Scarlet, Azure, Crop, Gust . . . Huh?

A review of the novel Royalty of Wind, Fire, and Clay by Keri Stevenson, serialized in Deep Magic (beginning with the March 2004 issue).

Let me begin by saying that this is a rather decent novel. It is, however, part of a trilogy, and so I don't really recommend that you read it unless you can get your hands on the entire trilogy (I only read this book, as I managed to miss the fact that it is the first book in a trilogy). However, it does have some major problems.

First, of the four main characters (Emmerelda, Hanir, Leroth, and Pheron), only one of them has any common sense at all. Emmerelda is annoying because she is completely sure that she is right, doesn't care for anyone else, and people tend to think she is perfect. She is also experiences no change in the book. Leroth is a similar character, with the added problem that he is very dense. He doesn't understand the painfully obvious, even when it is explained to him. He only becomes more annoying. Hanir is different, because in him there is a glimmer of hope. He is not perfect, which makes him the more interesting character. Further, he begins to have a bit of common sense, but this is unfortunately squashed by the end of the book. This leaves poor Pheron, who is the only main character with any common sense, and really, one of the few characters in the book with more common sense than a grasshopper. He is the reluctant hero, but that's alright, because he is interesting. He manages to avoid being angsty, as the others would be, or annoying (for the most part), and is just practical. He is, in my opinion, the only character worth reading about (with the possible exception of Hanir), and I don't know why the author felt it necessary to spend so much time on the annoying Emmerelda and Leroth. Their stories lessen the suspense (we know things before Pheron does), and seem to serve no purpose, unless it is to drive the poor reader batty.

Please, dear author, give your characters some common sense. It makes them interesting. Please do not have them trust evil people (or dragons), cry a lot, or rush into battles where they have no idea what the enemy is capable of, unless you have very good reasons.

The second problem I have with the book is more a matter of personal taste. The four elements are named Scarlet, Azure, Crop, and Gust. This is inconsistent. I have no problem with naming elements after colors; it's a bit strange, but that's your business. Call them the Scarlet Mage, or the Mage that controls Scarlet, if you want. Have an Azure Mage, a Gold Mage, or a Pinkish-purple-brown Color That You Get By Mixing All the Colors in Your Paintbox Mage, but be consistent. Earth, air, fire and water are elements, or substances if you prefer Aristotle's terms. Scarlet and azure are colors, and as such, secondary properties of substances (fire is scarlet, and water is azure). A gust is an amount of an element; a gust of wind. Crop is strange, because it is something produced by the interaction of the elements, sort of (water and earth), although I will ignore that and assume that it is simply produced by earth. It seems sloppy to name the four elements after secondary properties, amounts, and something that they produce. This is annoying because it is so important to the story. I would have ignored it, but the author spends much time explaining the relation of the elements, and how they can be mixed, and generally showing that there is supposed to be a consistency in how they function, but there isn't even a consistency in the names. For goodness sakes, they aren't even all secondary properties. It's all in Aristotle; what do they teach them in schools these days?

Finally, the symbolism is weird. There is a battle between Light and Dark. But there seems to be no difference between them. They each think the other side is wrong, stubborn, and mostly brainless. They both do nasty things to innocent people because this is war. The Dark seems a smidge nastier in general, but they are both pretty bad (burning down villages, and whatnot). Both sides use elemental magic. So why bother with a distinction at all? They are both nasty sides, and I wouldn't want to fight for either. The Light isn't good, the Dark isn't good, and it simply becomes names. I don't get it. The author neither accepts the symbolism (light is good, and monsters hide in the darkness under the bed), nor rejects it (light burns you, the stormtroopers wear white, be very afraid and hide in the shadows). Pheron, the main character, tries to exist outside of Light and Dark. But there is a problem with that. Beyond light and dark, beyond the stars and the space between them, there is nothing. There are degrees of darkness, there are amounts of light, but nothing exists outside of light and dark that is in the same category (of course, I would argue that darkness is not a substance qua substance, but merely the negative absence of light, but that is another matter for another post). It is the same with good and evil, for which light and dark are usually symbols (although they may also be symbols for knowledge and ignorance, or many other things). But how can someone exist outside of this? And if light and dark are not meant to symbolize anything, why use those terms?

I should conclude by saying that I liked the book enough to finish it. Pheron is a compelling, interesting character, who manages to get his arm cut off and be neither stoic nor angsty. He develops a bit in the story. He get's pushed around a lot, but fortunately begins to grow out of that. He is interesting, because he has the possibility to grow further. He still has very lousy reasons for being good ("because"), while rejecting better reasoning. But when it comes down to it, he does the heroic thing. Most of the time. His storyline is by far the most interesting, and I think I should like it if the author had only written about him, and could more easily forgive its other faults.