BFT3K, Hawkmistress!, Introduction and Chapter 1.

Cross-posted from the LJ:

Hello there. Before you ask, no, I’m not going to be stopping the BFT3K of A Taste of Magic. Instead, I’ll see if I can get away with alternating between the two and still finish A Taste of Magic within a reasonable timeframe. Yes, I understand that I haven’t had the time and willpower to finish up a BFT3K for some time, but I’m sure I can do it this time round with not one, but two. You believe me, don’t you?

Yeah, you must be thinking I’ve got all the free time in the world.

In any case, today our newly acquired target will be Hawkmistress!. That’s right, complete with an exclamation mark at the end, and written by the Marion Zimmer-Bradley. I’ll admit up front I eschew almost every single one of the big-name authors and series for one reason or the other, but with all the same effect—from Robert Jordan to L. Modesitt Jr, they all make me want to tear my eyes out, for I cannot unsee what there is to be seen. But yes, I am going to be trying to tear up a MZB book, and no doubt there will be someone out there who stops, stares and then passes a quiet note to the people at Sword and Sorceress to immediately reject all of my future submissions for badmouthing the great MZB.

Another reason why I’ve avoided MZB’s books is that she reportedly was as batshit about her brand of feminism as Terry Goodkind is about his Randian philosophies, and didn’t hesistate to use her books as soapboxes in order to preach to the unenlightened masses. Of course, you know I’m against soapboxing on principle, and it doesn’t take too long to put two and two together.

Anyway, here we are. Hawkmistress!:

Our local Crazy Bird Lady assures me that it’s horrendously stupid, but maybe that’s because she’s a falconer herself. I’ll be doing this book blind—I freely admit to not haveing pre-read it before embarking on this quest, and maybe I’ll be pleasantly surprised. Or more likely, not. In any case, this remains to be seen. I will be conferring with Crazy Bird Lady on falconry issues and bird behaviour for the purposes of this sporking, so I don’t think I’ll be making any mistakes on the falconry side of matters.

Do understand I’m reading this from an omnibus edition which also includes Stormqueen!, so the first page is actually page 393 of the book in total.

In any case:

Chapter 1:

We open with a young woman named Romilly in the mews with a hawk. Fair enough. She’s trying to feed the hawk here by cutting strips of meat from a carcass, but apparently she’s a telepath and the emotions of the terrified hawk are flooding her mind and overhelming her senses.

It’s here that we get the first major factual blunder of the book, right on the first page:

Even as Romilly pulled the small sharp knife from her belt, and carefully cut a piece from the carcass placed conveniently near, she was shaking with the effort not to strike out, to pull away in a frenzy from the strap that held her—no, not her, held the hawk—to the falcon-block; merciless leathers, cutting her feet— (Pg. 393)

According to Lenka, you don’t put a hawk on a perch made for a falcon, and vice versa. Well, you could, if you wanted to lame the bird for life. The purpose of any training, no matter how harsh, is not to to cripple the subject being trained. And when properly fitted, jesses don’t hurt the bird, nor do tethers. But of course, the bird has to suffer, because supposedly everything was so terrible back then, even though it frankly doesn’t seem to be the case.

In any case, we’re treated to an immediate backstory of Romilly. Uh, no. I can try to understand this in part—by the time this book was written, MZB was quite popular with a large fanbase, and she could count on people being interested in her books on their faith in her. However, I still hold that any book in a series should be open to new readers (that helps expand your fanbase, from the author’s point of view), something which plenty of authors I consider good such as LeGuin, Brust and Pratchett have done.

In any case, we learn that Romilly is a telepath by birth (what the hell is it with genetic magic?), one of the rarest and most powerful forms of laran (I.E. obfuscation of magic) in the world of Darkover. One of her brothers was apparently called to the Towers, which appear to be places where people with magic are trained in its use, and this has pissed off her EVVVVIL father that he refused to let any more of his children be tested for magic.

