George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire isn’t the only fantasy series to tackle the thrilling game of thrones: Jacqueline Carey was doing the same in the early 2000s with the Kushiel’s Legacy trilogy. And this one had plenty of sexposition long before it was a thing on the HBO series—thanks to courtesan/spy-turned-diplomat Phèdre nó Delaunay and her encounters with patrons, usurpers, and the divine. The Kushiel books readily accepted and depicted all sorts of sexualities—especially LGBTQ and BDSM—long before they were part of the mainstream conversation.
To celebrate the trade paperback release of Kushiel’s Dart, Theresa DeLucci and Natalie Zutter are rereading Kushiel’s Legacy. We’re breaking each book into two parts; turns out there’s a very natural delineation between Part 1 and Part 2 of each of Phèdre’s adventures (hint: it involves her getting imprisoned and/or enslaved). Each reread will include a brief summary, some plot highlights, and our commentary. We’re going to get spoilery—because it turns out there is a ton of foreshadowing for later books and trilogies—so feel free to do the same in the comments.
As Shemhazai said, all knowledge is worth having. And as he might have said… Reread as thou wilt!
Summary: Part 1 (Chapters 1-39)
The first half of Kushiel’s Dart spans about eighteen years and 350 pages—needless to say, a lot happens between Phèdre the unluckily-named child being sold into slavery to pay her parents’ debts, and Phèdre the accomplished courtesan and spy getting sold into slavery in northern Skaldia. Namely:
- Phèdre is declared first flawed and then unique, an anguissette thanks to the prick of Kushiel’s Dart in her eye
- Poet-turned-mysterious noble Anafiel Delaunay trains Phèdre and Alcuin to be his eyes and ears in the City of Elua’s bedchambers
- Several members of the royal family are accused of treason and are either executed or exiled
- Phèdre becomes the most in-demand courtesan in the city and becomes arrogant and careless because of it
- Delaunay and Alcuin get together (YAY) then are murdered (NOOOO) by realm hero Isidore d’Aiglemort’s men
- Phèdre slips up with Melisande Shahrizai (the sadist to Phèdre’s masochist) and unwittingly reveals the missing piece she needs to know to set her plan to steal the throne into motion
- Phèdre and her bodyguard Joscelin are sold into slavery in Skaldia
The game of thrones is real, and Phèdre nó Delaunay knows too much.
Welcome to the Night Court: Dirty Hogwarts! In a way that only epic fantasy novels can allow, there is a unique trait associated with all members of a particular house. By that accepted story logic, all adepts of Bryony house are good with money, while Eglantine’s adepts are trained artists. Camelia values perfection in all things, including racial purity (which we learn in later books), making them the Slytherins. Alyssum is definitely Hufflepuff: In a world of sexy courtesans, no one wants to spend a lot of time in the one house that rewards modesty.
Let Your Freak Flag Fly: Part 1 of Kushiel’s Dart is probably Phèdre’s most carefree time as an anguissette: Yes, she’s collecting tidbits of courtly intrigue for Delaunay, but to her it’s still a game, it’s not as if people’s lives or the fate of the throne are at stake. And if her patrons are moved to slap her, use red-hot pokers on her, dress her up like a veiled Akkhadian maiden, get dangerous with the flechette (thin little razors) play, or screw her right on the banquet table, all the better.
Phèdre’s assignations give a fascinating insight into kink from the perspective of a submissive: In the moment, she appears to be giving up control and to be humiliated for her patrons’ enjoyment. Yet, just as in real-life kink when the submissive holds the true power (to set limits, to use the safeword, etc.), Phèdre is always observing and drawing mental connections while her patrons are lost in satisfying their urges.
Midwinter Masque Madness: Phèdre gets to attend two Longest Nights in the first part of the novel. The first comes when she’s ten years old, and Prince Baudoin kisses her for luck—an irony, it would turn out, since Melisande contracts Phèdre as Baudoin’s goodbye gift before she frames him for treason.
