Dragonstone 1

**Chapter 1**

There's a foreword. It's irrelevant to the story so we're not going to waste time on it.

There's also an Author's Note, where McKiernan adopts the pretense that he is merely the translator of the Red Book of Westmarch some earlier book from the ancient past, having rendered it into modern English for the convenience of the reader. We're not going to waste time on that, either.

We open on a dark and stormy night – no, really – in *“a small, ramshackle, dockside tavern.”* Three people, Olar, Tryg and Yngli, are discussing whether two women are prostitutes. No, really: *“Mayhap a couple o' doxies come t' ply their trade when th' raiders return, aye?”*

There follows some dialogue regarding these strange, non-male creatures which simply must be shared.

“*Ye'd better not let 'em hear ye call 'em doxies, laddie, else ye're like to come up missing y'r balls.”*

“ *'N' j'st why d'ye say that?”*

“ *'Cause one o' them be an Elf, 'n' t'other's a, a, well I don't rightly know her kind, yet she be th' one wi' th' gleamin' swords.”*

Let's talk about accents, shall we? Accents can be very hard to render accurately in text. Some authors prefer to simply remind the reader once in a while that Sean is talking with “an Irish lilt,” or that Suzy has “a lazy Southern drawl.” This has the great benefit of leaving the dialogue itself clear and uncluttered, so it can be read easily, while allowing the reader to imagine the accent. Others prefer to actually write the accent phonetically, something I always find to be more trouble than it's worth – the writer has to translate plain English into whatever accent they're attempting to convey, and then the reader has to translate it back into English. Accents should help draw the reader into the story; this can push readers out of the story as they have to stop and analyze the prose instead of just going with it.

Personally, I prefer a middle road, with a few verbal tics and the rest assumed. Altering just two or three words can make dialogue a lot more colorful without significantly impeding clarity. This, however, is not that. This reads as though McKiernan read the lines aloud in the thickest accent he could manage, and then transcribed it phonetically. Read aloud, it's not all that bad, but the reading is the slow and awkward part.

Then too, I am not at all sure what sort of accent he's trying to invoke here. The names and the setting suggest Viking-types, but the actual dialogue suggests faux Olde Tyme English as much as anything else. Anyway, there's our first drink. \~/

Anyway, a Conveniently Dramatic Lightning Flash illuminates the features of our two mysterious females, and they are *“delicate, strange, exotic.”* Get used to this; McKiernan favors this pseudo-archaic style of description, for reasons that escape me. Tolkien's writing wasn't exactly crackling with modern slang, but Tolkien was a linguist and a good one. His characters' dialogue was internally consistent, and his description, while wordy, were not excessively flowery or cute.

In any case, one of the women is *“fair skinned – ivory and alabaster”* with *“hazel eyes aslant,”* chestnut hair and pointy ears. Woman #2 is *“saffron skinned – tawny, ivory yellow”* with black eyes and short black hair.

Um.

Yeeeaaaah, this is awkward. Say hello to Offensive Racial Stereotype Chick.

This is a picture of Hayao Miyazaki, noted Asian person:

You may note that actual Asian people *do not have bright yellow skin.* \~/ If she starts mispronouncing her Ls and Rs, I am throwing this book out the window.

Offensive Racial Stereotype Chick also has two curved swords lying unsheathed on the table. So she's literally a samurai. Terrific. Also, why is she trying to pick a fight with a tavern full of Vikings? Drawing steel in a warrior society is pretty much saying “Come at me, bro!” and I can't think of another reason to have her swords out, even if they're not in her hands at the moment.

Olar, Tryg and Yngli have some dialogue that establishes the name of the town as Morkfjord – excuse me, Mørkfjord – and that they have Dragonships and hire them out to raid people. They speculate that Elf Chick may be a Lian, *“one o' them Guardians,”* whatever that means, but decide she's probably a woodland elf, or Dylvana.

High elves and wood elves; how creative.

Olar asks – or rather *“sissed,”* which is a legitimate, if very archaic, word – about *“the yellow one.”* Because Asians have skin like daffodils and buttercups. Yes, I'm going to keep making a point of this for as long as McKiernan does. \~/

What's that, you say? Offensive Racial Stereotype Chick is a main character?

. . . It's gonna be a long sporking, folks.

Suddenly, the door bursts open and in rushes a skinny old guy. Tryg, the tavern owner, tells the guy – Alos – to get out (into the howling thunderstorm, I remind you), to which Alos reacts with some ineffectual whining. Tryg goes to throw him out bodily, while Alos tries to avoid him and begs for a drink, and we find out that Alos has one brown eye and one white eye.

Tryg grabs Alos and goes to throw him out, but Offensive Racial Stereotype Chick decides to intervene. And by “decides to intervene,” I mean she suddenly appears behind Tryg with both swords in her hands. Yes, threaten the Vikings with deadly weapons, you yellow psycho. \~/

Tryg, naturally, fixates on . . . her clothes, noting that *“she was not wearing a* proper *dress like a* proper *lady should,”* but instead is wearing all brown leather, a cream shirt, and bronze armor. She's obviously foreign and waves naked swords around in public places; why on earth would you expect her to adhere to your customs of dress, Tryg?

And indeed, in the very next paragraph Tryg thinks that she's *“slanty-eyed and yellow and all.”*

Keep piling on the racism, McKiernan, and I'll keep shotgunning the drinks. \~/

Offensive Racial Stereotype Chick says that Generic Elf Chick wants to talk to Alos, so Tryg gives him to the strange, hostile woman with the nasty swords. We get a lovely description of Alos's *“dirt-encrusted wet scrawny neck”* as he *“bobbed his head and grinned a mindless, gap-toothed, ocherous smile,”* and asks for a drink.

Get used to this. Alos is Offensive Stereotype Character #2, the Comically Pathetic Drunkard! You will soon grow to loathe him with every fiber of your being. He's old, useless, inept, filthy, disgusting, and very, very, very alcoholic, and McKiernan takes great delight in reminding us of these facts over and over and over again.

Also, his teeth are referred to as “ocherous” approximately every time his teeth are mentioned. Ocherous means “ochre-colored.” This is ochre:

Alos's teeth are pumpkin-orange. Awesome.

And with one last reference to *“the yellow lady,”* \~/ the chapter ends.

Drinks: 6

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