#but when haplo is the one who might be in danger...

[dgc-trash]

I'm not asking you to kill! The realization struck Alfred. Incapacitate. Of course. That’s what she’d said. Incapacitate.

What had he been thinking? A shudder, starting inside the marrow of his bones, shook Alfred’s body. All he’d been able to think of was killing.

And he’d actually considered it!

It’s this world, he decided, horrified at himself. This world of death where nothing is permitted to die. That and the battle in the Labyrinth. And his anxiety, his soul-wrenching anxiety over Haplo. Alfred was so close to finding his friend, and these—his enemies—were blocking his way. Fear, anger ...

"Make all the excuses you want," Alfred accused himself. "But the truth of the matter is this—for one single instant, I was looking forward to it! When Marit told me to cast a spell, I saw the bodies of those Patryns lying at my feet and I was glad they were dead!"

(The Seventh Gate, chapter 12)

Remember when Alfred was ready to straight-up start killing random strangers because they were blocking his path to finding Haplo?

[deathgatesideblog]

Top 10 “Haplo loves Alfred” quotes, ranked

Under the read more, exactly what it says on the tin. This is obviously a non-inclusive list, and honestly there are so many quotes that I’m sure I forgot some good ones, but, y’know, here ya go. 

10. Serpent Mage, Haplo compares the color of his runes to Alfred’s eyes.

The sigla were as yet only faintly visible– a blue as pale and weak as the eyes of that fool Sartan, Alfred.

A pretty incredible quote which reminds us how much Alfred is on Haplo’s mind. There’s basically no reason for Haplo to be thinking about Alfred in this context; Haplo just sees his faded runes and the comparison he comes up with is Alfred’s eyes. This gets the tenth spot because while it IS pretty wild that Haplo would make this comparison with regards to something as important to his life and even identity, it IS with his weakened, faded runes, and he DOES still manage to do it as insultingly as possible.

9. Hand of Chaos, Haplo’s journal entry.

What do you think of your power for good now, Alfred? …As you fight for your life in the Labyrinth. I’ll tell you what I think of it. I think it’s a lot like you– weak and bumbling. Although I must admit that you came through for us in our fight against the serpents– if that was you who turned into the serpent mage, as Grundle claimed. But when it came to standing up for yourself against Samah (and I’ll lay odds that you could have taken the bastard), you ‘couldn’t remember the spell.’

Another classic “Haplo tries to insult Alfred and inadvertently reveals how much he thinks about him” line, here. Not only is there the comparison to a power for good to oppose the dragon-snakes-- sorry, a “weak and bumbling” power, my bad-- but even larger to me is Haplo’s insistence that Alfred could definitely have beaten Samah in a battle of magic. That’s SAMAH, universally considered to be THE most powerful Sartan.

8. Elven Star, Haplo feels an affinity towards Alfred.

The Patryn had met only one Sartan before—the bumbling man of Arianus who called himself Alfred Montbank. And though Haplo hadn’t recognized it at the time, he came to realize that he felt an affinity for Alfred. Deadly enemies, they were strangers to the rest of the world—but they were not strangers to each other.

It’s a bit unclear to me whether the text is saying that Haplo realized he felt this affinity during Elven Star or not until later books. He also comments in Elven Star that Alfred put him to sleep during Dragon Wing, and then is surprised when Alfred tells him this again in Into the Labyrinth, so it’s possible that some of the narration is meant to be Haplo’s point of view after the full series, rather than during Elven Star specifically.

That being said, if this is meant to be his thought process during Elven Star, it’s pretty brilliant that he already admits to feeling this affinity for Alfred already, even before their mind swap in Fire Sea. Plus, it makes his scoffing at Alfred’s line about feeling a kinship towards him even funnier.

Either way, though, it’s fantastic line about how close Haplo feels to Alfred, and in such poetic terms, too!

7. Into the Labyrinth, Haplo worries about Alfred.

“And to think I’ve been worrying about you in the Labyrinth, picturing you dead or worse. And all this time you’ve been here.” He waved his hand. “Perfectly safe.” “You were concerned about me?” Alfred asked, his wan face brightening. Haplo made an impatient gesture. “Of course I was concerned. You can’t walk across an empty room without causing some sort of catastrophe.”

