I just finished playing Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia

I just finished playing Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia.

As usual, every Fire Emblem game is an absolute joy to play. But this one, which came out in 2017, I have been saving. Why? Because not only is it a part of the Archanea Series – those games set on or relating to events on the continent of Archanea – it takes place during the time in which Marth lived, about two thousand before the events of Awakening. On that note, for the sake of those interested in the timeline, the events Shadows of Valentia occur after the War of Shadows and before the War of Heroes (i.e. between Shadow Dragon and New Mystery of the Emblem - Heroes of Light and Shadow). Read my Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon post for full context.

So, in short, Shadows of Valentia takes place across the sea on the continent of Valentia that during Awakening is called Valm and, better still, I knew it featured some old friends in Whitewing Sisters Palla, Catria, and Est. Archanea Series means a lot to me, so I was naturally deeply interested in seeing what happened across the ocean and what brought the Whitewing Sisters there. Them and Camus, whose full story I finally learned.

That is why I was looking forward to it. What I did not expect was to be frightened near witless on starting it. Fire Emblem always pulls the heartstrings, loves to scare its players, and can be ruthless with characters dying. So what happens when you combine Fire Emblem with Romantic Fantasy and a trailer that at the time had every Youtube commenter (including myself) predicting that Alm and Celica would die on each other's swords? For me, a period of sustained terror that became lethal determination not to let that happen. Tis a point of pride on my part to get through every FE game with my whole army alive and managing as a happy an ending as humanly possible, and Shadows of Valentia seized my heartstrings in a death-grip on day one.

Beyond that the plotline was, per usual, exceptional. With added spice for me because I walked into the game knowing full well what Duma and Mila were and thus that they were likely falling victim to the madness effecting all the Dragon Tribes back in Archanea. I did not know what tribe they were, their relation to Naga, or why Valentia was otherwise empty of Manaketes though, so my experience with Shadow Dragon and New Mystery of the Emblem - Heroes of Light and Shadow added a whole extra layer of mystery that I loved.

The story was made more interesting still by Shadows of Valentia's unique gameplay: controlling two separate armies, Alm and Celica's, and advancing along their parallel routes across war-torn Valentia. And I took every pain along the way to make sure things ended well not only for Alm and Celica, but for everyone who had their hearts fighting alongside them. More I cannot say for fear of giving out spoilers, but it was a joy to get to see ancient Valentia and what made Alm the Saint-King even as Marth was the Hero King, both wielders of Falchion. Got to feel for Palla, Catria, and Est though: War of Shadows to the End of the Age of Gods to the War of Heroes. They have fought more battles, seen more history, than any other human Fire Emblem character. As to the actual battles themselves, either I am tactical genius or Hard Mode was not up to scratch. A fortress described as impregnable and unconquered I took with minimal effort.

The Mila Tree, where Chrom and co. found and awoke Tiki in Awakening

Peace and prosperity to you, Alm and Celica, Mae and Boey, Gray and Clair, Tatiana and (cough)Zeke, Clive and Matilda, Kliff, Conrad, Mycen, Saber, Faye, Nomah, Lukas, Tobin, Leon, Valbar, Kamui, Jesse, Python, Forsyth, Genny, Silque, Atlas, Palla, Catria, Est, Luthier, Delthea, and Sonya. I know what Valentia will look like when the Mila Tree matures and it is very different indeed, but it does not make it any less an honor to have served with you.

"I feel the same, Celica. This isn’t where things end for us. Even without gods, this world has a long and prosperous future ahead of it. Now let’s go claim that future together!" - Alm

I started Dark Star Burning, Ash Falls White, book two of the Song of the Last Kingdom Series by Amélie Wen Zhao

"It is the duty of those with power to protect those without." - Sòng Méi

I started Dark Star Burning, Ash Falls White, book two of the Song of the Last Kingdom Series by Amélie Wen Zhao.

