{"id":32015,"date":"2016-04-15T06:30:48","date_gmt":"2016-04-14T18:30:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=32015"},"modified":"2016-04-14T21:52:30","modified_gmt":"2016-04-14T09:52:30","slug":"one-more-dragonslayer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2016\/04\/15\/one-more-dragonslayer\/","title":{"rendered":"One More Dragonslayer…"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Dragonslayer1\"<\/a>This is all Rebecca’s fault, you realise — she reviewed the ’80s movie offering “Dragonslayer”<\/a> for Big Worlds On Small Screens on Wednesday. Which got me thinking about dragonslayers from both legend and a raft of well-loved fantastic stories.<\/p>\n

So yesterday I decided to inaugurate a League of Fantastic — & Extraordinary! — Dragonslayers. I have realised, though, that I left out one dragonslayer, or at least Worm<\/em>-slayer who most definitely should be in my league.<\/p>\n

\"UK\/AU\/NZ\"<\/a>

UK\/AU\/NZ<\/p><\/div>\n

\"USA\"<\/a>

USA<\/p><\/div>\n

That’s Yorindesarinen*, of course, from the legendary backstory to The Wall of Night<\/a> series. She is the greatest hero of the Derai, the people that garrison the Wall, and she fell fighting the Worm of Chaos. Her legend comes into the very beginning of the Wall story, in the first chapter of The Heir of Night<\/em><\/a> (Book One):<\/p>\n

‘The background was darkness, rimed with fire, but the foreground was occupied by a figure in hacked and riven armour, confronting a creature that was as vast as the tapestry itself. Its flat, serpentine head looked out of the surrounding darkness, exuding menace, and its bulk was doom. The figure of the hero, dwarfed beneath its shadow, looked overmatched and very much alone.’<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\"UK\/AU\/NZ\"<\/a>

UK\/AU\/NZ<\/p><\/div>\n

\"USA\"<\/a>

USA<\/p><\/div>\n

The confrontation between Yorindesarinen and the Worm is still very much woven into the main story in the recently released Book Three, Daughter of Blood<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n

‘…the vision persisted, wrapping her in the darkness of another plain that was scored by a multitude of smoldering brushfires. Their glow outlined a small hill, but it was not until Malian drew closer that she realized the mound was the ruined bulk of some giant beast, dead upon the plain. She stepped back, stumbling over metal shards, and when she looked down saw the shattered remains of a shield. A warrior\u2019s body lay beyond it, sprawled not far from the dead beast, with one gauntleted hand still resting on the hilt of an unsheathed sword. …<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

We did for each other, that Worm and I. … \u201cI know who you are,\u201d Malian whispered, \u201cwhere this is.\u201d ‘<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Whether a Worm is precisely the same as a dragon remains to be seen, but I think these passages make it clear that it’s close enough — and that Yorindesarinen belongs in any self-respecting League of Extraordinary Dragonslayers.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

* To find out more about the tradition of long names in epic fantasy, click through to:<\/p>\n

My Love Affair with the Long Names of Fantasy Fiction: How It All Began<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is all Rebecca’s fault, you realise — she reviewed the ’80s movie offering “Dragonslayer” for Big Worlds On Small Screens on Wednesday. Which got me thinking about dragonslayers from both legend and a raft of well-loved fantastic stories. So yesterday I decided to inaugurate a League of Fantastic — & Extraordinary! — Dragonslayers. I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,30,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-about-my-books","category-epicfantasy","category-funstuff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32015"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32015\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32020,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32015\/revisions\/32020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}