Posts tagged ‘dragons’
The Grand Finale
Oh, wow, this took a long time. And I do apologize. I was right in my last review; Out of Oz was similar to Wicked and did take me careful reading and at least a page of notes. Plus, someone else had it checked out of my local library and I had to wait for it to be checked in again. Then I did a little background research after that.
I like Out of Oz; nearly everyone who isn’t dead in the previous books is in this book, plus a few new characters. We do have Nor and the Lion from Lion Among Men, as well as the Time Dragon and the Dwarf and of course, the Grimmerie. And anyone who claims it is “just a book” is out of their minds. The Grimmerie has more personality than some of the characters. Liir and Candle are part of the book, as well as Shell as the Emperor Apostle. And the Wicked Witch’s first friend, Glinda Upland, is now a political prisoner.
One character has also returned, one that I had not given much thought to in the previous three books, so I haven’t mentioned him. But General Cherrystone is present and accounted for in most of the first section of Out of Oz, when he places Glinda under house arrest and begins using her house and land to build boats. Mainland Oz is still trying to annex the Free State of Munchkinland when the book opens. Most of the opening is seen through Glinda, who is a widow and a lady. Her household staff is reduced to a few people; one of the few remaining is a young girl named Rain and the only reason that the reader knows that Rain is Liir’s daughter is because of the description on the inside flap. At this point in the story, Rain does not have green skin, although why is not known.
During Glinda’s house arrest, the Dwarf (Mr. Boss), Nor and the Lion end up on her property with the Time Dragon. Previous encounters with the great clock have proven that the Time Dragon works on its own magic. This time, it incites the soldiers staying on Glinda’s property in upper Munchkinland and delivering the Grimmerie to Glinda. Glinda is not happy about it; although its use becomes clear in the end of the first section. The book only shows one spell to Glinda, To Call Winter Upon Water. And General Cherrystone and his soldiers have built four boats to cross the Restwater Lake with and they bring with them six dragons. While the soldiers are attempting the invasion of Munchkinland, Glinda and Rain use the spell to freeze the mass in place. Five of the dragons die and the boats are destroyed. Although Cherrystone eventually makes it to the other side of the lake, the Munchkinlander Army holds into at a fort and the invasion into Munchkinland is stalled. Glinda returns the Grimmerie o the Dwarf and company and she also asks that they take Rain with them. The Lion and Nor agree, although Mr. Boss is less thrilled.
And now Rain begins of follow her grandmother’s childhood. The company is commanded south by the Grimmerie and south is Quadling country, where Elphaba and Nessarose spent their childhood with their missionary father. During the trek, Mr. Boss makes comments about the Time Dragon dying, although the clock does give a few more performances. One performance includes the last days of the Ozma Regent before the Wizard dropped in and shot him. And still, no one knows what happens to the infant Ozma Tippertarius. And during this trek, The Emperor Apostle has issued a decree that all magical items must be brought to the capital. Both sides of the Munchkinland War are still searching for the Grimmerie, although there are only a few who can read it.
The trek through Quadling country gifts Rain with a few things. Like her grandmother, she picks up a familiar, a strange creature that starts to follow her that she calls Tay. She also acquires (steals) a conch shell and listens to it, although it doesn’t seem to tell her anything. Soon after the group leaves Quadling country, they come to an outpost and there, we catch up with the second book. And that’s where Liir and Candle have been living for the past eight years.
Now, we learn more about Candle and Liir in this section. Liir saved Rain just after she had been born and shortly after that, he found a way to enchant her skin so that she wasn’t green and marked as descended from Elphaba. Eventually, he and Candle met up again and raised Rain for about two years. Then it became too dangerous for them to be part of greater Oz, so they asked Lady Glinda to take Rain in and take care of her.
I’m going to deviate a bit; for Out of Oz, it was somewhat beneficial to have seen the play. The friendship between Glinda and Elphaba was such an important part of the musical and that relationship comes into play twice in this story. Because Glinda takes care of Rain on the assumption that Rain is her friend’s granddaughter, even though she doesn’t have any proof. She even explains to Rain much later in the book about how she had accompanied Rain on childhood adventures, holding mittens and overseeing bathtime for the child. Also, there are parts when the lyrics from the song Wonderful are completely appropriate.
Back to the tale, not only are Liir, Candle and Rain attempting (and mostly failing) to be a family, but this is the first time Liir and Nor have met with the knowledge that they are siblings. Before, they were simply playmates, but now they know they are both the children of Fiyero and they both have years of sacrifice and sorrow behind them. Plus, Liir is still acknowledged by the Birds and they bring him two important bits of information: one, that Rain does have the ability to fly in her and two, that Dorothy Gale has returned to Oz. And after a short period of time, the group will spilt up once again, with the Lion and Mr. Boss going to Munchkinland and Liir and his family going elsewhere. Along the way, Mr. Boss is faced with his greatest loss: the Time Dragon falls into the Kellswater Lake and there is something wrong with that lake; it’s almost like acid.
