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queer-as-used-by-tolkien · 1 year

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Topical Character Study: Sacrifice (feat. Brother Cadfael, Thorin Oakenshield, al'Lan Mandragoran, Almorra Soulkeeper, Trahearne, Gorrik and Blish)

My new interest in the Cadfael Chronicles (I just rewatched ep 3 today; hopefully I'll be getting the books for Christmas) has made me do some thinking about the types of characters I get into.

I've described by 'type' as a collection of all the traits shared between the people I've become obsessed with. But Brother Cadfael not only defies a lot of these traits, but the ones he does possess are completely irrelevant to why I like him.

So now it's time to investigate more deeply, this time by reflecting on the places that have the most emotion surrounding it.

Brother Cadfael

I first became interested in Cadfael when he looked full in the face of a leper and did not flinch or look away. A minute later he was speaking of how God looks on the heart and not the external appearance. It takes a lot of self-control to keep oneself from having some reaction; when I saw it I thought he must be having a great struggle inside of himself to appear calm - I saw it not as a false mask, but as a sacrifice for the sake of showing love. I can't imagine how touched the leper must have felt, showing his old friend his marred face and having his friend accept him with as much warmth and love as ever before, if not more.

What really gets me about al'Lan Mandragoran is his fury when he finds the woman he loves is about to put herself into danger; the way he tries to restrain his expression of these feelings because he doesn't understand them (or doesn't want to feel them) but fails, because he does love her. And then, he forces himself to let her go anyway, because he knows she can handle herself. He doesn't let her go easily; but he lets her go because she has to, that is her duty and he understands duty. That is a sacrifice on his part, a sacrifice of his emotion for truly loving her and letting her pursue what she knows is right.

In addition and on a lesser scale - because there is not nearly as big a window into this part of his life than the other - his own dedication to his dead kingdom and his duty is staggering. There is no point where he regains something that he sacrificed for this mission to show how much he's lost for it, but he is a cold, hard warrior who has given most of his life to his calling. The Aes Sedai in his life are all afraid he will throw his life away following it, but that is his duty. I really wish we had seen him given his heart's desire so we could see how much he treasured the things he'd given up to follow his duty.

Trahearne

I first became interested in Trahearne because he died, because I had to kill him. But, upon further investigation, I liked him because of his dedication to Orr. It goes far beyond the fact that he's being forced into it (which some people prefer to emphasize); I think he really does love the land. He's made countless sacrifices for it; he's been alone all his life and never even made any progress.

And then the Commander comes along and doesn't see a terrifying necromancer or anything else people avoid him for, but instead a friend, someone to help and support, someone to encourage and uplift. Trahearne's response to this kindness, of having found someone who understands his dedication to his duty, shows me he has felt the sacrifices he's made for Orr and has done it anyway. It shows me he has decided to do his duty despite the discomfort and the pain, and that tells me that he knows he has chosen to do the right thing, that he believes in what he's doing, and that he won't waver when it gets hard.

This conviction is borne out in his last minutes of life, when he is fighting to prevent Mordremoth from returning to terrorize the sylvari - that was all he said. He didn't say 'I'm fighting for my mind and soul, please release me' - he said Mordremoth would come back. He didn't say 'I'm all but dead anyway, just kill me!' - he said his fellow sylvari would suffer. He didn't give up because it was hard or difficult; he had to die because it was the right thing to do, and he didn't give up when the Commander refused, but insisted anyway.

Thorin Oakenshield

What got me about Thorin is his insistence on doing his mission his way; he isn't going to let anyone else mess with something that is his responsibility. That is, in part, a flawed outlook, but it shows that he felt responsible for making sure the thing he was devoted to got done. At the end of the Battle of the Five Armies, after he has been mortally wounded, he staggers to an outlook to see how the battle is going. Only after seeing the victory in progress does he allow himself to literally collapse where he stands. In An Unexpected Journey, he is reluctant to trust Bilbo; this mission is important to him and he doesn't want Bilbo to mess it up. Only after Bilbo showed an understanding of Thorin's mission and the motivations behind it did Thorin welcome Bilbo into the Company. Thorin wasn't shy of rejecting a relationship that might jeopardize the mission; but once Bilbo proved himself worthy, Thorin embraced friendship with everything he had. Like with Trahearne, this shows me that he was putting the mission before his personal desires.

