UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL OKLAHOMA Edmond, Oklahoma Dr. Joe C. Jackson College of Graduate Studies Weapons of the Gods: Sword of Victory A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE FACULTY in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS IN ENGLISH By Andrea Keeton Edmond, Oklahoma 2013 i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First of all, I would like to thank Kristen, Erin, and Mom for being the inspiration behind Edana and Ianna. I drew a little bit from each of you. Thanks so much to Vivian Nida for all her help with this, especially when I was doubting myself and needed some encouragement. I’d like to thank Dr. William Best and Dr. Mark Watney from Sterling College for encouraging me to write in the first place. Also, thanks to Dr. Chad Gaudet for making history and mythology fun. It stuck with me. Finally, thanks to my committee members who helped with this whole project. I’m sure it was a pain to read and reread this, and I can’t tell you how much I appreciate that you did it anyway. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT OF THESIS………………………………..vi INTRODUCTION OF THESIS………………….....viii TITLE OF THESIS………………………………………………….1 PROLOGUE………………………………………………….2 CHAPTER 1………………………………………………….16 CHAPTER 2………………………………………………….20 CHAPTER 3………………………………………………….23 CHAPTER 4………………………………………………….34 CHAPTER 5………………………………………………….39 CHAPTER 6………………………………………………….43 CHAPTER 7………………………………………………….54 CHAPTER 8………………………………………………….58 CHAPTER 9………………………………………………….64 CHAPTER 10………………………………………………..68 CHAPTER 11………………………………………………..75 CHAPTER 12………………………………………………..81 CHAPTER 13………………………………………………..89 CHAPTER 14………………………………………………..92 CHAPTER 15……………………………………………….102 CHAPTER 16……………………………………………….110 CHAPTER 17……………………………………………….113 CHAPTER 18……………………………………………….116 CHAPTER 19……………………………………………….123 CHAPTER 20……………………………………………….131 CHAPTER 21……………………………………………….146 CHAPTER 22……………………………………………….153 CHAPTER 23……………………………………………….157 CHAPTER 24……………………………………………….164 CHAPTER 25……………………………………………….173 CHAPTER 26……………………………………………….184 CHAPTER 27……………………………………………….190 CHAPTER 28……………………………………………….200 CHAPTER 29……………………………………………….210 CHAPTER 30……………………………………………….221 CHAPTER 31……………………………………………….233 CHAPTER 32……………………………………………….237 CHAPTER 33……………………………………………….248 CHAPTER 34……………………………………………….259 CHAPTER 35……………………………………………….268 CHAPTER 36……………………………………………….276 CHAPTER 37……………………………………………….290 CHAPTER 38……………………………………………….294 iv CHAPTER 39……………………………………………….301 CHAPTER 40……………………………………………….309 EPILOGUE…………………………………………………..317 v ABTRACT OF THESIS AUTHOR: Andrea Keeton TITLE: Weapons of the Gods: Sword of Victory DIRECTOR OF THESIS: Dr. Christopher Givan PAGES: 318 When eighteen-year-old Edana’s father, King Cian of Eire, dies, the gods visit Edana in a dream and warn her of the struggles that she will soon face, claiming that Edana must be the one to assume responsibility if Eire is to have any hope of surviving. Fal, the god of Fate, tasks Edana with finding the four treasures of Eire to accomplish this feat. Shortly after King Cian’s funeral, it is discovered that Edana’s mother, Queen Bidelia, is missing, and a stranger is captured sneaking around the citadel. Through this stranger, Phelan, whom Edana believes to have seen in her dream, it is discovered that the key to rescuing the queen means leaving home and finding the first and most powerful weapon of the gods: the Sword of Victory. Edana and Phelan set out on their own to reach the sword before anyone else can beat them to it. Complicating Edana’s mission to find the first treasure is Morfram, once King Cian’s chief advisor. His attempts to capture Edana and Phelan result in an uneasy friendship between the two travelers as well as the discovery of Phelan’s divine lineage. During vi their journey, Edana’s sister, Ianna, and Kyl, a close friend, catch up to them and assist Edana in retrieving the sword and rescuing their mother as they try to prevent war with Morfram’s forces. When war is inevitable, Edana and Phelan gather an army and confront Morfram on the field of battle. Morfram is temporarily defeated, but soon forms an alliance with the god, Miledh, who wants to defeat Fal and his brothers. Morfram vows that he will rebuild his depleted army before he makes another play for the throne of Eire. vii INTRODUCTION TO THESIS Weapons of the Gods: Sword of Victory is a young adult fiction work. Geared toward readers sixteen and over, its themes include familial struggles and responsibility, as well as faith in the Celtic gods. The struggle of family relationships is demonstrated most notably between Edana and her mother, Queen Bidelia. Mother and daughter are uneasy with each other. Neither one really knows the other, nor are they terribly inclined to get to know each other better. Bidelia is angry, assuming that Edana considers her weak-willed and capable of little of