Wastrel’s Reviews > Queen of Sorcery > Status Update

So, things are starting to show signs of a lot more problems than in the first novel.

However, some things still work well. One interesting thing is that we're getting a clearer sense of the magic system, which is one of the most ingeniously simple: sorcerers just want something, express it, and it happens ("the will and the word").

If that seems too easy: yes! Belgarath is probably the most powerful magic-user in any fantasy series - at least in terms of what he can do on the spur of the moment. And one of the virtues of the series is that it doesn't shy away from that: it's increasingly clear that he (and Polgara) can do pretty much anything they want. They're omnipotent, more or less. We've just had an incident, for instance, where an annoyed Belgarath has said that if somebody doesn't do something about this millennia-long civil war, he'll just stop it himself - it's not clear how, but it's made clear he could if he wanted to.

Likewise, Polgara is in one of those creepy "the dark god of evil has promised to make me his bride and wipe my brain" situations, and waves it off as though Torak were an over-enthusiastic teenage boy who gets these silly notions sometimes.

This kind of raises questions about why they're having to have an adventure, but Eddings actually addresses that quite well: the sorcerors have learnt (being immortal) to be afraid of unintended consequences, and they don't want to call too much attention to themselves lest the enemies bombard them with waves of annoyances to bog them down, plus they're following someone and they don't actually know where they're going.

It's not a cast-iron excuse, but it works well enough, particularly because the reader (and Garion) still aren't really clear on what's going on and what people's limitations are.

[Can Belgarath teleport, for instance? It would save time sometimes, like now when they're all taking a detour to talk to the local king. Perhaps he just can't imagine that. Or perhaps there are just too many consequences to ripping up the space-time continuum that he doesn't want to have to bother with]

Similarly, Eddings does a relatively good job - so far - of providing genuine threat despite the adventurers all being unstoppable killing machines aided by two omnipotent immortal demigods. He does this parlty by using ambushes and exploiting the individual weakness of Garion, but mainly through magical threats. Intelligently, the evil wizards are perfectly aware that they have zero chance in a straight fight against Belgarath and Polgara, and have geared their tactics toward indirect approaches - things the good wizards dismiss as mere "tricks" - like illusions and mind control. This maintains some sense of peril, as it's possible for both the readers and the heroes to be blindsided by unexpected and confusing attacks.

Overall, it's (so far) a good demonstration of how to incorporate "demigods" (here, sorcerers, but it would apply equally to, say, Superman) into a story without destroying it or constantly ignoring the obvious. The story becomes less about what Belgarath CAN do, and more about what he's WILLING to do, and why, which is really a more interesting sort of story.

[Belgarath continues to be by far the most interesting character here - a self-described one-time "thief and a liar" who has had seven thousand years of being pushed into positions of responsibility to force him to adopt a less selfish view]

Thighs are too sexy to be discussed in mixed company.

That... actually is, in very different ways, appropriate both to this character (who I imagine might well avoid saying "thigh" in front of Polgara), and to Eddings as an author (who is happy to talk about lesbian snuff orgies (at least in The Elenium), but always insists on keeping the descriptions of the lesbian snuff orgies as Victorian and child-friendly as possible...)

I read this series in middle school (i.e. age 12/13) and even then found it odd how little sex drive characters displayed and yet how immediately they all had babies after marriage (including the ones who got pregnant while on long and arduous quests).

This probably wasn't news of international merit, but the Eddings were convicted of abusing their adopted children.

I think if you read it again you might be surprised!

There's no explicit sex scenes (so far at least), but it's an extremely sexualised series. Everyone is always very horny, and Garion's (largely unwilling) quest to maintain his virginity despite constant temptations is kind of a running theme (and overtly flagged up in this book - in the first volume, Polgara was just "it's important he doesn't become a father and get distracted from the saving-the-world thing he doesn't know about yet", but in this one she's explicitly "you mustn't have sex because it'll have terrible consequences (because it'll destroy the world but I'm not telling you that yet)".

In this volume alone, Garion has:

- been pursued by a horny teenage noblewoman from a mediaeval courtly romance

- been very excited to chat with a nearly-naked stunningly-beautiful prostitute

- been pursued by a horny teenage princess who nearly persuaded him to kiss her - it's very unfair because as a Roman she's used to bathing naked with men (and competing naked in the olympic games in front of the whole city) whereas Garion gets very flustered when she tries to shower in a waterfall with him

- been temporarily abducted by snu-snu-obsessed nearly-naked forest amazon women who disturbingly act like small children but can only reproduce by "capturing" passing human men (and then presumably murdering them)

- been Princess-Leiaed (stripped, bathed, drugged to the gills, rouged, and made to lie seductively on cushions) by an insane queen who, it is said explicitly, is so supernaturally horny that she has sex with every man, woman, child and animal she encounters (and then presumably murders them).


Among the other characters:

- Barak isn't horny. Perhaps he's too tired from raping his wife back in book 1

- Silk isn't currently horny, beyond various sly remarks and nudge-nudge innuendos. However, he was apparently *very* good friends with the aforementioned prostitute, before she tried to have him murdered (he murdered the murderers so it's OK, they're friends again now)

- Durnik and Polgara are clearly horny for each other, but Garion's only seen some unrequited silent lusting on Durnik's part and hasn't realised that Polgara's various hugs and comfortings and other out-of-character non-meanness are signs that she's also into him

- Mandorallen is explicitly insanely horny for his father-figure's wife. She is also very horny for him, but because they are honourable and both love the other guy they can't do anything about it. The husband forces Garion to sit and watch his wife and his son/best-friend stare longingly at each other all day

- Belgarath is too busy for that sort of thing right now, but his daughter does scathingly remind him of that time he spent several decades having sex with the entire female population of a particularly libertine country.


So yeah, it's all very horny. It's just that it's horny in a PG-rated no-sex-on-camera, prudish-American way. And, to be fair, the main character is a teenage boy whose protectors are trying to keep him a virgin, so he doesn't always see the full picture of what's happening. But he does spend a lot of the novel (and series) blushing awkwardly.

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Regarding the abuse: yes, I've mentioned that somewhere. It certainly makes the disturbing elements more disturbing. Not so much the sex - that's more prominent in his later novels (The Elenium is basically a love story between a man and his daughter), and in any case I don't think a sexual dimension was reported to the Eddings' crimes (though it was the 70s, so maybe it just wasn't worth mentioning).

But there's definitely a strongly American-style approach to childrearing that's uncomfortable to begin with and more so when you know about them. The emphasis is very much on bullying children to do the right thing, and it doesn't matter what you do so long as you eventually force them into the path of righteousness, and if they have to be punished it's just because they don't understand what's best for them. In this volume in particular there's a huge shouting match because Garion dares to object to the whole being-lied-to-his-whole-life-and-never-having-any-say-in-anything-he-does thing and he has to be put in his place by multiple characters. They're not necessarily wrong (what teenager hasn't at some time had an over-entitled and ungrateful but understandable outbust in an attempt to gain more freedom from their guardians?), and it does feel psychologically realistic from both sides, but it's still pretty toxic in its intensity and the unwillingness from the author to consider that Garion might have a point.

On a similar note, we now know that Garion and Ce'Nedra will end up together not only because it's obvious, prophecy-wise, but also because they've just had an insane argument where they've screamed abused at one another for no real reason [we don't even get to hear what they say]. Because That's What Healthy Couples Do....