Intrigues by Mercedes Lackey (Evil on the Part of Heroes Part 1)

Lately in books (and when I say lately, I mean in the last four or five years) I've noticed a disturbing flaw in a lot of the things I read: the lack of repercussions falling on characters after serious offenses of some kind. Granted, I've also seen this in movies and books, but not really. It's far more prevalent in novels. And this bothers me, because it usually results in one of two things: either unrealistic writing, or previously-likeable characters becoming bad guys without the author intending it to be this way.

And it isn't just beginner authors who do this, though they've done it, too. Even some of the most experienced authors have made this mistake sometimes. We're going to take a look at one of them now: Mercedes Lackey.

I am a huge fan of Mercedes Lackey. A friend of mine introduced me to her Valdemar series during my first year of high school and during my sophomore year, when I was grounded and all my own books packed into boxes and stuffed into the garage by my parents, I began reading nearly everything in my high school library to feed my crack-habit—including Ms. Lackey.

Currently this author is in the middle of a new mini-series within the world of Valdemar called The Collegium Chronicles, which details the beginning of the Heralds' Collegium, the institution that teaches Heralds how to be Heralds (similar in some ways to the Jedi Temple in Star Wars, but without all the dumb rules about not being able to get angry or have families). In the very first Valdemar trilogy, Arrows of the Queen, the Collegium already exists, but in The Last Herald-Mage trilogy the Collegium doesn't exist yet. So it's an interesting concept and a great look at Heralds during this time frame.

The first and third novels of the series (so far there are five, but I haven't finished number four or read five) are really good and I like them a lot. Though the theme is pretty typical of the Valdemar novels where the MC is a young person—they come from a horrible home-life and being Chosen by their magical equine Companion is the best thing that's ever happened to them—Mags and his Companion, Dallen, are pretty original and interesting to read about. Mags isn't the problem.

It's his friends, Lena and Bear. They become vicious antagonists in book two and then go back to being Mags' friends at the very end (and for the rest of the series, it seems) without anyone acknowledging the sheer cruelty of what they do to Mags in Intrigues.

Lena is a Bardic Trainee and the daughter of the most famous Bard in all of Valdemar. He's also a jerk and a terrible father. At one point, Lena hasn’t seen him in like two years and when she finally gets to see him at the Bardic Collegium, he completely ignores her. Not even a smile or a nod. So he's a jerk. Lena is not a jerk. Lena is a nice girl, at least in book one. Her main flaw is that she's willing to do quite a bit to impress her father, but who doesn’t want their parents to be proud of them? Unless you hate your parents, but Lena hasn’t gotten to that point (and her dad uses his Bardic Gifts to make people like him; is that against the law? Oh, you betcha).

Bear is a Healer Trainee from a family of Healers who have magic. He doesn't have magic, but he's a gifted physician-in-training, with a vast knowledge of herbs, poultices, other natural medicines, and first-aid. In book two, he is actually the guy who, for one of his major exams, invents the very first First-Aid kit. Pretty impressive for a boy who's only in his mid-teens. And he's a nice boy, too, at least in book one, though he's under a lot of strain because his obnoxious family's attitude is that, since he doesn't have magical healing abilities, he shouldn't be at the Healer's Collegium.

So I've set up our main cast of characters: Mags, his Companion Dallen, Lena and Bear. Now, to set things up further, Bear and Lena are recklessly in love with each other by book two, and the three humans are best friends. Mags even saved Bear's life in book one.

To be clear: Mags saved Bear's life. Bear, Mags, and Lena are best friends.

And then something happens in book two, Intrigues, that casts doubts on Mags, on whether he's really a good guy or actually a spy/assassin sent to infiltrate the ranks of the Heralds so he can assassinate the king of Valdemar. It's not something he did, but a vision someone had of Mags covered in blood standing near the king. His friends don't believe this rubbish about him being evil, but everyone else does. It really starts to bother Mags, because it's not just the young Heraldic Trainees—it's even some of the adult Heralds. So basically his classmates and teachers are worried that he's going to commit treason and murder, as well as betraying his king and destroying the sacred bond between Mags himself and his Companion (which, committing murder would destroy the psychic/emotional/mental bond a Herald has with his Companion).

These are serious accusations to level at anyone, much less someone who's barely a boy. Of course it negatively affects Mags. He becomes listless, depressed. His friends try to cheer him up and so does Dallen, but because of a dark presence screwing with Mags' mind, the sudden willing disappearance of Mags' mentor just when he needs him most, and the suspicion of his classmates and teachers, a day comes when Mags just starts to wonder if he should give up. If it wouldn’t just be safer for the king if he and Dallen left or something.

Let me retype that so we can be clear here: to protect the king from the potential threat that Mags might be going crazy and attack him, Mags wonders—not decides, but is considering—whether it might not be better to leave.

To take his mind off things, Dallen—who is older than Mags and is supposed to be more mature—offers to go through this equestrian obstacle course they love to practice on because they play this sport called Kirball (it's basically polo). The light isn't very good because the sun is setting, but Dallen insists, so Mags agrees. While they're speeding through the obstacle course, that dark presence attacks Mags and Dallen again, shattering Dallen's concentration and making him lose his footing. He has two choices: to either fall in such a way that he saves himself but severely injures and possibly kills Mags, or to fall in such a way that he saves Mags but breaks his own legs. Now, Dallen is a Companion. Companions are magical beings in horse-shape. So breaking his legs is a big deal. Generally until quite recently, if a horse broke a leg, you had to put the poor thing down.