value. Edana, however, just considers that she and her mother are too different to have formed a close bond. She considers their regard for Ianna, Edana’s younger sister, the only thing she and her mother share. Ianna eventually becomes a point of contention when she is forced to choose sides between Edana and their mother. The theme of responsibility is prevalent throughout the entire work. This can be seen in Edana’s desire to assist the poor citizens of Eire when she feels no one else will. She goes to great lengths— raiding the treasury of her dowry and stealing from Morfram—to ensure that her people will be taken care of. Also, when war is looming, Edana understands that she must be the one to assume control of their forces if they have any hope of defeating Morfram. viii Before King Cian died, he taught Edana the skills she would need to rule and instilled in her a strong sense of duty, but it is inevitably up to Edana to decide whether to honor his teachings. The issue of Edana’s faith in her gods materializes through her sense of responsibility. When Fal claims that she must assume power and go in search of the four treasures of Eire, Edana can decide to ignore the god’s pressures. Instead, she chooses to honor Fal’s dictates in order to save her country. Similarly, Phelan learns at a young age to respect the teachings of Fal, allowing that the god, his grandfather, knows more of destiny than he does. The primary goal of Weapon of the Gods: Sword of Victory, aside from simply creating an entertaining story, was to create characters, like Edana, who are strong without being too perfect and who are relevant to young readers despite the fantastic nature of other elements in the story. Similar characters in the young adult genre include Tamora Pierce’s heroines from her Song of the Lioness quartet, her Immortals quartet, and her Protector of the Small quartet. Also similar is Maria V. Snyder’s Opal Cowan from the Glass series in which she struggles with self-doubt and guilt when her glass creations turn deadly. Throughout the series, Opal learns that every action has consequences, and that all self-doubt does is create more problems. ix Elements of sexuality, including the threat of rape, are also prevalent in this series and motivated me to include similar events as sexuality is a popular theme in the young adult genre. To create a more realistic Edana, it was important that she be surrounded by other characters that were just as strong and compelling as she was. The male protagonist, Phelan, is introduced to serve as a foil for Edana. Where she is temperamental, he is more composed. Where she is focused on fairness and justice, his morals are flexible. By having these and other contradictions between the two central characters, Edana and Phelan are strong enough to stand on their own, but are more interesting when paired. Similarly, Edana’s sister, Ianna, begins as a very insecure character but soon develops a sense of confidence over the course of the story, creating her own character arc, while highlighting similar traits in the other characters. Even though Ianna can be considered a minor character, it is important that she is distinct enough to gain interest as an individual character with her intelligence, patience, and determination. With Weapons of the Gods: Sword of Victory and the other books that I hope will follow, it is my intention to push the boundaries of character relationships in young adult fiction, to create characters that are memorable—whether they be heroes or villains—and to fit them into little-known myths and legends of the Celtic culture, following Rick x Riordan’s example from his Heroes of Olympus series in which he incorporates modern characters into traditional Greek myths using a similar narrative style. This gives readers a better grasp of main characters’ personalities. xi Weapons of the Gods: Sword of Victory 1 PROLOGUE The bells rang out. Three times the sound echoed across the hills. High, sharp, and clear. Despite the clarity of its call, it was not the call that most were accustomed to. It was not the sound that rang out at mid-day and then again dusk. It was not the merry song that had become so much a part of daily life that it eventually became unnoticeable. Indeed, there was something darker about its cry today. For some reason, this sound signaled the coming of grief and loss. All who heard the bell’s cry would understand that death had come to Eire. This time, the bells wouldn’t go unnoticed. Edana ignored the horrible sound as she sat and stared out over the hills of her father’s land, running her hands through the lush green grass as she did. For miles in every direction, that same lush, green sea of grass rolled on interrupted only by the darker green of the trees and a great stone protruding from the highest hilltop. She knew it was the Hill of Tara, just as she knew there was something missing from the rest of the scene.