Thorin: A House Divided Cannot Stand

Our theme this month, characters in conflict with themselves, suits the recent movie The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug perfectly. Several of the characters have inner conflicts, but nowhere is it more visible than in Thorin's struggle to reclaim his homeland and restore his family's honor.

Tolkien wasn't just writing about fantasy characters, dragons, dwarves, and elves. While The Hobbit was, admittedly, less of an epic than The Lord of the Rings, he still saw his characters as foils for people around him and universal challenges facing humanity. In Thorin, Tolkien saw a grieving son trying to restore the honor of his family as well as his people. His grandfather had been driven mad by wealth and power and received the harshest punishment imaginable: a dragon came and destroyed his kingdom, killing hundreds and scattering his people to the winds.

At the time Tolkien wrote, the backdrop of World War I and the factors that led up to World War II informed his storytelling. He fought personally in WWI and lost comrades. More than that, he saw WWI through the lens of history and, in some ways, The Hobbitis a reflection of that – a cautionary tale for a king. Beware the lure of gold, the story says, or you may go mad and destroy your homeland.

What I find interesting about Richard Armitage’s performance is that he’s utterly at home in his character. He is Thorin, a flawed man, but a hero none-the-less – and a king. He sacrifices and does what is necessary for his peoples’ survival. But he is also grieving for his lost father, which we see more in this movie than in the first one. In the opening, he meets with Gandalf because reports of his father have surfaced and he desperately wants to find him.

In contrast, King Thranduil is an insular king, closing his borders to the outside world and refusing to aid Thorin. He is a character worth hating, a man blinded by power and prestige within his own borders and uncaring what happens outside it or how it may affect his people. He saw the ravage of the dragon, and the greed of Thorin’s father, and is unmoved to help Thorin now. He no longer has an inner conflict because he’s given up, and given in to his baser instincts where Thorin still struggles to be larger than he is.

I am looking forward to Peter Jackson and his team’s vision of the final chapter in this story. I found myself wishing that the story were longer (and the movie was nearly three hours as it was!). The portrayal of Middle Earth reflects modern life and informs it, makes it richer – and cautions us about undue greed, loyalty and power.

--
“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.”
- E.E. Cummings

The Chicagoland Shifters series:
Book 1 BURNING BRIGHT, available from Samhain Publishing.
Book 2 TIGER TIGER, available from Samhain Publishing. An All Romance eBooks Bestseller!

The Persis Chronicles:

Check out EMERALD FIRE, available from Torquere Books.

Check out "Seeking Hearts", available from Torquere Books.

Check out COOK LIKE A WRITER , available from Barnes and Noble.
Coming soon - "Taking a Chance" is being re-released from Torquere Books!

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Flawed Release Day!

It's here! Today is release day for Flawed, the sensual tale of a princess in dire need of a bit of help and the two shadow elves who fall head over heels for her.

Elves and magic and betrayal and hot, burn-up-the-sheets love - this novella has them all. This is a fantasy for adults, a love story for everyone who ever felt the weight of the world rested in the throw of a d20.

I hope you enjoy the story of Emilia, Rorek, and Jo'el.

Here's a snippet from the opening scene -

Attempting to calm herself from the ugly scene she had fled, she rolled her flushed face against the coolness of the wood. First one side, then the other, before she let the warming surface press against the useless dark rock that rested in her forehead. There was a distant sensation of pressure where the stone met her flesh, an unwanted reminder of her most obvious shortcoming. The stone that should have been a source of great magical power was nothing more than a daily reminder that she was, indeed, as flawed as a princess could be.

A low moan from the room behind her jerked her from her thoughts. Spinning around to find the source, Emilia stared openmouthed in surprise at the scene before her.

Gods alive.

Firelight cast a dim light over a couple near the fireplace. A large male body reclined across the brocade cushions of a finely carved settee, one long leg propped against the back of the small sofa and one braced on the floor. His thighs were spread wide, giving her a clear view of the naked muscled chest that rose from a slender waist. A cream-colored shirt of the finest shadowsilk was unbuttoned across his skin, framing the sculpted muscles and smooth ebony skin in light.

His head was thrown back in abandoned pleasure, allowing shadows to flicker across the planes of his face. A rising flame threw him into light, and then his features were cast again into the shadows. Through the haze of shock she felt a stab of recognition. Rorek Northmark, Lord Magician of Darkknell, the visiting ambassador and blood cousin to King Torek of the Shadow Elf, was sprawled in lusty abandon as she had never seen him before.

I'm giving away a copy of Flawed - this one is open to anyone who comments here or on my blog between now and midnight, July 2nd.

Happy reading!

Growing up with Fantasy

I grew up with Fantasy. Even before I read my first romance (thank you Louisville Public Library for not stifling the curiousity of a 12 year old when she first found the clench cover) I had fallen in love with Anne McCaffrey, Piers Anthony and Tolkein.

Anne McCaffrey had the most wonderful dragon stories, and opened a world to me I never knew existed. When I first laid eyes on "The White Dragon", I was a goner. I quickly searched out Dragonsong and Dragonsinger, and went looking for more tales of fantasy.

 

I'm not sure how I got from McCaffrey to Anthony, but when I read Piers Anthony's tales of Xanth they took my breath away. I spent many long hours happily lost in a very non-Mundane world.

Less than a year later I finally moved on to Tolkein. I thought myself more than a little in love with Frodo, and dreamed great dreams of going on his adventures. Before we had Orlando Bloom in pointy ears and tights, Frodo was my hero.

It was pretty soon after that I found those clench covers on the library racks. For a while, my love for fantasy was forgotten, and I moved on to more romantic reading. Through middle school and most of high school, I was very happy with my romance novels and "required" literature reading.

