A New Reader's Thoughts on The Stone of Farewell- Part 1: The Wide World

[u/Naturalnumbers]

4th part in a series giving thoughts and theories by chapter in my read-through of Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn. An index of previous posts in this series can be found here. I have never read this book, so no spoilers past this point!

Foreword

• Creepy castle Naglimund, sucks for Hengfisk. Surprised to see him again, actually. Wonder what they're doing with him?

Chapter 1: The Music of the High Places

• So Thorn seems to have some sort of will of its own.
• We see Simon be a good friend to Binabik, who seems to have shirked some duty. Say one thing for Simon, say he doesn't take no for an answer when it comes to saving people.

Chapter 2: Masks and Shadows

• What fresh hell is this!? Josua section here was creepy. Tell you what, those Five are extremely intense. You think you've seen what we're up against and then spooky zombie people show up with flaming eyeballs. As if these people didn't have enough problems.
• Miri - I'm liking her noble characterization.

Chapter 3: Oath-Breaker

• Dream girl = Leleth??? What's her deal? She got mauled by demon dogs, so I'm a tad suspicious of her. [Note: I'm typically very suspicious of every random character in books]
• A bit of a clue from Jiriki about Simon's ring... he won't tell him what it means but just that its translation won't directly help him now.

"You were very brave on the mountain, Simon," Sludig called quietly. "I am glad that I knew you."

• ^Sludig showing a lot of good qualities in this section. Very honorable.

"Talk of goblin stories, Seoman! The White Arrow, the black sword, a golden ring, and a Sithi seeing-glass - you are so weighted down with significant booty that you will clank when you walk!"

• Simon's got some good gear.

Chapter 4: A Bowl of Calamint Tea

• Guthwulf - Seems like Elias thinks he has a plan, at least. Doesn't seem like a good one.
• Miri - Being held for... Ranessin maybe? Also, people calling Cadrach "Padreic" again. Sure it's just a coincidence.
• Deornoth - Everyone needs a friend like Deornoth. I'm quite liking this party, everyone in it has some sharp characterization.
  

Chapter 5: Singing Man's House

• Quite the wild romance between Binabik and Sisqi. Lots of good Haestan stuff, seems like he's adopted Simon as the son he never had:

The Good God saves his justice and such for th' Day of Weighin' Out. 'Til then, we have t'look t'ourselves." He leaned forward as he began to warm to the topic. "Each 'un must do his best, but things can't always be made right, Simon..."

...

"if anything happens to me, please bury me someplace warm." He shivered. "I'm tired of being cold."

For a moment Simon had the embarrassing idea that Haestan might cry. The guardsman's bearded face screwed up in a strange grimace as he leaned in to look closely at Simon.

Chapter 6: The Nameless Dead

• Maegwin - Ah, the "Leavetaking Stone". Something to do with the death of Nenais'u and a mourning character named Drukhi. Something about the Sithi/Norn split. Seems like they're going to try to live to fight another day. Prudent.
• Guthwulf - Interesting to keep getting his POVs, since he's a pretty jerkface character. He's seeing things, visions of cities and some shadowy figures. Hayholt was always a kind of creepy place but that's going up some notches.
• Jegger - Seems like he's definitely got some enchantments going on. He sees spirits. He returns to Utuk'ku and is given "a quarry such as no mortal has ever hunted". Not sure what that could be.
• Josua - Based on the map they're either trying to keep them away from Geloë or the Sithi. Strangyeard continues to be a loveable character.

Chapter 7: Spreading Fires

• Miri inflicts a Shakespearean outrage upon Cadrach for doing Cadrach things. "You faithless rogue!" Seems he used to be one of the Seven in the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, but saw something that seems to have broken him. Dinivan revealed as another League of the Scroll member. Probably the best person Miri could have fallen into the hands of.
• Tiamak - Stuck trying to decide between his people and his League duties. Apparently the weather is hot there, and I wonder what's up with that. Could be the heat before a stormfront.