The tragedy of the dragon sickness was that it twisted Thorin's personality backwards: putting his personal desires (pride) before his commitment to his cause (regaining Erebor and restoring it to its former glory), and had to be bought into his former dedication by manipulating his personal desire for the Arkenstone. When he came back to himself, he returned to his former self and back to placing greater importance on his mission than his pride

al'Lan Mandragoran

What really gets me about al'Lan Mandragoran is his fury when he finds the woman he loves is about to put herself into danger; the way he tries to restrain his expression of these feelings because he doesn't understand them (or doesn't want to feel them) but fails, because he does love her. And then, Lan forces himself to let her go anyway, because he knows she can handle herself. He doesn't let her go easily; but he lets her go because she has to, that is her duty and he understands duty. That is a sacrifice on his part, a sacrifice of his emotion for truly loving her and letting her pursue what she knows is right.

In addition and on a lesser scale - because there is not nearly as big a window into this part of his life than the other - Lan's own dedication to his dead kingdom and his duty is staggering. There is no point where he regains something that he sacrificed for this mission to show how much he's lost for it, but he is a cold, hard warrior who has given most of his life to his calling. The Aes Sedai in his life are all afraid he will throw his life away following it, but that is his duty. I really wish we had seen him given his heart's desire so we could see how much he treasured the things he'd given up to follow his duty.

Gorrik (and Blish)

To me, Blish's sacrifice was compelling: he asked the Commander to leave him to die so that he could power the dragon tracker with his mechanical body. He had seen a greater purpose when he met Taimi and had dedicated himself to that.

Gorrik had spent a lot of time building a golem body for his brother. That was a huge sacrifice for him because then he had to look at his brother's mind trapped inside a machine - no easy thing for anyone. But he did it because otherwise Blish would die. When Blish did actually die, Gorrik's response was a heartwrenching whisper of "but I saved him." He'd sacrificed so much so that Blish would not die, but then Blish died anyway. Even after this, however, Gorrik, continued to aid the cause when he had little to no personal stake in it: he would continue the work his brother started.

Almorra Soulkeeper

Almorra founded the Vigil to fight the dragons. The Vigil's motto is some must fight so that all may be free. This inherently implies a sacrifice; some must fight - a sacrifice that might cost your life - for the freedom of those who do not fight. Not only is it a sacrifice, it's a sacrifice for people who are not, themselves, sacrificing.

She spent nearly ten years fighting dragons that weren't the dragon she had a personal vendette with. And even after that, she kept fighting. It was after she had proven this part of herself - that she would keep sacrificing, not for revenge, but because it was the right thing to do - that she finally lost her life. It was thought that she'd fallen fighting dragon minions, that Bangar and Ryland had come along after and given her the proper respect and buried her.

But then it was discovered that she had not lost her life fighting dragons, but defending herself from Bangar and Ryland - the people who should have been her allies, the people who, despite our animosity, we had thought would have shown her kindness. It was the most unjust death - the most pointless, meaningless death - because it was not a sacrifice for something she believed in, but betrayal from those who should have acted like decent people.

~oOoOo~

So it seems the central determining factor to why I like characters is the theme of duty and dedication - revealed through sacrifice. The degree of a person's dedication can be seen through the amount the person is willing to sacrifice in pursuit of it. Because the characters are giving a thing up, we do not see how much it meant to the characters unless we give it to them despite their sacrifice and see how much they treasure the gift.

(I did not include Forgal Kernsson on this list because his sacrifice and personality never triggered emotion in me; rather I came to like him through my own writing.)

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ammg-old2 · 2 years

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1, 8, 18, book asks?

book you’ve reread the most times? That's a difficult one to answer, but I'd say probably The School at the Chalet by Elinor M. Brent-Dyer. It's one of my top Comfort Books!!

what is the first book you remember reading yourself? I remember reading a book in J2 where I wrote down all the words that I didn't know the meanings of or couldn't read, but for some reason I wrote down "pole" which I knew damn well I was familiar with. I can't remember the plot of the story but it was a mystery of some sort, and the girl (who was called Polly) tried to give up her seat to an adult on the bus and was mocked for it, so the next time there was an adult who needed a seat she didn't offer it, and then she got into trouble at school.