In one of her smartest and most distracting moves, years later Melisande contracts Phèdre for another Longest Night, in which she parades Phèdre around in a sheer gown on a collar and leash. (Yep, these books just went for the really great, twisted stuff.) As a final touch, Melisande gifts Phèdre with a collar dripping with a single diamond—a bauble that, no matter how far Phèdre goes, keeps her always within Melisande’s reach. This is also the only time that Phèdre uses her signale, or safeword (“Hyacinthe”).
Pillow Talk: Delaunay has Phèdre and Alcuin pick up political intel in the bedroom to figure out who has plans against the throne, though neither knows that it’s because Delaunay has sworn an oath to protect young, unmarried Ysandre. Ironically, it’s in bed with Melisande after the Longest Night that Phèdre learns about Delaunay’s oath, as well as his love affair with Prince Rolande—and where Melisande gets Phèdre to admit damning information about Delaunay.
Divine Inspiration: The fact that the Night Court’s various houses debate why Naamah laid with kings and paupers for Elua nicely dovetails with each house’s different emphasis. It also foreshadows Phèdre’s journey toward understanding her own sexuality and her impact as a Servant of Naamah.
While we all know the importance of Kushiel’s Dart and the prophecy, what’s really key is meeting Kushiel’s other scions: the Kushelines, the Shahrizai, and specifically Melisande. It’s one thing for Phèdre to get off on pain; it’s another entirely for someone to push her to the very limits of physical and psychological agony, and to manipulate her abilities for treason.
Xenophobic Much? We don’t learn too much about Terre d’Ange’s neighbors in Part 1, aside from the fact that D’Angelines are super hot and more cultured than anyone else, at least according to D’Angelines. To be fair, Delaunay admits that his own reach to places like Caerdiccas Unitas is limited.
Editor’s Cut: Tor Books senior editor Claire Eddy says, “Of all the books I have worked on in my 30 years with the company, I can honestly say that Kushiel’s Dart was unique for many reasons, not the least of which is the fact that this book was written well before the Fifty Shades of Grey phenomenon. It really was a different world then, and given that we were going to publish this title as mainstream fantasy, I had some fascinating conversations with [Jacqueline Carey], as the subject matter wasn’t anything that resembled an ordinary fantasy. We made some hard decisions about limits in the book and in the end I think we came up with choices that made for a truly unique book about an extraordinary heroine.”
Theresa’s Commentary
I was one of the first in-house readers for Kushiel’s Dart. I was sitting in a launch meeting many, many years ago and Claire Eddy opened her spiel about this novel with “Storm Constantine says…” Instantly, I perked up. Like any good nerdy goth girl, I adored Storm Constantine’s own epic, transgressive, angelic Wraeththu trilogy, so an endorsement from her meant I just had to try Dart. That it also promised kinky sex and featured a tattooed courtesan-spy and wasn’t another traditional, male-centric series like the many Tor already published piqued my interest. Fair admission: I’m more of a horror/Weird/dark fantasy person than epic fantasy. I read Dart before A Game of Thrones because the sword on the latter’s front cover scared me away. Turns out, I do like fantasy, when the focus is more on characterization and twists of plot than detailed magical systems and the minutia of imaginary flora.
Dart definitely reminds me of A Game of Thrones, in that both Carey and Martin demonstrate a true love and deep knowledge of history. Carey is also well-studied in angels. Combining history with just a touch of the mystical creates a rich world that feels old and full, familiar but exhilarating. Also like ASoIaF, Kushiel’s Legacy doesn’t have much in the way of wizards and witches and spells, but when something magical happens, it has a huge impact on the plot. When Daenerys Targaryen’s dragons are born in A Game of Thrones, it changes not only her life, but life for the Dothraki people, and presents a real threat to the current king on the Iron Throne. Here, when the magical happens, like before the story begins and Elua and his Companions settle Terre D’Ange, it leads to, yes, beautiful people and legal brothels, but most importantly, an ingrained sense of national pride that all D’Angelines share, to varying degrees of fanaticism. The mystery of the Master of the Straits is another example of restrained magic later on in the series.
