Hi ho, Silver!
***Spoilers for The Rain Wilds Chronicles through chapter 11 of Blood of Dragons. Mentions of the events of The Farseer Trilogy, The Liveship Traders Trilogy, and The Tawny Man Trilogy are fair game, too.***
Friends, we are making the turn. I’ve reached roughly the halfway point of Blood of Dragons, so I’m pausing to reflect before the final push.
Quick blogger’s note: I’ve found recapping this series to be a bit more challenging than previous entries. I’m not sure if it’s me losing steam on this mission I’ve set for myself, or just the nature of this story. I keep feeling like a broken record when I sit down to reflect on plot progression, whereas with Fitz, I can wax indefinitely.
That doesn’t diminish my enjoyment, but I’m feeling ready to wrap this up and head back north.
I see two core threads to this series:
- the immense worldbuilding and expansion of lore
- abuse and power dynamics
Let’s get into them.
The Lore of the Realm
If nothing else, a Hobb enthusiast should appreciate just how much lore the Rain Wild Chronicles adds to our understanding of magic, dragons, and Elderlings. And this opening half of Blood of Dragons delivers some of the most significant reveals yet.
The biggie: Silver.
We’ve been dancing around this mysterious silver substance – familiar from Verity, Fitz, the Fool – throughout the series. But here, the discussion shifts from coded and ambiguous to explicit, as the dragons charge the keepers with finding the Silver well.
Carson and Sedric step out of their episode of House Hunters: Kelsingra, and find the well – yippee! – setting us up with front-row seats to see how it will be used in the back half of this story.
We learn that Silver is the key to Elderling magic.
Dragons naturally have trace amounts of Silver in their blood, but they are strengthened by supplementing it from external sources.
We’ve long known Silver’s tie to Skill magic – Verity’s arms, Fitz’s link to the Fool – but these reveals sent me back to earlier hints about Fitz’s connection to dragons and Elderlings. (I mean, c’mon – beauty and allure that potent don’t come from nowhere.)
There’s also a nice callback to the touch of Silver on Malta’s neck. Which is totallllly something I recalled and was extremely aware of. 🤥
So yes: Silver really is the key to it all.
“This is the Silver well, the whole reason Kelsingra was first built. Remember, a long time ago, you wondered why they’d built such a grand city here. What was the reason for it, what trade, what industry, what port anchored it? Why build a city for dragons in a place so chill and damp in the winters? Why did the Elderlings stay here? And here’s our answer. The Silver well. The secret heart of Kelsingra.”
“It’s dragon Silver. The source of all magic.”
Power and Abuse
I may be more comfortable breaking down an afternoon romp between Fitz and a hedge witch, but that doesn’t mean we shy away from heavier themes here at WWS.
And if there is one thread tying all RWC storylines together, it is power- and the abuse of it.
We’ve seen this across nearly every major arc:
- Alise, Sedric, and Hest
- Thymara, Tats, and the keepers’ place in society
- The down-and-out dragons themselves, once powerless and dependent
But those dynamics are shifting dramatically as we approach the end.
Hest – one of the story’s most persistent abusers – is now at his absolute lowest. Stripped of power, enslaved aboard the Chalcedean ship, and suffering tremendously.
When the Chalcedean first arrived on the scene, I was enjoying the comeuppance for Hest. But what’s transpired of late has become deeply disturbing.
It’s not that I feel particular sympathy for Hest, but it’s a tough read. It’s like Hobb flipped the script from Liveship Traders – where Kyle Haven’s imprisonment and suffering happen mostly off-page, his horrors left to our imagination – here, we fully experience Hest’s misery.
And the power dynamic has flipped completely. Instead of arriving in Kelsingra to reassert control over Sedric and Alise, it’s looking more and more likely he’ll arrive needing their help. It will be interesting to see how they wield the upper hand.
(Okay, let’s be serious, Hest is still going to be a complete dick on arrival.)
We also have our newest storyline plunging us directly into the depravity of abuse with Selden and Chassim.
I won’t get too deep into it, but Chassim’s rape – witnessed helplessly by Selden – leads to his own confession of abuse in a deeply emotional scene.
Everything that has happened to Selden has been heartbreaking. One of the harder arcs in the Realm – and there have been some doozies. But I am intrigued by this pairing and the bond forming between them.
I would never make light of their situation, but while writing this, the thought did occur to me that there is a path where Selden ends up as the Duke (or consort?) of Chalced.
Now that would be quite the ending for the Vestrit-Haven siblings:
- Malta: Queen of the Elderlings
- Wintrow: consort to the Pirate Queen (deeply need a novella of what they’ve got going on)
- Selden: ruling Chalced.
And Kyle not around to see any of it.
And finally – if we’re talking about power shifts – we have to talk about our most glorious ones, the dragons.
They have taken flight. Hallelujah.
We have come a long way from the serpent struggle bus, my friends. I got genuinely emotional when they took to the skies. They were never meant to rely on humans, and seeing them reclaim their autonomy – and literally launch into their power – is incredibly satisfying.
We’ve come a long way. But we’re not at the finish line yet.
The Duke is still in power.
Alise and Sedric are thriving, but haven’t slain their final demon, Hest.
And we still have some Vestrit-Haven kiddos to get back on track.
Musings!
