Since the recaps of Community
have improved from egregious to extremely boring, I’m going to make a
one-time exception to expand the purview of this blog, because a certain
article on the AV Club positively enraged me.
As a Midwestern goatherder child, I’m naturally a huge fan of Lloyd
Alexander’s children’s fantasy series the Prydain Chronicles. In fact, they hold up extremely well. Oh, Jason Heller, you
disagree, do you?
Kids get all kinds
of mixed signals from adults.
Oh, right. This is
the AV Club. How many paragraphs will I
have to wade through before we actually start talking about the subject of the
article?
If our parents
love us, why do they punish us? If learning is good, why does school suck? If
we follow their rules, why do we sometimes still get in trouble? The biggest
mixed signal, though, has to do with honesty. Growing up, we’re told we should
always tell the truth. So how are we supposed to feel when we find out adults
have been lying to us? Or keeping secrets? Or simply aren’t who they say they
are?
That’s #1!
I was 16 when I
found out that my father wasn’t my father. The lie wasn’t a small one. It was
an elaborate falsehood that all my close relatives had been in on my entire
life. To top it all off, my real father was someone I’d never met, and
who’d made many offers of help since I was born, all of which my mother
refused. . . .Years of vague evasions and mismatched facts suddenly made sense.
The fog of mixed signals I’d been living in for so long began to slip away.
Look, that’s sad.
I sincerely feel sorry for the author.
But is this really the right article for this? Because not only are we still not to Lloyd
Alexander (two paragraphs!), but this section doesn’t even really relate to the
first paragraph. I mean, having the
identity of your father hidden from you is not really the same as adults repeating
platitudes about the educational value of school, right?
Taran, the hero of
Lloyd Alexander’s beloved children’s fantasy series The Chronicles Of Prydain,
doesn’t know who his parents are. At least not at first. As with so many
stories of its type, Taran is an orphan of simple means whose lineage—and
destiny—is gradually revealed to both him and readers. As it turns out, those
close to Taran know the truth, or at least strongly suspect it. With the best
intentions, Coll and Dallben have kept Taran ignorant of his origins, leaving
him to flounder in a cloud of doubt and distrust. They don’t fully lie to him,
but they don’t fully tell him the truth: that there’s a strong possibility he’s
the heir to the throne of the High King of Prydain. Taran’s childhood isn’t
miserable because of this deception, but the bedrock of his existence clearly
has cracks in it. Because of that, he’s rarely able to stand on steady ground,
feel secure, and truly know himself.
This paragraph is actually quite fascinating. Not for what it says about the Prydain
Chronicles, of course, but it’s quite revealing when it comes to Jason
Heller. Because what Jason has done is
to flagrantly misread the novel in order to read himself and his story into it—he’s
become Taran, who now longs to know the identity of his parents, which has been
concealed from him by his caretakers.
Only problem: Jason’s just objectively wrong. You just read over these books and wrote an
article about them, and you can’t get the most basic facts right?
We’ll take this one at a time.
One. Coll and Dallben do not lie to Taran, nor do they
not even “fully tell the truth.” Brief
refresher course (and it’s been a few years since I’ve re-read the books): Coll
and Dallben do not know who Taran’s parents are. He was found abandoned on the edge of a
battlefield. There is a prophecy that an
orphan will become High King of Prydain.
But no one knows, until the very end of the novel, whether or not that
orphan is Taran. There are, after all, a
lot of orphans.
Two. He is not
heir to the throne of the High King of Prydain.
He becomes High King at the end of the novels. He is not the heir. His parents are not the king. Indeed, the knowledge of who his parents are
is not “gradually revealed to himself or the readers.” It’s never revealed. No one knows who his parents are. In fact, the work of the books, and
particularly of Taran Wanderer, is
Taran learning that the identity of his parents—and particularly whether they
are royalty or not—is unknowable and unimportant. And that lesson is confirmed by the absolute
unimportance of his lineage at the end of the series.
