Welcome back to the Golden Witchbreed Read Along! In this week’s segments, Christie ventures out to Roehmonde to continue her diplomatic mission – only to have everything go terribly wrong…

Let’s discuss Golden Witchbreed.

 

 

If you’re only just hearing of this read along and would like to join the discussion or even just (hah) read along, here’s our schedule, courtesy of imyril at There’s Always Room For One More:

Friday 6th November | Part One & Two
Friday 13th November | Part Three – Part Five
Friday 20th November | Part Six & Seven
Friday 27th November | Part Eight

And the Goodreads group for gathering links/asking questions etc is here.

 

Last week, Christie gained a nickname. This week, she takes an arykei. Were you surprised by her choice (and who she chose)? …and how did you feel about Falkyr’s choices in light of their relationship?

… At this point I’m feeling a little bit cynical about it? It seemed a bit sudden given the way Falkyr was portrayed (so much sarcasm, apparently) – he was certainly not who I’d been expecting Christie to fall for. And perhaps as an inevitable result of that, I’m dubious of his efforts to help her after her arrest and “trial”. There was a lot of side-eye about a lot of things, this week… But maybe we’ll see more of him and get some better light shed on his perspective?

There’s a lot of games of ochmir played this week. How good a metaphor for Southland politics do you find it?

Confession: I … don’t really understand the rules of this game. I tried to wrap my mind around them but I was not very successful (see last week’s post re: A Lot Of Information). I get that there’s a metaphor here but I tend to respond better to them when I can more easily recognise and understand what the author’s trying to do. Then again, politics generally confounds me nowadays in general… Basically I’m pretty sure the only thing I took from it all was “don’t trust any damn body”!

What was your reaction to Blaize? What did you think about Christie allowing him to live and tag along?

Sigh. Christie. Christie NO.

See, I knew this would go poorly, though I guess for now I’m grateful he only stole their stuff. Then again, HE STOLE ALL THEIR STUFF.

I’m frustrated by how relatively little interpersonal character development there seems to be in these segments. We get indications that they are capable of getting along but not much of anything more in depth, and I found myself wanting more this week. There was a perfect opening for Blaize to get to know Christie and for both of them to maybe change some perspectives on certain things. In particular, for Blaize to stop being such a close-minded fool (in more than one sense – does it EVER go well for the mercenary who just wants to do their job and get paid?).

So, I don’t foresee a satisfactory ending for Blaize in this. But maybe that’s just desserts.

What do you think happened to Haltern?

He’s not dead. If we’re going to talk about expected outcomes for certain characters/adherence to tropes, then I am putting my money on “didn’t see it happen, so it probably didn’t”. Last minute ally/saviour? I hope so!

(For the record, Haltern is the one I was expecting Christie to fall for.)

Fenborn! Why do you think they took Christie’s party? …and why do you think they let them go?

*Throws hands up* Politics again!

Though to be fair, I’m a bit more intrigued by the Fenborn because I get the distinct sense that their treatment of Christie and company is their effort at demonstrating how barbaric they AREN’T. “Look, we had a perfect opportunity to make your lives miserable and/or murder you and we didn’t! Now please go and tell your friends this so that maybe they’ll leave us alone.”

I mean, I’m sure the fact that Christie was helpful to one of their own had something to do with it – but I generally don’t blame the Mystifying Barbarian Outsiders for being tetchy when it comes to people who regard them as Mystifying Barbarian Outsiders and lock them up for no apparent reason…

Maybe after all this, Christie, you’ll rein in your preconceptions and prejudices a bit?

From one supposed myth to another… Everyone is afraid of the Golden Witchbreed! Do you believe in them – and do you believe they’re dead and gone?

I’m honestly not sure if they’re really extinct or not, but I’m definitely intrigued by the idea of them. Were they native to Orthe and just another case of folk like the Fenborn, who don’t appear to behave much like other Ortheans and thus are demonised? Or was there a legitimate reason for Ortheans to fear and revile them? They certainly didn’t waste much time seizing the excuse to stop Christie from carrying out her mission, whether they believe she’s really Witchbreed or not. It seems that anything which isn’t comprehensible to Ortheans is too easily distrusted, at least by the more pro-active factions. So I think these things are probably not as clear-cut as they seem.