I just re-read Belgarath

[elizabeth_hoot]

All seven hundred-odd pages in the last two days, eep, but I felt like it. Things that struck me as I plowed through:

• It's a lot better written than the Belgariad. And the Malloreon. And probably even the Elenium/Tamuli, too, which are my personal favourites. But, obviously, it's set in the Belgariadverse, and - okay, still not great literature? I kept giggling at
  hl  about how cracky it is. But so many of the things that bugged me when I re-read the Belgariad/Malloreon a year or two ago are just not there. I think there are maybe two "be nices" in seven hundred pages, there are all these turns of phrase that I circled because I liked them so much, and I laughed most of the way through (mostly at Torak, tbh); for me, it was entertaining and often really funny, like the Belgariad, without feeling forced the way it sometimes did there.
• The pacing is really good. it's long and covers a looooot of time without really feeling tedious - mostly lingering on the stuff that I wanted to be lingered on and skimming over the less-interesting ones, and it always felt personal even though Belgarath has to be a bit detached. Lots and lots of attention to politics, battles, war, but also to his relationships with first Aldur and then Polgara (in fact, one of the sections that subdivide the book is just called "Polgara") which helps with that. I really enjoyed how involved the Battle of Vo Mimbre, and shipping Mandorallen's ancestor/Lelldorin's ancestor like whoa. Just in, idk, a dozen pages, I honestly cared more about them than Lelldorin (who honestly always kind of bored me) and Mandorallen (who I love, but am not actually interested by). I also enjoyed stuff like Belgarath's time in Gar og Nadrak, and enjoyed that it was... two pages? Very brief, anyway.
• Way more differentiation between "the narrative" and "Belgarath" than I remember from the others. At first his random tangents were just sort of there, then they felt like annoying winks at the camera, and then it just seemed like Belgarath being Belgarath. It's a weird thing he does. Also: he's fairly sexist, and this is actually acknowledged.
• He's really possessive of Polgara. Often in a fairly apathetic, oddly good-natured way, but his fits of jealousy range from "annoyingly stereotypical" to ... um, not stereotypical. And he keeps asking/insisting that this is how fathers are and, whoa, the Polanna scene was weird. I really enjoy their relationship apart from that.
• And apart from Polgara's response to his rape by the dryads. Because it is really, really, really, really clear that that's what it was - and this is a huge improvement over how rape was presented in the Belgariad (ugh) - and Polgara (also Beldin, kinda) treats it like there's no difference between the dryads and the women of Maragor, just him being a faithless lecher, but, uh:

Dryads customarily share things with their sisters, so Xana introduced me to the other dryads as well. They all pampered me, but there was no getting around the fact that I was a captive - a slave, if we want to be blunt about it - and my situation was more than a little degrading. I smiled a lot, did what was expected of me, and waited for an opportunity.

• However, drugging the dryads with chocolate is also super skeevy.
• Women are generally more likable here. Quite a few sympathetic Salmissras - Belgarath regrets Illessa, the one who was manipulated into ordering the slaughter of the Rivan royal family, the most, but my favourite has got to be the clever young Salmissra who smacks him down when he starts blabbing on about political alliances not really being happymaking marriages, as if that is seriously a priority for the only ruling queen alive, surrounded by homicidal eunuchs. Then she has them stabbed.
• Torak is hilarious most of the time and I love that Aldur's disciples are all basically "is there a god of being a really stupid asshole? Because that's him." If you're going to have a one-dimensional god of evil, that's the way to do it. (Except his proposal/attempted mind-rape of Polgara, still creepiest thing ever.) At the same time, I also like that he's not one-dimensional big bad to the other gods (okay, not counting Belar because ... Belar) and it's not just DING DONG THE WITCH IS GOING TO BE DEAD. And his suffering is very real, and not diminished at all, but totally deserved too.
• I never had much sympathy for Zedar and still don't.
• I ... don't like Poledra very much. Sorry, but... >_> And Beltira and Belkira are a bit blah.
• I really liked Belsambar and Belmakor :(
• Melcena = the OTW, y/y?
• Liked the variation in the Rivan heirs, even with the emphasis on their similarity. Gelane =/= Daran.
• I like the bit characters - you see them once and they're gone, but they're usually really enjoyable. Also some of the excerpts, like Zakath's letter to Taur Urgas.
• I'd forgotten how bookish Belgarath is! I just ... like that.
• The best part for me is Belgarath and Polgara's relationship, seriously. I even highlighted some of my favourite parts - it's just, genuinely adversarial but also playing it up but also affectionate but it's a bit imbalanced but there's also this camaraderie and working together more or less as equals but it's complicated family relationships are my favourite thing, and it's all about that. I like the in-story stuff, though, not the snide side remarks - those are just irritating.
• There is totally a double standard about Polgara's affairs vs. Belgarath's.
• More pathos than I remembered, definitely. I like that the non-functioning bereaved spouses are sometimes husbands and sometimes wives. I like how Belgarath's forced detachment plays with that, and the ways it's both similar and dissimilar to Polgara's approach; in their different ways, I get the impression that, after Beldaran, both were ... kind of holding back until they could latch onto Garion, who is the Godslayer but more importantly - if all goes well - isn't going to die.
• Lots of the pathos is intensely personal (one of the better instances is Cherek's sorrow over the division of Aloria and subsequent loss of his sons, I think), but the things that get me the most weren't, especially: the Tolnedrans' genocide of the Marags and Torak's slaughter of Drasnia. I'd totally forgotten about Drasnia :( (The one fic I've found that is really good deals with Mara/Maragor/Taiba, and I love it to pieces: http://archiveofourown.org/works/194900)
• I am sorry the fandom is not bigger because there are SO MANY AUs. I mean, if a setting ever just asked for them. Every other chapter is Belgarath going "if only I'd done [other thing] then..."
• Polgara's situation is really really terrible, but I also find it irritating when they're going, oh, poor Polgara, she has to raise and mourn all these children who aren't hers. And sure, she's very much an aunt to some, but plenty were orphans she raised, how are they not her children. Belgarath casually mentions that Polgara presents herself as the heirs' older cousin, or immediate aunt, or mother - I'd love to have seen one of the times where she was the mother.
• The Sendars are kind of awesome, and never more so than when the Sendarian priest calls the blessing of Torak on the wedding of Geran and Ildera. omg, that's just beautiful.