Now, with the spilt, Maguire follows the Lion to the trial of Dorothy first. And we see that most of Munchkinland still treats Animals like second-class citizens but most Animals still live in the free state instead of the mainland Oz. And Dorothy is put on trial for the deaths of Nessarose and Elphaba Thropp, who were both part of the ruling family of Munchkinland. This is where Wonderful comes in, because on her last visit (when she was 10), Dorothy was hailed as a hero for killing the Witches. Now she is labeled a murderer for killing the Eminent Thropp and her sister, two of the people who might have been able to protect Munchkinland from the invading forces of Oz. The trial becomes just a show and the now sixteen-year-old Dorothy is the main attraction. Really, the woman now running Munchkinland, La Mombey, was using the trial to round up all of the Animals in the area and conscript them into service because the forces of Oz have begun to invade Munchkinland from other borders. However, Dorothy does escape with the help of the Lion and his companions and she becomes part of the merry crowd.
Meanwhile, Liir and family travel elsewhere and Nor takes Rain away, again. Rain goes where both of her aunts have been- the University of Shiz, although not the same college. She goes to St. Prowd’s, where she makes a friend in one of the servant girls and eventually finds a friend in a street urchin named Tip, who makes himself useful around the campus. And she discovers Tip is a runaway from La Mombey of Munchkinland. Eventually, several years pass while Rain is at school and she has no contact with her family during that time, but she does grow closer to Tip and when she finally runs away from the school and begins to head for Kiamo Ko, he goes with her.
However, through all of this, both Oz and Munchkinland are still looking for the Grimmerie and specifically, Liir because he is Elphaba’s son. And when Rain and Tip make it to Kiamo Ko, they find a funeral for Nor going on. There was a raid on the fortress and Liir was snatched up, as was the Grimmerie. Candle began to beg Nor to tell her where Rain was hidden, but Nor refused and eventually the constant begging drove Nor mad and she died. Then Candle packed up and began her own journey. Rain’s blood family is scattered again, but she does meet Nanny, who thinks that Rain is young Elphaba. And then everyone begins questioning what really happened to Elphaba? Technically, only Nanny knows and she is well on her way into and through senility. And Rain is made the unofficial leader, taking up the role of her grandmother and her father. She wanders up to the room where Dorothy and Elphaba met and in a dream, meets Elphaba’s familiars- the dogs, the crows and the bees who died the first time Dorothy came to Oz. When she wakes, she finds that Tip has gone to find out what happened to Liir.
We also find out what happened to Liir and who took him. During the journey he is tortured and kept in a weakened state. Eventually, he is given a potion that turns him into a Black Elephant (strange reversal of fates, since he worked to turn the Princess from a human to an Elephant in Son of a Witch) and taken to La Mombey. Kynot, the Eagle who flew with Liir, sees the transformation and the stillness of Liir’s body and thinks the man is dead and begins to fly to bring this news back to the family. In Munchkinland, Liir is presented to La Mombey and is reintroduced to Trism, his other lover. They want him to read the Grimmerie and help Munchkinland win. And they have been breeding Dragons again while the armies of Munchkinland strive to keep Oz out. But Liir refuses because he might be targeting Rain. And then, Tip returns.
Meanwhile, Rain decides to head for the Emerald City and seek an audience with the Emperor, her great uncle. She, Dorothy, Mr. Boss and the Lion begin their travels and come across the Ozmists, who still demand knowledge of the Ozma. Rain questions them, but they dismiss her questions. When the group makes it to the Emerald City, Dorothy and Rain are the ones who seek an audience with Shell to find out if he has taken Liir. Shell avoids the questions and tries to dismiss them, but then the Dragons attack. In the midst of the battle, Candle arrives with Kynot and the news of Liir’s ‘death.’ Eventually, the attack ceases and Munchkinland is the winner. La Mombey comes forward to treaty with Shell.
And that is where everything falls apart. The Lion demands that Liir’s remains be returned to his family. And La Mombey brings out the Elephant Liir and tries to return him to his natural form. Rain and Tip are also wandering around the proceedings, and they find each other and hiding in an alcove, make love. Afterwards, when Tip returns to La Mombey’s side, Mombey tries to use the Grimmerie to restore Liir’s human form and he resists. The spell she uses, To Call the Lost Forward, has many other consequences. Liir is human, but Rain’s skin is returned to its natural green color. The spell also reverses Mombey’s appearance to the old hag she used to be and even more significant is what it does to Tip, who isn’t a boy, but the Ozma Tippetarius, restored after all those years.