Yet another “Haplo disguises how much he cares about Alfred by insulting him, and it really doesn’t work” moment, and by Into the Labyrinth the disguise really, really isn’t working anymore. Oh, of course Haplo, you were just concerned because Alfred is clumsy, that’s why you were worrying about him and picturing him dead! In the words of The Princess Bride: “[He] wasn’t nervous! ...Well, maybe [he] was a little concerned, but that’s not the same thing.”

6. Fire Sea, Haplo is entranced by Alfred’s dancing.

The feet that could not take ten steps without falling over themselves were suddenly executing intricate steps with extraordinary grace and delicacy. His face was grave and solemn, wholly absorbed in the music. He accompanied himself with a grave and solemn song. Hands wove the runes in the air, his feet replicated the pattern on the floor. Haplo watched until he discovered some wayward part of himself feeling touched and entranced by the beauty.

You know that scene in a TV show or anime where the main character is like “of course I don’t have feelings for [other character]!” and then the shot goes to said other character smiling or doing something cute with, like, the bright, glossy filter and then back to the main character staring and then embarrassedly forcing themselves to look away? This is that scene in narrative form. And I love it.

5. Fire Sea, Alfred’s yelling/swearing makes Haplo laugh.

Haplo stared at Alfred in blank astonishment. Then the Patryn’s lips started to twitch. He tried to control himself, but he, too, was tired. He began to laugh. He laughed until he was forced to lean against the rock wall to support himself, laughed until he tears crept from beneath his eyes. Dabbing at blood seeping from a cut forehead, Haplo grinned, shook his head. “That’s the first time I ever heard you swear, Sar--” He paused. “Alfred,” he amended.

What is there to say, really? Haplo finds Alfred swearing and yelling as funny as I do, and probably also just as endearing. The fact that this scene takes place in the middle of them all super stressed and trying not to die makes it even better, as does the fact that this is all spurred on by Alfred saving Haplo’s life and Haplo being irritated at the thought of owing his life to Alfred again. Seeing Haplo's sudden flip from talking to Alfred like his enemy to talking to him like his friend, and using his name sincerely for the first time since finding out he’s a Sartan is also fantastic.

4. Fire Sea, Haplo lets Alfred go.

“You know what’ll happen to you in the Nexus.” Haplo didn’t look at him when he spoke, he kept his gaze on the dog. “You know what my Lord will do to you.” “Yes,” Alfred answered. Haplo hesitated a moment, either deciding on his next words or deciding whether or not to say them. When he made his decision, his voice was hard and sharp, cutting through some barrier within himself. “Then, if I were you, I wouldn’t be around when I woke up.” Haplo closed his eyes. Alfred stared in amazement, then smiled gently. “I understand. Thank you, Haplo.”

On some level, maybe this shouldn’t be ranked as high as it is, because I highly doubt that this is exactly specific to Alfred. By this point, we know that Haplo is reluctant to see anyone else get punished, hurt, or killed that doesn’t deserve it. But it gets up to fourth because this is the scene that really hammers in just how much has changed about Haplo’s feelings, and his feelings towards Alfred specifically, in the span of just one book; he doesn’t believe Alfred deserves to be punished for being a Sartan, anymore. That’s... pretty big. And it all just goes to show how much Haplo’s character arc as a whole is connected to Alfred’s influence on him and his influence on Alfred.

3. Seventh Gate, Haplo trusts Alfred

Alfred looked pained. “You don’t trust me. I don’t blame you. I know that in the past I’ve let you down, but, truly, I’m strong now. I am–” “I know you are,” Haplo said. “I trust you. I want you to trust me.”

Just a short moment, here, but all the more impactful as the context is Alfred volunteering to possibly sacrifice himself to close Death’s Gate, trying to convince Haplo to leave him to avoid danger, and Haplo vowing to stay behind to protect Alfred, potentially risking his own life, in the process. Not only is Haplo agreeing to risk his life for Alfred’s sake, here, he’s agreeing to do it knowing Xar is literally right there with them and he WILL have to fight Xar. And, of course, he reassures Alfred that he does trust him, and that he knows that he’s become strong, now!

