somescribbles

Claire Dunkle's The Hollow Kingdom
****.5

This is not a comfortable story. It is a good story, but in order to get through it, you have to accept a certain amount of ruthlessness and flat out barbarism. The premise is that the entire magic of a species is caught up with - dependent on - the King of the goblins having a strong son. Since goblins are based on strength, and not symmetry, and the king of goblins can not breed with other goblins, each and every goblin king has a stolen bride.

Enter Kate, a teenage Victorian orphan recently come to her estate with her younger sister Emily. Marak, king of the goblins, sees a perfect opportunity and an ideal king's wife in the scholarly, beautiful, and stubborn Kate.

-- Spoilers --

Kate puts up a good fight. She really does. What traps her is not Marak finally carrying her off to his kingdom under the hill, but the wickedness of her guardian. She promises herself to Marak in exchange for his help, and it is under that blanket that their marriage takes place.

I like Marak. I can't help it. And that's part of Dunkle's genius, because by all rights, Marak is a good king but a horrible individual for the tradition he is keeping. However, his honest assessment of what it is that he's doing is oddly endearing and he is a good king. You can see that he is completely convinced of this as a necessity, that he genuinely admires Kate, and that he does not being cruel even though he doesn't necessarily find it cruel. Marak is proud of his kingdom, proud of the goblin's strength, and proud of doing whatever is necessary to continue

The reason why I don't hate this book is the thin line of Kate's choice. She marries Marak by choice, even though it is a horrible choice it IS a choice. If she had been dragged down to his kingdom by her hair, I would hate this book. But I don't. I actually like it, even if it makes me uncomfortable.

The interesting thing is that once Kate is underground and exposed to all this magic and wonder, the parts of her heritage that cut her off from the sky, that make her miserable are explained in an even further spoilery thing that I will refrain from spilling. Instead, she slowly learns to invest in the kingdom in a way that I find believable and interesting.

And in the end? Kate is the one who saves Marak's kingdom and makes it her own, and wins the freedom to go in and out of it as she pleases. They truly - not fall, but grow to love each other, and that is what makes this book walk the fine line between horror story and romance in such a skillful fashion.

List of 12 Books to Reread in 2014

- The Hollow Kingdom by Claire Dunkle completed 1/3
- The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald
- The Belgariad* by David and Leigh Eddings
- The Chronicles of Narnia* by C.S. Lewis
- The Wizard Hunters* by Martha Wells
- The Man Who was Thursday by G. K. Chesterton
- Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy L. Sayers
- Persuasion by Jane Austen
- The Wind in the Door by Madeline L'Engle
- The Perilous Guard by Elizabeth Pope
- The Princess Bride by William Goldman
- The Fourth Bear by Jasper Fforde




*Series count as one

♥ I would kill you
♥ "I would emotionally or physically harm you."
♥ "I would use/manipulate you."
♥ "I am afraid of you."
♥ "I would like to get to know you better."
♥ "I would spend time/have fun/be friends with you."
♥ "I would rescue you/fight by your side."
♥ "I would hug you or hold your hand."
♥ "I would kiss you."
♥ "I would date you."
♥ "I would have sex with you."
♥ "I would call you family."
♥ "I would fall in love with you."
♥ "Frenemies"
♥ "I respect you."
"Unsure."
♥ "I would kill FOR you."
♥ "I would troll you."

Greetings, your name is Katara. It seems you've lost your memory. Here's some facts about yourself:

1. Ikki is your responsibility. She is one of the most important people in the world to you. Make sure you take good care of her.
2. You're a terrible cook. You'd better let everyone else make dinner unless you want them all to get food poisoning.
3. The necklace you're wearing is your mother's. You never take it off.
4. The sight of blood makes you squeamish. You're brave enough under normal circumstances, but involve some blood in it? Yeeesh. Don't make them pick you up off the floor.

Hopefully this is all just temporary. Be careful who you trust out there. People may claim to know everything, but you know what they say: Trust half of what you read and none of what you hear. Good luck!


Greetings, your name is Molly Carpenter. It seems you've lost your memory. Here's some facts about yourself:

1. Eyes are the windows to the soul. Be careful you don't look in them too long - you might not like what you see.
2. Your snake tattoo is the mark of your entrance into a secret cult. You rose quickly through the ranks until you discovered its true purpose. Unfortunately, once you're in, you can't get out. Shame about that.
3. You turned your last boyfriend's brain into Swiss cheese.
4. The man you're in love with finally returned your affections - and to make matters better, he's here! But are you sure it's worth the risk?

