Tamora Pierce Books Are A Hug

tamora pierce books are a hug

i’m rereading some right now — at first to refresh because i want to write a daja/kel fic — but i forgot how these books soothe my soul. the way she writes friendship and growth is so important so chefs kiss.

i love how she writes character arcs — both negative and positive. like everyone has the capacity for change (wyldon of cavall) but not everyone will, and sometimes people get worse (joren of stone mountain). in will of the empress berenene has multiple chances to stop being The Worst and gets Worse — but in a way that is understandable, believable, and human. it adds such texture to the books. and some people like king jon in keladry’s books are protagonist and antagonist.

the adult mentors are so real and varied: niko, frostpine, rosethorn, vedris, lark, myles of olau, sir raoul, wyldon. they joke, they laugh, they make mistakes — like real people instead of caricatures.

and tammy’s stories build on each other like stone after stone in a foundation — like when kel is going to scanra to save her people it is so believable that all of her friends ride after her because kel has four books worth of proving she is the type of leader people would do that for. tammy understands her characters and their motivations so well.

also owen of jesslaw plsss i would die for him

in conclusion: i genuinely think reading these books as a kid was so vital to me and they should be required reading for everyone

Do you remember?

my favorite thing about Corporal Carrot is that he’s a romantic hero plopped right in the middle of the greediest cesspit of a chaotic neutral city ever to debase the pages of literature, and yet instead of having his shining idealism destroyed by an uncaring reality, he makes reality embarrassedly put down the weapons and agree to make nice, and then mutter an awkward “Good morning” whenever it passes him on the street.

Winternight is the one night of the year where servants and their masters may dance together.

i LOOOOVE one esk being SO petty. you're sticking up for lieutenant awn? you get eleven millimeters of tea in your nearly full cup 😊😌 you over there are badmouthing lieutenant awn? you can wave your empty tea bowl all you want 😤😠

y'know having read them multiple times i don't understand why people say that Night Watch is the darkest City Watch book when Thud! is right there.

like, Night Watch is pretty grim when you focus on the inevitability of it, but throughout the book the whole like... THING of it is "being told something is inevitable, and fighting it anyway." it's a story about hope and inspiring it in others even when you're not sure you're going to make it through either way. right up until the final melee with Carcer, Vimes does what he can to forestall the inevitable, and for most of the book, he *wins.*

Thud! on the other hand is about fighting against the weight of deep ancient grudges, and the outcome of it SEEMS inevitable. Koom Valley Will Happen Again, and throughout the book there seems no way to stop it. the resolution comes right at the very end, although the book 100% earns the reveal. but it's one man and a small team fighting against bigotry and hatred and figureheads stoking war.

that's not even TOUCHING on the actual Events in the book, which include a hit squad armed with flamethrowers very nearly torching Sam Vimes' infant son to fucking death. then there's the whole thing with the Summoning Dark which keeps trying to push Vimes' rage to the point of murder, there's the part where it *succeeds* and drives him into an unstoppable berserker rage, there's people dying slowly in dark tunnels, and the Vurms which feasting on putrefied corpses.

it's also the first time we've seen Vimes in an actual Murderous rage. every time beforehand he's been angry but it's been "oh i'm gonna arrest the SHIT out of you. i might put the boot in for good measure but you're coming with ME, sunshine." but no, this time he's literally chasing down a hitman screaming "i'll kill you" over and over again.

Thud! is a properly dark book. and yet despite it's unrelenting horribleness... Love Still Wins. Love for your fellow "man." Love wins in all Pterry's books, you can tell, it shines off the page when you read them just how much that man loved humanity, warts 'n' all, but in this one it feels like it's the most optimistic ending. it's the one that goes "in spite of it all, the bigots and warmongers and the narrow minded Will Lose, because there are always people willing to go to the ends of the earth for Love, Love of one another."

i think that's why it's my favourite book in the series.