I Have No Other Words - Tumblr Posts

THIS

ok last Wingfeather post (for tonight) I promise--

but I absolutely think that one of the main reasons I love the books so much is because of Janner, and how perfectly I feel like he encapsulates the experience of being an eldest sibling, especially in the midst of a somewhat-fraught family situation. before reading Wingfeather, I had never in my life discovered a character who seemed to feel the way I did about life with younger siblings, especially in my early teens. the way he struggled so much with the burden of responsibility, loving his siblings so dearly but sometimes chafing under the burden of care he felt like he could never escape--it was so real to me. especially the desire to be free of responsibility coupled with the shame of even wanting that sort of freedom. being so proud of being called "mature" and "leader" and "protector," yet sometimes inwardly raging against the fact that I could never make any mistakes without potentially dragging my younger siblings down with me, that I could never truly be my own person because I often felt more like Their Sister than I did Myself.

I remember saying to at least one person, I think it was my mom, "I have never read anything that so thoroughly understands what it's like to have siblings and be the oldest. this author just understands it. even the ugly parts that you don't want to admit to." I was completely in awe. I had never felt so seen.

and--I don't want to give away any spoilers for people who haven't yet read the books or who want to have the show as their first experience of this story, but--there's a moment in the fourth book where Tink gets to have a extremely special experience... an experience that Janner has always longed to have. and Janner is denied that privilege altogether. and I have such a vivid memory of pausing the audiobook while lying facedown on my bed, complete darkness all around me, far past the time I should've been asleep by, and sobbing. and it's one of the few times I remember genuinely crying because of a book. (I want to say a lot more about that moment in the series and what it means to me, but I'll have to do that in a separate post sometimes, because I cannot possibly avoid spoilers if I say anything else.)

I guess all I'm trying to say is--something about Janner's deep desire to be seen, to be known, to be understood for who he is and not only the role he plays, to receive the love he's always longed for from a father he's never been allowed to fully know, his constant struggle between a desire to lead and protect and his yearning for independence and freedom--all of that spoke so deeply to me when I first read the series, and even now I can feel the echoes of those emotions in how this story left its imprints on my heart. and I'm so excited for all the people who may find, for the first time, their own stories echoed in this series about three kids in a fantasy world overrun with toothy cows and birds with belly-buttons and singing dragons and slavering fanged lizards.

writing-prompt-s:

Valhalla does not discriminate against the kind of fight you lost. Did you lose the battle with cancer? Maybe you died in a fist fight. Even facing addiction. After taking a deep drink from his flagon, Odin slams his cup down and asks for the glorious tale of your demise!

Oh my god, this is beautiful.

A small child enters Valhalla. The battle they lost was “hiding from an alcoholic father.” Odin sees the flinch when he slams the cup and refrains from doing it again. He hears the child’s pain; no glorious battle this, but one of fear and wretched survival.

He invites the child to sit with him, offers the choicest mead and instructs his men to bring a sword and shield, a bow and arrow, of the very best materials and appropriate size. “Here,” he says, “you will find no man who dares to harm you. But so you will know your own strength, and be happy all your days in Valhalla, I will teach you to use these weapons.”

The sad day comes when another child enters the hall. Odin does not slam his cup; he simply beams with pride as the first child approaches the newcomer, and holds out her bow and quiver, and says “nobody here will hurt you. Everyone will be so proud you did your best, and I’ll teach you to use these, so you always know how strong you are.”

————

A young man enters the hall. He hesitates when Odin asks his story, but at long last, it ekes out: skinheads after the Pride parade. His partner got into a building and called for help. The police took a little longer than perhaps they really needed to, and two of those selfsame skinheads are in the hospital now with broken bones that need setting, but six against one is no fair match. The fear in his face is obvious: here, among men large enough to break him in two, will he face an eternity of torment for the man he left behind?

Odin rumbles with anger. Curses the low worms who brought this man to his table, and regales him with tales of Loki so to show him his own welcome. “A day will come, my friend, when you seek to be reunited, and so you shall,” Odin tells him. “To request the aid of your comrades in battle is no shameful thing.”

———-

A woman in pink sits near the head of the table. She’s very nearly skin and bones, and has no hair. This will not last; health returns in Valhalla, and joy, and light, and merrymaking. But now her soul remembers the battle of her life, and it must heal.

Odin asks.

And asks again.

And the words pour out like poisoned water, things she couldn’t tell her husband or children. The pain of chemotherapy. The agony of a mastectomy, the pain still deeper of “we found a tumor in your lymph nodes. I’m so sorry.” And at last, the tortured question: what is left of her?

Odin raises his flagon high. “What is left of you, fair warrior queen, is a spirit bright as fire; a will as strong as any forged iron; a life as great as any sea. Your battle was hard-fought, and lost in the glory only such furor can bring, and now the pain and fight are behind you.“

In the months to come, she becomes a scop of the hall–no demotion, but simple choice. She tells the stories of the great healers, Agnes and Tanya, who fought alongside her and thousands of others, who turn from no battle in the belief that one day, one day, the war may be won; the warriors Jessie and Mabel and Jeri and Monique, still battling on; the queens and soldiers and great women of yore.

The day comes when she calls a familiar name, and another small, scarred woman, eyes sunken and dark, limbs frail, curly black hair shaved close to her head, looks up and sees her across the hall. Odin descends from his throne, a tall and foaming goblet in his hands, and stuns the hall entire into silence as he kneels before the newcomer and holds up the goblet between her small dark hands and bids her to drink.

“All-Father!” the feasting multitudes cry. “What brings great Odin, Spear-Shaker, Ancient One, Wand-Bearer, Teacher of Gods, to his knees for this lone waif?”

He waves them off with a hand.

“This woman, LaTeesha, Destroyer of Cancer, from whom the great tumors fly in fear, has fought that greatest battle,” he says, his voice rolling across the hall. “She has fought not another body, but her own; traded blows not with other limbs but with her own flesh; has allowed herself to be pierced with needles and scored with knives, taken poison into her very veins to defeat this enemy, and at long last it is time for her to put her weapons down. Do you think for a moment this fight is less glorious for being in silence, her deeds the less for having been aided by others who provided her weapons? She has a place in this great hall; indeed, the highest place.”

And the children perform feats of archery for the entertainment of all, and the women sing as the young man who still awaits his beloved plays a lute–which, after all, is not so different from the guitar he once used to break a man’s face in that great final fight.

Valhalla is a place of joy, of glory, of great feasting and merrymaking.

And it is a place for the soul and mind to heal.