[side rant: I hope this stupid custom has disappeared bc primary-school children should absolutely be sitting down on buses wtf]

do you like historical books? which time period? My first instinct is to say yes, but I'm verrrrry picky because reading a book with too much misogyny in it really sets off my anxiety, but if it's not historically accurate it annoys me. Currently I'm reading the Cadfael Chronicles (by Ellis Peters), a mystery murder series set in England in the 1100s and the main character is a Benedictine monk. DEFINITELY recommend!!! Cadfael is Welsh and there's lots of stuff on English-Welsh relations & differences at the time, and the Maud-Stephen civil war impacts a lot on the storylines.

#thanks for the ask!!!#books #reading #chalet school #cadfael chronicles #asks

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lupines-slash-recs · 2 years

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Rec: Honey Sweet and Henbane Sour by LMD18

Title: Honey Sweet and Henbane Sour Author: LMD18 Canon: Cadfael Chronicles Pairing: Hugh Beringar/Cadfael Rating: Teen [PG] Word Count: 14,073 Summary: In the summer of 1038, the isolated, peaceful world of Hogwarts is disrupted by an (more…)

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oldshrewsburyian · 1 year

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As much as I adore your (highly) interesting takes on medievalism and how it differs from what we actually know (or hypothesize) about the medieval period, I don't think I've ever asked: are there any books set in either the real middle ages or some fantasy approximation of the period that you WOULD recommend? They don't have to be "perfect" representations, obviously, but it would be nice to learn about any books that side-step the usual potholes. Thank you!

Hi, friend! A of all, thank you; B of all, there are and I would. From the following list it will become apparent that my criteria are idiosyncratic. Really, I think, the most important thing for my own enjoyment -- for any historical fiction, but especially for that set in the place/time I know best -- is that the work and its author are exploring the period as a way of opening up a conversation between past and present, rather than looking down on the past from the vantage point of the contemporary. This sententious prolegomenon concluded:

The Book Smuggler, Omaima Al-Khamis (eleventh-century Islamicate world, about knowledge and wisdom and religious intolerance)

Morality Play, Barry Unsworth (fourteenth-century England, about justice and law and vocation and community)

The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco (doesn't need my introduction, hilarious and deeply poignant meta-meditation on the genre of the detective story, also on theological debates and the love of one's neighbor and the nature of fear)

Sword at Sunset, Rosemary Sutcliff (fifth-century post-Roman Britain, has some clichés, also some magic, but is so richly imagined and full of people I love. Also good dogs.)

Cadfael Chronicles, Ellis Peters (twelfth-century England; I was wondering why I love these so much and I think a lot of it comes back to how much Ellis Peters loved the particular place she lived/set the books in, and watching the changing of the seasons there, so that that close observation of time -- very medieval! -- is also central. Inequality isn't made invisible or grotesque here, either, and it's often one or the other in Fictional Medieval Europe.)

Isaac of Girona mysteries, Caroline Roe (C14 Spain, also whodunits, but I cannot resist including this charming series about a blind Jewish doctor and his beloved wife and his daughters and the orphan he adopts and his chess-playing buddy the bishop and and and....! It's great.)

The History of the Siege of Lisbon, José Saramago (C12/C20 Portugal, called "metafiction about the instability of history and the reality assumed by fiction" by Kirkus Reviews and... yeah!)

She Who Became The Sun, Shelley Parker-Chan (C15 Ming China, with ghosts, definitely fantasy rather than regular historical fiction, and on the cusp of early modernity, also so so interesting)

The Apothecary's Shop, Roberto Tiraboschi (C12 Venice, deeply weird -- affectionate -- and drawing on Calvino and gialli as well as medieval history; some inaccuracies about women and medicine but I still found it compelling and thought-provoking)

#historical fiction #fun with medievalism #book recommendations #asks and answers

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fiction-quotes · 9 months

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And Cadfael returned along the path with the uncomfortable feeling that God, nevertheless, required a little help from men, and what he mostly got was hindrance.

