Draws of the day: Looking forward, searching

I'm doing Wyntercraft's 30-Day Tarot Challenge. Sort of.

What was supposed to be yesterday's draw was "What is something I can look forward to this upcoming month?" and I drew Major Arcana 0, The Fool. In the Fairy Tale deck, this card is titled "Innocence"; the fairy tale depicted is "Little Red Riding Hood." So apparently this month I can look forward to being naive about something? Less sarcastically, it seems to indicate I can look forward to the start of some kind of new adventure. Dunno what it is yet, but it looks like it'll be something where I've got no idea what I'm getting into, so that'll be exciting!

Getting myself back on track (finally), the Day 18 draw question is "What should I be searching for?" The card I drew was the Six of Pentacles, which is the "peace and prosperity" card. Aren't we all searching for peace and prosperity? Perhaps I'm not actually searching actively enough. In this deck, the card is illustrated with the Maori fairy tale "Kahukura and the Fairy Fisherman," which I'm not familiar with. The Hunt book specifies that this card indicates inner peace coming into one's life, as well as prosperity, so, point taken. This seems to fit with various themes in recent readings of stagnation and holding myself back, either materially or emotionally, so I guess I will take this card as a pointed reminder and not as stating the obvious.

Tempests and floofy birbs

Oh man oh man oh man. Despite having a list of things to do as long as my arm, I squeezed out some illicit spare time this week to read the new Tamora Pierce book, Tempests and Slaughter, the one I waited five hours in line to get signed. I did not dare take it out of my room at any point and I probably never will.

 

Tempests and Slaughter covers the early schooling of the boy who will eventually become Numair Salmalin, the mightiest mage in Tortall and awkwardly older lover of Daine the wildmage. But for now, we meet him as Arram Draper, a sensitive ten-year-old with an inquisitive mind and less than great control over his Gift, in the unenviable social situation of being the youngest student at the Lower Academy of the great mage school in Carthak. Ten-year-old Arram gets up to such adventures as lying about his age, accidentally falling into a gladiatorial arena, and flooding a classroom before he is mercifully bumped up to a semi-independent study level and the fun stuff can start. The fun stuff here largely consists of him finally making friends, because the power of friendship is a common theme in Pierce's books. His friends are two other gifted mages (in the "very talented" sense; obviously all mages are Gifted in this universe) who are also on semi-independent study tracks: the lovely and charming uber-kitchen-witch Varice Kingsford, and the seventh-in-line-to-the-throne imperial heir Prince Ozorne. You might remember them from Emperor Mage, as you might remember a whole bunch of other places and characters and gods in this book.

 

Little Arram is a very particular type of earnest, easily distracted, troublesomely smart kid that I think a lot of the folks who read Tamora Pierce books identify with a lot, even if for the first time ever in the Tortall books our viewpoint character is A BOY, which occasionally makes things a bit different than our usual Tortall viewpoint characters in ways that were apparently very embarrassing for Pierce to find technical consultants for (at the event at Booksmith, she talked about Bruce Coville basically laughing his way through all her drafts after her husband refused to answer any questions, claiming that he was old and didn't remember being a teenage boy very well). Teenage Varice is very charming and skilled and it's clear why Arram is in love with her, as is everyone else. Arram's BFF Ozorne is kind of a jerk already, being virulently racist against Sirajits because a bit of the state violence his dad was enacting upon them blew back in his face, and imperial logic dictates that the empire has a monopoly on brutality and fighting back is both illegitimate and proof that Those People need to be kept in line.

 

Arram also makes another friend about halfway through the book, which is the obligatory Adorable Magical Animal Companion. This one is a fledgling sunbird in disguise, "accidentally" stowed away on the back of a crocodile god from the Divine Realms. Her name is Preet and she is apparently just the essence of every adorable birb floof I have seen on Tumblr in the past two years. Preet is feel uncomfortable when we are not about me? but other than that is protective and charming.

 

Like most of the Tortall books, this book alternates its adorable wholesome content with pervasive violence. Social justice themes explored in this book include the commercialization of suffering (in this case, via gladiatorial combat), slavery (also, in part, via gladiatorial combat), the violence of imperialism (see: Ozorne's daddy getting what he deserved and everyone pretending it reflects badly on the Sirajit), and, to a lesser extent than some of her other books, the violence of poverty. Arram is training to be a healer, which takes him into such scenes of human suffering as a plague of typhoid in the city slums, and an intense stint as a resident healer for the fighters during a set of gladiatorial games. In an interesting serendipity of media consumption, I've also spent much of my commute time this week listening to the latest Hardcore History episode, "Painfotainment," which is also about violent spectacle, including Roman gladiatorial games and other popular public executions. (Fun fact: I can't spell "gladiatorial" correctly. Embarrassing for a copy editor! Good thing they aren't around anymore or I'd have to report on people betting on them.)

 

The plot is still a bit murky since we are only in Book 1 of the series but it does seem to be barreling inexorably toward Ozorne becoming Emperor, as the other heirs are picked off via horrible accident at an unlikely pace. Ozorne is surrounded by terrible people who do much to explain how Ozorne winds up terrible too, and it's actually quite impressive that he's not a bigger shit than he is at this point. Arram's teachers at school are mostly pretty awesome and terrifying, except for Master Lindhall, who is great but not terrifying at all. The power fantasy element of this book is very strong if you were an awkward bookish gifted kid, I'll tell you. Training in powerful magic via personalized instruction by multiple powerful mentors--baby me, sitting bored in the back of a classroom acing standardized tests, is jealous across twenty years. Of course, adult me can't be arsed to memorize her tarot card meanings and I've been reading the stupid things for fifteen years, so clearly magic isn't my forte; reading Tamora Pierce books is.

 

This probably isn't the strongest Tortall book but I really can't be objective about these things. I'm too delighted by all the call-outs to other books, including a couple of references to books written by Farmer Cooper and some of his and Beka's descendants. There are fun little things like Ozorne saying he wishes he had a Stormwing, which will make anyone who remembers In the Realms of the Gods chuckle knowingly. We're also clearly laying the groundwork for Numair's expertise in various kinds of non-Gift magic, a fairly taboo subject at the university.

 

Anyway, the problem with getting and reading this book within a reasonable amount of time is that now I have to wait the entire window between books for the sequel. I already waited seven years since Mastiff was published for this one, and now I gotta start waiting again! I don't know what I shall do with myself.

 

Wait, yes I do. I will dedicate my time to social justice activism and studying witchcraft. I think Numair would approve of that.