#Tamora Pierce

[alwaysfrowningslightly]

If people are sad about The Wizard Facism game coming from someone you used to look up to and admire, may I suggest an author whose books are filled with nuanced characters and strong, dynamic women?

Tamora Pierce has been writing since the 80’s and has two worlds of magic and fantasy and bonus!!! Isn’t a transphobic POS.

[petite-ursus]

It's. HAPPENING.

(July 2nd 2024)

[nightmaskart]

Alanna the Lioness, done for Dual Wield Studios 40th anniversary of Tamora Pierce's book!

[minuiko]

Scene from the end of Lady Knight - Kel digging her own grave 💀

[rowandriftwood]

In honor of 2023 being the 40th anniversary of Tamora Pierce’s Song of the Lioness quartet, these are the beloved and much-read paperbacks I bought with my allowance money in 1992, when I was 13.

[where-our-stories-start]

Little Women (2019) // Simone de Beauvoir // The Woman Who Rides Like a Man (Tamora Pierce) // The Color Purple // Persuasion (Jane Austen) // Catherine, Called Birdy (2022) // tumblr.com

[anntickwittee]

TAMORA PIERCE HAS RETIRED!?!?

[bemusedlybespectacled]

no "other/see results" we die like men

note that I'm not talking about the best SERIES just your favorite CHARACTER

[aspiringwarriorlibrarian]

First look at the 40th anniversary Alanna collection!

[a-dauntless-daffodil]

no but that scene where kid Tris bluntly but PRIVATELY reveals to Briar that she KNOWS he can't read- she's known all along-

how he waits for everyone else to start doing their chores for the day before starting on whatever's left, instead of just checking the board where it all gets written up-

she never poked at that

never used it against him. even back when they didn't LIKE each other- him a kid from the streets and her from a merchant family, social oil and water, all their scuffs and tiffs. her temper is hot and her words are sharp

Tris never. not once. mocked him for not being able to read. didn't even mention it

and she noticed. this before the four of them all really grow into being foster siblings, back when they're just four traumatized and thrown away kids plopped down into a cottage with two women who weirdly enough won't stop caring about them-

even back then, prickly Tris paid attention

the offer to teach him comes later- in private- she is NOT embarrassing him in front of anyone else when she talks about it. it's after the four survived almost dying together, a quiet moment alone, when she finally mentions she could help if he wanted

he does. instantly- and it's not hard to see why he's so comfortable with saying yes, now. he wouldn't let on to anyone else, their teachers and guardians, but Tris saw and kept quiet and is asking him

her urge is to share this thing that'd given her so much comfort and strength with someone else who doesn't have that yet. and to do it just for him, no one else to see, just his thing to study with her, something she's happy to make time for

then years later, they are the family bookworms together. sister and brother with more academic interests than their other two siblings. they reconnect so quietly and easily even though they both are maybe the hardest to get along with in general, the sharpest and most likely to snap and lash out. but Tris taught Briar to read without making him feel stupid about it. he grew up and taught HIS student to read, using a lot of the same tricks Tris had used on him

i dunno. it gets to me, is all

[ace-artemis-fanartist]

Briar Moss.

[nightmaskart]

Alanna the Lioness

[minuiko]

Platonic soulmates :’)

[enter-the-bogman]

Reading through the Tortall books in publication order is funny because you start with Alanna “the village healing woman taught me all she knew” going off to become a knight, and end with Numair “world’s most powerful mage” as young Arram Draper first learning magic at the Carthaki university. Because of the 40 intervening years and five(?) different series further developing the Tortall universe, the magic system is now SO much more complex.  Arram is learning an elementally-based, heavily theory-dependent form of magic where conceptual power is applied to physical objects or energy constructs. His teachers make him develop skills in non-magical areas like juggling, jewelry making, and gardening so eventually they can safely guide him through complicated applications of magic. In comparison, Alanna complains that Duke Roger is spending too much time on theory in order to prevent her and her peers from learning “actual magic” and becoming his rivals. And then she throws purple light at things until they explode or she passes out! We also learn from Arram’s misadventures that most of “magic” is creating methods of applying, storing, and accessing power so the user doesn’t drain their own life force and pass out or die. Alanna uses NONE of these techniques; instead, she pulls her magic directly out of her own life force, thinks about what she wants it to do, and hopes she reaches that goal before draining herself. She even (sometimes) factors in the impact of magically draining herself of energy while attempting tasks that require both magical and physical endurance (such as when deciding how much magic to spend warming herself when making her blizzard hike to claim the Dominion Jewel.)

For one thing, this makes Alanna insanely powerful. In In the Hand of The Goddess, she breaks open Roger’s magically locked door (presumably designed by Roger himself-- an immensely strong and well-trained sorcerer) by shoving her own magic into it until it MELTS. This builds an Alanna who decided magical theory was useless at age 12 because she has an immense access to magical potential energy, and who never learns the basic life-preserving models of magic usage that are taught in intro-level classes. She doesn’t have an interest in learning more sophisticated forms of magic, except in healing, which she cared about enough to learn non-magically. So when she heals, she uses magic as a guide or a supplement, rather than depending on it and then draining herself.  Since she isn’t attempting complex magic, most of the time the limitations of drawing directly from her own life force doesn’t impact her that much. The things she does magically all have much more efficient alternatives, but they require an understanding of magical theory and ability to store energy that Alanna never learned! If she wants to do larger spells, she just keeps feeding energy into it until it breaks or she does. 

The intervening series and Numair’s story makes Alanna’s simultaneously more and less believable. It now makes sense why everyone with even a slight understanding of Alanna’s type of Gift gets angry at times and tells her she’s using magic irresponsibly. (Before, we only understood Alanna’s side of the argument: “Well, I didn’t die and it worked, so calm down.” !!!) The fact that she never actually dies and only rarely is seriously harmed through her own magic use now requires some suspension of disbelief!

[unfavorableinstigation]

Bless Tamora Pierce for making 'mast buildup' a childhood terror for so many of us. The Bermuda Triangle and quicksand may not have held up, but by god the mast buildup retains its relevance.