elaby | Dreams of trees, and Amber (the comma is important)

I was going to post about something. What was it? Oh yes! I had a cool dream the other night. And I was going to post about Amber. They are mostly unrelated.

I dreamed that

caitirin and I were up in the middle of Maine on vacation with my parents, and we had one day before we were all coming back home, so we went to a snow festival (even though it was June. Right, boondocks Maine = Siberia in my subconscious, apparently). We were walking on a snow-covered dirt road where there were a few farm houses scattered in the woods close to the road, and it was just getting dark. We all had these candle-shaped clear plastic lights that gave off a blue-white LED sort of glow, and

caitirin, for some reason, hucked hers into the woods. We could see it glowing out there in the snow, so we tromped off to look for it. When we found it, I noticed that there was another blueish light off in the snow a few feet away. It was a flame-shaped glowing thing, like an almond, and in the dusk we saw more of them leading into the woods. We went off after them, following the breadcrumb trail of lights, and then we found one hanging by a string from a tree branch. There were a bunch of teenagers up in the tree, and

caitirin stopped to ask them if they had put the lights there. I saw a couple more lights in the distance, so I went to look for them. There was a lake to my right, with tree-covered island in the middle of it. I found the blue lights scattered about a hollow with a fallen tree a little way from the lake. I picked them up to bring them back, and went back along the edge of the lake.

In the twilight I saw something move through the trees over on the island, and then I realized it was the trees - or at least it was as big as the trees and made of branches and leaves and flowing verdage. It was vaguely human-shaped but it moved on its long arms and legs like trees move in the wind. It wasn't an Ent, because it couldn't have been mistaken for a tree, but it had a face out of Brian Froud that looked right at me, into my eyes, and I knew that it was purposefully letting me see it. It was massive, and its eyes were very pale - grey or blue or white.

I found

caitirin again, and then (this part was fuzzy) we met the queen of the huge-tree-spirit-people's lady in waiting, and she brought us into this place with all of the huge-tree-spirit-people. And then we taught her how to put on make-up (I don't even know - dark red lipstick. She was delighted.) There was a door, and through the door was this huge oblong room where there were all these giant faces in the wall, coming out of the wood and made out of it, and they were all singing in deep voices. It was all pretty awesome.

Okay, Amber. I finished re-reading the first five books today (Roger Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber, if you haven't heard me squee about them before) and the last line, the last paragraph, gives me waves of goosebumps every time I read it. I love this series so hard.

I have so very few beefs with these books, but the whole "Corwin loves Deirdre" thing is one of them. I mean, okay, I've come to terms with the fact that Zelazny's strong points do not lie in the direction of romance. I wouldn't want them to. Romance would seriously screw up the story and I probably would be like "ARG STOPPIT" if there were any. But Corwin, there at the End of Things, is all "I cared more about Deirdre than all of my other siblings combined," and "now that she's gone, I don't care what happens to any of us," etc, etc. WTF, I ask you. I could probably count all of the scenes in which Deirdre appeared or was mentioned on one hand. If you felt that damned strongly about her, Corwin, perhaps you should have mentioned her more than a half-dozen times in five novels O_o I just read these in one go, and let me tell you what we learn about Deirdre before she dies:

- Corwin loves and trusts her
- She's loyal to Corwin
- She "lacks the guts" to make a move for the throne (according to Fiona, that most reliable of sources)
- She wears black armor and fights with an ax
- She bit Brand. Good on her!

Seriously, that's it. I learned nothing else about her. And I can't bring myself to feel any sympathy for Corwin's apparently terrible loss when I have no assurance that he felt something for her other than his saying so maybe three times over the course of this mind-bending, political-machination-laden, surprise-literary-allusion-bearing plot-twist-o-rama.

I understand that Zelazny doesn't do girls so well; I mean, I don't do girls so well, and I am one, so I can't talk. But if he wanted to establish that Corwin was very attached to Deirdre, he really ought to have, you know, established that Corwin was very attached to Deirdre by maybe having them interact more than twice. Corwin only thought about her when he first saw the Trumps, once or twice when he was walking the pattern (maybe) and after she died. As I said to

caitirin, he thought about freakin' Julian* a hundred times more than he did about Deirdre, and he hated Julian. Julian was his example of "brother I harbor the most petty hatred for" (since he hated Eric more, but for more plot-important reasons). I'm always so right there with Corwin - no matter what he does, I'm like "RIGHT ON!" even though later I think, "Damn, that was stupid, Corwin! Oh well. I love you anyway." But with this, I just have no belief in it. It's a shame, too, because with the ax and the biting, Deirdre seemed like she would have been pretty cool if we could get to know her. Unfortunately a crazy redhead dragged her over a cliff by the hair into the chaotic abyss.

*I didn't say "freakin'" when I said this to

caitirin. I used a much naughtier word, at which point

caitirin cracked up and said, "Freudian slip, much?" And I replied "OH GOD NO AMBERSLASH OW MY BRAIN."