— A Morbid Taste for Bones (Ellis Peters)

#book quotes #historical fiction #mystery fiction #ellis peters #edith pargeter #the cadfael chronicles #a morbid taste for bones #brother cadfael #religion #christianity #help #problems #theology

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first--lines · 1 year

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It was early in November of 1139 that the tide of civil war, lately so sluggish and inactive, rose suddenly to sweep over the city of Worcester, wash away half its livestock, property and women, and send all those of its inhabitants who could get away in time scurrying for their lives northwards away from the marauders, to burrow into hiding wherever there was manor or priory, walled town or castle strong enough to afford them shelter. By the middle of the month a straggle of them had reached Shrewsbury, and subsided thankfully into the hospitable embrace of monastery or town, to lick their wounds and pour out their grievances.

— The Virgin in the Ice (Ellis Peters)

#book quotes #historical fiction #mystery fiction #ellis peters #edith pargeter #the cadfael chronicles #the virgin in the ice

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comicaurora · 1 year

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Question unrelated to Aurora: i was rewatching some trope talks (the detective one specifically) and i was wondering if you've ever heard of the Cadfael Chronicles which is a set of like 12 books i think about a Welsh monk in England (named Cadfael) solving mysteries in the midst of a civil war by using his experience as a crusader and his knowledge of herbs

It's written in third person which for a detective series is interesting and i have actually read all 12 books but the first couple of ones are honestly very nice

He does have a Watson like character to accompany him (usually) but it varies. Anyway i just think it's a really good book so yep

My dad is a big fan of those books - I'll have to borrow them!

#asks #not aurora #media recs

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greencheekconure27 · 3 months

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Xenk Yendar 🤝 Olivier de Bretagne

#darmok and jalad at Tanagra #blorbo from my shows?#d&d honor among thieves #cadfael chronicles #xenk yendar #olivier de bretagne #brother cadfael #dndhat

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graaaaceeliz · 9 months

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I'm reading the cadfael chronicles and my ear is playing up again and I'm like you know what if I wasn't dead by now in those days I'd probably be a nun with hearing problems . So yeah.

#cadfael chronicles #theyre SOoooo good

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moxiebustion · 1 month

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I'm not even remotely religious in any way, but I am begging people who are going to write about a character going into a monastery/nunnery whatever to please, please, please read some of the Cadfael Chronicles before you cast an entire population of people as fire-and-brimstone, self-mutilating, repressed, fanatical zealots.

For the uninitiated, the Cadfael Chronicles was a long series of medieval-set (specifically set in the 12th century) murder mysteries where the gumshoe role is taken by a monk who is well into middle age, a skilled herbalist and a former soldier and sailor who joined the Order late in his life (which for one, did happen!).

Now, there are some dated things about the writing that bears some examining; Ellis Peters (psued for Edith Pargeter) first started writing then in the late seventies (the last book was published 1994, a year before her death), and while she was a fantastic amateur self-taught scholar (she was so good she got an honorary degree from Birmingham University, having never even been to any higher education than high school) she is writing about the time of the Crusades and the Crusaders who invaded Jerusalem and she doesn't really delve that deep into the implications of her characters being involved in that, even though the characters are portrayed as the good guys, especially the titular one. But it's very possible most of the scholarship she had available for research at the time was all Western perspectives, which, you know, history is written by the winners, etc. She has a writers bias towards her protagonist, so of course he is framed fairly glowingly, though not without flaw.

But whether she had a view on the moral implications of the Crusades or not, the way she wrote medieval Britain and medieval Wales is absolutely textually fascinating because she doesn't flinch away from the fact that yes, Britain at this time was a feudal serfdom with slaves included, and was hard on marginalized people, chock full of patriarchy that did affect the lives of her female characters or that the Church was a big landowner themselves, and there was plenty of political tension and violence due to an ongoing civil war, but nonetheless the town the Chronicles are set in and the monastery where Cadfael lives is portrayed as a community.

Seriously. They don't just pray and whip themselves for 'bad thoughts'. The monks can be funny, snarky, and shy, and ambitious. They can be irreverent - yes, even about God, that thing that they are meant to be the most reverent about. They can have petty rivalries, they can annoy one another, even the Abbot, and not be sent for a backbreaking penance. They aren't thumping on bibles and telling people that if they don't make the cut that they're going to burn in hell.