2. Seventh Gate, Goodbyes and the hug.

"Farewell, my friend,” he said. “Thank you for bringing me back to life. Haplo took Alfred’s hand, then embraced the startled and embarrassed Sartan. “Thank you,” Haplo said, his voice gruff, “for giving me life. Farewell, my friend.” Alfred was extremely red. He patted Haplo’s back awkwardly, then turned away, wiping his eyes and nose with his coat sleeve.

I know we’ve been talking about this quote a lot recently, but like. Just look at it. How Alfred goes for the handshake and Haplo takes it and then is like “wait a minute, heck no, we might die here and I’M GONNA HUG YOU, DAMMIT.”

And bonus points for “Thank you for giving me life,” which is not only a parallel to the thank you Alfred’s already given him, but also a HUGE fuck-you to Xar, who he KNOWS is STANDING RIGHT THERE, considering Xar’s whole “I gave you life so I can take it” mentality. We don’t talk about it enough, but. What a goddamn power move. 

1. Into the Labyrinth, Alfred brings Haplo to the Vortex

Then strong arms caught him, held him. A voice spoke to him, soothed him. All pain vanished. He rested, drifting on the water’s surface, at peace with himself. The voice called again. He opened his eyes, looked up and saw… Alfred.

This is... just. I mean, look at that. A paragraph like that wouldn’t be all that out of place in a straight up romance novel. I mean. Strong arms holding him... his voice soothing him and erasing his pain... the sense of peace... the dramatic ellipses before Alfred’s name... I honestly don’t know how to talk about this paragraph without just rewriting it, because seriously, look at it. Haplo the sentimental poet strikes again.

If there’s any reason that this shouldn’t be the number 1 quote it’s that this line of pureness finishes the chapter and then sends us back to Pryan’s heterosexual nonsense for multiple chapters, which is quite frankly an act of pure homophobia.

Just kidding, obviously, but like... wow.

Anyway thank you for reading my list, Happy Valentine’s Day y’all.

[laylainalaska]

Death Gate Reread: Hand of Chaos

Finished The Hand of Chaos last night, and I don’t know why I remembered the Bane storyline fizzling out at the end, because actually that had a pretty solid ending?? In general this was a much better book than I remembered, though I did bog down slightly when the character focus shifted in the middle (which probably happened to me before too, and apparently ended up being my main takeaway from the book). But it was good! and had some great Haplo stuff!

Holeeeeee shit did that ever go dark at the end, though. I mean basically it ended with a sympathetic character psychically strangling her ten-year-old son and standing there watching him die. I didn’t remember the end of Bane’s storyline being quite THAT depressing.

In general, Bane’s arc is a little weird given the series’ general themes of redemption and second chances. He’s one of only a small handful of characters in the whole series who is presented as being so unrepentantly evil that all you can do is straight-up kill him, and he’s ten. On top of that, Sinistrad was whispering into his ear from the time he was a tiny child, AND everyone around him assumed he was evil from apparently the time he was a baby. I mean. It’s not that his choices don’t matter, and he clearly makes evil choices, but there’s a general assumption on the part of all the adults around him that he was simply born evil and there’s nothing you can do about it. I just found it odd considering how many of the other characters do evil things and then come back from it.

All that aside ... I think when I read the book the first time, and possibly on subsequent rereads as well, I was distracted by the whole issue of Alfred in the Labyrinth (still vaguely annoyed that he disappears for an entire book and a half) and Haplo being kind of in the background for a lot of this book. I did feel my interest sag this time around, at first, when the focus switched to Hugh and Iridal, though it picked up later. I think there is actually a lot of interesting stuff going on in their storyline -- in particular, it was kind of fascinating to revisit the Book 1 characters 5 books later, because the characterization and ethics and all of it has gotten noticeably richer and deeper. It’s interesting to watch the characters grapple with moral and personal dilemmas that have gained all kinds of shades of complexity since the first book (and I didn’t really feel like the first book was lacking in complexity!).