But what obviously drew me into this story from the very first page was Phèdre’s clear, clever voice. The first-person narrative is so intimate and inviting. I think because I read so much Weird and horror, I wasn’t used to really luxuriating in a character’s biography from birth to the real meat of the plot. While there isn’t a ton of straightforward plot in this first section of Kushiel’s Dart, all of the introduction was crucial to understanding the religion, the politics, and the courtly history and intrigues that shaped Phèdre into the reluctant heroine she hints at becoming.
Also, there’s lots of sex. And lots of anticipation for sex, especially on young Phèdre’s part, which I found so honest and fun for a young courtesan-in-training with a sharp mind. Phèdre’s impatience with her lessons mirrored my own in a way: “Come on, get to the S&M already!” But not to an unbearable degree, of course, because all of the hints Phèdre and Alcuin learned about Delaunay and his love for Rolande de la Courcel were tantalizing. The pageantry of the Midwinter Masque, the traditions of the Night Court, and the assignations themselves compelled me to keep reading.
Phèdre’s nature as an anguissette provided natural tension for her scenes with patrons, but none moreso than her encounters with Melisande. Melisande embodies the D’Angeline ideal of beauty and is as pure a scion as Kushiel could have. Because she, too, is touched by the same Companion as Phèdre, their extremely complicated relationship makes all kinds of boundaries muddied. Trust, desire, hate (and consent) are thrown into question. Melisande understands Phèdre more than Joscelin ever will. As a reader, it’s easy to scream, “No, don’t trust her!” The rational part of Phèdre’s brain warns the same, but until Melisande’s devastating game is revealed, Phèdre is helpless to resist.
When Phèdre and Joscelin are sold as slaves to Skaldia, it really does feel like all has been lost. And for me, while the death of Delaunay was a crushing blow, it’s almost expected in fiction for a master to make way for the student. What I didn’t expect and what hurt so much more, was the death of loyal, innocent Alcuin. As we leave behind Terre D’Ange, we know Phèdre’s girlhood is gone, too, and things are going to get a lot graver.
Natalie’s Commentary
The way I proselytize about Kushiel’s Legacy, people assume that I’ve been reading the books since I was a preteen. That honor would actually go to Tamora Pierce’s Song of the Lioness quartet, but in many ways I see Kushiel’s Legacy as the natural evolution from there: It shares the compelling royal politics, a refreshing open-mindedness about sex, and a heroine who has to become more than she ever imagined she’d trained for. For the record, I started reading Kushiel’s Dart only about a year ago; I read the first six books in the span of about two months in early 2013.
Something that really strikes me about the first half of the book is the permanent consequences of characters’ decisions. Phèdre clearly mentions in the first few pages that she never again sees her parents after the age of four, yet I spent the entire trilogy assuming that somehow she would be reunited with them (and her sibling!), however briefly. When Delaunay and Alcuin were brutally murdered, I clung to the notion that Phèdre would somehow resurrect them. After all, when Part 2 delves into the mystery and magic of the Master of the Straits, I figured there must surely be a visit to the underworld planned as well. No dice.
The reread also really hammered home how love and cruelty go hand-in-hand. Not just in BDSM, obviously, but in situations like Phèdre giving up her crush on Delaunay because she knew that he and Alcuin were better for each other.
But something nagged at me from the very beginning: By declaring Phèdre flawed, was Cereus House going against Blessed Elua’s precept of “love as thou wilt”? Phèdre notes, “When Love cast me out, it was Cruelty who took pity upon me.” Not to mention the fact that Delaunay and Rolande aren’t allowed to be together because of Rolande’s obligations to the throne.
By Elua’s precept, isn’t love meant to be conditional? Or is love constrained in certain situations, the way it would be in non-Terre D’Ange, while any unusual expressions of it (i.e., homosexuality, kinks) are accepted?
Delaunay and Melisande share the weakness of wanting to flaunt their schemes—he by letting her know what he’s up to training Phèdre and Alcuin; she by sending messages to him through Phèdre, and ultimately giving Phèdre enough information with which to return from Skaldia. Though Delaunay isn’t into kink, I couldn’t help but read Melisande’s need for an audience as something out of the BDSM scene, where private play parties are often attended by observers watching another’s craft on display.