And this has a great deal of fallout; Rain no longer has the friend and lover she thought she did and neither do Liir and Candle. Liir and Candle begin to fight about his inaction during his stint as an Elephant, when he would not read the Grimmerie. Candle thinks he should have to try to save Rain, while he insists that he was trying to protect Rain. Eventually, they do separate. The Lion becomes an interim Ruler while Tip tries to regain her sense of the world; Dorothy is returned to her home, somehow. Glinda is made a prisoner and no one is quite sure what happened to Mombey. And Rain? Rain takes her grandmother’s broom and begins to fly far beyond the borders of Oz to Somewhere.
And it isn’t all a return to peace. People are still asking about what happened to Elphaba and no one is certain if Tip will ever take her place on the throne, while Rain flies into the distance. But what struck me most about Out of Oz is these places from our childhood were always happy and perfect. These were place untouched by war and conflict and Oz has been in conflict for three generations. How do you recover from that? Maybe Rain has the right idea, heading for Somewhere.
An Inherited Broom
Ha! Finally finished Son of a Witch. The title alone was interesting because the main character, Liir, wasn’t sure who his parents were. Maguire hinted that Liir’s father was Fiyero in Wicked, but it was never confirmed that Elphaba was his mother (it is confirmed by the end of the book. Oh, that’s a spoiler, isn’t it?).
Again, getting ahead of myself, sorry. The story starts with Liir, who has been attacked by an unknown assailant, being found by Oatsie, the woman who guided him and Elphaba to Kiamo Ko in the first place. And he is brought back to St. Glinda’s, where Elphaba spent many years after the death of Fiyero. While he is in a coma, one of the novices plays for him. While Candle plays, Liir relives the last decade, from leaving Kiamo Ko with Dorothy to joining the service to travelling to the Conference of Birds. His life includes searching for his half-sister Nor, who wasn’t killed with the rest of Fiyero’s family, and trying to find a cure for Princess Nastoya, an Elephant who wears a human disguise.
Much of the decade is filled with political turmoil. The Wizard leaves with Dorothy and neither are mentioned again. Which is interesting because the Wizard ruled nearly forty years and then everyone just forgot him when Glinda took over for a short period of time, and was replaced by a puppet government with a Scarecrow at the helm. Liir wanders around for a while, briefly searching for Nor in Southstairs (the prison) and running into another familiar character, Elphaba and Nessarose’s younger brother, Shell. He joins the service, which he enjoys, following the orders and carrying out duties.
His assignment in the service eventually brings him to Quadling country, the same country that Elphaba spent most of her childhood. The soldiers eventually become comfortable there, until new orders come from the Emerald City. The new leader wants to cause trouble and Liir is sent out to burn a Quadling town. Although he deserts the service, the repercussions were far-reaching as another Quadling town rebels and is put down by a new arm of the army that very few people were aware of. Later, it is discovered that the new attackers are dragons, who attacked the Quadling town, then randomly attack people in the Vinkus wildlands to prevent the Vinkus tribes from uniting. The dragons are what attacked Liir.
Did you know, this entire time, he holds onto Elphaba’s broom and cape? He does, although the dragons take it when they attacked him. He’ll eventually get them back, after he wakes up. When he first wakes from his coma, he and Candle escape to Apple Press Farm and eventually find out that the new leader of
Oz is the Emperor Apostle, who he met earlier in the book. Elphaba’s brother Shell has become the latest dictator of Oz and has been using the dragons to keep people in fear of the Unnamed God.
But Liir doesn’t just stay at the farm; he leaves the pregnant Candle to travel to Emerald City where he meets the dragon trainer. Eventually, he gets back the broom and cape and kills the dragon. By this time, he has begun to accept that he might be Elphaba’s son, even though he isn’t green. After he kills the dragons, he signs the note as Liir, Son of the Witch. He and the trainer, Trism, escape from Oz with the army after them. They make it back to St. Glinda’s, where Liir meets Mother Yackle, who has been involved in Elphaba’s life.
After St. Glinda’s, Liir escapes and reunites with the Conference of birds; the birds make a plan to fly again now that the dragons are dead. He flies with them, gathering more birds as they travel to Emerald City. The Conference briefly stops at Kiamo Ko, where Chistery and Nanny still live. Chistery, Elphaba’s flying monkey, can speak clearly now, after years of Elphaba trying to teach him. He and Nanny house the Conference before the Birds and Liir fly over Emerald City, with Liir as the Eye of the Witch. Liir has also figured out how to help Princess Nastoya separate her human and Elephant forms, using Candle’s ability to see the present and his ability to clearly see the past. He also uses the faces of the people that the dragons scraped the faces off of. But he is still being hunted by the army, and while he helps the Scrow tribe bury the Princess, Candle gives birth and the army comes to the farm. When Liir returns, everything is displaced and only the “body” of the baby is there. Liir takes care of what he believes is a corpse, but come morning, the baby is alive and she is green. Elphaba lives.