So, however sad Jason Heller’s childhood was, this is not
a story about him, about a character searching for his real parents. It’s not remotely a story about how parental
figures lie or deceive their kids. Just
because you want to start this article with a personal anecdote doesn’t make it
in any way relevant.
When I was a kid,
The Chronicles Of Prydain did more than speak to me—they enchanted me. Part of
me wanted to be enchanted by them again, and part of me was. Alexander’s prose
and dialogue are crisp and fluid, an effortless mix of exposition and
characterization that so many writers, especially in fantasy, strain to
perfect. His humor is wry; his sentiment is genuine. His plotting, though, is
another matter. In The Book Of Three, the deus ex machina is off the
hook. You can practically see Alexander’s heavy authorial hand as he shoves
together Taran and his companions in adventure: the valorous High Prince
Gwydion; the annoying, furry pseudo-human Gurgi; the peevish,
enchantment-wielding Princess Eilonwy; the monarch-turned-bard Fflewddur Fflam;
and the crotchety dwarf Doli.
I don’t know, maybe I’m old fashioned. But when authors employ easy-to-define terms
like “deus ex machina,” I kind of like them to know what those terms actually
mean. And Jason, you clearly have no
conception. Deus ex machina is when an
arbitrary device is used to resolve a plot, from the gods that would descend
onto the stage to patch things up in Greek drama. It is not about a widespread “heavy authorial
hand.” There is no deus ex machina in The Book of Three. I’m sorry, Jason. Look it up next time.
Also, this critique is just the worst kind of
misreading. Having read the whole
series, looking back it may seem kind of arbitrary that the first book works to
introduce the reader to all of the major characters. Only one problem: if you’re actually reading
the books fresh, you don’t know these are the major character who are going to
crop up for the rest of the series.
You’re just meeting new characters.
Only in retrospective do you see the “heavy authorial hand.” And if you only see it in retrospect, that’s
not bad plotting—it’s good plotting.
But wait! The
worst is yet to come.
As the series
progresses beyond its first installment, though, Alexander’s string-pulling
begins to take on a larger meaning. The Chronicles Of Prydain are about
destiny.
If you sum up the meaning of a text in one word, then
you’re not doing analysis. The
Chronicles of Prydain is not about destiny.
It’s not about fate. It’s not
about free will. It’s not about the
American Dream. It’s not about human
nature. It’s not about the exploitation
of chickens. It’s not about the scourge
of emerald ash bore. It’s a novel. Novels cannot be boiled down to one
word. I know it’s against all the Van
Der Werffian philosophy about how whole seasons of Community are about “choice.”
But show me someone who thinks a text can be summed up in a word, and
I’ll show you an idiot.
Propelled by
various prophetic engines, the series’ young hero has to grapple with what he’s
fated to do vs. what he chooses to do. . . . In trying to simplify such a
complex issue, though, Alexander hits his readers with the most confusing mixed
signal a grownup could give a kid.
I just read a paragraph by someone who tried to
“simplify” the “complex” Prydain Chronicles into one word. The only person here who’s trying to simplify
such a complex issue is you.
Alexander’s
weakness with female characters comes to a head in the series’ conclusion, The
High King. At the end of the book, after the Death-Lord Arawn has been
defeated and his henchmen and minions vanquished, the newly crowned High King
Taran is faced with a choice: marry Eilonwy and live in the distant, idyllic
land known as The Summer Country, or stay in war-torn Prydain to help his
people rebuild. He picks the latter, knowing it means he’ll never see Eilonwy
again.
Again, reading.
It’s good! You know, taking in
the information written on the page in front of you. Forget for a moment the judgment on
“Alexander’s weakness with female characters,” and just note that the Summer
Country is not a “distant, idyllic land.”
It’s a distant, idyllic land where no one ever dies. You leave that out, but, I don’t know, that
seems kind of important. So that by
choosing to stay in Prydain, Taran’s choosing death. We’ll be coming back to that.
