ni637

Hero/Heroine

Tamír/Tobin is the hero(ine) of the story. When she is born her twin is killed so that she can take his appearance and in essence 'become' him. She grows up as Tobin, not even knowing that she is in fact a woman, but knowing that she did have a twin who died at birth and whose ghost now haunts her. She lives a very isolated life as a child, because her parents know that king Erius is still searching for the one that is prophesied to one day take the throne from his line, and they fear so much that he will figure out the truth. She does have one friend though; the common-born Ki, who grows up as her companion, and who also goes to the capital with her when she is sent to court after her parents died. At court she begins her education towards being a prince - because she is of course still her parent's child although she looks to all the world to be a boy.

When she becomes a teenager though, she starts getting cramps and eventually the spell tears and she starts menstruating, and initially thinks that she is dying, because no one ever prepared her for that and she thinks she is a boy.

She learns the truth, but the spell is reassembled, but from now on she must lie to everyone about who she is - including Ki, even though that is very hard for her.

Eventually the truth is revealed after the King has died, and Tamír claims the throne, thus throwing the country into a civil war while also fighting against an enemy lord attacking the country at the same time. Meanwhile Korin, the king's son, is frozen with fear after his father's death, unable to fight, which is also one of the reasons Tamír chose this time to reveal herself: The country needed someone to step up and lead, and she was the only one willing and able to.

Plot Summary

Skala is a country traditionally ruled by warrior queens and a prophecy proclaims that as long as a woman sits on the throne, the lands will never be subjugated and will enjoy prosperity. The last queen however was mad and when she died (under somewhat suspicious circumstances) her daughter was deemed too young to rule and instead her older brother took up the rule of the land.

For a while everything was good, but for a while before the story begins things have started going wrong; Skala is under attack by her enemies and famine and plague ravish the country.

Meanwhile Erius, the king, has seen to it that all females relatives of him who could possibly claim the throne, have been conveniently disposed of - except his sister whom he loves.

He is however there when she gives birth, because if the child is a girl, he will have no qualms seeing to it that she too disappears. This is of course not the official reason he is there and his relatives' deaths are also all tragic accidents.

There are however people who know of this and they are there as well with a witch who has seen that there are two children; a boy and a girl. So when the girl is born she helps her out, but when the boy is born she kills him and gives his appearance to his sister who grows up as Tobin instead of Tamír, not even knowing herself that she is in fact a girl, and allowed to live because of this fact.

Only the witch and the two wizards present and Tobin/Tamír's parents know the truth. It drives her mother mad and through her life the ghost of her dead brother haunt her.

When Tobin turns 11 she is sent to court after both of her parents died. Here she befriends Prince Korin, Erius' son and when it is finally revealed to her that she is in fact a woman and thus has a better claim to the throne through her mother who should have been queen, she realises the horrible truth that one day, she and Korin who is her friend, will have to oppose each other in a battle for the throne.

Departure

~Call to Adventure

and

~Refusal of the Call

I chose to put these two together since there is a bit of back and forth.

Tobin is called to adventure after his father dies, leaving him an orphan, and his newly appointed guardian writes to have him brought to the capital.

Neither Tobin, nor any of the remaining household in his father's castle like his guardian however, and they all know that Tobin's father was adamant he should not go to join court life, so Tobin refuses to go, drawing it out for as long as possible. He even pretends to be sick to avoid going.

However, the winter after his father's death, Tobin's guardian sends a valet to Tobin's castle, and while Tobin has so far successfully managed to avoid going, he is now found to be quite healthy and thus he must go.

~Supernatural Aid

Before he goes however, he meets with the witch who changed him from a girl to a boy at birth. She has stuck around the area and Tobin has become quite close to her.

She tells him that if he ever gets persistent stomach cramps and especially if he ever bleeds, he must come to her. She also gives him a doll and says he must always keep it close. This doll holds the bones of his dead twin (although he doesn't know this) and enables him to control the ghost so it does not kill him or betray him, which it otherwise might very well do, because where he was killed at birth, Tobin is now living the life he should have had and that makes the ghost both very angry and also jealous.

~Crossing of the First Threshold

When going to Ero, the capital, Tobin is quite excited though. He has always wanted to go there, despite knowing it was not what his father wanted. But big city life has always fascinated him and finally he sees the city gates. We get quite a description of them actually - they hold the symbol of the Order which has prophesied the coming of a Daughter of the Royal line and the symbol of the Order that the King supports. Beyond this point lies Ero, with the King and the prince able to watch Tobin's every step and the very real risk of being discovered hanging over Tobin's head constantly, even though he himself doesn't know this yet.

~Belly of the Whale

Tobin arrives at the castle and gets assigned a new room to be his and meets his cousin Prince Korin for the first time - the only child his own age he has ever met except for Ki who is with him still of course. Besides Korin he also meets a whole host of other boys who are the Prince's companions. They behave strangely Tobin thinks - they act so much older than he, but he has to now learn to be one of them. There is no turning back at all.

