our light is our voice

[arethinn]

Over on esmestrella I've talked sometimes about how Severus is one of only a tiny handful of characters in Harry Potter that are "alive" to me, and about the only one who "has a voice". (I've pursued that thought a little into "only things with voices are alive", but the woo-woo metaphysics of that, including what exactly I mean by "voice" in that context, is something for another time.) Buried in the comments on a recent pottersues post is a little discussion on The Dragonriders of Pern, which reminded me that I brought up just that example when talking about this a little with enotsola the other day.

I had been reading Nerilka's Story because it was there in the bathroom, and I remarked on how flat all the characters seemed. I thought about it a bit, and in my opinion that's the case for most of the series. A lot of the characters have no "voice". And like Harry Potter, there's a fairly small group of breakaways -- Mnementh, Ruth, Ramoth, Lessa, Manora, F'nor (not so much F'lar), Menolly, Piemur, Fandarel -- and as with Severus, there's one who is the instant "oh, hands down, he's the strongest": Masterharper Robinton. (enotsola immediately agreed with me on this point; YMMV.) Don't get me wrong, I like the Pern series; just I think that writing multidimensional characters that seem to naturally grow out of their environments was not really Anne McCaffrey's strong suit here. (She did much better with the Harper Hall trilogy, I think. Dragonsinger -- the one in the middle -- was the book that got me into Pern in the first place.)

By contrast, though many characters in, say, The Lord of the Rings are certainly minor, I don't have a feel-memory of thinking that any of them are flat. (I've read it what, four or five times?) It's not really fair to compare either of these two relatively light fantasy series to LotR, so take with grain of salt, but I was just observing the phenomenon. Almost everyone comes off the page in De Lint's Newford stories, too, which is closer to Harry Potter and Pern for scope.

I'm not that widely read in fiction, though, so I'm curious what other characters y'all would place in this category of Quendi (in the sense of "speakers; those who speak with voices").

Comments

Other quendi

[syleniel.livejournal.com]

One character that immediately springs to mind when you talk about quendi is Drizzt Do'urden of the Dark Elf (and other) series by R. A. Salvatore. I had the pleasure of hearing Mr. Salvatore speak at a convention years ago (Arisia for anyone in the northeast US). He said that when he was writing about Drizzt, he could sense the dark elf behind his shoulder telling his story. I've reached out and "touched" Drizzt's mind (assuming he's not just a very complex and brilliant construct) and then he started standing behind me whenever I'd read about him. The being had personality and opinions (assuming I wasn't talking to the back of my own head). I'm pretty sure there's a live being who has lived a life very similar to the one that Salvatore describes.

I agree that nearly all the characters in Newford are quendi. I've read a lot of De Lint's work. The books that take place with those characters are my favorites because of that.

Another pair of characters that I think are quendi are from the Ships of Merior series by Melanie Rawn. The half-brother princes Arathon and Lysander seem to be more real and have voices. The mages seem to as well.

[talakestreal.livejournal.com]

Personally, I'm a bookworm...and 3/4ths of what I own I feel the characters are real/capable of speech beyond the books. I collect books that make me empathize. And I actually would agree with what you said about pern...it's why I don't collect the books. Most of the dragonriders were just...not people I could feel for/feel with. Flat.

At the moment my bookcase is blocked, so I can't list any titles (how sad is that, that I have so many books, I can't remember the titles), but when I can get back to my bookcase, I'll post the names of some that really do have that spark to them. ^__^

[arethinn]

Most of the dragonriders were just...not people I could feel for/feel with. Flat.

It probably says something that I thought the dragons were, on the whole, possessed of more voice. ^_- (Mnementh probably has an advantage in that he has a name that of itself comes across as standout to me.)

Your statement seems to imply there were some characters who did have Voice to you, so I'm just curious who those were?

Re: Other quendi

[arethinn]

Ah yes, Drizzt. I've never actually read any of those novels (shhh! don't tell!) but even the presence in the Menzoberranzan game was strong to me. I think you've been "in the room" at least once when I've recounted how that game started me searching for "dark elves" and thus located otherkin. He has history, he has existence (speaking even of the game, I mean). The surface details grew out of something; they do not come across as "pat".