This book also had some really good Haplo stuff in it. I mentioned in the Fire Sea discussion that I didn’t realize until this reread how much of the series Haplo spends being suicidally depressed, and this is the book in which I realized it. I think I might not have realized it before because, while the description of Haplo’s general attitude and behavior in this book is a pitch-perfect rendition of serious depression even though none of the characters refers to it as such, there are obvious external reasons why he’s having a difficult emotional time -- the one kinda-friend he’s got is in the Labyrinth and probably dead, and he’s struggling with his entire reason for existing now that he’s having severe doubts about Xar and the rightness of their cause.

But looking back on it, I think he spends most of the series being depressed, to greater or lesser degrees; he just tends to distract himself with fanatical devotion to a cause. Haplo does okay as long as he’s got a goal to aim at -- getting out of the Labyrinth, helping Xar conquer the world. When he loses that, he crashes, unless he can replace it with something else. He just doesn’t really care about himself much, and he doesn’t have anyone else to care about, so he doesn’t care at all -- until he starts finding other people to live for, over the course of the series, and I think that dynamic is really evident in this book. His arc with Jarre in particular is so adorable, from being fully prepared to drop her to her death in book 1, to his single-minded determination to rescue her in this book (side note: love Haplo declaring himself a “god” in this book for entirely practical reasons, now that his belief in his own people’s demigodhood has been completely and utterly crushed), and healing her in that Patryn soul-sharing kind of way; then, in the end, being saved from death when she literally throws herself between him and danger, against an enemy she can’t hope to defeat. 

One of the things that’s most tragic about Haplo is how clearly he wants to love and be loved, how incredibly loyal he is when he actually does love someone (which we’ve been told is a Patryn trait, in general; I think Haplo isn’t really unusual in this, for one of his people, he’s mainly unusual because he’s tried so hard to suppress it, and because the people he ends up incorporating into his little circle of loved ones/family are mostly not Patryns).

Haplo’s POV in this book in general is a thing of beauty, because he’s so thoroughly in denial about a whole lot of things. HE has no idea why he’s staring through the gate into the Labyrinth (maybe because your friend is in there and you want to get him out, dumbass). It also becomes clear in this book that he knows the dog is magic - that bit where he orders the dog out of the enclosure and it just disappears; Haplo is well aware the dog is not an ordinary dog, he’s just deliberately not thinking about what it means. I also didn’t remember the conversation about souls with the Kenkari (where is your soul/why isn’t it with you), which is both beyond “blatant hint” and straight into “just straight up telling you what you’ve been ignoring” (Haplo: *continues to ignore*) but is also a really interesting commentary on souls in the Death Gate ‘verse given the way Alfred explains the dog and its origins in book 7.

[tediousreviews]

The Seventh Gate

Nearly three months after I started, it’s finally time to say goodbye to the Death Gate Cycle. I’m a bit torn to be honest. I wouldn’t describe any of these books or the series as a whole as amazing, but on the other hand, I can’t at this point think of a single other series I’ve read that’s this long, this cohesive, and that maintains this level of quality throughout. And I guess maybe that’s amazing in its own way.

The final entry is a story of love, redemption, and the nature of divinity. It brings together vast forces of unimaginable power in an apocalyptic confrontation, casts down proud and powerful leaders, stymies the machinations of devious foes, and ultimately is resolved by a dog biting a dude in the junk.

As for this review, well… I’m going to do my level best not to write about any of that.

Last book ended with Haplo abducted from the battlefield by his lord, Xar, and Alfred apparently fallen in battle against a swarm of evil dragons. So we’ve got Marit, Haplo’s former and obviously future love interest, and Hugh, the human assassin who was forcibly granted immortality in exchange for a complete inability to kill things, running a rescue plot.

Alfred’s fairly easy to find, as is Haplo. Unfortunately, Haplo is mostly dead. And playing ghost while tethered to his pet dog, which we finally learn explicitly is the physical manifestation of his soul. With evil serpents, good dragons, a starving army of Sartan necromancers, a besieged city of recently defrosted OG Sartan sorcerers, a pair of Patryn cities left leaderless by a champion with delusions of divinity, and a sentient death-maze world raising untold hordes of monsters to cast down the last light of civilization and usher in an eternity of despair, we are very definitely within the final book of a series.