Initiation

~Road of Trials

This fits very well with a sequence in which Tobin begins to train with the other boys. They train at all kinds of things that would help a young nobleman; sword fighting, archery, wrestling, endurance training, staff fighting, knife fighting, reading, book keeping, battle tactics, history, politics. Essentially everything they will need to become the future leaders of the country, which they are indeed intended to be. Tobin is quite good at a lot of these things, but not all of them; he is for instance rather small, and doesn't live up to the strength of the other boys.

~Meeting with the Goddess

Although Tobin did already meet Ki a long time ago and although Ki is a boy, I would say that he is the 'goddess'. Tobin is becoming a teenager and starts to get attracted to Ki, because while Tobin's body is that of a boy, his feelings and thoughts are still Tamír's; a girl's and she feels attraction towards Ki although she doesn't quite understand them at first. But as time goes on Tobin starts to realise that he is really in love with Ki and that it isn't something that will go away no matter how much he tries and he agonises quite a bit over it. Not because Ki is a boy and he is afraid of being attracted to a boy, though that is part of it, but because Ki has made it clear he doesn't return his feelings.

~Woman as Temptress

There is an instance where Tobin thinks about going home and giving up on everything. He simply wants his life back as it was. It isn't related to a woman in any way, but he is considering simply running. He doesn't do it though.

~Atonement with the Father

While he is with the companions Tobin is at some point called to meet the King himself, which is a rather dangerous situation, since he could be found out, although that is still unknown to him of course, but also at face value it is a tense situation; Tobin is a prince, but he is entirely at his uncle's mercy and he knows that even as a prince his claim to the throne is as good as Eruius' own son's - with many people still saying Tobin's mother should have been queen instead of the King being king.

But the king does end up liking Tobin and even officially recognizes him as the second heir after his own son, since the King has not been able to get any more children than Korin and he wants to ensure that there is a line of succession.

Other than that, the king was very close to Tobin's own father and speaks of him as a brother and tells Tobin he hopes he will see him as a father to him.

~Apotheosis

Like the witch warned, the spell would not last through puberty, and at some point it does start to tear. Tobin is incredibly frightened and rides home as he was told to seek out the witch if that happened, although he doesn't think this is what she talked about and quite frankly thinks that he is dying, which is in fact not entirely untrue. He does reach the witch and actually dies as the male twin takes over for a little while, but she is luckily passed out through this and the witch is able to bring her back to life.

~Ultimate Boon

Now Tobin is finally told that he is in fact a woman, which starts another call to adventure, but is in a sense also the ultimate boon, because this is the truth of his existence finally revealed to him. Everything about who he truly is, but also what he is supposed to become: The queen.

He first refuses to be a woman - imagine you've thought all your life you were a boy and suddenly at 14 you're told you're a woman and should be queen which will by the way put you in direct opposition to your best friend and cousin.

He does return to the capital however, and continue the training, and even acting as the leader at times when the group is split and Tobin leads one half while Korin leads the other. A lot of things happen that pretty much constitutes another hero's journey in itself.

Return

~Refusal of the Return

There is not really any refusal to return.

~Magic Flight

At some point Tobin is revealed as a woman to those that would be loyal to her as queen, but she knows that she can't yet make that public to everyone so although the spell is now broken, she binds her breasts and continues to be Tobin for all intents and purposes. So in a sense she transforms herself in order to protect herself from those that would otherwise hurt her.

~Rescue from Without

When Tobin returned to be Tamír she also released t he ghost of her brother, and in a battle where Tamír is almost killed suddenly a shadow steps in and rescues her, killing the assailant and while no one else can see who, Tamír can; it's her brother who has come to help her, and he tells her that while they should have been completely severed, there is still something holding him here and that she must stay alive, because if she dies before he has been cut loose from her, he will always be caught in this kind of half life and he won't allow that.

~Crossing of the Return Threshold

After this battle Tobin finally reveals himself as Tamír to everyone and claims the throne as her birthright. She is finally returning to the town she lived in her whole life too, to lead the final battle against both her cousin and the enemy attacking them from the outside, as well as returning officially to the role that should always have been hers; as a woman and queen.

~Master of Two Worlds

Tamír is now both the feminine - the queen, but also a warrior: She does wonder if that is possible, but she proves through winning this war that she can in fact be both; She can be a strong female warrior queen and doesn't have to restrict herself to being either Tobin or Tamír. She can be both.

~Freedom to Live

With the help of the witch the final tie to her brother is finally severed and she feels a rush of relief and light as finally it's just her. With Ki at her side, Queen of Skala as the prophecy proclaimed, and in the place she should always have held. She can now finally really live her life as she was supposed to.

Final Thoughts

I am so happy I got to do this class again; I wanted to do it primarily for the chance to re-do this project with this book actually.

There were unfortunately a lot of twists and turns in the book that I was unable to fit in and I think sometimes the analysis suffered because of this, because it does at times become rather disjoined - a lot of that has to do with there being a whole side-plot that has to do with the religious side of Skala which is deeply involved in the prophesy, but not very involved with Tamír's personal journey. They are however the ones hiding her and making sure that the witch was there when she needed to be and generally they influence the things that happen around her, but explaining about them would be adding twice as much text to the brief summary - which is already not brief at all. Because that part of the story does not fit within this type of analysis.

So what I would very much recommend, is that everyone read this book, and get the enjoyment I got out of it.