Eilonwy then
throws a temper tantrum. Even though she’s one of the most capable characters
in the series, she gives up her powers of enchantment to remain with Taran.
When her “bauble”—a magic, glowing globe that seems to symbolize her life-force
and agency throughout the series—is extinguished forever, it feels cruel rather
than liberating. Even worse is the muddled takeaway provided by Dallben, who
tells Eilonwy, “Yes [your enchantments are gone], yet you shall always keep the
magic and mystery all women share.” Having a female character with as much
inherent strength as Eilonwy go out like a piece of furniture is one of
Alexander’s most grievous inconsistencies.
Look—that line from the novel is dated and embarrassing,
no doubt. But this interpretation of the
ending is just ridiculous. Is it really
so bad that a character is willing to give up something to stay with the person
they love? In the comments to the article,
people compared Eilonwy’s choice to giving up a job and follow a love interest
to a different city. Maybe you wouldn’t
make that choice, but it doesn’t make the person who relocates a “piece of
furniture.” Eilonwy actively chooses to
stay with Taran.
And again, the larger point. At the end of the novel, the world of magic
is passing away, so Eilonwy’s choice to relinquish her powers is not exactly
giving away anything. Maybe that’s a cop
out, but again, to remind you, she’s choosing death here. Kind of a big choice, one that shows
“inherent strength,” I think.
Get ready: here’s the point where I started yelling and
restraining my urge to toss around my farming implements. It’s a big section, but there’s just so much
dumb in there.
Even
worse is the entire idea of fate. I never picked up on this mixed signal as a
kid, but it’s glaring as an adult: Alexander uses the last few pages of The
High King to try to reconcile Prydain’s competing ideas of prophecy and
free will. He utterly fails. “For the deeds of a man, not the words of a
prophecy, are what shape his destiny,” Dallben proclaims at the end of The
High King, in essence nullifying the basic force that his [sic] driven
Prydain’s characters through the series. Alexander begins speaking of ifs, and
of the end of prophecy, where men will once again be masters of their own
destiny.
It’s a shame that you were smarter as an eight year old
then you are now. It’s like you’ve read
a different series this time. You know
what makes Alexander’s series different, and part of its enduring appeal? It’s really not interested in prophecy. Sure, there are some prophecies in a few of
the books, but throughout, again and again, Alexander stresses that “destiny”
is a combination of outer forces and inner choices. And at the end of the novel, which is really
the best moment of the entire series, Alexander is able to encapsulate these
themes brilliantly. It’s revealed that
the supposedly prophetic “Book of Three” is actually a book “of If,” a
Borgesian garden of forking paths that captures possibilities, not
destinies. And it’s revealed that the
figures of Orddu, Orgoch, and Orwen, who in the previous novels are clearly
linked with the Fates of Greek mythology, are in fact different from the
Fates. Humor me. Since you seem not to have read the books,
I’ll quote from them (something that is apparently beyond you, since you quote
from the text twice—didn’t you ever take Freshman Comp?)
Here’s a quote from the end of The High King, when Taran is brought a tapestry that he’s seen on
Orddu, Orgoch, and Orwen’s loom:
“It is yours by right, my robin,” answered
Orddu. It does come from our loom, if
you insist on strictest detail, but it was really you who wove it.”
. . .
“The pattern is of your choosing and
always was.”
“My choosing?” Taran
questioned. “Not yours? Yet I believed .
. .” He stopped and raised his eyes to
Orddu. “Yes,” he said slowly, “once I
did believe the world went at your bidding.
I see now it is not so. The
strands of life are not woven by three hags . . . The pattern indeed was
mine. But here . . . here it is unfinished.”
“Naturally,” said Orddu. “You must still choose the pattern . . . as
long as thread remains to be woven.”
So,
ultimately, Taran comes to a more sophisticated understanding of the
interrelation between fate and choice.
Great! Going beyond simple
binaries, learning, growing, all those things AV Club reviewers seem to
like. So what do you think of it, Jason?
