The Darkangel Discussion

[aerielpembroke]

Little later than I wanted, but here's the discussion post for The Darkangel. Was it as you remembered it? Did you notice anything new? Favorite bits? Least favorite bits?

I still find those wraiths suspicious, even having read the whole series multiple times. And there's some kind of parallel between Eoduin and Irrylath I can never quite articulate.

Comments

[minutia_r]

Can we talk about magic vs. technology? Because the background of the series--low-tech-level people living in the ruins of a higher tech civilization, the terraformed moon, spaceships, genetic engineering, and so on--would seem to suggest that all the magic is really lost technology of the ancients, which the viewpoint characters are too primitive to understand. And there's clearly some of that going on, and I think the implication that that's all that's going on is there, deliberately or not--but it's also pretty clearly not the case.

Some of the magic in The Darkangel (more than in the other books, if I recall them correctly) is not only impossible to explain as technology, but is pretty far from being the sufficiently-systematic magic which is indistinguishable from technology and is a staple of genre fantasy books. I'm thinking specifically of Aeriel spinning her feelings about Irrylath's wives into thread (which is one of my favorite parts of the book) and also of the heart transplant at the end.

It hasn't got a genre-fantasy logic, it's got a fairy tale or dream logic, and the tension between that and "it's really science fiction!" is one of the really appealing things about The Darkangel (and the series as a whole) to me.

. . . I hope I've left room for anybody else's thoughts her 'cause I'd love to hear them.

[aerielpembroke]

Yes! The heart transplant in particular can't be explained as technology whatsoever, for a variety of reasons. I wonder if we're supposed to think that the Ancients also discovered magic, or if it's an innate part of the world. To jump ahead, I also think that Oriencor draining the world of water had to be at least a little bit magical, because if it was technology, why would it have suddenly started raining at her death?

[aerielpembroke]

Another thought- why is Talb living under the home of a darkangel in the first place? Did he use to be part of the court at Tour-of-Kings and just never stopped living there? In which case, has he really been trying to look after Irrylath in his own weird way all this time?

[minutia_r]

Oh, I like this idea. It makes the part where Talb is all, "no, you totally have to kill him" much more fraught?

I wonder if Talb and the Avarclon were buddies? It doesn't seem like they were that close from the way Talb talks but it's an intriguing idea.

[aerielpembroke]

Also! I wonder if The Darkangel was originally intended as a standalone. In her forward to one of the short stories in Waters Luminous and Deep, Meredith Ann Pierce mentions The Darkangel as an 'inspirational story' without mentioning the other two. Personally, I think I would be sad not to have any continuation from the endpoint of The Darkangel, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were people who didn't know Gathering of Gargoyles existed.