#dragon's time

[a-crack-in-the-universe]

I can’t help but be intrigued by Lorana. Specifically her fate, because it’s so ambiguous. The only hint at what happens to her after the series is over occurs in Dragon’s Time, when a future Lorana visits Fiona in Telgar Weyr in order to draw her. This Lorana is years older, has a physical scar (potentially from Thread) on her face and is extremely sad. She speaks to Fiona and Jirana and leaves after she finishes drawing Fiona. 

That is the only hint we have about Lorana’s fate, and it frustrates me sometimes. We have an idea of what happens to all the other major characters, but we know barely anything about Lorana. I get the impression though that she dies young, maybe while fighting Thread, so maybe she does some sort of heroic sacrifice and gets stuck somewhere, and then travels back in time to see Fiona one last time when she realises she’s going to die? Or maybe Fiona’s the one who dies and a grieving Lorana travels back in time to see Fiona again. Who knows. I just wish Lorana’s fate was made clear in the books.              

Also, I know that most Pern fans don’t seem to like Lorana, but I like her for the most part. She’s compassionate, kind, selfless, with an intriguing power. That’s enough for me. Plus, I really enjoy her relationship with Fiona. And Lorana’s ambiguous and potentially tragic fate is also a draw for me, because I love how tragic it is. 

(Though to be fair I don’t care much about the continuity getting changed and things being retconned. I mostly like reading the 3rd Pass books because of the characters, their relationships and interactions and the time-travel they get up to. Even if it’s unbelievable, I really enjoy seeing them figure out how to jump to all these different times.)

[longsightmyth]

I have said this before but I still don’t know how to explain the sheer badwrong and honestly heretical feelings reading about people casually riding other people’s dragons solo in a Pern novel brings out in me. It’s not even indignation over the blatant disregard for canon. It feels wrong, but saying it that way doesn’t convey the depth I mean. I feel moral outrage nearly to the point of tears.

Obviously Dragonriders of Pern had a deeper influence on me in my childhood than I thought.

[silverstoryteller]

I am...extremely conflicted in my opinions of Todd McCaffrey’s Pern books, but I gotta respect his planning skills. Dude must have had a notebook full of character backgrounds and traits for all the names of minor characters he throws out left and right, only for them to show up again consistently two or three or four books down the road. 

Like, I was reading Dragonheart (researching for a shamelessly self-indulgent fix-it fic) today. I always figured J’per was a one-off character where the joke was he fell asleep a lot, but no; he’s timing it in Dragon’s Time and Sky Dragons, so whenever he’s “onscreen,” he’s living in three or four different places at once. 

Of course, planning is not the same as plotting a coherent narrative. As much as I dislike his plots (I still have trouble following most of Dragon’s Time), I have to admit I actually find a lot of his characters interesting, especially the minor characters. I wish we’d gotten more of the weyrling classes that timed it instead of focusing on Fiona’s love pentahedron. (Though I would also have taken a proper polyamorous Kindan/Lorana/Fiona/T’mar OT4.)

[longsightmyth]

Do you think Todd McCaffrey has been changing Pern a bit (like the whole child marriage thing, and the "wits being addled by pregnancy") because sexism is selling in fantasy? GRR/M wrote a ton of mysogonistic bull and he's got massive recognition worldwide. Any thoughts?

I first wanted to say no, Todd McCaffrey is just a shitty writer, but then I took a moment to consider.

I don’t think the influence of selling of ‘gritty’ fantasy can be entirely discounted. I mean, first of all, Pern is sci-fi, and Todd took it veerying sharply into fantasy despite his one or two nods to spaceships and Medicine. Never before (in an Anne book, anyway) has there been Cryptic Prophesy or Storied destiny or The Sight passed on to one person in a Mystical Trader Bloodline once a generation.

But I don’t think Todd pulled the fourteen year old girls in sexual relationships with adult men, lack of research about pregnancy, or lack of care for all established story and/or canon for SALES reasons, and I don’t think HE would see it as sexism (both main characters are, after all, ladies, and Todd is a cisgendered white man, so far as I can discover, in his 60s).

I think Todd McCaffrey did it because he thought he could do better. I think Todd McCaffrey did it because he thought it made Pern more realistic. I think Todd McCaffrey is a white man who looked at a woman’s work (his mother’s work) and went ‘oh, but they’re a colony short on people now that I’ve given them a badly written plague, obviously they will resort to girlchildren to fix the population. Because it’s realistic.’

There are plenty of scholarly and tumblr discussions on why that sort of thing actually ISN’T realistic, but since I suspect Todd McCaffrey didn’t do much research on the previous books written by his mother, let alone pregnancy and women’s studies, I don’t think he bothered to look into it.

After all, everybody knows it’s realistic, right? George RR Martin SAID so.

[longsightmyth]

If this book kills me from sheer awfulness and disappointment, have Todd McCaffrey lower me into my grave.

You know why.

[longsightmyth]

Leaving aside the part where we have a FOURTEEN YEAR OLD CHILD expected to act like an adult (while there are still lots of little patronizing comments like 'oh she's still young enough to be insecure' no duh SHE IS A CHILD) in a sexual relationship with an adult man, does anyone ELSE remember the emphasis placed on discouraging nearly to the point of disallowing weyrlings to be in sexual or romantic relationships because a, they're busy, and b, their dragons are still developing?

Because I do.

So all I can think about amidst the Romantic Drama going on here is that Terin is being allowed to accidentally fuck up her vitally important queen dragon/ soulmate to the point she almost stops feeding her because the adults in her life are irresponsible to a harmful degree.

Yes, the aforementioned adults are being constantly lauded for responsibility by the narrative.

[longsightmyth]

I didn't think I'd ever say this, y'all.

I hate Lorana more than I hate Celaena Sardothien.

(I'm not sure she's a worse person than Celaena I just hate her more)

(It's the dragon commandeering)