While some of our faves are on the rise, others are struggling mightily.
Malta and Reyn are getting their asses handed to them in the fourth trimester. Poor baby Phron – he’s barely hanging on and needs a dragon’s help to fully integrate his Elderling changes and survive. Luckily, dragons are known to be super caring and sympathetic to humans 😬.
They’ve made it to Kelsingra, now teeming with dragons, but are told he specifically needs the help of Tintaglia, since he is in her Elderling downline.
Good news: Tintaglia is right around the corner, unbeknownst to them.
Bad news: No one knows she is there – and she’s currently on death’s door, being hunted by the Chalcedeans.
I think at this point we can comfortably say that Rapskal was a fleeting moment of passion, and Tats is coming out on top in the battle for Thymara’s heart.
It’s been a pretty rocky road to get here – with some not-so-great moments for all parties involved (though, honestly, Rapskal hasn’t really done much wrong) – but I do find the Thymara-Tats pairing genuinely sweet. He’s been into her since way back in the treetops of Trehaug. And if he loved her at her humble beginnings, I think he’s earned her in all her winged Elderling glory.
“When you’re with me, Thymara . . . if you ever decide to be with me . . . I won’t be thinking of anyone else except you. I won’t call you by someone else’s name, or do something to you because it’s what someone else liked a long, long time ago. When you finally decide to let me touch you, I’ll be touching you. Only you. Can Rapskal say that to you?”
It’s been nice folding some of our Liveship friends back into the story, but we’re still missing some pretty notable figures. So I was delighted to get even the briefest touchpoint with Ronica and Wintrow (mostly Wintrow) via the messenger birds.
Cliff notes:
Ronica is PISSED at the bird guild tomfoolery occurring.
Wintrow has heard rumors about a dragon-man traveling show and is, thus, very concerned about Selden.
Wintrow! Time to flex those pirate powers and get on this.
I mentioned the emotions of the dragons taking flight after all we’ve been through together – and I have to say, I was really charmed by the Spit and Relpda of it all.
A few of the dragons had already taken to the sky, but it was time to get the rest airborne. Thymara stumbles across the remnants of the bridge crossing (after a thrilling wolf! chase) and cleverly realizes the platforms can serve as launch pads.
Which leads to a scene where a stubborn Relpda refusing to scuttle down the hill, gets goaded by Spit, and then launches triumphantly from atop the crest. Spit takes off after her, they both successfully take to the skies, and naturally, a mating chase ensues.
We get our second instance of dragon mating needing to be explained to the more innocent members of our earthbound, and the whole scene made me smile.
Spit and Relpda were among the most deformed and undragonlike at the start of the series, so it’s extra satisfying to see them flourish. May they be infinitely happier than Tintaglia and Icefyre.
I previously remarked that I would not be taking the time to distinguish between the random Chalcedeans in this story. I also couldn’t commit to locking down all of the keepers and dragons outside the main crew. So when Robin started tossing out names from the extended roster, it really stopped me in my tracks.
“Dortean was still recovering from crashing to the earth through some trees.”
Dortean. Brand new information. Welcome to Team Not-Sintara-Mercor-Tintaglia.
Sometimes we are confronted with our own idiocy.
I have to admit, my feeble brain has struggled a bit to picture the scale of the Rain Wild River. In my ding-dong mind, it’s basically giving:
Which makes the whole “stuck on one side of the river” situation a little hard to take seriously.
But on a drive this past weekend, I crossed the Susquehanna River (shoutout WWS land of origin, Maryland) and was struck by just how wide it was.
It’s not that I didn’t know rivers can be massive, the visual proof just really helped my brain actually process it.
I’ve already covered Hest pretty extensively, but I’ve gotta say, this Hest-Chalcedean storyline is wild as hell. The stakes have been high since the moment the Chalcedean arrived (I know his name was revealed in this section, but I’ve made my stance on learning the names of characters from Chalced pretty clear), but I really loved the moment it finally sunk in for Hest.
He leaves Redding to do his dirty work in delivering the message (and severed hands!). When he returns to see how things went, the Chalcedean is there – surprise! – and everyone else is dead. Noticing Redding’s limp form on the bed, we get this exchange:
“Is he hurt? Will he be all right?”
“No. He is all dead.”
No, Hest. He’s not okay. Things are not going to be okay. I know your mommy has told you you’re special and perfect your whole life, but the chickens have come home to roost this time. So now it finally clicks: the Chalcedean isn’t playing around, and the stakes are truly life and death.
But in case you’re worried these dire circumstances have inspired even an ounce of accountability- don’t be.
“I didn’t mean for any of this to happen,” he had told the dying flames. “It’s not my fault. If Sedric had never made his insane bargain, I wouldn’t be here now. It’s all Sedric’s fault.”
Incredible stuff from our king of accountability.
Okay. I was about to publish this sucker when I realized I hadn’t given any space to Alise and her reunion with Leftrin. Even more important is her continued personal development – particularly in her time apart from him.
I’m tired, so I’ll save my more extensive musings on Alise for my concluding post. But given that her journey toward self-discovery and autonomy is arguably the lead storyline, I wanted to give her a quick shout.
That said, watching her fight off a mountain cat was deeply gratifying. Girl power!
This has been fun. See you at the conclusion of our Rain Wilds journey!
wizardwordship 