Tigana: Part Two: Dianora

[Dara]

Discussion for Part Two: Dianora (page 153 to 247).

Spoilers from Part One and Two are okay. NO SPOILERS for the rest of the book.

[Rob, Mayor of Ghost Town]

This part has slowed down the story for me so far. We meet Dianora, who is also from Tigana and appears to the be daughter of the sculptor we met in the prologue.

She has been plotting to kill Brandon. Or at least that's what her original plan was. She seems pretty complacent to me and comfortable in her life at court.

Much of the story has been boring political intrigue (whose going to be the new tax collector, really?) and some back story about how Dianora got there.

At least until the part I reached just before getting to work when a longtime musician has come to visit, and turns out to be part of an assassination attempt, and for some reason Dianora saves Brandon.

Hopefully things will pick up from here..

[Dara]

This was the hardest part of the book for me to get through. Very tedious and boring. Nearly 100 pages and I couldn't seem to care about Dianora.

[Rob, Mayor of Ghost Town]

I don't know, he still seems pretty bad to me. I mean..he just exploded that woman's head..

[Mark]

Dianora storyline did my head in, it didnt make sense.

[Rob, Mayor of Ghost Town]

Man. The last bit was just awful. In the aftermath of the assassination, Brandon chooses his other mistress for comfort and Dianora reminisces about when her brother left, but not before they had an elicit love affair..wtf.

Also, not sure if I just missed his name earlier, but apparently we've met her brother before, Baern, the right hand to the prince.

Thankfully part 3 seems much better so far. Happy to be done with this section. It's ruined at shot this book had for 5 stars for me most likely, but hopefully the rest redeems itself for a solid 4.

[Tom]

I thought part 2 was pretty decent. I agree with Alex that Brandon doesn't seem quite so much of a villain depending on your viewpoint - especially considering how Dianora found herself saving the man she vowed to kill. Yes, he exploded the lady's head but from her perspective that was a very quick and painless kill.

I have lower standards for riveting prose when I'm biking so Dianora's back story flowed really well and really drove her motivations home. Within one section of the book you see her go from hating Brandon and vowing to kill him, aging quite a bit and finding herself actually save him, then deciding to kill him again (I think that was her resolve at the end). I found Kay's character development to be interesting and not forced.

Brandon says that he doesn't do any conscious magic to her but I wonder if there is something magical that caused her to do something (save him) that she never would have imagined doing? I originally thought it was because she wanted to be the one to kill him but that got ruled out afterward.

I don't know why there had to be sexy incest stuff. Dianora could have had a nice close relationship with her brother without it getting all perverse. I originally felt bad for her having to prostitute herself at that tavern early on but now that I know she is all that promiscuous, it kind of ruined the effect a bit.

The part with the soldiers making Baerd say the name didn't make sense to me. I thought it was cool that they made them do that but if it's something the soldiers know and it's something that you can know happened without knowing the name Tigana, how is it that someone like Devan didn't hear about it? It reminds me of how I didn't understand how Han Solo and Luke Skywalker don't know what a jedi is in Star Wars (Luke pretty much grew up under a rock but Han didn't and it never made any sense for something that prominent to become unknown in such a short time period).

[Rob, Mayor of Ghost Town]

Tom wrote: "Yes, he exploded the lady's head but from her perspective that was a very quick and painless kill."

The mighty wizard is unable to kill her painless in a less violent/spectacular fashion?

[Tom]

Go big or go home. Clearly he's still waiting things out so that narrows down his options... ;-)

[Rob, Mayor of Ghost Town]

I'd concede that this section makes Brandon look more human than he did before it, but I still wouldn't want to be under his rule. He still seems quite the villain to me.

[Mpauli]

I found part 2 to be a very intense read. I agree that it had its boring moments (tax collector), but all in all the focus staying with Dianora sucked me in pretty deep.

I really liked how Kay showed us the different layers of Dianora and piece by piece we can put together how her motivation came to be.
In the beginning we think that she is "just" on the revenge about Tigana and her father. And there is some of that, but it isn't all.
After Tigana and her father, her mother drifts away as well. The only one she's clinging to is her brother. He is the piece that is still left, that makes her sane and whole.
And it's the same for her brother. They have a responsibility to be there for each other. After the beating, he claims that he's going to leave, but he doesn't. He comes back to his sister, because he can't let her alone and be apart from her.