I believe part of Phèdre’s arrogance in Part 1 comes from constantly straining against her bonds. She acts out, always just reaching the limits; and as she begins to grow in reputation, she resents those boundaries even more. Cecilie Laveau-Perrin advises Phèdre that, once her marque is made, she’ll have the influence to choose who to invite into her bedchamber—and who not to. This unfortunately plays a big part in Part 2, as Phèdre is immediately used to warm various Skaldic lords’ beds. On my first read, my mind didn’t even go to the prospect of Phèdre having to have sex with someone she didn’t want to; like her, I was thinking only about the wonderfully dirty passages.
The only real “surprise” in rereading was Phèdre’s final scene with Melisande before she is sold into slavery: I was horrified to realize that Melisande used Phèdre’s abilities against her to force her to reveal more information about Quintilius Rousse’s men. It was one thing to trick a languid Phèdre into revealing an offhand detail about Delaunay’s grand scheme; it’s another entirely to (as the text implies) interrogate Phèdre through sexual torture, knowing full well that Phèdre’s body is responding even as her mind shuts down in horror. I got used to thinking of the worst violation of Phèdre’s consent happening in Kushiel’s Avatar, but now that I’ve realized this, it poisons the alluring nature of Phèdre and Melisande’s dynamic.
The end of Part 1 kicks off an interesting pattern in Kushiel’s Legacy, which is that every book’s middle has Phèdre being either sold into slavery or imprisoned—in Avatar, she goes willingly! It’s an odd motif to see repeated, and something I’ll delve into more in the later books.
Theresa DeLucci is a regular contributor to Tor.com, covering book reviews, gaming news and TV, including Game of Thrones. She’s also covered entertainment news on Boing Boing. A student of the 2008 Clarion West Writers’ workshop, her short fiction has appeared in ChiZine. Follow her on Twitter @tdelucci.
Natalie Zutter really wishes she had thrown a Midwinter Masque this year, and is embarrassed to admit she has totally used “anguissette” in a username somewhere on the Internet. You can read more of her work on Twitter and elsewhere.
I am fairly leery about picking up fantasy that I don’t know anything about, so I don’t know what prompted me to pick this book up back in oh, 2004 or so. I had not heard anything about it. What struck me right away was the writing. I feel like the first-person perspective is often a crutch used by writers, but Carey uses it in all the right ways. I don’t know what her influences were, but it feels like an epistolary novel from the 18th or 19th century; I couldn’t help comparing it to Samuel Richardson’s Pamela when I was reading it. Which is pretty funny, and a bit wicked if intentional.
OH WOW!! YAY!!
I love these books, and I could talk about them all day. I’ll try to keep it short.
What is most obvious to me, especially upon rereading, is how D’Angelines are FAILING Elua’s precept here. As you point out Natalie, the ostracization of Phedre from the Night Court, the fact that Roland and Anafiel couldn’t be together, the circling nobles vying for the throne because Ysandre is seen as weak.
This series is truly the turning point for D’Angelines. They are really very close to losing that which makes them unique and they aren’t even aware.
The tension of Phedre’s burgeoning sexuality is very well done. There were a lot of things in this book that just blew my mind, like how open the culture is with sex, but I came to realize how repressive our modern society is about sex is really correlates to rape culture.
The frank and open discussion over oral sex and women’s genitalia without being crude was also just a revelation.
Melisandre’s actions are so damning at the end of this half. In her mind, if Phedre had given her signale, she would have stopped the torture, so it wasn’t heresy. But we can all see that’s a bullshit rationalization.
I have a fanfic rolling around in my head I really need to write. Many years after Kushiel’s Justice, Mel reaches out to Imri to see her grandchildren, but Imri and Sidonie only agree upon one condition.
Melisandre must undergo the thetalos.
Cool idea, huh?
