Forest Mage > Part 1: Chapter 1 to 5

[Hanne]

I'm sure it's May 1st already somewhere!
I will start tomorrow, but anyone who is faster than me, go ahead. :)

[David Sven]

I'll probably be a few days late getting started

[Hanne]

no problem, you guys read faster than me anyways, and i'm busy in more than one at the same time too :)

ch1 - the continuous dreams are interesting. something inside him is definitely holding on (and feeding off?) the tree woman still. her insistence that the magic owned him now makes me very curious

i had to smile with his comment that epiny ruined women for him :)

[Hanne]

ch2 - for two chapters now there is a lot of emphasis on the weight gain. i wonder whether he is Gord-size now, but the reason why is more interesting. he commented that he is only eating what he gets at the mess which presumably is not much. so what is feeding him? is he storing something else than energy? magic perhaps?

the stair incident is a bit creepy too.

[Hanne]

ch3 - i loved the dancing spindle, even if it raises more questions that it answers.

a knife fell into the dancing spindle. nevara only talks about it being stuck now and unable to spin any more magic, but what if it's more than that? iron defeats plainspeople magic, and i'm assuming that knife would not have been inox.

also interesting: he absorbed even more magic now. if in the next chapter our dear cavalla officers looks even more like a XXL we know it's not calories he's storing.
the tree woman was really fat as well right. the plainsman training Nevara was not, but then he said that magic was lost to him.
i don't recall any other descriptions of people being fat or not during the plainswar, but perhaps if you take it in and use it daily you don't get fat, and Nevara's problem is that he is not unleashing it. (except with the stairs accident).


but what intrigued me the most is what the plainswoman said. that it had never spinned for her, nor lifted her so it could not happen to a Gernian. what do the legends say???

[David Sven]

Hanne wrote: "ch1 - the continuous dreams are interesting. something inside him is definitely holding on (and feeding off?) the tree woman still. her insistence that the magic owned him now makes me very curious"

I wonder if now that the forest woman is dead that he or a part of him that was her apprentice wants to take on her role and is mimicking her appearance?

[David Sven]

Alex wrote: "In chapter 2, Nevare's two nights of sex seem a little out of character. I thought he was the prim and proper one who refused to go with his friends during the Festival back at the academy. "

I had thought he was more in love with his betrothed - then again he was expressing some doubts about the whole thing even last book. I think his other self has picked up an "appetite" from his time with tree woman so that would explain his out of (former)character behaviour. Nevare is not quite the same person now I don't think

[David Sven]

Ch 3 - Nevare's Dad is a bastard.

[David Sven]

Ch 5 - What a wedding - he's a Bastard, and he's a Bastard, she's a Bitch, there's another bastard.

Looks like the girls - family is into some dark stuff. Nevare resurrects a bird - and he's still reluctant to believe in magic.

[Hanne]

ok, finally catching up. last week was crazy busy at work, and then (thanks to a vicious cold) i had the attention span of a gold fish and reading was out of the question too. catching up now though!

i hate that father, gosh, i horribly hate him. only the mother has something good in her. i know that the whole i'm-fat-because-i-store-magic sounds a bit unbelievable, and he isn't doing himself any favours with the binge-eating after he starves himself, but nonetheless, there are ways to treat people.

so i'm glad we found the new character to loathe severly.

[Hanne]

i find some it weird too: he seems to have come to the conclusion that he stores magic, but still thinks he can get rid of it by exercise and dieting? i would get that he doesn't know how to unleash his magic reserves, but that the thought hasn't crossed his mind?

he wasn't standing in the front row when they were handing out intelligence, it seems.

[Ctgt]

He does seem particularly dense at times. He doesn't put much stock in his dreams even though they are giving him clues about what is happening. The whole time he's trying to figure out the weight gain I'm thinking to myself, just put two and two together.

That was a good early catch on the storing magic angle, Hanne. I just assumed he was taking on the physical characteristics of whatever was still hanging around inside his mind/spirit.

It's interesting to see how much stock his family puts into the political machinations because they certainly turn on him quickly when he seems to "spoil" all the plans that had been made to marry off all the children.

[Hanne]

Thanks. I'm guessing I know Hobb's style by now. She was just putting too much emphasis on his changed psychique and how (at first) he wasn't eating that much more. That kind of left it wide open. :)

[David Sven]

Alex wrote: "Spoilers for future chapters (to around 15?

Re your spoiler - I think that is the suggestion later on

[Ctgt]

As an aside, the section at the wedding when the platters are brought to Nevare and he is describing the taste of the food, that reminded me of
Chew, Vol. 1: Taster's Choice

[David Sven]

I got that in the last humble bundle - I think.

[Ctgt]

Check it out David. Quirky art style, the main character has the ability to see exactly where the food came from by eating, chicken is outlawed and the FDA has become the most powerful government law enforcement agency.

That bundle was really good.....although I had almost all of it so I didn't pick it up.