bound to the earth as long as the sister holds his form.
Yeah, he's not happy about that either.
The book follows the girl, Tobin as she grows up, over protected and under informed, slowly teasing out bits of info about her destiny while getting caught up in politics. The relationship between her and her ghost brother is really interesting, and doesn't go in any of the expected directions I thought it would.
The writing about the levels of dysfunction in her family and the issues of being ill equipped to interact normally is something I think is really well done.
The book never does the big exposition thing that a lot of fantasy books do, "Oh, here are all the gods, and how they work" "Here is all the magic, and how it works" "Here is all the nations, and how they work" - instead you catch glimpses based on conversations and it flows very well. All of the fantastic elements never overshadow human nature and the way people act, which makes it really come alive.
The problematic stuff? Well, for a book that's effectively about genderswapping, there's some elements that play up the gender essentialism- for example, Tobin likes to play with dolls, or isn't into girls... which twigs some flags for me in terms of how the author is treating it. On the flip side, there's also a scene where someone explains to Tobin that homosexuality isn't something to be ashamed of and it's not a thing, even though it's not really talked about.
The most problematic thing revolves around one character, Lhel, who is a witch, a woman of color, highly sexualized, and lives in the woods. She speaks a broken version of their language, too.
...
She's very "of the earth" kind of stereotype. On one hand, she's the only one who actually knows what the fuck she's doing and acknowledges that the wizards are arrogant fools who only have half a clue- and that makes her kind of awesome.
On the other hand, she's not really allowed to be a full character. She's sexualized in that she's the character most mentioned that people are noticing as sexy (including Tobin... who isn't into girls...).
And, also, she basically exists as the walking plot device. After performing the genderswap magic, she then decides to live in the woods for 12 years, cut off from all human contact watching over Tobin in secret. Can you say magical negro?
Um.
We also get a description of her hair that uses both "curly" and "coarse", and later, that she's missing teeth. UM. Which, if we're going to be literally medieval, sure, but then a LOT of folks need to be missing teeth and this wouldn't be unusual. And if we're doing "fantasy medieval" where dentistry is handwaved away, I have the feeling that the woman who can magic up a genderswap operation probably can figure out HOW TO KEEP HER TEETH CLEAN.
Garrrgh.
I'm going to check out the later books, only because the stuff going on with Tobin is pretty awesome and interesting, and the setting is interesting as well. But, obviously Lhel needs more agency and less stereotype plot device.
So, you have this kingdom that has a prophecy that as long as a Queen rules, it shall never fall. Problem is, the last Queen was insane and tyranical - so after she passes, her son takes over in her place.
Which was working well for about 20 years, but things like famine, plague and drought constantly assail the land, and while he's not as much of a tyrant, he's still doing stuff like killing off female nobles who might inherit the land and beginning a pogrom against wizards.
That said, the one relative he won't kill, is his sister. Who ends up giving birth to twins - a boy and a girl. A few wizards, led by prophecy, have arranged to perform forbidden magic to hide the girl - the boy dies but the girl takes the form of a boy until they can establish her rule.
They succeed, mostly. The problem is they were supposed to prevent the boy from having his first breath (so the "spirit doesn't enter" the body) and fucked up. Which means instead of a simply a dead child, they've got a dead-ghost child that's bound to the earth as long as the sister holds his form.
Yeah, he's not happy about that either.
The book follows the girl, Tobin as she grows up, over protected and under informed, slowly teasing out bits of info about her destiny while getting caught up in politics. The relationship between her and her ghost brother is really interesting, and doesn't go in any of the expected directions I thought it would.
The writing about the levels of dysfunction in her family and the issues of being ill equipped to interact normally is something I think is really well done.
The book never does the big exposition thing that a lot of fantasy books do, "Oh, here are all the gods, and how they work" "Here is all the magic, and how it works" "Here is all the nations, and how they work" - instead you catch glimpses based on conversations and it flows very well. All of the fantastic elements never overshadow human nature and the way people act, which makes it really come alive.
The problematic stuff? Well, for a book that's effectively about genderswapping, there's some elements that play up the gender essentialism- for example, Tobin likes to play with dolls, or isn't into girls... which twigs some flags for me in terms of how the author is treating it. On the flip side, there's also a scene where someone explains to Tobin that homosexuality isn't something to be ashamed of and it's not a thing, even though it's not really talked about.
The most problematic thing revolves around one character, Lhel, who is a witch, a woman of color, highly sexualized, and lives in the woods. She speaks a broken version of their language, too.
...
She's very "of the earth" kind of stereotype. On one hand, she's the only one who actually knows what the fuck she's doing and acknowledges that the wizards are arrogant fools who only have half a clue- and that makes her kind of awesome.
On the other hand, she's not really allowed to be a full character. She's sexualized in that she's the character most mentioned that people are noticing as sexy (including Tobin... who isn't into girls...).
And, also, she basically exists as the walking plot device. After performing the genderswap magic, she then decides to live in the woods for 12 years, cut off from all human contact watching over Tobin in secret. Can you say magical negro?
Um.
We also get a description of her hair that uses both "curly" and "coarse", and later, that she's missing teeth. UM. Which, if we're going to be literally medieval, sure, but then a LOT of folks need to be missing teeth and this wouldn't be unusual. And if we're doing "fantasy medieval" where dentistry is handwaved away, I have the feeling that the woman who can magic up a genderswap operation probably can figure out HOW TO KEEP HER TEETH CLEAN.
Garrrgh.
I'm going to check out the later books, only because the stuff going on with Tobin is pretty awesome and interesting, and the setting is interesting as well. But, obviously Lhel needs more agency and less stereotype plot device.
no subject
Date: 2010-10-05 08:15 pm (UTC)I do remember really liking the ghost aspects with Brother and the mother in this one though. It pinged all my horror-loving vices.
no subject
Date: 2010-10-05 09:57 pm (UTC)I couldn't remember though that Lhel was a POC, that makes her portrayal problematic in ways I hadn't considered -- a thank you to the OP for the reminder.
no subject
Date: 2010-10-05 10:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-05 08:32 pm (UTC)