And as with many fantasy series, the true resolution to the epic confrontation between good and evil happens far away from the battlefield.

I enjoyed it. I liked it my first read, and I liked it again on the reread. The series is a large enough time investment that it’ll probably be at least another decade before I reread it, but I don’t regret any of the time I’ve spend within its pages.

In my previous reviews, I’ve talked a fair bit about the Sartan. The Sartan are Alfred’s people, the proud sorcerers who consider themselves benevolent demigods meant to guide the lesser people of the world with their wisdom and might. They’re terrible.

It’s finally time to talk about the Patryn, Haplo’s people.

By now we’ve learned quite a bit more about the history of the Sartan and the Patryn. The Sartan emerged from humanity in the aftermath of a nuclear war at some point in our future. They had vast magical abilities and worked closely with each other towards common goals. The Patryn emerged from the Sartan themselves, dissenters whose interests were much more personal. Where the Sartan cared about society and the world as a whole, the Patryn cared about themselves, their families, and their friends and left the world at large to its own devices.

The Sartan were convinced that the Patryn were working against them in a grand conspiracy to overthrow them and to conquer the world for themselves. That’s why the Sartan ultimately destroyed our world and built the interconnected worlds of the Death Gate Cycle in its place, at the cost of countless lives. In the epilogue to this final volume, it’s obvious that Alfred accepts the basic assumptions behind the Sartan decision. Which is a bit sad really, because the rest of the history he gives us shows exactly why the Sartan fear of the Patryn was never anything but baseless paranoia.

When the Sartan finally went to war against the Patryn, they won easily, quickly, and with almost no meaningful losses. Why? Because the Patryn were never a unified force. When a Patryn positioned themselves as the adviser to a mortal ruler, it wasn’t part of a grand conspiracy, it was pure personal ambition.

It took the Sartan to teach the Patryn to think of themselves as a people or as a nation. It took the Sartan to teach the Patryn how to judge others for their race or their nationality.

And still, through all of it, in the midst of being targeted for a genocide, the Patryn held out their hands in friendship to the many Sartan who were cast into hell alongside them as punishment for dissent. After a thousand years trapped in a death maze, fighting for every moment of peace, every scrap of food, and every sip of water, the Patryn have held onto their basic decency and compassion so strongly that the only reason there are even jail cells in the Patryn city we see is to keep the dangerously insane from hurting themselves or others while they receive treatment.

These are the people who were presented to us as villains at the start of the series.

These are the people who think of themselves as villains. But that seems to be as much of a coping mechanism as anything else.

We only really get to see inside the head of three Patryn over the course of the series. There’s Haplo, of course, who starts the series as a cynical and manipulative racist but is rapidly ‘corrupted’ by his bad habit of getting to know and like other people on a personal level and comes to extend that compassion and empathy well beyond the people who have directly touched his life. Then there’s Xar, the leader of the Patryn, whose main flaw is that he sees his own people as his children and thinks he knows what’s best for him. The entire reason Xar becomes a villain is that he’s blinded to his own flaws by his desperate need to be good enough for his adoptive children. And finally, we get Marit, the nail in the coffin of the idea that Haplo’s unique among his people. With Haplo, Hugh, and Alfred beside her, Marit goes through very nearly the same path of character growth Haplo did, but she does it in two novels rather than five.

The Patryn aren’t evil, they’re that grumpy neighbor who scowls all the time, but will drop whatever they’re doing to help you at the first sign you’re in trouble and never even have it cross their mind that you might feel obligated to repay them somehow.

I’ll wrap up by calling out a part of the epilogue as nice little form of fanservice. Normally that term describes gratuitously erotic content, but occasionally like to use it to describe a work of fiction giving its audience what they actually want. In this case, it’s a few paragraphs where Alfred records that Haplo and Marit have made several trips into the Labyrinth to find their daughter Rue and have come back with ‘numerous’ daughters and ‘several’ sons who all call Alfred their grandfather. And, we’re told, Haplo’s even gotten a new dog to replace the one he lost when he re-integrated his soul.