As a result, Romilly’s magic, which enables her to get into the mind of any animal (really. People get pissed when they realise they’re being manipulated; you’d imagine animals would at least be terrified.) There’s more exposition on how she managed to get her hands on this particular hawk (one and a half pages total), but the only really important bit is that this hawk is a Verrin hawk, which means it’s SPESHUL:

Verrin hawks, taken full-grown in the wild, were more stubborn than hatchlings reared to handling; a bird caught wild might let itself starve before it would take food from the hand, and better it should fly free to hatch others of the same fine breed, than die of fear and hunger in the mews,untamed. (Pgs. 397-398)

So Romilly had considered letting letting the falcon go free—

Wait, what the FUCK, it’s a falcon now?

Lenka has explained this to me at length when I consulted her for Embers research:

“Falcons and hawks (eagles belong to the same family as hawks) are biologically as closely related as cats and dogs. Or fish and marine mammals. Everything is different – the overall shape of the body, personality, behavior, even the way they poop – yes, really – the only things they have in common are that they are both birds and that both of them have evolved to be the best hunters they can be.”

Complete with pictures and a rather long explanation of how falcons and hawks hunt (which has proven useful in Lenka vs. Valise bird-fights), I can safely say that MZB at the very least, knew shit about falconry when she was writing this, since this is a basic tenet of the hobby.

Anyways, she had considered letting the hawk-falcon-thing go free when suddenly, she looked into the bird’s eyes and magically (yes, quite literally) knew that she could tame it. Which is why she’s here in the mews with the bloody bird. More exposition on how the fever’s come to the castle, and how she hates her lessons and needlework (of course! Being a lady is horrible! Never mind that plenty of fantasy ladies in the hands of competent authors actually manage to do more than the pants-wearers!) In any case, she’s determined that the bird bow to her wishes and insists on breaking it:

But this hawk was hers! Never mind that it sat on its block, angry and sullen, red eyes veiled with rage and terror, bating wildly at the slightest movement near her, the wings exploding in the wild frenzy of flapping and thrashing; it was hers, and soon or late, it would know of the bond between them. (Pg. 399)

To quote Lenka: the birds never forget, not do they forgive. You have one chance, and you’re out. Magic or no, they have too much pride, and mistreating a bird essentially equals “forget it”. And if her magic makes it love and accept her…well, humans using magic to make other humans love them is considered morally wrong. Given how most such “bonds” are supposed to be, what’s the difference between making an animal love you with magic?

And how do you break a hawk or falcon or whatever the fuck this bird is supposed to be? Why, by starving it, of course. By starving it until it does what you want it to:

You don’t leave a hawk at this stage, Davin had told her. Not for a moment. She remembered asking, when she was small, not even to eat? And he had snorted, “if it comes to that, you can go without food and water longer than a hawk can; if you can’t out-wait a hawk you’re taming, you have no business around one.” (Pg. 400)

Aaand there’s more on this later, but for now we’re treated to a standard fantasy princess whine on how she wants to be a falconer with a big, badass bird but of course LADIES have to have small docile birds, yadda yadda, society is stifling me, yadda yadda, I have as strong magic as my male relatives, yadda yadda, so on and so forth, echoing millions of whiny fantasy princesses from The Riven Kingdom to Disney Cartoons, and I roll my eyes and nod my head before backing away slowly.

Rule one of message fantasy: no anvilicious messages. We’re not children. We can make our own decisions. I read novels to be entertained, not to listen to your political beliefs.

But it still goes on and on:

Since Ruyven had gone, Romilly had been sternly turned over to her stepmother, expected to stay indoors, to “behave like a lady.” She was not almost fifteen; her younger sister Mallina had already begun dressing her hair with a woman’s butterfly-clasp, Mallina was content to sit and learn embroidery stiches, to ride ecorously in a lady’s saddle, to play with stupid little lap-dogs instead of the sensible herding-dogs and working-dogs around the pastures and stables. Mallina had grown into a fool, and the dreadful thing was that their father preferred her as a fool and wished audibly that Romilly would emulate her.

