#i live for moment when pellinore shows any concern about will
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it seems like i once again kept you up late, will henry
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do you guys think warthrop ever tried to put will to bed after long night in lab but then got distracted and just stand there with will in his arms for god know how long thinking about something revolutionary because i do
and will getting sleep of his life meanwhile
#monstrumologist#pellinore warthrop#will henry#i have no idea how 12yo boy looks like#i guess something like this and will was described as small for his age#i just imagine them in white shirts because i have no sense of fashion in late 19th century#i live for moment when pellinore shows any concern about will#i just finished second book i hope nothing bad happens to them haha#haha#hah...
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Myth Reads the Naming, Chapter 21
PELLINOR
The chapter is called Council of Friends and I for one could use some more friendship is magic stuff in my life, bring it on.
Maerad has a nightmare and a voice speaks in something that is almost the Speech but fucked up. It says, âI am again, but none shall find my dwelling, for I live in every human heart.â
I just wanted friendship, book. You promised me friendship.
She wakes up and reassures herself, and then Hem knocks on her door having also had nightmares. They huddle together and fall back to sleep.
Maerad wakes up to a beautiful morning and Hem, eating bread in a corner. Heâs been waiting for her to wake up. She asks how Cadvan is and Hem doesnât seem to care much (which, fair) but says heâs probably still sleeping and Maerad should hurry up because there is food (I appreciate a lot about this interaction. If I forget to mention it in the comparison please bug me so I can talk about it in a reblog or something). Maerad kicks him out to get dressed and then they walk down to get lunch together.
When they get to the sitting room, Cadvan is awake and chatting with Saliman. Cadvan is the worse for wear still but heâs talking and awake and teasing Maerad a little bit, and Maerad almost cries with how happy she is that heâs alive, black eye and stitched up face cuts and all. He assures her when she asks that he feels great and sends her off to the food.
Appetite sated (Hem comes with her for seconds) the siblings return to Cadvan and Saliman, who are discussing Salimanâs journey. Turns out Saliman was attacked by three hulls and killed them, but not before they killed his horse. Heâs pretty sad about it and so am I:  horse death is sad. The horses are just doing their best okay.
Anyway, Nelac comes in while Maerad is looking out at the gardens and says that most of his flowers survived the storm. Maerad immediately likes him, not least because he fixed up Cadvan and reminds her of Cadvan.
Hem continues to eat as the adult bards convene and catch each other up on everything, and when they get to the part about the Kulag Cadvan admits he was in a hurry and not as careful as he should have been with magic or travel. He credits Maerad with getting them all out alive.
âI wonderedâŚ,â said Maerad, and then stopped.
âWhat, O my Deliverer?â said Cadvan.
Maerad blushed again at his teasing. âI wondered if the Landrost had hurt you, and that was whyâŚâ she faltered and stopped again.
âThe Landrost did indeed hurt me,â said Cadvan. âAnd I was less in my power than I could be. But that is no excuse for rushed decisions and the mistakes that come with them. I judge myself at fault, and so I am; and it is a severe judgment, Maerad, because things very nearly were otherwise, and the result would have been terrible for many more than us.â
Maerad saw for an instant an implacable harshness in Cadvanâs face, and she shivered; she thought she would not like to be judged by Cadvan, had she done any real wrong.
They continue to catch up, and Nelac remembers hearing about the Treesong somewhere but heâll have to look for it again, but Saliman Knows Whatâs Up and sings a verse from the poem at the beginning of chapter 17, which I will transcribe here so nobody has to search the hellscape that is my tumblr tags:
Grows a Lily on the Briar
Grows a Briar on the Wave
Triple-tongued its voice of Fire
Edil-Amarandh with save
True and false the cunning Flame
Burning in the darkest Night
False and true the secret Name
Quickened in the womb of Light
Where the Briar on the Foam?
Doth the Lily stemless stand?
Who will bring the Singing home?
Where the Harp? And whose the Hand?
Nelac is like âlol it almost sounds like youâre saying Maerad, who can speak common, Elidhu, and the Speech, is the Foretoldâ
Cadvanâs ACTUAL (specified as distracted and absent) RESPONSE: âYes, yes, of course I am.â
Maybe warn a guy before you drop prophetic bombs in his lap, Cadvan.
Nelac thinks about it a minute and sorta soul searches Maerad with eye contact is like âokay fine you may have a pointâ. Also the Treesong is a super ancient song, he remembers.
Nelac ALSO wants to scry Hem. Hem is not having it rn and runs into the garde. Maerad chastises Nelac with all the vehemence of a sibling vs outsiders and heads after her brother. After assuring Hem that SHE believes him, obviously, and that Cadvan does, he agrees to come back inside, where Nelac straight up bribes him with food to be scried later. Hem is like âwell if thereâs FOODâ and agrees, which, fair.
Further, Nelac says they have to figure out where Hem can go to bard school because Norloch is being Particularly Racist at the moment and Hem, unlike Maerad, looks very Pilanel. Cadvan says irritably that Hem would like other schools better anyway, fuck Norloch (okay not in quite those words but itâs close).
