#Tylendel

[isnt-it-pretty]

I need to talk to somebody about Last Herald-Mage fic ideas/concepts/canon divergence AUs I am GNAWING on them. Please send help. They've been rotating in my head live a microwave.

[forrestghostss]

[enderfeather]

Curls

[abookfairy]

Magic's Pawn, by Mercedes Lackey

I have known about the Valdemar series for a long time. I cannot remember exactly when I first heard of it, but it has been on my radar for years at this point. So recently, I finally decided to finally get it over with and start with what has been described as one of the best trilogy in that universe : The Last Herald-Mage series, featuring the legendary Vanyel.

After reading it, I finally understand what has made this series so popular. Vanyel is a fascinating character, and I greatly admire the author for not giving him an “ideal hero” type of personality, at least in the first book. Vanyel is beautiful, clever, and the best Herald-Mage of all time, but he is also vain, has a tendency to self-pity, can be a bit selfish, and is deeply hurt after years of abuse that made it difficult for him to trust people. This is a combination of character trait that I do not expect in a classic fantasy series, especially one written in the 80s (but perhaps my expectations of a classic fantasy series hero are a bit skewed). Vanyel is also gay, which is something that is definitely out of the norm for a fantasy series written in the 80s. Speaking of, I was surprised by how real the LGBT+ representation was in the first book : aside from Vanyel being gay, Tylendel is bisexual and Starwind and Moondance are a gay couple. Tylendel dies, but it is completely unrelated to his sexuality, and he is a developed character whose death greatly impacts those who loved him, especially Vanyel. While there are a few questionable things here and there, it is still much better than one could expect or hope for the time period, at least in my opinion.

Vanyel’s abuse and the consequences of it are represented in an interesting way that felt very compelling and realistic. I really like when works of fiction acknowledge that abuse does not make you a saint and can give you some deep personality flaws. Vanyel’s vanity, self-pitying tendencies and lack of trust in people almost cut him off from forming true connections with people. Furthermore, he doesn’t find a true community that fully accepts him as soon as he lives the abusive one, which is a trope that I fully understand (wish-fulfillement and everything) but that I don’t necessarily like. Even at the end, when he is in a much better place that he started in and has made some positive relationships, he is still not fully content with his life, which is understandable.

I also found very interesting the way adults were depicted in that novel when it comes to their relationship with Vanyel. Mostly, they all fail him in some way or another. Some redeem themselves and learn from their mistakes, like Savil (who is one of my favorite characters) and some have to leave Vanyel’s life, like his father. However, even if Vanyel manages to find some trusted adults and mentors, like Starwind, Moondance, and Savil after Tylendel’s death, the impact of the rejection and abuse he has suffered from means that the damage is already done. In fact, this is what this book felt to me : less of a self-contained plot, and more of an explanation of how it got to this point, how Vanyel became who he was. Perhaps this is what this trilogy was intended to be : an explanation of Vanyel, his choices, and why he made them, less than a traditional story.

It could also probably be a plea in favour of therapy for kids! Seriously, so many things would have turned out better if Vanyel and Tylendel had been sent to therapy (or its universe equivalent) from the start.

Speaking of Tylendel, I liked his relationship with Vanyel, as flawed as it was. He was the first person, aside from Lissa, to actually bother to try to understand him and give him affection. He was a ray of hope for Vanyel, which was why his death hit so hard, both for the characters and the readers. The most cruel thing is indeed to give a man hope and then snatch it away. However, it is also clear that Tylended could never completely be what Vanyel needed. Vanyel needed a protector and a lover, but he also needed a companion to help him grow, and Tylendel was simply way too inexperienced to understand that. I have read some spoilers about Tylendel though, so we’ll see what happens in the next books.

Overall, I greatly enjoyed this introduction to the Valdemar world. The characters were well-written, their relationships touching, and the world itself is interesting. I look forward to reading the next book.