Never. I’d rather be dead than stay inside the house all the time and stich like a lady. Mallina used to ride well, and now she’s like Luciella, soft and flabby, she startles away when a horse moves its head near her, she couldn’t ride for half an hour at a good gallop without falling off gasping like a fish in a tree, and now, like Luciella, she simpers and twitters, and the worst thing is, Father likes them that way! (Pg. 402)

Uh-huh. Because it’s utterly wrong to seek power through alternative routes—through sexual manipulation, through influence, through the oft-used court intrigue, through sleeping with a man and knifing him after the deed, to use a facade of weakness to make others underestimate you, to spy on places where a man would be noticed…and all the alternative routes that I’ve seen women in fantasy take instead of riding horses and wearing pants.

But my main beef isn’t with wanting to ride horses and wear pants. You want to do that, fine. My beef is that these alternative methods of gaining power are rubbished and female characters who embrace them are rubbished by the author. I’ve seen similar attitudes espoused by modern-day more extreme feminists—that women who choose to be homemakers and do jobs traditionally perceived as feminine are selling out or deluded by the patriarchy, that they’re weak or outright retarded—exactly mirrored in the excerpt above: “You don’t follow my brand of Scotsmanship; you’re not a true Scotsman!”

In any case, first a man named Ker comes in to bother her, and she sends him away snappishly. Then her own father comes in, and with the usual “this is no place for a LAAADY to be” line sends her out of the mews, but not before this revolting line:

Here is food, come and eat…nausea rushed through her stomach at the smell and sight of the dead meat on the gauntlet. Yes, hawks feed on fresh-caught food, they must be tamed by starvation into feeding on carrion… (Pg. 404)

What. The. FUCK.

So much for your loving and empathic bond. So much for that. Rotting meat will KILL most birds of prey, unless they happen to be buetos, who can scavenge and digest the toxins produced by fouling meat. Again, MZB knows jack SHIT about falconry, still in the first chapter.

Oh, and did I forget to mention that wild birds aren’t tamed? Of course, we get acknowledgement, even from the EVVVIL father, that Romilly is something SPESHUL:

“Zandru’s hells,” the MacAran swore, “If but one of your brothers had your strength and skill, girl! But I’ll not have it said that my daughters must work in mews and stable. Get you inside, Romilly, and not another word from you!”

His face was angry and implacable; the hawk bated again, at his anger, and Romilly felt it surging through her too, an explosion of fury, frustration, anger, terror. She dropped the gauntlet and ran, sobbing with rage, and behind her, her father strode out of the mews and locked it behind him. (Pg. 404-405)

Apparently, this is supposed to be another instance of her father’s wretched misogyny and cruelty, but all I’m seeing is a whiny girl who didn’t bother trying to parley, explain or empathise and instead immediately threw a tantrum when she didn’t get exactly what she wanted. One of the “justifications” I’ve seen on the internet for this so-called hawk “training” is how horrible everything was in this Darkover place, and naturally this training must be horrible, too. Well, Romilly isn’t behaving like a fifteen-year-old who’s grown up in a hard world with an understanding of her responsibilities and duties necessitated by an unsure survival, but instead of a whiny fifteen-year-old Britney Spears wannabe who got transplanted into a faux-medival world.

So Romilly goes back to her room, and a servant brings her bread, warm milk and honey. What a hard life, to have servants looking after you. Then she muses some more on her evvvil family, her evvvil father and stupid sisters and spoilt little brother, and then her thoughts turn to the hawk-falcon-thing still trussed up in the mews. Of course, she worries about the prospect of her evil father beating her, although it’s explicitly mentioned he’s never laid a hand on her in her life before.

Beatings without beatings. Oh, we must make her father look evil and give her something to angst about, but god forbid that she actually be physically imperfect. Really, it’s belittling victims of real abuse by suggesting what Romilly is going through is as bad as REAL abuse people suffer at the hands of other people.

Of course, her father is so evil as to look down on animals, and everyone knows that kicking puppies is bad:

Her father himself had always hold her that a good animal handler never began anything with hawk or hound or horse, that he could not finish; it was not fair to a dumb creature who knew nothing of reason. (Pg. 406)

After working with animals and getting in their minds for most of his life, he thinks this way because…well, he needs to be evil! You must hate him! The great MZB says so!

In any case, after making sure that the whole household is sleeping, Romilly sneaks down to the mews again. Wait, I thought her father had locked it behind him? Then how did she get in there—no, I don’t want to know, and frankly, don’t care except wonder how the great MZB could have made such a basic blunder.