Saliman: hey no worries Iâll take the kid home with me where racist dickheads arenât in charge. Sound good, Hem?
Hem: Boy does it!
Section paraphrased for clarity.
Also, Nelac adds, yâall havenât been here in a while so let me tell you what else Enkir has fucked up: no more lady bards can train at Norloch.
The fuck, everyone in the room basically mouths in unison.
Nelac: so the flaw in our system is, if all of our elected officials are old white rich white dudes with The Right Families then it turns out they elect an old rich white dude with The Right Family as leader, which means even the relatively benevolent old rich white dudes get outvoted when it comes to civil rights and not destroying the world because these guys have no concept of doing anything for other people even in the name of self interest.
Not that we know anything about that in the States or anything.
Everybody agrees that a council must be called regarding world saving because they still labor under the delusion that old rich white dudes with The Right Families in power give a shit what happens to the world if it doesnât affect them in the next five minutes. The poor saps.
Cadvan shows Maerad around Norloch and assures her once again that even if she isnât the foretold itâs no biggie, heâll take her to a good bard school.
âWould you stay there?â she asked, knowing the answer already.
He glanced at her quickly, his face unreadable. âFor a time, until you were settled in,â he said.
When they get back, Hem wants Maerad there while heâs scried. Nelac says itâs unusual, but so is scrying a child so why not. There isnât much to see since we arenât in Hemâs PoV, but Nelac confirms that Hem is Maeradâs brother and everybody rejoices. Maerad offers to get them something to drink, does so, and leaves, feeling like she intruded.
At dinner, which Hem actually skips, they make a game plan for presenting Maerad-as-The-Foretold to the council. Nelac is going to do it alone for political reasons. Thatâs the end of the chapter.
THRONE OF GLASS
Three chapters of ToG is a fitting punishment for taking so long I guess. 46,47,48.
Dorian is hunting through the woods to âlet the freezing air rush through himâ Â and burn off steam regarding Celaena, who apparently watches him like a cat watching a mouse, which is different from every single other woman ever, who otherwise look at him adoringly.
Dorian, I would think Kaltain fits that description. Iâm just saying.
Apparently Celaena makes him want to be a better king or whatever by watching him and heâll never be happy with any other woman now that heâs kissed her and heâs worried about her in the duel. Sure.
CELAENAâS POV.
Sheâs thinking about the duel, worries that Cain might be better because he has stamina (I mean this is a valid concern: Celaena canât seem to do any sort of strenuous physical activity without throwing up, her stamina IS crap) and then that she might have to obey the King of Adarlan if sheâs his Champion.
Iâm not sure what you thought you were signing up for, Celaena?
Then she decides she wants to stay in the castle because Hot Dudes, I guess.
NEXT CHAPTER.
Kaltain drugs Celaenaâs goblet(?) in the outside duel.
Swap to Celaenaâs PoV, where she complains about the cold and thinks that she doesnât know why they have to have the duels outside. Me neither, Celaena. Me neither.
She recognizes a couple of council members who hired her in the past, and then Nehemia shows up. For reasons?
Anyway, the king makes a speech, the duels start, Cain wins his. Celaena thinks that the other guys hadnât even lasted three minutes, which, I mean. People generally greatly overestimate how long fights take, especially fights that arenât specifically hemmed in for competition. Three minutes is a long time to fight one on one for your life?
Oh wait they arenât fighting to the death. That would be too men for the demon infested king? I donât know.
Chaol offers Celaena his sword to fight with, and Nehemia offers her Nehemiaâs staff instead.
âIf I may,â Nehemia said in Eyllwe, âIâd like to offer this to you instead.â The princess held out her beautifully carved iron-tipped staff. Celaena glanced between Chaolâs sword and her friendâs weapon. The sword, obviously, was the wiser choiceâand for Chaol to offer his own weapon made her feel strangely lightheadedâbut the staffâŚ
Nehemia leaned in to whisper in Celaenaâs ear. âLet it be with an Eyllwe weapon that you take them down.â Her voice hitched. âLet wood from the forests of Eyllwe defeat steel from Adarlan. Let the Kingâs Champion be someone who understands how the innocents suffer.â
So Celaena chooses the staff, which is actually a GREAT weapon vs a sword assuming you know how to use it for a myriad of reasons? Why would a sword be a wiser choice? Why is that obvious? Especially if itâs âiron-tippedâ by which I think she means capped, but whatever. We already knew very little research went into this, Iâm lucky Celaena isnât using that soap and hairpin thing.
Sheâs going to fight Grave. Donât worry about it, weâll get an explanation about him in the second book when he suddenly becomes relevant again.
Chaol squeezed her hand, his skin warm in the frigid air. âGive him hell,â he said. Grave entered the ring and drew his sword.
Pulling her hand from Chaolâs, Celaena straightened her spine as she stepped into the ring. She quickly bowed to the king, then to her opponent.
She met Graveâs stare and smiled as she bent her knees, holding the staff in two hands.
You have no idea what youâre getting yourself into, little man.
NEXT CHAPTER.
Graveâs first move is to try to break her staff. I. Iâm just. Whatever at this point.