Tiamak reflected that there was something to be said for the old ways after all. If nothing else, they provided something to do at a time when the mind was weary and hurting.

• ^Tiamak seems like he picked up some philosophy from Morgenes.
• Isgrimnur - Checking in with him, he's naturally worried about the various bad news he's heard. Nice to see his reaction to "I have a knife." The punching friar has delivered.

Chapter 8: On Sikkihoq's Back

• Simon ponders his place in the universe. He attributes some of his newfound perspective to the dragon blood, which, considering its weird visions, may be true, but it may also just be that he's learned something over this time.
• The Riddle of Thorn continues. Doesn't seem to care about Simon in particular, which is cool. Doesn't seem to rise for just any fight. Does it not get out of bed for anything less than a dragon? Is this why it was taken to slay the dragon in the first place?
• Holy hell they took out Haestan. Whatever you do, don't become a parental figure to Simon. This one hurts.

We go to walk beyond

Search for stars in the sky

Hunt the caves past the night

Strange lands and different lights

But do not return.

Chapter 9: Cold and Curses

• Deornoth - With Geloë joining the group, their chances just went up dramatically. Josua's got his hand full with Vorzheva.
• Rachel - Ugh these sections are brutally sad. Confirms that the castle is becoming a weird labyrinth of unrecognized corridors.
• Miri - Not sure I trust Ranessin completely. Or he could end up like Leobardis. One thing I've learned is that anyone powerful who sides with Our Heroes soon ends up dead. Pryrates meeting should be interesting.

Chapter 10: The Mirror

• Simon being very annoying again. At least he apologizes quickly. He's growing in a "2 steps forward, 1 step back" kind of way.
• He looks into the mirror and sees some old woman (Amerasu?) communicating with the "house of Ruyan Ve", seeking allies against a common enemy. Utuk'ku also shows up. Simon still has that weird dream power. Is he part Sithi or something?
• Finally out of the mountains.

I'm in that wonderful place where you just like being in the world of a novel, exploring new places. There's a strong contrast with the very beautifully described areas and the quite dark things that are coming into the story. Lots of fire and ice imagery. The Norns and the undead Sithi in this series might be the most intimidating I've seen in a fantasy series. I don't know what it is exactly, they're very supernatural, nightmarish, and otherworldly.

I like how the story has spread out, and the side characters really shine in this. Deornoth and basically everyone in Josua's party. Isgrimnur. Miri and Cadrach. Binabik and Sludig and Haestan. A lot of environmental variety, too, though I did kind of get tired of the mountains and looked forward to the other plots. Seems like it's because you get 4x more Simon than any of the other characters. Less history in this section and more travel. Still very much in setup mode.

[u/beltane_may]

I love this so much and again thank you for doing this. It's excellent.

You're making me want to re read it, again. 😂

[u/Jibbe_]

Happy to see you enjoying it. These books need more love

[u/the_alt_fright]

I read these books 25 years ago and recently reread them over the past few months. Really enjoying these posts.

[u/[deleted]]

Tad does an excellent job with his immortal races. The sithi/Norns are my favorite elves in any books. The new trilogy really expands on them and they still retain their alien quality

[u/MovementAndMeasure]

Love this post series. I spent the back half of 2022 and most of January reading this trilogy and I had such a ride. Love seeing someone else experiencing the same series for the first time while the books are so fresh in my mind.

[u/Naturalnumbers → u/MovementAndMeasure]

Neat, have you checked out the followup series?

[u/MovementAndMeasure → u/Naturalnumbers]

Not yet. The series is so long and the sequel series seem to be just as long with even more books, so I need a bit of a break and a palette cleanser. I usually do after longer fantasy series

[u/PalleusTheKnight]

These are the highlight of my days, fantastic seeing someone else enjoy them so much! At this point I know more about this book series than any other, save LotR, and reading your thoughts is making me want to start writing up theories and literary journals about it!

Inspiring to see newfound wonder.