The Demon Gods are freed, two bargained with and two missing. Well named they are, for as demons their power is Yin, destruction, yet as gods they hold the strength to save the Hin from the Elantian colonizers. Thus begins a race, thus continues a brutal war, with nothing less than the freedom of the Last Kingdom and the souls of Lan and Zen on the line. "Yin and yang. Good and evil. Great and terrible. Two sides of the same coin, Lián'ér, and somewhere in the center of it all lies power. The solution is to find the balance between them," once said Dé’zì, grandmaster of School of the White Pines. A truth that may destroy the Elantians, yes (particularly a certain Alloy), yet I fear Lan and Zen now occupy those ancient poles. I fear the price of the two bargains and fulfilling the mission of the Order of Ten Thousand Flowers, however necessary both may be.

“Power is always borrowed, never created.” - a Hin saying

I finished Song of Silver, Flame Like Night, book one of Song of the Last Kingdom by Amélie Wen Zhao

"It is the duty of those with power to protect those without." - Sòng Méi

I finished Song of Silver, Flame Like Night, book one of Song of the Last Kingdom Series by Amélie Wen Zhao.

Cultural arrogance coupled with colonialism, dehumanization and massacre annoy me (to put it lightly) as a matter of course, which means the Elantian colonizers have well-deserved death coming to them. But the road is fraught with peril and heartbreak. Two bound as though by a Red String of Fate, yet separated by history and Demon Gods, by paths chosen and not. For the Last Kingdom is not exactly innocent and borrowed power kept leads only to generations of war and strife. Lan has a plan to rectify this, a good one, but playing hide-and-seek with Demon Gods and a conqueror's regime is hardly safe, to say nothing of the fact that Zen obviously has his own ideas about how to win this multi-pronged war.

"Yin and yang. Good and evil. Great and terrible. Two sides of the same coin, Lián'ér, and somewhere in the center of it all lies power. The solution is to find the balance between them." - Dé’zì, grandmaster of School of the White Pines.

Quote of the month

“A library outranks any other one thing a community can do to benefit its people. It is a never failing spring in the desert.” ― Andrew Carnegie

Fire. Air. Water. Earth... Announcing Avatar: Seven Havens!

Fire. Air. Water. Earth.

With the 20th anniversary of Nickelodeon's Avatar: The Last Airbender upon us, creators Michael DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko announced the a brand new Avatar series! 

Avatar: Seven Havens: A 26-episode series split into two 13-episode seasons following a young female Earthbender who is the next Avatar following Avatar Korra. 

Per a press release, Seven Havens will be set in a world“shattered by a devastating cataclysm. A young Earthbender discovers she’s the new Avatar after Korra - but in this dangerous era, that title marks her as humanity’s destroyer, not its savior. Hunted by both human and spirit enemies, she and her long-lost twin must uncover their mysterious origins and save the Seven Havens before civilization’s last strongholds collapse.” With Konietzko and DiMartino adding: “When we created the original series, we never imagined we’d still be expanding the world decades later. This new incarnation of the Avatarverse is full of fantasy, mystery, and a whole new cast of amazing characters. Get ready to take another epic and emotional adventure!”

Cannot say I like the devastating cataclysm part, especially if it makes the Avatar a symbol of destruction, but a new Avatar series is cause for CELEBRATION! I at least am a huge fan of Legend of Korra and can only hope that Korra's legacy and memory is a strong force for hope in the world. Although, given the post-apocalyptic circumstances, I have a very bad feeling that that is not the case and that the Spirit Portals are to blame. Hence my chief hope is that the new Avatar has the same, or similar, relationship with Korra that Aang had with Roku.

As to the question of why Michael DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko decided to level the Four Nations, I can only speculate that - from a storyteller's point of view - they needed to make Seven Havens significantly different enough to stand on its own two feet so as not to be viewed as an inferior copy of the previous series. Which is exactly what they did with Legend of Korra and why, I think, the series is so good. I know some have problems with Legend of Korra because it was so different but to me its differences are what made it amazing. It was its own show, a sequel of The Last Airbender without being clone, taking the world and story forward in ways that made sense (people who complain about all the modern technology clearly forgot how advanced the Fire Nation was during the Hundred Years War and the submarines Sokka built). In fact, DiMartino spoke in a podcast extensively about trying to differentiate the two series, stating: "When we did Korra, and now we’re doing new stuff, and it’s always like, 'Is that too similar to what Aang went through, or is that too similar to what we did with Zuko?...That’s why we made Korra an older girl who wanted to fight, let’s make her as different as possible personality-wise from what Aang was."

