In the third chapter of Tris’s Book, FRIENDSHIP. SO MUCH FRIENDSHIP. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to read Circle of Magic.
Trigger Warning: For brief discussion of death/grief
I know that it’s fun to enjoy things, and I keep having to think about if I’m so biased in favor of Tamora Pierce because of Tortall that I’m liking this because it’s her. BUT THEN THESE CHARACTERS ARE EXPLOSIONS OF CUTE AND NOPE, IT’S JUST GENUINELY SUPER GREAT AND I WANT MOREÂ AND I HAVE SO MUCH MORE AHEAD OF ME. Let’s talk about these goobers, I can’t deal with them.
Daja
There is a value in being friends with and working with someone who looks like you, and I appreciate SO MUCH the very fascinating way in which Pierce talks about skin color in a way that isn’t demeaning to people of color and which shows an understanding of why we often band together. Now, I don’t have a keen comprehension of how race or skin color might work within the Emelan universe, but we’ve at least scene cultural prejudice towards the Traders, many of whom are darker like Daja. But it’s important to acknowledge that these books are being released within our world, and so it’s easy for me to see something familiar in the way Frostpine jokes about being black and Kirel being white. What’s so great about this is that Kirel takes the joke in stride, knowing that it’s not a denigration of himself, and it paints a picture of how closely Kirel and Frostpine work with one another.
Daja covered her grin with her hand. She loved working with these two. They were as relaxed and cheerful as the men of her own family had been, joking about work as they got it done.
While this definitely reminds me of the way I might joke with my white friends, I also think it’s important to talk about how this demonstrates the kind of support system Pierce has created for the four main characters. All four characters have been adrift for so long that they’ve needed something dependable and certain, and people like Niko, Rosethorn, Lark, and Frostpine provide them with what they most need. I love that simple friendship can be so powerful and redemptive for these characters. And it’s not something any of them take for granted! Due to being abandoned or being born into hellish circumstances, it’s not any of them have just naturally had tons of friends, you know?
Pierce also foreshadows a bit here, and I’m worried. I AM WORRIED. I love the magical nets used to protect Winding Circle from pirates, though it was sad that they triggered memories in Daja of her time aboard Third Ship Kisubo. I have to keep remembering that there hasn’t been a huge passage of time since the first novel. It hasn’t even been half a year since she was made an outcast. Her grief is still there, and even though she does have these wonderful friends, she continues to deal with her loss. Anyway, it’s because of this scene that we have to accept that maybe this net was deliberately destroyed. It’s clear from Sandry’s section that follows this that Winding Circle has been pushed into chaos as they try to repair everything that was damaged. But then Daja thinks she sees a ship out of the corner of her eye and then it’s not there and OH SHIT WHAT’S HAPPENING.
Sandry
Thank you, YouTube, for the many videos I watched on your site that helped me visualize what it was that Sandry was doing here. I’m still a tad last, but that’s okay. It didn’t distract me from how important her section was. Despite that Lark still hasn’t had time to teach Sandry how to start weaving, she knows that Winding Circle needs all the help it can get. Therefore, she jumps ahead a bit in Sandry’s training, and what’s so cool about this is that Lark is very much aware that this is a shortcut. She goes out of her way to point this out because she truly wants Sandry to learn how to weave properly! She believes in Sandry so wholeheartedly that she doesn’t want to cheat her, you know? AND SANDRY DOESN’T WANT THIS EITHER:
“I don’t want to take shortcuts. I want to learn to weave well.”
Lark smiled and cupped one of Sandry’s cheeks with her hand. “That’s why you’d be good at weaving – you care for the work, not just the magic.”
AHHHHHH I LOVE THESE TWO SO MUCH. I also adore the way that magic works within Emelan because it’s so symbiotic with everything else. It’s not this separate entity or power that one uses independent of the rest of the world. As Lark teaches Sandry here, we learn just how much magic is integrated into aspects of the physical universe. Sandry is not using magic to merely create new bandages. That’s not quite what magic is used for:
Now she saw where the feeling of needles and healing liquid came from. Visions of wounds – cuts, gashes, round holes – rose from the pattern to fill her mind and run through her fingers. The cloth she wove must weave flesh, too, closing painful openings with threads of new muscle and skin. Where something had destroyed, her bandage would build new, healthy growth.
That sort of work is incredible to me, and it’s a very necessary thing for Sandry to learn. It’s undeniable how cool it is that she’s “weaving,” even if it’s a sort of cheat. She is still using her innate power to coax the threads into their proper places, and it’s a treat to read it happening. Sandry gets lost in the moment, and it means so much to me that she’s even able to do that. You can tell she’s so in love with what she’s doing that the outside world doesn’t really matter to her.
IT’S SO WONDERFUL.
The original text contains use of the word crazy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38J-PdsvXIY
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