[checkoutmybookshelf]

The Trilogy I Read When I Need Sad and Fury

*CONTENT WARNINGS FOR THIS POST:* Mentions of sexuality, sexual assault, depression, and suicide. Take care of you, and skip over this post if any of these topics aren't a good choice to engage with!

So this is not my original copy of these three books. My originals are in the book tubs in my Dad's basement in Alaska. So this copy is on my bookshelf because I was overwhelmed and sad in the first year we moved, and quite frankly, Mercedes Lackey's the Last Herald Mage Trilogy is what I reach for when I need a good solid cry. This heckin' chonky omnibus edition holds three complete novels: Magic's Pawn, Magic's Promise, and Magic's Price. Let's talk Herald Mage Vanyel Ashkevron.

Mercedes Lackey, similar to but less egregiously than Jim Butcher, is an author I sometimes need to raise my eyebrows at. But we'll start with the good things (and there are many of those) about these books.

Magic's Pawn begins with simultaneously spoiled and neglected rich boy Vanyel, who fits into his family home about as well as a square peg in a round hole. He desperately wants to be a Bard, but lacks the qualifications to be accepted into the Bardic Collegium. Once his father is completely fed up with Vanyel, he is shipped off to his Aunt Savil at the Collegium, where he can take classes and figure out his life.

Figuring out his life for Vanyel entails falling head over heels for his Aunt's Herald Mage trainee, Tylendel, and finally putting a name--shay'a'chern--to his own sexuality. Vanyel is happy with Tylendel for a hot five minutes before Tylendel chooses violence and massacres the family that murdered his twin brother, and then commits suicide in the aftermath. The aftermath also involves Vanyel catching a brainful of magical backlash that basically triggers every potential magical gift Vanyel could have gotten. He also ends up seriously ill and depressed because all of this went down in a storm, he lost his lifebonded, and could hear people's thoughts and interpreted them as blaming him for Tylendel's death. Vanyel then also attempts to commit suicide, but is unsuccessful.

Literally the only good thing about this three-day period in Vanyel's life is that he bonds with Yfandes, a companion, and she can mitigate some of his new powers and reassure him that he is loved.

To save her nephew's life, Savil takes Vanyel to the Hawkbrothers. This works, and Vanyel is trained in both Hawkbrother techniques and as a Herald Mage.

Magic's Promise opens with a fully trained, adult, and notorious Herald Mage Vanyel returning from a campaign along the Karsite border. He is UNDERSTANDABLY burnt out, and heads up to his family home for what turns out to be the worst trip home ever. Half the castle is accusing him of banging everything on the estate down to the sheep, and the other half is trying to seduce him.

To make things worse, Vanyel has to take a child with an out-of-control gift that on first blush appears to have murdered an entire neighboring castle (it didn't, the poor kid was set up). The kid is also a dead ringer (pun not intended but I'm leaving it) for Tylendel, which wasn't helping Vanyel on any level.

To make things even more complicated, Vanyel has set himself out to stud; he is secretly the father of Shavri's daughter. This is complicated because Shavri is the king's lifebonded, Vanyel is getting confusing feelings about her, and the king is dying of a vaguely defined wasting disease.

This book was mostly eyebrow raising, if I'm being honest.

The final book, Magic's Price, gets even more eyebrow-raising because if the previous book was setting up a ton of heartache and really super sketchy prejudices, this one kicks it up to 11 and aims it all at Vanyel. From watching his king die slowly and painfully (eyebrow raise over the "chronically and terminally ill person is an object of abject pity) to getting stabbed in his family home to getting beated and raped (massive eyebrow raise, we don't need to keep doing the rape trauma plotline) to dying holding an army back alone.

It might possibly sound like I don't like this trilogy; that's not accurate. This is my go-to "I need a good cry" and "I need a good rage session" trilogy, and the storytelling and sheer heart in the trilogy are never not compelling and well plotted. It just has a lot of eyebrow raising, and it's a very heavy trilogy that tends to lean perhaps overly much on sexual assualt trauma in books two and three.

