#raederle of an

[swinging-stars-from-satellites]

interesting how the primary imagery i choose to hammer home for Morgon is forest, the shape of a tree, and for Raederle it's the fire. arguably their most important respective imageries are music/wind and the sea, but instead it's easier to see the forest and the fire. fire can burn the trees but can also heal the forest. a forest is fuel, what powers the fire. these things shape themselves together, somehow.

[morioloroferenstar]

炽热已极

[dreadfutures]

9 People You Want to Know Better

Tagged by @broodwolf221 !

Tagging forward with no pressure:

@binabees | @pinacoladamatata | @salesmain | @beebundt | @sotc

@ghostwise | @sucrosesorcery | @wolfsskull | @thedreadblog

Three Ships: Max/Fang (Maximum Ride), Solas/Felassan (Dragon Age), Raederle/Morgon (Riddle of the Stars). Went with my true OTPs Undying.

First Ship: I believe I usually say it was Chihiro/Haku from Spirited Away ❤️

Last Song: Silk (Favored Nations Remix)

Last Movie: Only Lovers Left Alive (2013). I was showing my best friend from grad school during our weekly call time today :)

Currently Reading: Everyone On This Train is a Suspect. My friend from grad school who I call every week recommended it! I have struggled to read the past few years but this is my second book this year. On deck is the Wizard Knight by Gene Wolf.

Also, the local book store I've been trying to support as I build my collection and get back into reading just suffered a catastrophic fire like. this morning. :( If anyone is in a position to give a little, it would mean a lot. Oakland / the East Bay doesn't have a lot of local book stores, and it's going to be awful if this one goes under.

Currently Watching: This YouTube channel of a girl and her boyfriend being incredibly wholesome together playing video games. It started with him "making" her play games like Dark Souls, but she turned into a pro gamer along the way 😂❤️ I love her squeals of delight and jokes and they're so kind and funny. This one is soooo funny with how much she started loving DOOM:

Currently Eating: Weee! (the grocery service) has this frozen salted rainbow trout that is so tasty, I fried it up in a pan with some spinach and rice and mmmm.

Currently Craving: Boba... So badly. Going to get my #1 favorite boba from my #1 fav boba place this weekend.

Blank template below the cut:

Three Ships:

First Ship:

Last Movie:

Last Song:

Currently Reading:

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[spiced-wine-fic]

9 People you’d like to know better

Thank you for tagging me dear @grundyscribbling 🤗

three non romantic duos:

Raederle and Lyra (Riddle Master of Hed series)

Anomander Rake and Caladan Brood (Malazan Book of the Fallen series) Brother Cadfael and Hugh Beringar (Brother Cadfael series)

a ship that might surprise others: Ah, really have no idea. Can’t imagine any ship surprising anyone on Tumblr 😂

last song: Brother Louis Modern Talking (I keep seeing short reels of people dancing to this and I think Duck me I remember when this was first out!)

last film: Nostalgic mood and rewatched Jaws last weekend. (Still holds up) (Waiting to watch Alien: Romulus )

currently reading: Just finished the Faithful and the Fallen series, just starting Women of Troy by Pat Barker.

currently watching: Nothing really.

currently consuming: Water.

currently craving: A world where vulnerable and marginalised people feel safe 🫂 tagging (if you want to do this, if not no probs) More than nine, oh well. @awesome-bluehair-universe @sallysavestheday @lucifers-cuvette @jane-ways @thescrapwitch @ettelene @joyfullynervouscreator @minquelie @naryaflame @cuarthol @nocompromise-noregrets @pinksiamese

[very-grownup]

Book 19, 2024

"Harpist in the Wind" is the final book in the Patricia A. McKillip's Riddle Master trilogy and it sees the protagonists from the previous books, Morgon and Raederle, confirmed not dead and reunited and on the same page.

More or less.

With Morgon back, Raederle does relinquish her main character role from "Heir of Sea and Fire", but while this is clearly Morgon's story and Raederle is following, she remains her own person and part of the conflict of the final book is these two characters figuring out if they can fit together or if their histories and goals are ultimately incompatible.

A lot of the Riddle Master books, and from the other works of McKillip's that I've read, seem to concern themselves with assumptions of identity and the mutability of morality, what and who is good or evil and whether those are helpful labels. Those questions seem to be at the core of the plot, as a war is waging around the plot that Morgon and Raederle brush past on their journey.

The story doesn't end where I expected it to; it's not sad by any means but it's also not triumphant. It doesn't feel happy. It's contemplative in a way that feels appropriate once McKillip reveals the hand of the story she's actually telling and not the story you might think she's telling based on fantasy paperback trilogy with Darrell K. Sweet covers.