His sword gets stuck in her staff when he hits, and she punches him in the nose. He gets angry and charges, âaiming a direct blow to her heart.â She knocks his legs out from underneath him and puts the staff to his throat, which ends the fight I guess, though he doesnât yield and isnât injured aside from a broken nose.
She brought her mouth close to his ear. âMy name is Celaena Sardothien,â she whispered. âBut it makes no difference if my nameâs Celaena or Lillian or Bitch, because Iâd still beat you, no matter what you call me.â She smiled at him as she stood. He just stared up at her, his bloody nose leaking down the side of his cheek. She took the handkerchief from her pocket and dropped it on his chest. âYou can keep that,â she said before she walked off the veranda.
She intercepted Chaol as soon as she crossed the line of chalk. âHow long did that take?â she asked. She found Nehemia beaming at her, and Celaena lifted her staff a little in salute.
âTwo minutes.â
She grinned at the captain. She was hardly winded. âBetter than Cainâs time.â
How slowly are these people moving? Why are we counting time? What is HAPPENING.
Anyway they have a toast.
âOut of good faith, and honor to the Great Goddess,â Kaltain said in a dramatic voice. Celaena wanted to punch her. âMay it be your offering to the Mother who bore us all. Drink, and let Her bless you, and replenish your strength.â
I want that all noted for the record on the religion front.
Celaena is thrown directly into fighting Cain without any more of a rest and does not realize sheâs been drugged.
The conqueror of Erilea raised his hands.
âBegin!â he roared, and Celaena shook her head, trying to clear her blurry vision. She steadied herself, wielding the staff like a sword as Cain began circling. Nausea flashed through her as his muscles flexed. For some reason, the world was still hazy. She clenched her teeth, blinking. Sheâd use his strength against him.
Cain charged faster than she anticipated. She caught his sword on the broad side with the staff, avoiding the sharp edges, and leapt back as she heard the wood groan.
He struck so quickly that she had to concede to the edge of his blade. It sank deep into the staff. Her arms ached from the impact. Before she could recover, Cain yanked his sword from her weapon and surged toward her. She could only bound back, deflecting the blow with the iron tip of the staff.
Given that Celaena is a, an assassin, b, just had a refresher course on poisons, and c, has been poisoned like this at least once before in the prequel novellas, I donât know what to tell anybody here. Finally she gets it when she hears Kaltain laugh.
She had difficulty holding the staff. Cain came at her, and she had no choice but to meet his blows, barely having the strength to raise the weapon each time. How much bloodbane had they given her? The staff cracked, splintered, and groaned.
Did Nehemia give her a wimpy-ass staff or does Celaena just not know how to use it to deflect rather than just take the full force of a blade? His sword sinks into it, it splinters and cracks? Yâall. No.
She had to end this now, before the hallucinations started. She knew theyâd be powerful: seers had once used bloodbane as a drug to view spirits from other worlds. Celaena shot forward with a sweep of the staff. Wood slammed into steel.
The staff snapped in two.
The iron-tipped head soared to the other side of the veranda, leaving Celaena with a piece of useless wood.
Yâall. YâALL. You donât even know how much Iâm despairing right now.
Anyway, we go through Dorian and Chaolâs PoVs in quick succession to show that theyâre worried about her and are probably in love, because sure, thatâs whatâs important right now, why not.
Celaena starts seeing creatures from another world as Cain keeps beating her up and Chaol keeps telling her to get up. Apparently the eye of Elena actually was protecting her, becauseâŚ
Cain reached for her throat, and she flung herself backward. All that he managed to grab was her amulet. With a resounding snap, the Eye of Elena ripped from her neck.
The sunlight disappeared, the bloodbane seizing control of her mind again, and Celaena found herself before an army of the dead. The shadowy figure that was Cain raised his arm, dropping the amulet upon the ground.
They came for her.
Thatâs the end of the chapter. Thank goodness.
COMPARISON
Say it with me: I despair.
These chapters are pretty different from each other, but I said I wanted to talk about Hem and food and I do.
Both Hem and Maerad have been deprived all their lives, and while Maerad is slightly less preoccupied with filling her stomach than Hem, she also does not in my memory refuse food when it is offered, and only ever delights in the fact that she has it. Hem, obviously, is a little more fixated, but Maerad usually got ENOUGH to eat by virtue of her musical talent and value and the whole superstition thing. Hem rarely did.
Celaena turns her nose up at salmon and complains when chicken is a little bit dry. Itâs just not behavior I would expect from someone starved in a salt mine for a year.
Pellinorâs mythology and religion and society remains consistent. ToGâs still rolling with the one goddess lots of little gods thing for now.
Iâm just glad that Celaena used an actual weapon (poorly) and didnât try to get creative. God knows what she would have done with a blade of grass or something. Why are we timing our fights. How was Chaol watching the clock closely enough to know that AND watching the fight. This could all have been solved with some research.
STATS
Pages: 23
Fragments: 36
Em-Dashes: 50
Ellipses: 14
Pages: 22
Fragments: 6
Em-Dashes: 2
Ellipses: 13
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