The casual racism of the D’Angelines was about the only thing that truly bothered me about this first half of the book, but the wonderful thing abot Carey, is that she never has her protagonists engage in problematic behavior without addressing it within the narrative, so the racism is dealt with rather well when we get to Alba, IMO.
I adore these books, and when i worked for Borders and ran the SF&F section made a point of always having at least one book from this series (or the two sequels) prominently displayed. Such good reads, and the re-structuring of a middle-ages Europe into something quite different is just fascinating….
@1, Me too! On the whole not picking up new authors easily. I have no idea why I picked this book up and purchased it with no prior recs or anything, but a few pages into it I was o.O. Then a few chapters later I was O.O. And I was hooked.
I skipped this series for years, as the eroticism and romance angle held little appeal.
When The Sundering duology came out with a premise that caught my attention, the quality of the writing ultimately drew me to give Kushiel’s Dart a try. It did not disappoint, and I have convinced several friends to read it, some even through their skepticism.
Is it really racism though? The notion of racism as an unacceptable belief is based on the fact that human beings are all the same species and the necessarily irrational presumption (or acceptance of divine revelation) of moral & spiritual equality of all members of that species.
The facts and beliefs which make this so in real life obviously do not apply to the D’Angelines. They are descended from literally superior beings, and have bred the inherited traits into dominance. They follow the principles and explicit teachings of historically extant individuals, who were, again, superior beings.
It’s not racism if there are real differences between races, such as do not exist in the real world.
@6, Considering the books are very clear that it is the ACTIONS of D’Angelines that makes them better, not anything inherent in the DNA, yes, it’s racism.
As we’re told often, they are a pretty folk. But that’s not what makes them superior.
I’d read it. But I still wouldn’t trust Melisande.
@8, Even after undergoing the thetalos?
You’d hate how it ends then.
I’m just going to fangirl in the corner over here.
@6. I haven’t read the complete series, but from what I recall, the D’Angelines believe that they are descended from angels. It isn’t confirmed that this is historically true.
@11, Yes it is confirmed that it actually did happen.
But again, it’s not their genetics that makes them a people to be admired.
It’s the tenets of their faith, the sacred consensuality, the acceptance of all sexuality, the gender equality, that makes D’Angelines admirable.
This book is really about showing what could happen if D’Angelines took their gifts and used them without regard to those tenets.
@9: Oh, I’d probably like it fine. I mean, I didn’t trust Melisande at all in the books, but I still enjoyed her role.
@1: You’re right, there is an epistolary element to it. Something that bothered me even on the first read was how Phèdre peppers in moments of hindsight (in the second half of Dart, she muses on how Phèdre’s Boys still sing their bawdy song to her), and yet we get no sense of where she actually is by the end of the trilogy. Like, is she writing down her memoirs in a Temple of Naamah somewhere? That’s the only way that the narration bugged me.
@2: I like how you point out that this is the turning point for the D’Angeliens–it’s like the Aristotleian notion of “why tonight?” for why the story is taking place. Really, I wanted so much more Melisande in the Imri trilogy, and I would be down with her undergoing the thetalos. But would she interpret it as blood-guilt, since she says over and over how much she loves the game of thrones above all?
@11: I’ll have to do some more research into how accurate it is that the D’Angelines are actually descended from angels. There’s a part in the second half of Dart where Phèdre realizes the people living on the Master of the Straits’ island are D’Angelines but not–i.e., not scions–and I can’t tell if she’s just dismissive or perhaps even pitying them.
@14, Their descent is made explicit in the Naamah trilogy that concludes the series. Moirin, an half D’Angeline of Alban descent has the ability to talk to plants, and she communes with Oak tree that sits in the center of the City of Elua that remembers being planted by Elua, with help from Anael.
On the Three Sisters, she observes that the islanders speak the same, if archaic, language as they, but do not share the symmetrical beauty that D’Angelines are known for. I don’t think she feels one way or the other about it, she’s beyond that superiority she felt about D’Angelines by that time, I think it’s just her filing away knowledge like a magpie hoards shiny things.