I've yet to find a McKillip novel that is a page turner, but they've all been thoughtful and slightly outside the expected genre boundaries. It remains a nice change of pace from contemporary genre fiction.

[earl-grey-crow]

oh my gosh hello hi I've seen you in my notes a few times but only just now visited your blog and. HELLO. FELLOW RIDDLE-MASTER ENJOYER ON THIS WEBBED SITE???? HI????? I feel insane I've met maybe like one other person online who even knows who Raederle is and I genuinely thought I was the only person around here willing to get silly with it. LOVE your blog title so incredibly much aaaah

hiiii yes fellow riddle-master enjoyer :D I actually had no idea it existed until I saw your posts about it back when I was just lurking around, and I decided to check it out on a whim. between uni and life I still haven’t finished it, but I did once stay up until 2 am skimming through it (I had no patience. I had to know who deth was.) which was sufficient enough to make me unhinged about it, I could’ve started howling at that ending. story of all time (to me).

[lover-of-the-starkindler]

Bookish Fortnight 2022

Day 9:

Favorite non-romance relationship:

Deth and Raederle from the Riddlemaster trilogy.

Best non-fiction book:

If you refer back to Day One, you'll see I had a nice list going, but I think the one to choose is Red Famine: Stalin's War on Ukraine by Anne Applebaum

[lyraluthuin19]

This is Raederle, one of the main characters of the Riddlemaster Trilogy. I just love how her character is written. She develops some awesome powers but has to work a little for it. She is a strong companion to the main character Morgon and saves his life several times.

[rj-anderson]

Raederle, Lyra and Tristan of Hed (all women, if you haven't read the trilogy) in Patricia A. McKillip's Heir of Sea and Fire

Friendships that are given full narrative weight:

—Clark and Lex and Clark and Chloe, Smallville

—the handmaidens in Star Wars Queens Shadow

[merryloon]

He lifted his other hand, touched Raederle’s face and she smiled. He said hesitantly, “I have nothing to offer you. Not even Peven’s crown. Not even peace. But can you bear waiting for me a little longer? I wish I knew how long. I need to go to Hed awhile, and then to Lungold. I’ll try to—I’ll try—” Her smile faded. “Morgon of Hed,” she said evenly, “if you take one step across that threshold without me, I will lay a curse on your next step and your next until no matter where you go your path will lead you back to me.” “Raederle—” “I can do it. Do you want to watch me?” He was silent, struggling between his longing and his fear for her. He said abruptly, “No. All right. Will you wait for me in Hed? I think I can get us both safely that far.” “No.” “Then will you—” “No.” “All right; then—” “No.” “Then will you come with me?” he whispered. “Because I could not bear to leave you.” She put her arms around him, wondering, as she did so, what strange, perilous future she had bargained for. She said only, as his arms circled her, not in gentleness this time, but in a fierce and terrified determination, “That’s good. Because I swear by Ylon’s name you never will.

HEIR OF SEA AND FIRE by Patricia A. McKillip

[swinging-stars-from-satellites]

should you ever see me holding a skull, seeking secrets in the dim eyes where once lived a mind, know that it is not of poor Yorick that I think, nor of the deadseeing deadwalking not yet dead Danish Prince who found himself caught in that same empty gaze, asking questions to which it's uncertain if there was ever an answer. no, I look into empty once-full eye sockets carved out of bone into something almost opaline and think of ghosts. skulls, you see, are inherently haunted. they're unattached, adrift, receptacles of what made a person a person but is there no longer. skulls are a home, and when they're empty it's just like the vast empty bittersweet halls of a home that's been moved out of, an abandoned castle, a seaside tower. ivory and opal and pearl, bone and bonelike alike, formed by a creator's hand and pressure and time. if you ever see me holding a skull, like the soondead Prince of Denmark, it is not of Hamlet that I dream or Ophelia that I ache for. it's the desolation and hope of someone in an empty hall, an ivory tower, where once there was life and a mind and questions. even in death, someone is there.

[morioloroferenstar]

给瑞德丽画的三套衣服

[swinging-stars-from-satellites]

Three ships: tbh i haven't been very into shipping lately. but three from over the years, in no particular order of preference or recency, are Eighth Doctor/Charley Pollard from some Doctor Who audiodramas, Jyn/Cassian from Rogue One, and Morgon/Raederle from the Riddle-Master Trilogy by Patricia McKillip

First ship ever: I can semi-confidently say this one was Hiccup and Astrid in HTTYD?? but also I don't really remember all that well tbh

Currently listening: lots of things! but specifically I have had This Is Gospel by P!aTD on loop for the past several days. :)

Last movie: Tenet, which I am still feeling incredibly insane about a week later asjdksjdkshfks I haven't been this emotional over a movie in so long guys.... so long...