Hopefully this is all just temporary. Be careful who you trust out there. People may claim to know everything, but you know what they say: Trust half of what you read and none of what you hear. Good luck!


Greetings, your name is Elizabeth Brown. It seems you've lost your memory. Here's some facts about yourself:

1. You have an incurable, contagious skin condition. For your sake and the sake of others, make sure you avoid skin-to-skin contact at all times.
2. But you enjoy getting people to look, just not touch. Go wild.
3. You have an amazing singing voice. Make of that what you will.
4. You are a highly trained operative in a secret military organization. And a murderer. Good job putting those skills to work for a personal vendetta.

Hopefully this is all just temporary. Be careful who you trust out there. People may claim to know everything, but you know what they say: Trust half of what you read and none of what you hear. Good luck!

On the moon, Katara is at her most powerful ever (either that, or she has no powers at all, because she's separated from the earth???). But there is a severe lack of water - this leaves her throwing around the ice she brought.

Which leaves her no other option but to kill people, since immobilizing with shards of ice isn't really a Thing, unless she manages to just get their legs or something. This means that Aang would have to see this.

Bloodbending, however, has been extremely important to my interpretation of Katara since I brought her into the game right after The Puppetmaster. It served as a large part of her angst in the beginning of her time in Luceti - she and Sokka even had an emotional heart-to-heart about it. She hates it and is scared of it and finds it invasive and cruel. But as we see in later episodes, Katara has no problem using it against people who she thinks deserve a fate worse than death.

This is obviously a wrong attitude. If it's tool, it's a tool to be used responsibly; if it's a monstrous thing, should it ever be used except to save a life? I've written numerous times that Katara would do it again - bloodbend Hama to stop Sokka from killing Aang - but it still haunts her.

Now, Masa's told me that Sokka would have some major issues with seeing Katara bloodbend, even as a last resort. I don't want to pressure anyone into doing something that's uncomfortable for them or their characters, especially Sokka since he's been through so much with the loss of Suki, but I do think that the confrontation with the Gaang afterwards is going to be key to my goal for all this (besides the practical purposes).

My endgame in all of this is simple - I want Katara to make a decision about bloodbending. I don't know what the decision is, but she was forced into becoming one, victimized and violated, and I want her to be able to take that back. She is a bloodbender. Having the power and not using it doesn't take the power away. I want her to deal with that, even if it's: I have this monstrous ability but I will never use it again or if it's: I have this terrifying ability and I need to make sure I always use it responsibly - either of those views are better, more responsible ones than her current view which is to reject it as a part of herself and see it as nothing but a medium of suffering and violation.

So the way I see it, there are two scenarios how I could play this out - one of them is the one you all know about - life threatening situation for her/the people she is with; she bloodbends; someone tags; they all talk about it later. The other scenario is that she somehow gets SEPARATED from the Gaang, and is forced to bloodbend to save her own life. I'm honestly okay with either of these, but she wouldn't keep the fact that she used bloodbending a secret - and once she saw how necessary/effective it was on the moon in saving herself, I can't guarantee that she wouldn't use it again (though I doubt it, tbh. she got sick to her stomach just showing Shikamaru what it could do. it all depends on if she shut down emotionally after it or not).

ALL THIS TO SAY - that if you want to opt out of having your character deal with this/witness it, I completely understand. Just let me know. But I hope that you'll be open to confronting her and helping her make a decision at the end.

Five Things that Never Happened Between Katara and Masaomi Kida

1) It was raining, and they'd made a mad dash to a covering, Katara bending the rain off as they go but it's barely enough to keep them from getting soaked. Standing close together, they watch the sudden downpour. "So," she says abruptly, "when are you going to ask me out again?" In the sudden shell-shocked silence, she turns around with a hesitant and brilliant smile and presses cold lips to his. Katara pulls back almost instantly. "Because I really think you should." And then she takes off running into the rain.

2) Of course it wasn't that easy. She insisted that he'd have to explain the whole thing to Sokka, and she left them alone to do it. It was important to her that the ones who were important to her would be able to understand each other and get along. She wasn't nervous. She told herself that a half-dozen times, or more, and she certainly didn't pace, no matter what Alexis said...

3) Everyone knew about their first date. If she wasn't so happy, Katara probably would have killed him.

4) Their first time was due to an experiment. When it lifted, Katara wept, and then demanded a do-over. Masaomi was confused, but obliging.

5) "You know," she said idly, playing with his fingers on her waist as she rested against his chest, "I kind of miss the days when you'd make random announcements from the fountain." The next day, on her way back from the grocery store, Katara had cause to regret her words.

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