LOL. WUT? WTF!

[tmcd]

I'd like a thread to discuss the things that, on rereading, make you go "LOL" or "WUT?" or "WTF!".

Or more generally, were reconsidered in other books (glitches in the Matrix, so to speak), or ironic, or whatnot. Something that tripped you up.

NOTE: I am not trying to be harshly critical here! I realize that, in tens of thousands of words, there are going to be oversights on minor points. I'm mostly amused.







(Sources, respectively: Samuel Johnson Reading, Hark! A Vagrant)

[tmcd]

High Deryni, ch. 2, p. 28. Alaric preparing to go off to Dhassa with Duncan to meet the 6 secessionist bishops:

"I have met Arilan once, my prince

Denis Arilan had been the King's Confessor, is a King's Council member, is a bishop of Brion's capital, a guy who confidently declared you innocent at your trial, is latest scion of a prominent family with several significant royal counselors! You should be on a first-name basis by now & know his favorite wine!

Yeah, I know, because KK needed drama for the plot, & it was only the 3rd book & the background wasn't needed or settled yet. Still, my suspension of disbelief had its rope snap & it fell screaming down into a gorge.

In discussion in Discord, Evie the Verbose wrote,

I get that Alaric ended up spending less time in Rhemuth and more time in Corwyn once Jehana found out he was Deryni, but he still had to have been around Rhemuth on occasion for him to have developed so close a bond with Kelson, unless we're to believe Brion just brought his heir over to Corwyn a whole bunch so they could bond.

This seems reasonable to me.

Edit to add: there was also

and Cardiel never.

Dhassa was decently far from Rhemuth, so the Jehana Exclusion Zone doesn't apply. Alaric really should have done a little networking in previous years and looked in while passing through -- having decent relations with a substantial city on the way to the king seems valuable. But I guess that, if he got his Saint Torin medal in advance, there would have been an important chunk of plot missing.

[tmcd]

High Deryni, ch. 3, p. 28 in the first paperback edition. Bran Coris is introduced, waiting in the defile from Cardosa for Wencit of Torenth's army to come thru.

Lord Bran, at ease in an undress tunic of military blue,

sipped his morning coffee and read the latest telegram from DC about Robert E. Lee marching towards Gettysburg. "Oh, let Meade crush the Army of Northern Virginia", he exclaimed, "and send the rebel scum sobbing back to Dixie!".

Western Europe in the Middle Ages, so far as I know, didn't have "military uniforms", though there might be livery per unit. "Undress" uniform definitely seems modern. Also, I think a good blue was pretty unstable, I think. In sum, a blue uniform definitely gave me a vision of a Union officer in the U. S. Civil War.

Edit: Next page:

"The men of the Fifth Horse request the honor of your review this morning."

"They stood very well against rebel cavalry raids against Rosecrans's advance in Tennessee in late 1862." Again, "Fifth Horse" makes me think of a cavalry regiment.

Edit #27: he also uses a spyglass to look at the oncoming Lionel et al coming from Wencit. But it's not too far off from doublets, mentioned in other places in the books, simply several centuries earlier than in Our Time Line. Centuries faster, centuries slower, some differences due to magic, some differences generally (I'm pretty sure that, in OTL Catholic Church and maybe Orthodox Churches, a bishop must be appointed to a unique episcopal see (a city) however titular), et cetera. Personally, I find it a lot easier to swallow than "thank you for your input, Archbishop".

[tmcd]

High Deryni, ch. 3, p. 28. Bran Coris again.

"And have the fletcher see me some time this morning, will you? The grip still isn't right on my new bow."

He needed some morning coffee: I think he wanted the bowyer (bows), not the fletcher (arrows).

[Bynw]

It might be good to add the page numbers in the paperback version where these quotes can be found. To help others revisit them.

[Shiral]

In the Camber and Heirs trilogies, we learn that the Archbishop of Valoret as Primate and the Archbishop of Rhemuth, both sit on the Royal Privy Council by right of their positions as "First among equals" in the Church of Gwynedd. On the secular side, the Dukes of Carthmoor (Prince Nigel, the King's  younger brother and ranking peer of the realm) and Corwyn (Alaric Morgan)ALSO sit on the Privy Council by right of their respective ranks. So both Nigel and Alaric should know very well who Edmund Loris is whether or not they personally liked or respected him. But for the sake of introducing Loris as a likely antagonistic character to the readers, we're asked to believe that Prince Nigel, hardly knows who Loris is at all! (But okay, we all know that it was KK's first novel and she was still working things out at that stage of her career.)

Slightly off topic, but the title "Primate of Gwynedd" always makes giggle. I have this weird mental picture of Loris wearing his priestly garb, but hanging one-armed from a tree limb and eating a banana, but that image sure doesn't fit Loris!

[Nezz]

Slightly off topic, but the title "Primate of Gwynedd" always makes giggle. I have this weird mental picture of Loris wearing his priestly garb, but hanging one-armed from a tree limb and eating a banana, but that image sure doesn't fit Loris!

I dunno, I think the imagine of Loris hanging fits him perfectly. 

[JudithR]

Slightly off topic, but the title "Primate of Gwynedd" always makes giggle. I have this weird mental picture of Loris wearing his priestly garb, but hanging one-armed from a tree limb and eating a banana, but that image sure doesn't fit Loris!

I dunno, I think the imagine of Loris hanging fits him perfectly. 

There was picture of +Rowan (former Primate of All England aka Archbishop of Canterbury) painting a fence with the caption along the lines of, "Primates are noted for their use of simple tools"

[Evie]

I think this was around p.279 of the Kindle edition, when Kelson and Alaric visit Richenda to inform her of Bran's defection:


"The delicate, heart-shaped face was framed by masses of reddish-gold hair bound by a white lace kerchief...."

OK, it's nighttime and she's indoors in a private dwelling, not expecting gentleman callers, so it's fine that a married woman in the very early 1100s has her hair unbound under those circumstances. And I get that this is a history-inspired fantasy world and series where fashion might have evolved at a different rate from our own. That said, a lace kerchief was such a modern, 1960s-style accessory, it completely threw me out of the story when I first read this passage. Even a lace veil might have raised my eyebrows, but as Alaric is wearing doublets on occasion, I can suspend disbelief enough to imagine someone figured out how to make bobbin lace or tatted lace a few centuries early. But no, this description is giving off 1960s Catholic Church Girl Lace Mantilla vibes, not I'm A Medieval Countess In The Early 1100s!

[revanne]

A lace kerchief always makes me think of the sort of hippyish vibe things I wore in tbe 1970s.

[Evie]

A lace kerchief always makes me think of the sort of hippyish vibe things I wore in tbe 1970s.

I think that's why that one anachronism really got to me so much. I'm used to clothing details not being true to real world history in a fantasy series, but normally anything anachronistic can still be found somewhere in the medieval to Renaissance centuries. So Alaric's doublets and his wrist stiletto didn't faze me one bit. I just assumed the stories were set in a later medieval or early Renaissance period until I saw the actual dates mentioned somewhere.

But I grew up in the time period when KK was writing these books, and I'd like to think that the pretty lace kerchiefs my Mom wore to Mass aren't quite that old! I know I'm no spring chicken anymore, but still! 😂😅