#be the serpent

[libraryogre]

Finished "Be the Serpent". Pagebreak for spoilers.

Ok, I am so happy that Seanan thought of the same thing I did... that Toby's powers could break the geasa on the Luidaeg.

And I also like her Oberon. Everyone had been waiting for him to come back and fix things... and it turns out he's a deadbeat dad that was, at least from her perspective, dumping all of the work on one of his wives. All the problems? Yeah, he says he left for balance but he just took the easy road, and kinda gets pissy when anyone calls him on it, but not SO pissy he'll do anything about it.

And I can't help but wonder if swigging Oberon blood is gonna have an effect on the child she's carrying. It's been clear for a while that echoes hang around in Faerie magic, and that's gotta be the kind of echo that leaves prints in sand.

Anyway, I have to wait for the next book and I am going to chew my leg off.

[quietflorilegium]

“You say ‘Do no harm’ to a hero and he sets his blades aside. You say the same thing to a villain and she starts looking for loopholes.”

Titania, Seanan McGuire, "Be the Serpent"

[dracothulhu]

Reading Be the Serpent

Man, Luna really said 'mortal' with the hard 'R' there.

[owlbear33]

oh gahds uuuuh... I've finished Be the Serpent and it's got quite the ending

uh yeah I'm gonna have to get those next two sharpish

(it was really really good!!!!)

[booksandchainmail]

You say 'do no harm' to a hero and he sets his blades aside. You say the same thing to a villain and she starts looking for loopholes.

Be the Serpent, by Seanan McGuire

[sithiegoodness]

Anyone else finish Be the Serpent?

[living400lbs]

What Toby's built to do

Spoilers for A Killing Frost and later

"Look at the little hero, Dad, and tell me what her line was built to do," said the Luidaeg. [...] "Don't break her," chided the Luidaeg.

Oberon frowned. "The blood is there - a living hope chest, to replace what has been broken. An instinctive understanding of the balances and interactions between our different strains, necessary for the doing of what's she's made to do. Sensitivity to magic. More than I would have thought advisable."

"Because it isn't," said the Luidaeg. "When she was younger, I used to worry she'd walk into an illusion and have a stroke where she stood. It's too much for one line to carry, but it's hers, and has to contend with it. Look deeper."

It felt like telling him not to break me and then to look deeper in the same breath was a contradiction, but I couldn't say anything. [....]

"No more illusions than the least of us, so no flowers, and little connection to the water - all she has is the blood," said Oberon. He had the audacity to sound surprised about that, as if somehow I should have picked up magic from the Queens, even though they had no part of my family tree. "But the blood she has is more than sufficient to break the world. Is this . . . Can she truly unravel another's working as the blood implies?"

The Luidaeg looked almost smug. "She can," she said. "I've seen her do it. [...] She finds the rough spots in the spell, digs her hands in, and pulls it apart," said the Luidaeg. "I've seen her tackle things that should have been infinitely too big for her to handle. Hell, she reversed a full Actaeon. On herself."

From Be The Serpent by Seanan McGuire