Then one day at Books-A-Million during my junior year of high school, I came across this :

I still remember standing there in the bookstore reading the first two chapters.  Buying it, then racing home and staying up until late into the night reading about Tanis and Sturm, Caramon and Raistlin.  It was love from first sight, and the Dragonlance Chronicles became some of my favorite reads as I left high school and went to college.

I’ve read a lot of good fantasy, and more than a little great fantasy, in the years since.  But these 4 series have been some of my most passionate book loves for many years now.  Even today I can reread them and be amazed by the stories these authors could weave, the worlds they could bring to vibrant, captivating life

Every book we love should leave a bit of itself behind after you close the cover.  So it isn’t surprising that I’ve written my first fantasy.  And if you’ve read my previous Samhain release, you won’t be shocked to find that my fantasy world is a bit more sensual – ok, much much more sensual – than the worlds of the authors I read as a preteen and teen. 

Do you still reread the books that you loved when all books were new to you?  And how did they shape the books you love today?

Look for Flawed, by Ember Case, coming June 30th from Samhain Publishing

Flaws

Flaws.  We all have them. 

David Beckham, oh god of Armani underwear,

 

has a thing for skinny blonds with boy haircuts.  Nora Roberts head hops like a Mexican Jumping Bean (although since I still adore her books, is this a flaw or just her style?)  I fuss at my kids if they bother me when I’m trying to work - and man, will seeing Coraline ever give you a complex about that.

But there are flaws, and then there are Flaws.  The heroine of my new book Flawed – coming this summer from Samhain Publishing  – has some pretty serious ones of the capital Flaw flavor.

She’s a princess and heir to the kingdom; life should be pretty good, wouldn’t you think?  But happenings in her world of Elfish magic and court treachery has her backed into a pretty tight corner.  Her magic?  Nonexistent.  Her birthright?  Seems to have deserted her.  And even David Beckham up there wouldn’t be doing anything for her – she’s got a serious problem when it comes to sex.

I think I’ll take my short temper over her set of problems.

Have you got any flaws you want to admit to?  Or maybe, as gamers are often sarcastically saying, they aren’t really flaws, they’re features! 

Ember Case ~ Come Twitter with me

Creature Feature: Drow - Dark Elves

Some of you may know I do a regular feature on my blog called "Wallpaper Wednesdays." I like to dabble in graphic art and turn some of my creations into wallpapers you can use on your computer. Just about every Wednesday (I miss some when I have other events going on), I give away a new one for free on my blog. Most of the time, they're images depicting scenes or characters from my books, but not always. In fact, a couple of weeks ago, I featured a composition I did just for fun - a drow warrior maiden. It got me thinking, "what exactly is a drow and where did they come from?"

See, I don't remember seeing drows in my childhood fairy tales. So I did a little research to figure out why they're so popular now. Here's what I found:

According to Wikipedia, the drow "is a mythical elf-like creature in Scottish folklore which lived in caves and forged magical metal work." Further, "Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1970) states: "Drow, n., [scot.]." The word is a variant of the Scots term "trow", which itself derives from the Scandinavian word "troll". The race itself seems based on another dark elf, specifically the Dökkálfar of Norse mythology." If you look up "dark elves" you find that they were traditionally thought to live underground and look sort of like dwarves.

Interesting. So the term has been around a long time. But where do we get these sexy, black-skinned, white-haired creatures that are so popular now from? A little more digging reveals that a lot of that probably comes from Dungeons and Dragons. I've never been much of a gamer, but I do recally my brother playing D&D for a little while back in the day, when it first became popular. Again looking to Wikipedia, they describe drows the following way:

Within the context of the Dungeons & Dragons game, the drow were forced
underground in what is now known as the Underdark after the great war amongst
the elves, a vast system of caverns and tunnels spanning much of the continent.
The drow live in city-states in the Underdark, becoming one of the most powerful
races therein.

The drow are well adapted to seeing in the dark, and they loathe the light of the surface. Some magic weapons, armor, and various other items of the drow disintegrate on contact with sunlight.
...
Drow characters are extremely intelligent, charismatic and dexterous, but share
surface elves' comparative frailty and slight frames. Females tend to be bigger and stronger than males. Drow are characterized by white or silver hair and obsidian black skin. Their eyes are red (or rarely gray, violet, or yellow) in darkness and green in normal light. Drow have several kinds of innate spell powers and spell resistance. This is balanced by their weakness in daylight. Also, drow weapons and armor (usually made of adamantite or another metal unique to the Underdark) slowly lose their magical properties if exposed to the sun.

In Advanced Dungeons & Dragons second edition, adamantite disintegrates upon exposure to sunlight unless specifically treated. Drow also employ the unusual hand crossbow, firing small, though very lethal, darts. Half-drow are the result of crossbreeding between another race and a drow, and share characteristics of both. (The term "half-drow" usually refers to one who is half drow and half human.) Half-drow are also generally evil; however, half-drow of differing alignments are more common than non-evil full drow.

Drow males are commonly wizards or fighters. Females are almost always clerics and almost never wizards.
...
As a race, drow are usually evil.

Artists and writers of fantasy have expanded from there, it seems. I haven't written about any drow characters yet, but the idea is intriguing, isn't it?

The image at the top of this post is one of the many free desktop wallpapers I offer on my blog. It started out as an art project and turned into a research project. I hope you've enjoyed this little walk through drow history as much as I. If you're interested in my art, check out my blog on Wednesdays! If you're interested in the image above, check out this post in particular. There you'll find a number of different sizes you can right click and save to your desktop. Enjoy!

Bianca D'Arc

Come over to The D'Arc Side... http://www.biancadarc.com/