It’s a wishy-washy, ass-covering,
have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too kind of copout.
Maybe it’s the jaded adult in me who,
like all of us, has had to sacrifice, compromise, and ruthlessly revise my path
through life—that is, when I’ve actually had any control over it at all. As
I’ve gotten older, the lofty idea of fate-vs.-free will has given way to
nature-vs.-nurture.
I’ll just pause here
to point out that the last sentence makes absolutely no sense. What’s the difference between “fate-vs.-free
will” and “nature-vs.-nurture”? Anyone?
And from there, it’s just dissolved
into something far more ambiguous, messy, and unknowable.
Oh, so you know,
something kind of like what’s described in the novel. A world where choices are hard, and have
consequences, and are partly determined by outside forces. A sophisticated knowledge of the world. And yet somehow this is a cop-out? Don’t you understand that what you’re talking
about is exactly what is emphasized by the end of The High King? It’s
you who’s stuck in freshman comp binaries about fate vs. free will. The novel is beyond those binaries.
For
Alexander to wrap up his epic with a handful of conflicting platitudes not only
robbed me of my lingering fondness for The High King, it robbed the
series’ characters of their triumphs.
I don’t know, seems like you like good conflicting
platitudes when you see them, at least judging by this article, amIrite?
What you view as conflicting platitudes seems to me like,
I don’t know, complexity. Seems like
Alexander’s idea of the interrelation of fate and choice reminds of a certain
other writer, who’s also known for his “conflicting platitudes”:
it seemed as if
this were the Loom of Time, and I myself were a shuttle mechanically weaving
and weaving away at the Fates. . . .—aye,
chance, free will, and necessity—nowise incompatible—all interweavingly working
together. The straight warp of necessity, not to be swerved from its ultimate
course—its every alternating vibration, indeed, only tending to that; free will
still free to ply her shuttle between given threads; and chance, though
restrained in its play within the right lines of necessity, and sideways in its
motions directed by free will, though thus prescribed to by both, chance by
turns rules either, and has the last featuring blow at events.
Who was that writer, again? Oh yeah, Herman Melville. In a little book
called Moby-Dick.
Look, let me explain something to you. You know what can be helpful when you’re
writing a long article like this one? I
don’t know, maybe a little research.
Maybe I’m being old-fashioned again, but I’ll even take WikiPedia. You know, research can be helpful! Did you know Lloyd Alexander lived in Paris
after WWII? Did you know he was really
into existentialism? Did you know he
even was the first to translate Nausea by
Jean-Paul Sartre into English—his version will even pop up occasionally in
anthologies. It’s true! Probably not something that’s worth knowing,
that is unless you’re tasked with, say, writing an article about Lloyd
Alexander. Cause maybe that information
could be helpful. Cause kind of seems
like the novels express an Existentialist philosophy, now, don’t they? An affirmation of individual choices, and,particularly,
of death as the ultimate guarantor of the centrality of those choices. That’s why your flagrant glossing over of the
fact that Taran (and Eilonwy) chooses death over immortality is so
egregious. Taran chooses death because
that provides his life, and his choices, with meaning—even if they may be
hemmed in by fate or destiny or whatever—and that’s the philosophy of the
novel. Indeed, that’s the great
difference between the Prydain Chronicles and its influences. Both C.S. Lewis and Tolkien have similar
“Summer Countries,” where the good characters go to get rewarded and live
eternally at the end of the series. As
such, they’re both books in a Christian framework (explicitly, obviously, when
it comes to Lewis), but the Prydain Chronicles ultimately reject that model and
emphasize the importance of this mortal world, a world that Taran chooses at
the cost of death. As such, Alexander’s
series is the ultimate anti-religious fantasy novel, more than the more overtly
anti-Christian His Dark Materials. That’s
not a copout. It’s the opposite. And if you can’t recognize that, maybe you
should learn how to understand books before you start writing about them.