I wonder how much linguistic richness there is to the Drow language as written. I wouldn't expect Quenya, but I wonder if it goes beyond "hey, that sounds good" which tends to result in mush the longer you do it. What I've heard/read strikes my ears as one of those things the shape of whose sounds is satisfying to me (like Quenya and Sindarin, and also Japanese and Hebrew).

[helen99.livejournal.com]

I read the 'Dragonrider' series mainly to experience Impression and the ensuing relationship between dragon and rider. The characters were secondary to that relationship, imo. Most of the books I've read are like that (including LOTR - another beautiful quest-based story). The characters are secondary to the quest or some other aspect of the story. They serve as a backdrop to allow the main thing (whatever it might be) to unfold.

I did give it some thought, and realized that most of my books don't contain characters with voice. Finally I resorted to a classic I've read - Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. The male protagonist is a rather acerbic recluse who hires Jane as his servant. After a time elapses, they begin to develop feelings for one another. He does not admit it, however, nor will he consent to see her face to face, for that matter - the relationship is entirely by voice. At some point in the story, he is disfigured in a fire, whereupon he sends her away, not able to bear anyone's pity. After many dramatic interludes, she convinces him that "pity" isn't quite the word for what she feels. I can still hear him say, "Am I hideous, Jane?" and she replies emphatically, "Yes, sir: you always were, you know."

Another story whose characters had voice was obscure novel I read years ago. I don't remember the name of the story and have long forgotten most of the characters. I do, however, remember one character in particular -- a man called Geoffrey du Peyrac. He had been thrown from a tower as a baby and had become... you guessed it... horribly disfigured (on one side of his face). The female protagonist is forced to marry him by arrangement. At first she is horrified, but slowly, through the power of his voice, he wins her heart.

We can see a theme developing here...

Severus Snape's scars are not on the surface...

[arethinn]

Um, I think you are thinking much more literally than I meant in terms of "voice", although I understand what you say about character-is-secondary stories.

[helen99.livejournal.com]

My understanding of Quendi is, "a character who is alive and speaks to you independently of the story that conceived the character".

I think that a character who is quendi would tend to also have a living literal voice in the story. Perhaps quendi occurs only under some circumstances, and not every good characterization on paper is quendi, but without a living literal voice in a character, I'm not sure the Quendi voice ever comes into being (or perhaps more accurately, the other way around, heh.)

[arethinn]

My understanding of Quendi is, "a character who is alive and speaks to you independently of the story that conceived the character".

Okay. All I meant was "characters who seem like they could be whole/real people". Not necessarily that they become independent of the story. Robinton, for example, doesn't do that for me, but within the Pern books, he stands out.

Severus is kind of a crossbreed in this case and maybe a throwing-off-course starting example (because his voice is mentioned in the text, and then of course there's the Rickman factor). But I can think of other Quendi about whom no mention is made of the quality(/ies) of the character's voice. Nobody ever makes mention of what Ford Prefect's voice is like, for example, that I can recall.

[helen99.livejournal.com]

Ford Prefect? Ah, I see. He's a strong presence in the story, lack of literal voice notwithstanding. I was taking the interpretation farther and making it more literally voice-oriented than you had intended. The books I've read are still sorely lacking in these character types, though. (Scribbles down recommendations elsewhere in thread...)

[lady-silverfire.livejournal.com]

*contemplates*

The ones that come to mind immediately for me, other than the ones you named already, (and I definitely agree with what you said about Robinton) are Mercedes Lackey characters. Moondance and Starwind from the Last Herald-Mage books are a good example for me- and Vanyel himself to a lesser extent I think. (although I do have a strong emotional bond with Van as a character which should be taken into account also) The one who really stands out to me though is Amberdrake from the Gryphon trilogy- I don't particularly like the writing so much and those particular books may be my least favorite of all of the ones set in Velgarth but I put up with them because Amberdrake is in them.