Maybe I’m just a big softie, but there’s a part of me that just has to smile when I’ve been following a group of basically decent characters through a long and difficult ordeal and at the end I get to hear that they really did live happily ever after.

Of course, while the implication is that many of Haplo and Marit’s new daughters are named Rue and Haplo at least goes around saying that any one of them could be his child by birth, a part of me can’t help but picture a little Patryn girl named Rue who by some bit of magic or other means has lived her whole life knowing faces of the parents she never met but secretly hopes will one day come to rescue her. And that part of me has to cringe just a bit at what her face might look like when she finally meets her parents as a teenager or an adult only to learn that they’re busy raising an entire village of Rues that aren’t her.

[deathgatesideblog]

I was reminded by this post because of @dgc-trash‘s post the other day about Patryn/Sartan childbirth, so here goes! This started off as me wondering what Patryns do about periods and ended with serious Character Analysis/Meta, so. Allow me to walk you through my logic here.

1. What do Patryns do about periods? There have got to be spells and stuff for this, I’m just saying. They have particular spells for getting rid of other body waste, so it’s got to be the same for your time of the month. Which leads me to...

2. Do Patryns have birth control? Again, it seems like they’d have to, at least in theory, right? And it would be a perfect form of birth control. I mean, they’re demigods. I guess there’s always the issue of whether Patryns make teaching that a priority, but it seems like they would, since getting pregnant in the Labyrinth is pretty dangerous.  (This goes back to one of my other wondering about Patryns, which is: if Patryns have such a high mortality rate, how have they not completely died out yet? The books tell us that Patryns place a lot of importance in family and children, but I don’t get the impression that there’s a particular pressure to have kids? Maybe that’s just because we only see through the eyes of Runners. I guess Squatters probably become Squatters TO raise kids, for the most part, and so the pressure to have kids there would be higher. And then Runners that get pregnant often leave their kids with another tribe, so for them, getting pregnant would probably be... not expected of them or anything, but not uncommon, either.)

3. So if birth control is a thing, doesn’t that imply Marit meant to get pregnant when she did? Idk, I had always kinda just assumed that her getting pregnant wasn’t something she had planned on, but if this is the case, then... Marit grew up as a Squatter, at least. And it’s implied that mothers usually raise their children without their father-- or leave them to be raised by others-- in a Squatter camp. Given both of those factors, there’s no reason she would have been obligated to tell Haplo that she had made that decision. She definitely would have been more conscious of the possibility of having a kid that he was, especially if that need does have a higher priority in Patryn culture than what the book explicitly tells us. 

4. So what was Marit’s plan, then? If all of the previous assumptions are right, then to me, that paints a picture of a Marit who had actively decided to become pregnant-- or at least didn’t actively prevent pregnancy-- but hadn’t quite decided what to do after that (Raise the kid alone, check if Haplo wants to help raise the kid, or leave the kid with some Squatters? Eh, Marit figures she’ll have plenty of time to figure it out.) ...Which honestly? Aligns really well with this characterization I’ve noticed for Marit as someone who is very good at ignoring inconvenient truths and things until the last possible second? It’s not short-sidedness, exactly... more like... maladaptive practicality? I mean, when you’re focused on survival, you’ve gotta prioritize, and if thinking about certain things is going to paralyze you, then you just... don’t think about those things. Other canon instances of Marit doing this kind of thing: -- I’m falling in love with Haplo? Ignore until I'm pregnant and realize that the idea of tying myself to another person only to inevitably lose them terrifies me and have no choice but to leave both him and my child behind. -- Haplo is maybe right about these dragon-snake things? Ignore until I betray him, then overhear the snakes talking about how they’re definitely evil. -- I’m falling in love with Haplo again? Ignore until he’s literally bleeding out in front of me being dragged away from me. -- My liege lord is probably not such a good dude after all? Ignore until he kills my One True Love. -- On the other hand: Every time she does something badass, it’s usually something like “X thing is ridiculously risky and might get me killed? Ignore and just hope I survive it I guess.” AND THEN SHE FUCKING SURVIVES IT.