Again, I have left a lot out; reading Son of the Witch was different, because I remembered more of it than I did of Wicked, kind of like when I read Red Hood’s Revenge. So at times, I would forget to really read and just skim and then I would go back to re-read that section. And there were things that I missed the first time around and I picked up this time. And I didn’t pick up on as much of the underlying political and social issues this time around. There was more story to Son of a Witch, as opposed to the social and society issues that made Wicked. And it isn’t that this is bad, just different. And I think I liked Son of a Witch better because it was a completely new story. With Wicked, many of the characters were somewhat familiar- Elphaba, Nessarose, Glinda, the Wizard, Dorothy were characters that I knew. But in this, Shell, Liir, Candle, the maunts, the dragons… these were all new and people that Maguire created for The Wicked Years and they forged their own paths, rather than re-imaging their pasts.
And now, I venture into new territory. I’ve never read Lion Among Men or Out of Oz, so the next two books will be new. And I’m in the process of reading The Hunger Games as well, but I don’t know if I’ll post reviews on those just yet. I think I’ll wait for the movie to come out and maybe do a review of the movie and the book. But we’ll see.
A Dark Inheritance
Honestly, it has taken me forever to read and finish this book. When it first came out, I picked up The Queen’s Bastard by C.E. Murphy because I liked the concept of a Queen’s child born on the wrong side of the sheets. As I got into it the first time, I enjoyed tracking the 
similarities in the story to Queen Elizabeth I and several other female rulers. If I had a map, I could almost cross out and write over what the real countries are for the fictional ones in the novel. This is actually my favorite part of the novel, making the connections and the political intrigue, where the Queens outwardly support each other as sister-Queens and inwardly dislike each other. Keeping track of who was what Queen and their historical connection was more interesting than the story about Belinda.
Even though Belinda Primrose is the main character, I start to really dislike her half-way through the book. Part of the premise is the political dance between the various rulers and the schism caused by Aulun’s (England’s) break from Cordula’s religion, and the other part of this magic, called witchlight that some of the characters have. The reader learns that the original users of the witchlight are actually from another planet of dragons (at least, that’s my impression. And the dragons are also run by a Queen, so the men are amused that human-men are so against a female ruler).
So, Belinda is the illegitimate child of Queen Lorraine of Aulun and Duke Robert Drake; Drake is one of the men with the witchlight and he passes his gift onto Belinda. He is also Lorraine’s spymaster and Belinda is his greatest assest. But he’s never taught her about her magic, and isn’t there when she runs into another person with the ability. Instead it is Javier, the son of another Queen, who teaches her about this unique ability.
But, I still don’t like Belinda. I understand that she is a spy and an assassin and that brings out certain undesirable traits. I’ve done that with some of my own characters. But when she uses her witchlight, it awakens sexual feelings in her and I feel she abuses that. There are several scenes in the book of her manipulating the people around her into sleeping with each other and I have several problems with that. For one thing, she is cruel about it. For another, I think it’s rape because her victims are captivated by something that they don’t know about and can’t fight. In the end, I think many of the scenes are drawn out and unnecessary. I often skip over them.
The other point I don’t like is her ambition. I understand that it comes from the desire to impress her father, but she is a spy and spies are supposed to keep a low profile. Her current assignment is to find evidence if Queen Sandalia is actively plotting about Queen Lorraine and Belinda uses Javier to try and find that evidence. Javier is a prince and a public figure, but that couldn’t be avoided. But Belinda makes herself a public figure and eventually tries to push for a movement against Lorraine with her alter-ego. Her ambition and desire to create and destroy a rebellion to get recognition for herself is something that shouldn’t be in a spy. She has been willing to work in the shadows up to this point, but this assignment and the awakening of her witchlight pushes her ambitions to the forefront. It works to show what the witchlight does to her, but she should have the control to not let it control her and push down on her desire. Because she builds a shaky tower of lies and even she recognizes that it could explode and topple around her. But she continues to push.
And there are so many other interesting characters. Javier could be, but as a prince, you get the impression that he doesn’t know how to play some of the political games that the others do. He is manipulated by the women around him, although he could end up being a key player because of his witchlight. But his one friend, Eliza, is fascinating and vanishes about halfway through the book. She is a street-rat and in love with Javier; she is also a fashion designer and a great one. Murphy could take her so many places and instead, Eliza slips from our fingers into the depths of the novel.
However, there is a second book The Pretender’s Crown, so hopefully, everything can b e redeemed. Although, it will be interesting since Belinda’s occupation as a spy was outted in front of Queen Sandalia’s Court and many people know who she is now. Without the ability to hide her identity, she isn’t going to be able to spy anymore. And Lord Drake is going to have to do something about her abilities and track down who fathered Javier. Ambition has brought them all low. I have a feeling no one told them that “The higher you are, the harder you will fall.”
