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December Meme: Vanyel's Legend
My prompt for the 14th was: "What's your take on the whole Vanyel legend/story? What upsets you the most about it?" Thanks, ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
kowe!
There are really two parts to this prompt; Vanyel's legend, and Vanyel's story! In canon, these things definitely differ, so I shall try to address both.
Vanyel's story is told in three novels, comprising his life from teenager to 30something; in them, we see all the things that go into making anybody's story - his emotional ups and downs, his personal motivations, his failures, and above all (as I briefly mentioned in some comments on an earlier meme post) his maturation. Van starts out as a teenage kid with a broken arm, a hatred of his family situation, and a head full of questions: why am I different, why are adults unfair, could I choose another path, what would let me prove myself? His story unfolds from there, and the reader lives his confusion and excitement and growing wisdom right along with him.
Vanyel's legend is told through mentions within the later parts of his own story, comments dropped in novels set significantly after his death, and through several filks. The primary difference between story and legend is that the latter comes from an outsider's perspective; Vanyel's emotions and reasons are opaque to us (though we may be told what they are, the teller has no authority). In contrast to the story of Vanyel, comprising fifteen or twenty years and a series of events both large and small, the "legend" of Vanyel runs thus: there once was a powerful Herald-Mage who had several military victories in wars with our neighbours, then he died facing down an entire invading army and his ghost still protects the border there!
Vanyel's legend is a sort of highlight reel of Van's most politically appealing moments (he saved some farmers and made the enemy look bad, he outsmarted a foreign mage who was messing with our army, and he took on an entire invading barbarian horde) picked out from the context of his life like nuts from shells. It doesn't touch on anything that makes him a knowable, realistic person; it's designed to make young Heralds think with awe of what they might do for their country, not to comfort them when they have doubts or fears. No one who knows Vanyel only through the lens of Herald-Mage Vanyel Ashekevron would consider him a friend! (This is probably one reason I'm so intrigued by Herald Tantras, one of very few friends Van has in his later years, when his reputation has already spread widely. What made Tran different? What allowed him to slip through the cracks in the legend and get a piece of the real person, the story, instead?)
This isn't to say that I disapprove of Van's legend; it came first, I think, if I'm remembering the publication chronology correctly! (I could be wrong here, but I think that's how it went.) I'm ever so glad we did get Van's story, though, and I think the contrast between legend and person is something a lot of fantasy novels could stand to revisit - mystical references to past heroes are easy flavouring-text or worldbuilding shortcuts, but it's more fun to know the person behind them!
The one thing I remember being mad about, as a kid who was reading every Valdemar novel she could get her hands on, was that nobody seemed to realise exactly what Van did. It seemed grossly unfair to me that they thought Leareth killed him and then his ghost got revenge, instead of knowing that he chose his death deliberately and was, in fact, the one to initiate it via Final Strike. :D Now, of course, I think that was perhaps deliberate: for one, with no mages left to assess the battlefield, no one could have said for sure, and for another... well. History is written by the victors, but when you choose pyrrhic victory, you forfeit any editorial oversight. :D
kowe!There are really two parts to this prompt; Vanyel's legend, and Vanyel's story! In canon, these things definitely differ, so I shall try to address both.
Vanyel's story is told in three novels, comprising his life from teenager to 30something; in them, we see all the things that go into making anybody's story - his emotional ups and downs, his personal motivations, his failures, and above all (as I briefly mentioned in some comments on an earlier meme post) his maturation. Van starts out as a teenage kid with a broken arm, a hatred of his family situation, and a head full of questions: why am I different, why are adults unfair, could I choose another path, what would let me prove myself? His story unfolds from there, and the reader lives his confusion and excitement and growing wisdom right along with him.
Vanyel's legend is told through mentions within the later parts of his own story, comments dropped in novels set significantly after his death, and through several filks. The primary difference between story and legend is that the latter comes from an outsider's perspective; Vanyel's emotions and reasons are opaque to us (though we may be told what they are, the teller has no authority). In contrast to the story of Vanyel, comprising fifteen or twenty years and a series of events both large and small, the "legend" of Vanyel runs thus: there once was a powerful Herald-Mage who had several military victories in wars with our neighbours, then he died facing down an entire invading army and his ghost still protects the border there!
Vanyel's legend is a sort of highlight reel of Van's most politically appealing moments (he saved some farmers and made the enemy look bad, he outsmarted a foreign mage who was messing with our army, and he took on an entire invading barbarian horde) picked out from the context of his life like nuts from shells. It doesn't touch on anything that makes him a knowable, realistic person; it's designed to make young Heralds think with awe of what they might do for their country, not to comfort them when they have doubts or fears. No one who knows Vanyel only through the lens of Herald-Mage Vanyel Ashekevron would consider him a friend! (This is probably one reason I'm so intrigued by Herald Tantras, one of very few friends Van has in his later years, when his reputation has already spread widely. What made Tran different? What allowed him to slip through the cracks in the legend and get a piece of the real person, the story, instead?)
This isn't to say that I disapprove of Van's legend; it came first, I think, if I'm remembering the publication chronology correctly! (I could be wrong here, but I think that's how it went.) I'm ever so glad we did get Van's story, though, and I think the contrast between legend and person is something a lot of fantasy novels could stand to revisit - mystical references to past heroes are easy flavouring-text or worldbuilding shortcuts, but it's more fun to know the person behind them!
The one thing I remember being mad about, as a kid who was reading every Valdemar novel she could get her hands on, was that nobody seemed to realise exactly what Van did. It seemed grossly unfair to me that they thought Leareth killed him and then his ghost got revenge, instead of knowing that he chose his death deliberately and was, in fact, the one to initiate it via Final Strike. :D Now, of course, I think that was perhaps deliberate: for one, with no mages left to assess the battlefield, no one could have said for sure, and for another... well. History is written by the victors, but when you choose pyrrhic victory, you forfeit any editorial oversight. :D