Wastrel’s Reviews > Queen of Sorcery > Status Update

So, the psychopathy is getting intense now, and I really don't like it. It's not just that the heroes kill people a lot, or even that they like it - nor even that one of them is a flat-out genocidal racist who needs to be physically held back from murder whenever he sees a representative of the lesser races (it's OK, readers, they're all evil, so it's good to kill them!).

It's the constant winks, "sly" remarks, repeated congratulations to one another on being a "bad man", and general flippancy and insistence on the tone remaining completely level and unconcerned no matter how much bloodshed is going on.

HOWEVER!

The surprising thing here is that *Eddings seems to know how fucked up this is*. Because we've repeatedly cut from the "experienced" heroes/serial killers to Durnik and Garion (from a rural farm, no history of mass murder) expressing horror, grief, post-traumatic stress and guilt over the killings. And they're not portrayed as idiots, naive, or soft.

I think the idea is that the experience of brutality dehumanises the characters and renders them unfeeling robots who resort to black humour to maintain their sanity. It's interesting for instance that although Durnik expresses horror and revulsion early on - and continues throughout to dislike murder in a way the others don't (he always suggests doing something or calling the police whenever they're hanging out having a laugh watching random strangers murder one another, for instance), as the novel goes on he becomes much more comfortable with killing, even if only reluctantly and without the flippancy of the others. Garion is left as the only one with morals - and it's worth saying that he feels guilty not just for what he does, but for what his innocent actions result in.

It's an interesting angle that I honestly think Eddings intended... and the fascinating thing is that he will later abandoned this entirely. I believe in the later books in this world, and certainly in the Elenium/Tamuli later, the moral/innocent perspective is absent entirely, and the story is seen *only* from the perspective on the dehumanised serial killers. I kind of wonder whether he always wanted to write about that but felt he ought to include some good people at first, or whether he was just seduced by the psychopaths he portrayed over time - and, if so, whether the seduction was aesthetic (there's an element of fun to them), commercial (they sold) or moral (did he decide that these really were the heroes? Because in this novel that's not entirely clear. It's assumed, but not unambiguously).

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Relatedly: the heroes are now pretty much just resorting to sheer bullying (physical and/or magical) whenever anyone gets in their way. I remember this being the dominant theme of the Elenium, where the heroes would happy decapitate anyone who so much as asked where they were going. I find it frustrating not just because it's morally questionable, but because it's such a lazy approach to conflict.

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On the other hand, one thing I'd forgotten is that these novels, at least so far, aren't really about conflict, ultimately. That's just what moves the plot. The real story here is more like *The Sword in the Stone*: Garion goes through a series of educational experiences that prepare him to fulfill the prophecies. Seen in that light, a lot of things make more sense: the extreme stereotypes of each culture he encounters, for instance, are like the way the Wort/Arthur is shown by Merlin what it's like to live as different sorts of animal - each culture presents new moral dilemmas and perspectives for Garion to digest.


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Speaking of those cultures: the Tolnedra section is *much* better than the Arendia section. This is because the Arends are very earnest, and the heroes are cynical and hate sincerity, so they mock everything and Eddings seems to support them. His attempts to show some virtue to the sincerity are very weak - one moment (a small orphan girl begs for one morsel of food while a rustic peasant boy hauntingly plays a pipe alone in the mist) is meant to be moving but is SO ridiculously saccharine that it's laugh-out-loud-able.

[having said that, the character of Mandorallen - the mightiest knight on life whose strength is as the strength of ten because his heart is pure etc etc - is actually one of the most interesting in the novel, as Eddings has Garion acknowledge. He reminds me of Carrot on Discworld - a man who is very simple, and yet not stupid, and as a result surprisingly complicated. ]

Tolnedra, on the other hand, is a hive of scum and villainy in which everybody is cynical and most of them appear to be murderers. Eddings and his characters are right at home here, which makes this section work a lot better.

On which note I'll also say that Eddings does put the effort in to make some minor characters less one-note than many pulp authors would do. The Roman Emperor here, for instance, is a doddering old man who foolishly doesn't believe in legends and refuses to see the imminent dangers... and yet he's actually depicted as quite smart, at least in some ways, whereas often this character would be a flat foil for the heroes.

You make interesting points about the psychopathy and racism. I was bothered by them even reading these as a kid, and was never sure what the author's position was. It seemed too gleeful to be meant as true critique, and as you say, he abandons the inclusion of less violent characters in later books. I think Garion on was the only character of his I actually found likable (and he was a bit dull).