I'm starting to get the sense that my relationship with a lot of my books is most accurately summed up as "It's Complicated" and y'know what? We're leaning into that, because my Mercedes Lackey shelf is overflowing and there is a reason for that.

[meat-loving-meat]

the stranglehold of grief

traced

[slate021fr]

Day 2 - Current FR Avatar - @dragonaday-fr

Even though I have my sona dragon, Tylendel (my custom progen) has been my avatar for over 4 years now! My account looks weird without her face, so I don’t intend to change it haha

[artbyvampiraptor]

Vanyel and Tylendel from Magic's Pawn by Mercedes Lackey ;u;

[softlysilverfountainsfall]

Savil's death was the most devastating one in the entire Herald Mage Trilogy and I will die on this hill.

"I [Vanyel] can take care of it tomorrow. It's not that urgent...It can wait until morning. He watched the fire through half-closed eyes, listening to Stef breathe, and waited for sleep to take him. Then the peace of the evening shattered.

:VANYEL!:

He was out of bed and grabbing his clothes before Stef woke.

:VAN—:

Savil's cry was cut off, abruptly, and Vanyel doubled up and fell to the floor—Pain—knives of fire [...] Then, nothing—" (Ch 15, Magic's Price)

You can hear her screaming through the all-caps mindspeech. You can hear her desperately calling out to Vanyel, her beloved nephew and protégée for help, the strongest herald-mage in Valdemar and now the last.

You know exactly when she dies because her cry for help is brutally cut off in the middle of Vanyel's name.

"Savil's door was locked; Vanyel kicked it open. His aunt lay in the center of a circle of destruction; furniture overturned, lamps knocked over, papers scattered. Blood everywhere. [...] Claw and teeth marks on Savil's throat and torso showed that she'd put up a fight. A trail of greenish ichor and a broken-bladed knife told that her enemy had not escaped unscathed.

"Not that it mattered to him. The damage was already done, and this time Vanyel's hard-won detachment failed entirely. While the others checked the locks, and looked for clues or any sign of what had attacked her, he sank down to his knees beside the body, and took one limp hand in his—and wept.

Oh, gods—Savil, you were right, and I didn't listen to you. Now you're gone, and it's all my fault. . . ."

"'She was afraid she was going to be next; she asked me to help her, and I just thought she was being hysterical. I promised to strengthen her wards, and I didn't; I forgot. This is all my fault—'"

You are devastated by Vanyel's heartbreak as he curses himself for not listening to her, for putting it off when she said someone was targeting the herald mages and asked him to help her.

"She's never going to sit there in her chair and expound at me again. I can't ever ask her for advice. She'll never take on Father for me—she was my mother in everything but flesh, and I failed her, I failed her, when I'd promised to help her. He hung his head, and closed his eyes, choking down the sob that rose and cut off his breathing" (emphasis mine).

Savil was a rock for Vanyel and thus for the reader throughout the trilogy (and her death is near the end of the last book & the catalyst for the end). She was very human and fallible but steady, devoted, and talented mentor and mage.

But what about Tylendel?, you say. Yes, Tylendel's death was awful, but it doesn't get nearly the lengthy treatment that Savil's does, and...there was a lot of other stuff going on. But what about Vanyel?, you say. Well, there is a reason that I put off reading the last part of Magic's Price, and it's because Vanyel's death is horribly devastating, but also victorious, and he gets his happy afterlife.

"Savil, Savil, I'm so sorry—and sorry isn't enough. Sorry won't bring you back. Tears escaped from under his closed eyelids, and etched their way down his cheeks. He couldn't swallow; he could hardly breathe." (Ch 15, Magic's Price)

She called for him. The last thing Savil ever did was call Vanyel for help. He was down the hall from her and much, much too far away.

[bosmermage]

Character who is moon-coded. But not in the traditional "serene beauty" way. Character who is moon coded in the way they orbit the earth, shining down their smile on all it's inhabitants. In the way that they draw their light from their sun, but shine all that light down on everyone around them, leaving them and their beloved cold in the end. Who pushes and pulls the fate of the world like a tide around their constant steady pulses of reflected light. Character who doesn't simply smile sadly and turn to motes of light but instead unleashes all the light they have accumulated from the people around them in a singular deadly blaze of glory.