My father and I just finished The Last Bookwanderer, the Sixth and final Book of Anna James' Pages & Co. series.

My father and I just finished The Last Bookwanderer, the Sixth and final book of Anna James' Pages & Co. series.

When we first began, many months ago, the unspoken acknowledgement was that neither Dad nor I expected to read the whole thing. The first book, certainly, and maybe the second, but we never meant to read all six. Yet like the best of stories and with a subtle grace and tug so skillful and insistent as to be insidious, Pages & Co. grew like a tree within out, wrapping our souls like the Midgard Serpent Jörmungandr around the world. For we are readers, we are librarians, and this work by Anna James is a triumphant celebration of both to the extent that it could be the mascot of bookstores and libraries the world over. A treatise on the wonder, power, freedom, and choice that is Story and the power of imaginations; and what happens when obey the stricture “be brave, be curious, be kind.”

From Green Gables and Wonderland with Anne and Alice, Fairy Tales with Jack and Rapunzel (who does not need or want rescue). To the British and French Underlibraries to deep in Story finding a certain playwright in the Archive. To the magical train the Quip and Venice, the Emerald City and the Treehouse Library all the way to Sherwood Forest and the Jabberwock by the Tumtum tree. To Asgard, Olympus, and a London that never was. Plus many other places besides in the fight to protect their families, books and imagination from those who see power only as a means to control, as freedom as something to curtail.

May you all live happily ever after Tilly, Oskar, Alessia, Milo, Archie, Elsie, Bea, Amelia, Rosa, Artemis, and even Horatio. This is not the end, because nothing ends in Story, but Dad and I have to other books to wander into now. Until next time our brave, curious, kind and dear friends.

“Books can change minds and change worlds, open doors and open minds, and plant seeds that can grow into magical or even terrifying things. Stories are things to be loved and respected at the same time; never underestimate the power of them.”

“Some people see a bookshop as an archive, or a shrine, or even a time machine. But I think a bookshop is like a map of the world. There are infinite paths you can take through it and none of them are right or wrong. Here in a bookshop we give readers landmarks to help them find their way, but every reader has to learn to set their own compass.”

“The books we love when we’re growing up shape us in a special way, Tilly. The characters in the books we read help us decide who we want to be.”

“Are the things in your imagination less real than the things in front of you? Is this rose more real than you? Do the books you've read mean less to you because they haven't really happened to you? Do daydreams at midday or nightdreams at midnight mean nothing?”

“…because stories last much longer than we do. Our stories are how we will be remembered – so we’ve got to make sure they are worth telling.”

“You know when you walk into a bookshop and you see all those thousands of books lined up in front of you? That intoxicating feeling of knowing that behind each cover is a different world to explore, like thousands of tiny portals? That adrenaline rush just before you open a new book? The thrill of being surrounded by fellow book lovers? That is what fuels bookwandering, and it comes to life in bookshops.”

I have started Song of Silver, Flame Like Night, book one of Song of the Last Kingdom by Amélie Wen Zhao

I have started Song of Silver, Flame Like Night, book one of Song of the Last Kingdom by Amélie Wen Zhao.

Years ago I often said to myself and family that Epic Fantasy could do itself a big favor by embracing, by writing worlds built around, Asian culture and lore. Now such book are wonderfully common but, they tend to be Romantasy (as Romantic Fantasy is being called now) retellings of myths; or just plain Romantasy. Not that their is anything wrong with that but, with the notable exception of Axie Oh's The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea, such tales are not my cup of tea.

But an Epic Fantasy rich in deep lore, a conquered land, forbidden magic, and a scar burned onto a girl's arm by her murdered mother that only she can see? I will take two cups of that and hope more is on the way. Speaking of way, I hope Lan, or Lian'er, and Zen find theirs without to much trouble. A vain hope, no doubt, as conquers regimes are by nature difficult to conquer in turn, but I have faith in the Four Gods even if Lan does not.