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View original postHuh. Which passage was that? I don't remember that at all.
View original postIn the first book, Barak is described as being estranged from his wife, seeing as little of her as possible, while she acts extremely formal and cold towards him. A bit later, they have a conversation where she says "My lord was quite insistent about certain rights and duties on the night of his return to Val Alorn. Not even the locked door of my bedchamber was enough to curb his insistence."
View original postTo which Barak then replies "All right, I'm sorry about that. I hoped that things might have changed between us. I was wrong. I won't bother you again."
View original postAnd that, apparently, is that; when she continues with "A good wife is obliged to submit whenever her husband requires it of her - no matter how drunk or brutal he may be when he comes to her bed", Barak and apparently Eddings both feel she's just playing the martyr and making a mountain out of a molehill. Surely it's not just me who finds that disturbing.
It's definitely disturbing. I recall her being written as very bitter and spiteful and I wonder if it was just meant to be a problem in their marriage of miscommunication/misunderstanding. Eddings, IMO, wasn't very good at writing that kind of thing.
View original postOf course, by the end of the series, she has given birth to a son, conceived on the night in question, and suddenly they reconcile because clearly having sons does that to couples and never mind their two elder daughters. Or that rape.
Grim.
View original postWhile we're at it, the preceding chapter has one of the few exceptions to what I said about violent behaviour like in the Elenium, when Barak tries to murder an old woman for making predictions he doesn't like. Charming fellow all-round, really.
But it's ok because it wasn't his fault he basically turned into a bear! (That was him, yes? It has been quite a few years since I read them.) Blame Cherek Bear-Shoulders.
I am going to have to reread them sometime soon with a critical eye and decide whether I want my children to read them as young as I did (10).
*MySmiley*
Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read. - Groucho Marx
Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read. - Groucho Marx
Happy 2016! What are you reading in January and February?
- 01/01/2016 03:04:47 PM
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I need to finish my book on the Russo-Japanese War
- 01/01/2016 08:12:47 PM
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Picking through a book on Tolstoy and a book on Germanic hero epics of the Middle Ages. *NM*
- 26/02/2016 03:08:00 AM
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I've decided that 2016 is the year that I make a sizeable dent in the classics
- 04/01/2016 02:09:57 PM
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I would start with Mansfield Park as it's the most boring.
- 05/01/2016 03:38:00 PM
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Seconded. Every likeable character in Mansfield Park is, apparently, considered a villain.
- 05/01/2016 06:29:45 PM
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Persuasion is the best.
- 05/01/2016 09:30:15 PM
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Have decided to take a break from First Man In Rome.
- 23/01/2016 11:48:53 AM
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Fantasy rereads, for a change - feeling nostalgic, I guess.
- 23/02/2016 08:17:45 PM
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Re: Fantasy rereads, for a change - feeling nostalgic, I guess.
- 24/02/2016 01:42:39 PM
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It wasn't exactly a major plot point or anything. But it was ugly.
- 24/02/2016 08:43:04 PM
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Merill? Merith? Something like that?
- 25/02/2016 07:45:18 PM
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Merel, yes. Kind of odd to see a Dutch name popping up in a Norse setting, but okay.
- 25/02/2016 10:00:45 PM
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