Lioness Rampant, Part 1

Episode 7: Lioness Rampant, Part 1 0:00:00 Amy: Hey everyone, it's Amy. I am just popping in really quickly to hit you with a few small announcements. First announcement is we didn't say the name of the book at any point during this episode. So I am here to tell you that it is Lioness Rampant, the fourth book in the Alanna series by Tamora Pierce. 0:00:18 Amy: Secondly, we are recording an Alanna wrap-up episode, so that's going to include two panelists that you haven't heard anything from yet. That's Shelby and Kelly, and we would love it if you send in any questions you had about the Alanna books that we didn't discuss in any of the episodes or any questions you might have for them specifically, or any questions you have for any of our panelists specifically. And you can do that by engaging with any of our social media. Our email would probably be pretty good for this. That's [email protected]. You can also go to any of our social media that we list at the end of the show. We would love it if you had those in by February 15th because we are going to record the episode shortly after that and we are not inventing a time machine just to answer your questions. 0:01:00 Amy: Finally, we talk about some sensitive topics in this episode at minute 40. We discuss sexual assault in the context of the books that will be book-ended by our opening theme music.1 So you can skip right through that and we will put the time stamp in the description. We also talk about some light spoilers that I had to listen to for this episode anyway! So that is at about minute 54 and again, it's book-ended by music and I will put the time stamp in the description. That's all. Enjoy the show. See ya Tortallini. 0:01:39 Abby: Gus is gone. 0:01:41 Aurora: Gus? We miss you. 0:01:43 Amy: Gus left. 0:01:44 Abby: Okay. Gus is back. 0:01:46 Gus: I'm back, sorry. 0:01:47 Amy: We did the whole podcast without you. [laughter] 0:01:50 Aurora: Yeah. 0:01:50 Abby: We're done now. 0:01:51 Aurora: Analyzed the whole thing. 0:01:53 Gus: Oh, wow. It goes so much faster when I'm not here. 1 This will be marked in the transcript with red text, for those who’d like to skip over it. 12/19/18 Page 1 of 36 [laughter] [Intro music fades in: Greensleeves (a dubstep cover) by Zetta] 0:02:16 Abby: Hello and welcome to Tortall Recall, the podcast where we re-read the Tamora Pierce books and yell about them. My name is Abby and my pronouns are she/her. 0:02:24 Amy: My name is Amy and my pronouns are she/her. 0:02:27 Aurora: My name is Aurora and my pronouns are she/her. 0:02:29 Gus: My name is Gus, and my pronouns are they/them. 0:02:31 Amy: So guys, we've come out of the darkness into the sun. This book is so much better than the last book. 0:02:40 Gus: This book is so much better than all three books before it. 0:02:43 Amy: Oh, it's so true. 0:02:44 Abby: It's so much better. 0:02:44 Amy: I would agree, yeah. 0:02:45 Abby: I'm so happy. 0:02:46 Amy: Like the last quarter of this book, super good. 0:02:50 Gus: Yes. 0:02:51 Amy: Well, except for that one, the very last... 0:02:54 Gus: Right. 0:02:54 Abby: I mean, look. It has bad points that we will talk about, but I really enjoyed reading this book. 0:03:00 Gus: Yeah, Amy, I know you've read one other book than the Alanna books, so I don't know if you really like... I don't know what your sense of Tamora Pierce's overall writing style is, but this... This is classic. This is the good stuff. 0:03:14 Abby: Yeah, I have to... Gus, I think you were commenting at some point that you can really honestly, chapter three of this book, there's a very specific point where Buri and Thayet are introduced and that's when it becomes Tamora Pierce. I think that's when she hits her stride and you can really tell at that exact point like, ‘Oh, this is what Tamora Pierce does, she's there, she made it.’ [Gus laughs quietly] 0:03:39 Aurora: Ah, Buri and Thayet. 0:03:40 Gus: I love them. 0:03:41 Amy: I couldn't tell whether it was that the writing actually got better or if it was just like, characters I care about. 12/19/18 Page 2 of 36 [laughter] 0:03:47 Abby: Well, right. 0:03:48 Gus: Those are both the same things sort of. 0:03:50 Amy: That's fair. 0:03:51 Gus: When there... Good writing should make characters that you care about, I think overall in most cases. [chimes] 0:04:03 Abby: Yeah. So let's get into the segments here. Right, I guess, start with ‘First Adventure.’ Our background with this book, which we've established that Amy's is none, zero amount. [laughter] 0:04:15 Amy: Yeah. 0:04:16 Abby: But Aurora and Gus, when did you first read this and when did you most recently read it? 0:04:22 Aurora: I first read this book as a pre-teen, so I was probably maybe 12, and I have a terrible thing to admit, when I was... When I first read it, this was probably my least favorite of the Alanna books... 0:04:41 Abby: I will say that it's more adult. 0:04:42 Aurora: Yeah. 0:04:43 Abby: You know, you're not following a kid hero. 0:04:45 Aurora: Exactly. I think there was a lot of interesting political things and world-building and I was not a particularly... As a youth, I guess I wasn't as into that, and I think the pacing’s a little different in this book. But... 0:05:03 Abby: Definitely. 0:05:04 Aurora: I most recently read it like two days ago, and I... [laughter] 0:05:10 Aurora: Well suffice to say things have changed. 0:05:15 Abby: Nice. Gus? 0:05:17 Gus: Well, I most recently read this book, I finished it six hours ago. [laughter] 0:05:24 Abby: That was so late in the night 'cause we're recording in the morning and I'm really sad about that for you. 12/19/18 Page 3 of 36 0:05:30 Aurora: Gus, you're a hero. 0:05:32 Gus: Well, I work late. 0:05:34 Amy: You're stronger than any of us. 0:05:35 Abby: You are. 0:05:35 Aurora: You are so strong. 0:05:36 Gus: But look it was a fun read, it was a fun read, it was a fun time. 0:05:40 Abby: It was fun. 0:05:41 Abby: Yeah. 0:05:42 Gus: Those last... The last epilogue or so, which was what I was reading at 4:00 in the morning was... I mean, it was a little more rough to read because it was at 4 in the morning, which is for all that I pretend to be a night person, a little bit late. [laughter] 0:06:01 Abby: Four is a little late for most people. 0:06:04 Gus: The birds starts singing. 0:06:05 Amy: Yeah, you have to prepare to be awake... I always make sure I eat a lot of protein and drink a lot of water if I'm gonna be awake at 4:00 AM. That's a pro tip for all the kids out there. 0:06:15 Gus: That's smart. I don't do that. 0:06:18 Amy: You have to prep. Build a sleep bank. That's what Alanna would do. [laughter] 0:06:24 Abby: Anyway, so Gus, what was your experience reading this as a kid? 0:06:27 Gus: Well, see, the reason I hadn't got around to that is I don't really remember it. I don't have clear memories. I do remember that I was super shocked as a kid that they introduced a surprise third love interest this late. [laughter] 0:06:41 Abby: Yeah, I know it was late for that. 0:06:42 Gus: Yeah and I was like... As a kid, I remember thinking that was really weird and I think I appreciate that more now, regardless of what I think of the love interest himself. [laughter] 0:06:57 Abby: Yeah, I do think that when I read this as a kid, I was a little more sort of confused by... Because the previous ones, except in, excepting the third one which I hadn't read, followed much more of a structure of just like, she's masquerading as a girl and she's 12/19/18 Page 4 of 36 trying to become a knight and that's what she's doing.

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