In any case, she cuts off more of the rotting meat and tries to get the bird to feed, all the while using her magic to psyche the bird into subservience, wiping away all traces of guilt by justifying that the torture is for the bird’s own good:

No, she thought, it is not a violation to teach or train an animal, no more than when nurse taught me to eat porridge, even thought I thought it nasty at first and wanted nothing but milk; because if she had fed me upon milk and babies’ pap after my teeth were grown, I would have been sickly and weak, and needed solid food to grow strong. I wear clothes even though, no doubt, I would sooner, then, have been wrapped in my blankets like a swaddled baby! And later I had to learn to cut my meat with a knife and fork instead of gnawing at it with fingers and teeth as an animal would do. And now I am glad to know all these things. (Pg 410)

Number one. Why doesn’t she apply this same train of thought to her parents wanting her to “be a lady”? Number two: the difference in all this is that she was not starved, beaten or treated cruelly, and knew the purpose of such learning. This cannot be said for the way the bird is being treated.

The actual psyching:

She filled her mind with images of soaring free above the trees in sunlight, trying to open her mind to the memory of the last time she had hunted; seeing the bird come spiralling down with its prey, of tearing apart the freshly killed meat, so she could give the bird its share of the kill… (Pg. 410)

But you must eat and grow strong, preciosa, she sent out the thought again and again, feeling the hawk’s hunger, her weakening struggles. Preciosa; that is your name, that is what I will call you, and I want you to eat and grow strong, Preciosa, so we can hunt together, but first you must trust me and eat…I want you to eat because I love you and I want to share this with you, but first you must learn to eat from my hand…eat, Preciosa, my lovely one, my darling, my beauty, won’t you eat this? I don’t want you to die…(Pg. 410)

Can you imagine something like this being broadcasted into your head repeatedly? “You will love me. You will love me. I love you too, and you are only denying it to yourself. Love me and be my minion and I will give you everything.” Equal relationship my ass; this is clearly setting up for a dominant-submissive relationship like so many Animal Companions in fantasy, and it really wouldn’t be a problem IF IT WAS ACKNOWLEDGED AS SUCH AND THE RELATIONSHIP NOT TREATED AS IF THEY WERE BFFs.

Of course, the bird finally breaks. What, did you imagine it wouldn’t? It eats the rotting meat, and by all rights it should sicken and die within days like a REAL raptor would, but of course we know that’s not going to happen. Of course, Romilly is overjoyed that the bird is now her mindless slave, full of love and affection for her, and she goes to where the pigeons are kept, wrings the neck of one and then lets the bird feed on actual food.

When the hawk had fed…she could feel the dulling of hunger, and even her own thirst receded…she set it on the block again, and slipped a hood over Preciosa’s head. Now it would sleep, and wake remembering where its food came from. She must leave orders that food for this hawk must be very fresh; she would have birds or mice killed freshly for it until Preciosa could hunt for herself. It would not be long. It was an intelligent bird, or it would not have struggled so long; Romilly, still lightly in link with the bird, knew that now Preciosa would recognize her as the source of food, and that one day they would hunt together. (Pg. 413)

Or more likely, according to Lenka, it’ll remember you as its tormentor and fly away at the first opportunity, if not outright claw you to bits. Hell, even Danny claws Lenka sometimes when he’s displeased with her. On the chest, or even her face. Anyways, Romilly’s being all pleased with herself when her EVVVIL father bursts in on her and yells at her for her disobedience. Of course Romilly yells back at him, saying he isn’t grateful at all that she’s managed to break the bird, and that if she has her super-speshul magic she’s supposed to use it and that she’ll never be a lady. Naturally, being the designated evil misogynistic prick, her father has no good answer for that, and there’s another beating without an actual beating to show how evvil he is:

And as she slipped past him she could feel that blow he started to give her, then held back—he could not bring himself to strike anything, and she had saved the life of the hawk. But out of his rage of frustration he shouted after her at the top of his lungs, “You haven’t heard the last of this, damn you, Romilly!” (Pg. 414)

Yeeeah, whatever. Chapter end and I don’t care already.

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