Currently reading: rereading The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo!! as well as my constantly ongoing habit of picking up Antigonick whenever I'm bored or emotional lol

Currently watching: i started this random show I found on Hulu, "Trust Me," because it stars Jodie Whittaker. I'm only one episode in lol. as usual I kind of fall back on watching The Practice before bed because I find legal dramas, and specifically THAT legal drama, relaxing

Currently consuming: nothing, unless water counts.

Currently craving: pizza. idk why i just REALLY want pizza right now. someone come have a pizza party with me or something

tagging @lovesodeepandwideandwell, @lady-stormbraver, @fortes-fortuna-iogurtum, @theworldiswhispering, and @permanentreverie if y'all want to!!

Tagged by @digopheliadug

1. Three ships: uhhh, let’s say Spuffy, Sylki, and Hellcheer. That’s what I’m feeling these days, though I have a stupid amount of ships I like.

2. First Ship ever: honestly probably Tenrose. Like I was too young to even know what shipping was but I loved them so much and was so sad when Rose went away sksksk

3. Currently listening: I’ve been listening to The Black Parade album a lot this week. Currently listening to the cut version of Blood and laughing like an idiot at the bleep.

4. Last movie: Emma (2020)

5. Currently reading: “The Complete Cthulhu Mythos Tales” while I wait for Frankenstein Weekly. I love the writing style and descriptions, it makes my brain go brrrr, but Lovecraft is quickly shaping up to be one of my Classic Authors I’d Like to Throw Hands With. I joke about wanting to get into a fight F. Scott Fitzgerald (Scotty) but I would seriously like to slap the shit out of Lovecraft.

6. Currently Watching: Nothing really at the moment. I’ve been meaning to restart Alchemy of Souls and I have a hankering to rewatch Something Blue

7. Currently consuming: Tea. Specifically some samples of tea I got for Christmas. This one is “Afternoon Tea.”

8. Currently craving: Food wise? Sea food. Cheese. Materialistically? I have a very strange sudden urge to get a bunch of enamel pins. Also I kinda want a leather wrist band.

If you like: @swinging-stars-from-satellites @candiliam328 @ford-ye-fiji @summers-pratt

[dreadfutures]

the “who’s your female blorbo” post is going around and it’s just. it’s zelda. it’s alanna of trebond. it’s raederle.

but rn i’m specifically thinking of paladin!zelda by @ hyph

[very-grownup]

Book 17, 2024

"Heir of Sea and Fire" is the sequel to Patricia A. McKillip's "The Riddle-Master of Hed" which ended with the titular Riddle-Master of Hed, Morgon, betrayed into the hands of an enemy, probably being tortured for information and maybe killed. A year later, Morgon's presumed dead as the mystical connection between land and ruler has passed to his younger brother with some badtime dreams. But "Heir of Sea and Fire" isn't about him. "Heir of Sea and Fire" is about Raederle, the woman Morgon had complicated feelings about marrying in the first novel before his life got derailed by a series of everythings.

Raederle, who descends from a royal lineage that includes cursed witches and shapechangers who may be part of the dark forces that were after Morgon, is certain Morgon isn't dead, but if he IS dead, she's going to find out what happened to him, and sets out to retrace his steps, against the wishes and advice of everyone around her.

"Heir of Sea and Fire" essentially mirrors "The Riddle-Master of Hed" in really interesting ways. Morgon was pushed into his journey and fought and a destiny by outside forces, fighting against it at every turn. Raederle has to fight, lie, sneak, and steal to go on her journey and while it's ostensibly in pursuit of Morgon, it's more about her understanding the powers she was born with but has never been encouraged to investigate. While Morgon occasionally found companionship and assistance from older, ancient figures, almost exclusively men, Raederle spends time in the company of Lyra, the leader of the wild female forest warriors who attend the Morgul, who was concerned about Morgon's likely survival in light of his then-pacifism, and Morgon's little sister, Tristan. Morgon ends up hugely alone at the end of his novel, far from home. Raederle … does not.

McKillip somehow made the sequel to her hero's journey first book in a fantasy trilogy … another hero's journey through a lot of the same geography, encountering a lot of the same people, but distinct despite that and moving the plot from the first novel forward even in the absence of the original main character.

It's something I've mentioned when talking about Megan Whalen Turner's writing; I love an author writing a series and not letting basic decisions about structure be limited by a pre-existing mould. Be not beholden to the market or expectations of others.

[earlgraytay]

Heir of Sea and Fire is the queerest book I've ever read that doesn't have a single gay character in it.