And this is, in my opinion, why the incest had to happen. Because without it, they would never have left each other. Without it, he wouldn't have seen the resekiel (sp?) and realized that he needed to go. They lost each other and found something in this wrongness for a while, but the wrongness enabled them finally to part.
And Baerd's leaving is the final straw. After that Dianora has truly nothing and this final pain is the motivation that sparks her decision.

It's kind of ironic that seeing a resekiel means clarity for women and although Dianora never saw one of her own, her two most beloved men seeing one, clears her path as well.
That was really skillfully done, in my opinion.

And as I am a sucker for a complex and deep antagonist, I really enjoy reading about Brandin. Did you see the parallel his life is in to the story Dianorah told about how she got on the ship?
The governor in the story is depicted as being naked in between two fists. An impossible situation.
And in the end, we learn that the mighty king is in exactly the same position. He is the victim of his decisions and can't move forward or back.
The one fist is his desire to revenge his son and rid the world of the memory of Tigana. Therefore he must stay, where he is and choose to prolong his life. But as the musician reminded him, this is a life dedicated to death.
The other fist would be an actual life with his family back in his home country, choosing life. But he can't do that either, cause then his spell would be ruined and the memory of his dead son in vain.

Apart from that, I really enjoyed the idea of the Fool as being some sort of semi-magical way to express emotion. A really interesting concept.

Part 1 had definately more action and a better plot, but I personally connected more with the characters in part 2 and this part had a higher emotional impact on me. Now let's find out how it goes from here.

[Rob, Mayor of Ghost Town]

I enjoyed your thoughts on part two MPauli more than part two itself. You bring up some interesting points. I do think this part adds a lot of depth to Brandin, but I still found it too slow for my liking.

[Dara]

I like your take on the incestual relationship between Baerd and Dianora, Mpauli. I hadn't thought of it in the way and your reasoning makes a lot of sense.

[Hanne]

Alex wrote: "This is where Kay showed me how villiains are all about viewpoint.
At the beginning, you were meant to think that Brandon was a totally evil guy who's this big dick. And now that you spend more ti..."

I'm with you on that. I was prepared to hate Brandin as a really evil villain, and after this chapter... i really don't. He actually seems like a pretty decent man and King, who went a bit too far in his revenge after the killing of his son, and is stuck with that now.

I can see how Dianora is conflicted here - i certainly am!


I see some mixed opinions above, but I actually loved this part!
Unfortunately the identity of Dianora's brother at the end of this part didn't come as a surprise, because I had seen it on the character list thread. :((((
I wished I could have gaped at that revelation a bit more. (Rob - you might want to hide that in your character list for anyone coming after me and hasn't seen it yet)

I loved how many layers he put on Dianora here, but also on Brandin.

[David Sven]

Hanne wrote: "(Rob - you might want to hide that in your character list for anyone coming after me and hasn't seen it yet)"

Ok - now we should call in Internal Affairs to investigate the spoiler police - What was that? Rob is Internal Affairs?

[Rob, Mayor of Ghost Town]

I put in the thread title spoilers for part two. I'm not sure why you clicked in there before you finished it.

[Rob, Mayor of Ghost Town]

And personally I didn't find it a revelation that they were siblings, but an interesting detail.

The incestuous nature of their relationship was. I don't remember anymore which order you find those facts out. If his identity comes after the incest, I guess I can see the revelation.

[Tom]

Thanks for the insight MPauli. It really gives more perspective on things I didn't pick up myself.

[Anders]

I recently finished this part, and I really enjoyed it. I can't remember another story where we follow someone like Dianora in this way. It ended too soon for me. I'm looking forward to reading more from her point of view.

[Rob, Mayor of Ghost Town]

Anders wrote: "I recently finished this part, and I really enjoyed it. I can't remember another story where we follow someone like Dianora in this way. It ended too soon for me. I'm looking forward to reading mor..."

Heh. Another case of everyone being different.

[Anders]

Yes, that's not surprising. :)