#dragonflight reread

[auntieoneandauntietwo]

*rubs hands together* okkkkk, time to over analyze lessa and gemma’s deathbed conversation

As gemma is dying, lessa hurts her (squeezes her hand really hard) cause she’s angry that gemma intentionally interrupted fax and f’lar when they were about to duel. She then tells gemma her whole villainous plot, and gemma, confused, reveals that she was defending f’lar, not fax. Then she dies and women don’t have a conversation for like a hundred more pages.

What’s crazy and pivotal about this scene is that lessa has been hellbent on revenge since she was eleven and basically hasn’t spoken to a soul in a decade and now suddenly there’s someone on her side! She’s not alone in her hatred or her goals! And not only does gemma hate fax, she agrees that there’s something really weird happening with that red star that’s been showing up lately. So this is a moment of genuine human connection and support for someone to whom those concepts are completely alien.

And now lessa the stone cold revenge demon is feeling REMORSE, because she just caused a woman on her deathbed more pain. She even acknowledges that gemma “had suffered far more subjective brutalities and indignities” than she herself had. It’s a serious awakening of humanity for our motivated hero.

THEN she goes “she had no time for regret or contrition” and immediately resolves to at the very least spin gemma’s death in a way that will avenge her.

I feel like this whole interaction actually sets up a lot of lessa’s ongoing character struggles (or maybe I’m reading into things but bear with me) where she makes decisions that she knows risk herself or ramoth or other people (her famous backwards jump, manipulating fnor to go to the red star) but does them anyway. In this scene with gemma, she discovers some of her humanity and also discovers she can operate despite it.

This is also another example of some of the most pivotal scenes in these books being interactions between two women that are weirdly subtle and unnoticeable. Am I grasping for straws in books that barely pass the bechdel test? Absolutely. Do I think I’m right anyways? Kinda, yeah.

[auntieoneandauntietwo]

Thinking about the consequences of doubling up and the southern weyr venture

If Lessa is completely physically drained whenever she times it (admittedly she’s tripled and I think eveb quadrupled in some times), and F’nor reports that southern became increasingly exhausting and unsustainable over the years they spent in the past, what are the long term effects?

Like, does it cause brain damage? Do some of the seventy two riders who were part of the project develop depression later in life? Is it similar to physical damage like cte, and they end up with memory and judgement loss and mood disorders? Is it more cognitive? Does N’ton have nightmares about his younger self? Does F’nor start jumping at his own shadow?

Does it maybe explain some of Kylara and T’bor’s canonical emotional instability? Neither are exactly level headed when they’re introduced in dragonflight, but could Kylara’s “egomania” have been amplified by doubling up? Is T’bor perhaps overly obsessed with her, is he overly prone to dangerous emotional outbursts? (Does he actually have a drinking problem or did I make up that memory?) Would the two of them have the angry, abusive, dysfunctional relationship if they hadn’t spent six years under serious emotional and physical strain?

Assuming most of those seventy two riders stay together in the modern timeline Southern Weyr, by the time they get to High Reaches and everything is exacerbated by Prideth and Wirenth dying, what kind of full blown mental health crisis are they dealing with?

[auntieoneandauntietwo]

Seeing as the big high point of Dragonflight is the relationship between Lessa and Mardra, it’s a bit of a shame that the conflict in Dragonquest doesn’t actually center around the collapse of that relationship

[auntieoneandauntietwo]

Things F’lar is allowed to be mad at Lessa about:

Jedi mind tricking him and T’bor into things that could incite war

Going between when she doesn’t really know how to and disappearing (which of course isn’t actually a problem in the end because she discovered timing it)

These things are allowed because I think they make sense with his character and make the scenes and characters dynamic and interesting. Also these are things he’s definitely terrified of

Things F’lar’s not allowed to be mad at Lessa about:

General “disobedience”

Having emotions

Dude, you’re not in charge of her! Stop acting like a controlling parent to your romantic interest!

These don’t make the scenes and characters dynamic and interesting, they make the scenes tedious and the characters unlikable

Things F’lar is allowed to physically harm Lessa about:

NONE OF IT. FUCKING NOTHING AT ALL.

Yeah.

[auntieoneandauntietwo]

Part two of dragonflight (between the post impression time skip and the first mating flight) is super super fun because it’s basically the only time we get to see Lessa operating in Benden Weyr basically entirely on her own

She’s in an alien environment, with a social culture and power dynamics she’s completely unfamiliar with. She has basically zero allies, and can barely speak to them anyways. She’s spent three years biding her time (which she is of course extremely good at) and is just beginning to become frustrated and angry about it. She can tell that the weyr is at a desperate point, but has no way of knowing what she can do about it.

And the thing is, Lessa has more power than anyone in the weyr, but she doesn’t know it yet. But throughout this section, she starts experimenting a bit. She’s so done with waiting that she starts testing the limits of what she can do with her authority and her and Ramoth’s abilities.

And obviously this isn’t all successful, but it’s fun to think about where Lessa would have gone had F’lar not been in the picture. I can’t imagine she would give up and let the weyr disappear and Pern be destroyed by thread, and I think eventually would find a way to gain enough power and control for herself to get something done.

[auntieoneandauntietwo]

But F’nor! I haven’t realized why he must wait either!

I’m extremely confused by this scene. It introduces wayyyyy more questions than it answers. Why IS F’lar waiting? Why DID it take courage to watch that moment slide by? Is he suggesting it took courage from R’GUL? (Why does anne feel the need to casually mention domestic violence and then never address it? Sigh.)

The obvious answer to why F’lar is waiting (as opposed to seizing power and ousting R’gul as soon as Lessa impressed) is that he’s waiting for the mating flight, but unless this is a continuity error that’s NOT the answer because Lessa has already acknowledged that possibility at least once and even gone so far as to make fun of him for being such a traditionalist.

Anyone have any thoughts on this scene or the general things Lessa is frustrated by here? I’m at a loss

[auntieoneandauntietwo]

Most of the way through dragonflight and pleasantly surprised to remember that the plot is very nicely done. I have it in my head that it’s a mess but actually it’s a pretty tight story with good pacing and levels of action (hard to pull off in a book mostly about politics) despite the weirdness with the novellas

What IS a mess is the pacing and consistency of the characters. Like dear god there’s so much potential for the characters to be genuinely interesting, nuanced, sympathetic characters but their characterization and growth is alllll over the place. And Lessa and F’lar’s whole relationship is the worst of all, I swear it starts skipping around between stages of romanticness. One page they’re acting like they don’t trust or like each other at all and the next they’re casually cuddling?? I can’t keep up

[auntieoneandauntietwo]

Hmm whatever could we be talking about here…