But Dallen does it. He saves Mags, breaks his legs, and everyone rushes to help Dallen because Companions are incredibly important in Valdemar and Dallen needs to have his legs tended. After they dope him with painkillers, right before passing out, Dallen reassures Mags that what happened was his own fault and not Mags' because he should've known better than to push Mags to take the obstacle course in the dark, tells Mags he loves him, then it's lights out. And none of the adults blame Mags for any of this, either. No one's like, "Oh, you terrible, wicked child! What's the matter with you! For shame!" Everyone's just like, "Don't worry, Trainee Mags. Dallen will be okay."

So far, so good. No problems here, right? And that's why what happens next is so shocking and, honestly to me—someone who was bullied a lot before I got out of school, someone who's been betrayed this way by so-called friends before—it's disgusting what happens next.

Lena hears about Dallen and comes rushing to see him. Being unconscious, she can't do much. Now, Mags has been lying in Dallen's stall crying his head off because he feels so terrible and he's so worried about what will happen to his best friend/brother/Companion. At least to me, when I saw a guy cry as a young girl, I knew it was a big deal. So if I'd been Lena, I would've gone to Mags and hugged him and tried to reassure him.

Instead, she attacks him verbally. She yells at him about how it's his fault that Dallen's hurt because he's so selfish and whiney that Dallen would've done anything to make him shut up for five seconds. That Mags is a horrible person and that she can't believe she ever was his friend and that he probably hurt Dallen on purpose. Then she says that everyone's probably right about Mags killing the king and that he's a traitor and a liar and blah-blah-blah.

Let's put this in perspective for everyone: basically a girl who claims to be best friends with two brothers (because that's the relationship between Dallen and Mags) finds out one brother is hurt, and so tells the other brother that he broke his brother's legs and basically tried to kill him on purpose, and that she never wants to have anything to do with him ever again, and that he's a traitor and a killer who will murder someone they're all sworn to protect in cold blood, and that all of his relationships that he's established thus far in his time at the Collegium are all lies so that he could accomplish this murder.

Some best friend.

So Mags, hurting and stressed out and in pain and worried about Dallen, snaps back at her. Not okay, but at least what he says is actually true. He calls Lena a selfish baby who only cares about how she looks in front of Daddy, who's a douche anyway, and that she's so lacking in spine that she can't even perform on stage like a Bardic Trainee should be able to without someone there to hold her hand. This is true. Mags and Bear have always made a point to be in the audience at Lena's performances because she suffers from terrible stage fright.

So of course hurtful things are said on both sides and Lena runs off and cries and Mags goes and stews in pain inside his room because he's worried about disturbing Dallen. And then Bear shows up.

Now, what Lena said was bad. Really bad. I can't believe Mercedes Lackey would have a good guy who wasn’t under some nefarious magical influence say that to one of their friends. But what Bear does is worse, because he tries to attack Mags physically and verbally, and Bear's a Healer Trainee. Healers take an oath to do no harm, so him wanting to beat up and kill (yes, I said kill) his best friend is doubly bad. Here's what happens.

Bear comes barging into the stables (where Mags' room is, at the back, where a groom might sleep). He marches up to the door, which is thick wood and locked, and starts banging on it and demanding Mags come out. He's mad about Dallen, but he's madder about how Lena's feelings are hurt. And Bear, Mags' other supposed best friend, starts raging about how he's going to kill Mags if he comes out of his room and to get his scrawny butt out there and take his medicine like a man, and how he's a horrible person for being cruel to Lena and they'll never be friends again and Mags should go burn in Hades and how Lena was probably right about all the things she said about Mags trying to hurt Dallen and kill the king, and that Mags should just take off and go die in a hole somewhere because everyone hates him and knows he's evil. The only reason Bear doesn’t beat the crap out of Mags is because he can't get through the door. And he's saying all these things to the guy who saved his life not even a year ago.

Mags' BEST FRIENDS said these things to him. What kind of friends do that? There is no excuse, short of borderline mental problems like PTSD or something, for that sort of behavior from anyone, much less someone who claims to be the MC's friend (and a good guy).

Right there, Mercedes Lackey drew a line between Mags and the other two that made them enemies, and the emotional trauma of losing his two dearest friends and the things they said to him almost drives Mags to suicide. The only reason he doesn’t kill himself is because if he does, Dallen might die, too. So guess what he does? He runs away to protect people from himself, withdraws as far as he can psychically from Dallen, and waits for the day when Dallen wakes up enough from the drug-haze to repudiate him so Mags can safely kill himself without Dallen being hurt.

His FRIENDS did that to him.

And you know something? I could live with this. I could. All that would be needed would be sincere apologies from Bear and Lena and some time to talk about what happened between them. But that never happens. Mags apologies to them, but they never apologize to him. Instead they act like it never happened.

I'm sorry, but that is unacceptable. That sort of cruelty should never be condoned, and refusing to address it is basically the same as condoning it. I don't think Mercedes Lackey did that on purpose, because from what I know of her she seems like a really nice lady, but that's the point of this blog post. This is one of those instances where a good character does something horrible and it's never addressed, and it needs to be. Honestly, if Bear and/or Lena were my children and behaved that way, I would be ashamed of them.

If Mercedes Lackey ever reads this post, I want to say that I'm a big fan of a lot of her books, and most of them are brilliant. But this one had a major flaw in it, one that should never have been there. Really, Bear and Lena should never have said those things to begin with, but if they had to, apologies needed to happen, and they never did. Which takes a book that would otherwise be at least 4.5 stars and makes it more of a 2-star, but I'll actually review the book later. For now, I've illuminated the flaw. Hopefully someone learns to pay attention to this sort of thing in their own writing because of this post.

- LA Knight