The thing I enjoy most about this story, and all the others Carey has written set in this world, is how consistent her view of diety and destiny are. So long as the characters act in the service of love, the story ends all right. Even Melisande, even the Markaghir, acting in service to love, do the things that need to happen so we can have our happy ending.
As far as Melisande in the thetalos, my idea is that instead of showing her ALL the things she’s done, which you are correct she wouldn’t care about, she’d experience what she did to Phedre, her unwitting conscience, and experience what happened to Imri, because of the decisions she made.
Fancast?
Phedre is Eva Green, no debate.
Melisande is Angelina Jolie, again there can be no debate.
But I’ve always struggled with the rest, so ideas people?
@16/all: I actually drew up a dream cast a few months ago…
Mine was a little less fancast because no Green/Jolie (I just can’t imagine a reality in which they would be chosen for this project), but I’d be curious to hear other people’s thoughts!
Tatiana Maslany would be great as Phedre, maybe even better as Sidonie. I see Eva Green more as Melisande, though I admit that Jolie would be great for that too.
I find that, after the plot and sex and characters begin to fade, I’m still mulling over the history and theology that Carey has created. It’s not really fantasy as Alternate History where the one true change is the fact that every nation’s gods are real. The chain of dominos that lead all the way from Elua to the Yeshuaites are pinned to that one basic premise. It’s a lot harder to proselytize when you get mortal _and_ immortal push-back.
I love these trilogies for so many reasons and often muse about how the society got set up. So Elua and his companions basically spend 100 years or so shagging their way around Terre d’Ange/France, with presumably more children born to the male companions weighting the lineages that way. And I assume that some folk (there is mention of the peasant folk being less beautiful apart from the odd throwback) only have a very small drop of angelic blood, whilst the aristocracy have lots from intermarriages, possibly even strict cousin marriage to keep the scion lines clear? It all gets a bit GoT genetically here in that there are distinctive markers for each line. I also assume that the ‘love as thou wilt’ bit becomes less important as each generation gets more stodgy and further away from the shagging angels bit leading us towards the medievalesque but more tolerant but getting less tolerant society we see here.
@20, The only people considered more beautiful that than everyone, are the Night Court, the peasants of Terre D’Ange are just as beautiful as everyone else. It’s the residents of the Three Sisters that bear no mark of angelic descent.
If u have not read Carey’s Earth Begotten. You need to. It was limited edition so you need to to her website to read it. It will answer the D’Angelines questions for some of you.
Excellent books for Valentine’s week discussion.
BDSM or not, these books are about the nature of love, all kinds of love.
I loved all of them until Phèdre = Europe saves China = Asia.
I know exactly why I picked up the first volume as soon as it was published: ex-comp lit – history student that I was and still am, the Romance era, the courtly love poems, and the history of Occitan, where Gaul and Iberian cultures (which includes very healthy doses of African and old Roman too) conflate, merge and clash, remain ongoing, always growing, subjects of interest.
The author’s Ph.D. subjects are that era too, so, we were a match.
P.S. For those who wonder how the mythologies, geography and histories of Carey’s series work and interpenetrate, here is a paper written about these matters, including various quotations from Carey herself.
Love, C.
I love these books! I only wish there was a more detailed re-read, as in a chapter by chapter re-read with commentary, like what is being done with Harry Potter. :)
@23, I’m curious about what you mean by
I loved all of them until Phèdre = Europe saves China = Asia.
@26, I’m pretty sure that’s supposed to be Moirin = Europe saves Ch’in = Asia, and the issue is one of Orientalism. I think it’s an overly reductive one – after all, Master Lo saves Europe *first* – but I think that’s the concern.
But Phedre isn’t in the series where they got to Ch’in so that’s why I’m confused.
I thought perhaps it was referencing Darsanga but IMO it’s pretty clear that Phedre has the easiest part on the night the Markaghir dies.
@16 Lana Parilla would get my vote for Melisande, even over Jolie.
I read this because I saw in the shelf behind Elio and Linda in their discussion videos about A Song of Ice and Fire.