They care. They take care of the children left in their charge, whether they're rich scions there to get an education or some poor thing left on their doorstep. One monk, in charge of the children, expresses real and genuine concern over a new novice that is having horrific dreams, worried that he has suffered a tremendous hidden trauma (he's right) and they're all concerned about what they can do to help him. A pair of teenagers literally fuck on one of the altars and the reaction from Cadfael is rueful amusement at young people's folly, not disgust or anger. They collect alms for the poor, redistribute everything given to them to help people survive. They crack jokes and show each other kindness and...

... look, I'm not saying that there weren't and still aren't zealots in religion. No religion is really innocent of that. And yeah, those zealots have done some pretty heinous things when they're put in charge - see Witch Burnings, Various Inquisitions, Crusades, Terrorism, etc. But I do wish writers wouldn't write about religious life like everyone who ever entered it was either a complete bag of bible-thumping assholes or just miserable all the time.

For one thing, that's really boring. Religion is a way we can tell stories about the complex reality we live in and the rules we think are important when dealing with other people. To reduce all that potential down to Miserable, Repressed, Self-Harming, Witch Hunting Jerks is intellectually lazy at best.

For another thing, you are losing the opportunity to portray a fundamentally queer experience. I don't mean they were all fucking (although some of the proscriptions that they felt the need to write down would rise your eyebrows - hand holding was apparently banned at one point); I meant that this was a group of people that took themselves out of the amatonormative status quo entirely and dedicated themselves to something that wasn't marriage, children, mercantile endeavors or anything 'normal' like that. That was, at the very least, a queer experience with clear queerplatonic overtones (not to mention, there were FTM trans monks that literally went on to sainthood, chosen gender kept intact).

And also? It just isn't historically accurate. Plenty of men and women actively chose a life outside the norm because they wanted to serve god and the community. They're just a group of people, all living together, making space for one another, all trying to serve people in whatever way they can. These people were less raging witch-burners and more Jedi without the lightsaber.

In the Cadfael books, they have brushes with zealots and they're reviled as bad guys every time. One (in the very first book) more or less fakes a whole-ass vision to manipulate the order to go to Wales and try and acquire a Welsh saint's bones and ends up doing even worse things because he believes he is destined for greatness and will get it by whatever means necessary. The head of the mission (who edges close to zealot territory himself and fully buys into the con for his own benefit) tries to buy the saints relics and causes a massive diplomatic incident as a result of this insult that makes him look like an idiot.

The other zealot that gives them trouble is a priest appointed to run the church. This man is as big a bible thumping, hellfire and brimstone dickhead as you might always picture a medieval priest to be and he is uniformly despised by both the monks and the township at large because his zealotry and strict adherence to only the letter of religious law and nothing else actively harms the community.

He's so hated, in fact, that when he (spoilers) dies, the reactions of all and sundry is mostly just relief that he's gone.

The Catholic Church has a lot of sins that it forgets more than it reckons with, but that doesn't mean that life in a monastery was all hair shirts and self-mortification, every abbot a little dictator. People have lived just fine in small communes for a lot of human history and they didn't all have small-minded tyrants continually cracking the whip. Most of them didn't.

I know it's an easy shaft to mine angst from, shoving people into an oppressive environment that they must either endure or overcome. And yes, the way we write about religion is sometimes a product of working through a complicated and traumatic relationship with it. I'm not trying to say any writer can't or shouldn't write that because your art is always supposed to be about putting parts of yourself out there, about telling the world a story about how you see it; and if you're working through something, if you need to tell a story about the scars that zealotry absolutely have and do leave, go for it, more power to you. That's a story that should and must be told.

But if your character is going into a monastery, try to remember that humans are social creatures. We make friends more than we make enemies. Even under intense tyranny, we make allegiances and form bonds and find ways to make the world were in a little bit more bearable wherever we can. And we tend to show each other compassion and mercy, even when we don't always like each other. It's true today, and it was true then too.

Monastic life was a queer experience that happened right under the noses of the dominant power structures for centuries. I think there's a story or two to be mined from that as well.

#writing #worldbuilding #character building #medieval history #religion #nicolo di genova #the old guard #brother cadfael #ellis peters #queerness #m #monasticism #monastic life

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