Character who is sun-coded but not in the traditional "ray of sunshine" way. Character who is sun-coded in the sense that they're revered by the masses but their light is blinding, poisonous fire that destroys everything unshielded. In the sense that they force everything into an orbit around them. In the sense that they seduce Icaruses to fly too close to reach their light and be burned, but they don't care. In the sense that for all their fiery blaze, they're destroying themselves with it. In the sense that they run hotter as they grow older, but instead of going out in a blaze of glory that takes everything down with them like they might have wanted to, they just fizzle out and fade away. In the sense the rest of the world will outlive them.

[isnt-it-pretty]

Anyway reading The Last Herald-Mage is going great

[forrestghostss]

Been too busy recently. Vanyel posting will resume when I feel more inspired, I hit a wall on my big piece and got fed up.

[halibellecter]

I, too, would like off of this wild ride... or for it to slow down a little... phew...

me, opening to the first page of Magic's Pawn: "oh boy, Talia's story was like a cup of hot chocolate with occasional bittersweet chunks, to make you appreciate the comforting sweetness of Valdemar and the Heralds all the more. I can't wait to see how this Vanyel kid fares."

200 pages later: "i want to get off mercedes lackey's wild ride"

[inexplicifics]

i love reading all these little WIP snippets! there are so many interesting ones, and i'm really excited to get to read several of them.

i'm also very curious to know who Vanyel is, and how they end up in Kaer Morhen

Vanyel is a character from Mercedes Lackey's Magic's Price series, one of the early Valdemar installments. The series is notable for how incredibly thoroughly it whumps the poor man. He spends large portions of it Very Unhappy and most of the nice things he gets are taken away from him in the most dramatic fashion possible.

...So of course I've sent him to Kaer Morhen so he and his soulmate (the first iteration thereof, it's a long story) can be happy without all the Drama. Or at least with less of the Drama.

As to how he got to Kaer Morhen...

And a gash opens in the air in the center of the circle. It’s a horrible, pulsing, nightmarish thing, black as pitch and radiating malice, and it seems to have a gravity all its own. The Herald-Mages all stumble forward, towards it, though they are clearly trying desperately to stay back. One step, two, and then Herald-Mage Jaysen steps on a hummock and turns his ankle and tumbles forward and the gash in the air devours him. His Companion leaps after him, of course. And their fall seems to give the gash in the air greater strength, as the other Herald-Mages and their Companions scream in rage and pain and are pulled inexorably closer to its heart. Unbonded Companions dart forward to grab the Herald-Mages by their collars and pull them away, and are hauled forward themselves instead, their hooves leaving long divots in the ground. “Lendel!” Vanyel howls and sprints forward. He can’t lose Tylendel. He can’t.

[oscargender]

Feeling intensely emo about Vanyel Ashkevron again

Like. He is an INCREDIBLE character because he cannot exist without the context of the politics and worldbuilding of Valdemar. There is no such thing as a Modern AU!Vanyel--he just isn't the same character without the grief of losing Tylendel, without the isolation of being the final mage of Valdemar, without the sense of dread that his Foresight dream gives every minute of his life. And, most importantly, he cannot be Vanyel Ashkevron without Yfandes and his duty as a Herald.

There is an unimaginable sadness at the core of his person--every part of his life, from the death of his first lover to his death to protect Valdemar, is a tragedy. He experiences flashes of happiness, but nothing can come close to the intensity of his goddamned sense of duty. Not even a future with Stefen can tempt him away from running headfirst into a glorious, heroic suicide. He is THE candle being burned at both ends

All this being said, it's important to remember that he's ALSO hopelessly dramatic and self-obsessed

[meat-loving-meat]

Sometimes I’ll start feeling self-conscious about all the changes to canon events that I’m making in my nuclear weapons AU and then I