Tortall Smackdown Report: Round 1, Fights A & H

[peroxidepirate]

Fight A
Domitan of Masbolle
v
Wyldon of Cavall

Fight H
Alanna of Pirate's Swoop and Olau
v
Uline of Hannalof


What a way to start off the competition!

 

Goldenlakers, bear with me: I have a lot of non-Goldenlake folk on my flist, some of whom are Pierce fans (and might, therefore, actually read this). So I'll take the time to explain some things that usually go without saying (for instance, Wyldon is awesome).

 

Fight A

 

This might be the most hotly contested fight of the entire Smackdown, outside of – possibly – the final round.

 

Domitan of Masbolle, better known as Dom, is probably the easiest character to ship with Keladry of Mindelan, since she actually has a crush on him in canon. This also means Kel/Dom is the pairing that's been written the most: after the publication of Kel's last two books, Squire and Lady Knight, it seemed like 60% of Tamora Pierce fics at fanfiction.net were this pairing. Not surprisingly, a lot of Kel/Dom fics are very bad.

 

You might expect Dom to win based simply on popularity. However, Goldenlakers are an exceptionally smart and creative bunch who will ship anything if you frame it as a challenge (see below). So a lot of us are sick of the pairing and want nothing to do with it. Those who do support Dom in the Smackdown are out to prove that he's more than just a pretty face, and they're doing a very credible job.

 

Dom and Kel basically work together – she's a knight, he's a sergeant in what amounts to Tortall's version of the Marines. She's been quietly admiring him for years, all the way through her time as a squire, her romance with a young nobleman, and her first year as a lady knight. So the attraction has staying power, I'll give it that. But in all that time, there's been nothing (as far as I can see) to indicate that he sees her in the same way.

 

Of course this is fandom. And the Smackdown is being judged on quantity, not feasibility. So it's more about the Dom fans than about Dom himself – and they're certainly giving their all.

 

 

Wyldon of Cavall is Kel's old training master. He's a political conservative who once argued against allowing a girl to train as a page, and demanded more from Kel than from any of the boy pages. But Kel ultimately succeeded in becoming a knight, while some of the boys Wyldon considered the best failed. So Wyldon changed his view of Kel, if not his general opinion of women in the military. He now views Kel almost like a daughter (or does he?). He's a married man with four grown daughters, one of whom is engaged to Kel's good friend, Owen.

 

Based on that, Kel/Wyldon seems like a pretty strange ship. But, personality-wise, Kel and Wyldon are like two peas in a pod. Plus, Kel's admiration for Wyldon borders on hero-worship, while Wyldon believes Kel is too good – as a knight, a warrior, a person – for him to take any credit for training and teaching her. Clearly, there's a lot of intense emotion between them. And this is fandom, so you know what that means.

 

Kel/Wyldon is an established fandom ship, and has some pretty fanatical – and prolific – support on Goldenlake.

 

I'm sort of passively backing Wyldon on this one. I definitely ship Kel/Wyldon (and maybe sometime I'll write about my mentor issues – how the most important relationships I've ever had with men I'm not related to have been with the older men who taught me my craft – or maybe I'll keep the details safely to myself) over Kel/Dom, but I've been concentrating most of my energy on the other fight.

 

At last count, Wyldon was ahead. If he wins, I have a feeling he might make it all the way to the top. If Dom wins, I predict a loss in the semi-finals (to the winner of the Neal v. Raoul fight). But with over 30 hours to go on this fight, it's still way too close to call.



Also, I'll mention that I'm doing a bad job of keeping up on reading the Boys' Fight forum lately, and a really bad job of commenting there. It's not a lack of love, but there's just too much fic and I can't keep up! Which is, frankly, an awesome problem to have. I'll catch up one day, either during the Faleron v. Rikash fight, or after the Smackdown ends.

 

 

 

Fight H

 

Alanna of Pirate's Swoop and Olau – once known as Alanna of Trebond, and unofficially as Alan of Trebond – is the first lady knight in the land of Tortall, and the heroine of Tamora Pierce's first series. She has some kind of role in, I think, 14 books set in the Tortall universe. She's the character we know the most about, more even than Kel herself. She has a lot of fans.

 

In some ways, Kel/Alanna is like Kel/Wyldon: Kel sees her as a hero, she's happily married, she's proud of all Kel has accomplished. But Alanna and Kel have radically different personalities: Kel is steady, straightforward, and patient; Alanna is passionate, stubborn, and intense. For this reason, they could bring out the best in each other – or they could butt heads in interesting ways. Either would make great fic.

 

A lot of the Wyldon fans are backing Alanna, too. And a lot of people are writing her because they've been doing it the longest. To be honest, I'd probably be Team Alanna too, if it weren't for the fact that Kel/Aly has been my Tortall OTP, and Aly is Alanna's daughter. I just couldn't get past it.

 

 

 

Uline of Hannalof (or maybe it's Uline of HaMinch by now) is a bit player in one book. She's the only competitor in this set of fights who was voted in (the other three are among the eight default contestants), and she came in second among the ladies.

 

Not much is known about her. She's a noblewoman a few years older than Kel, who rides with the Royal Ladies, a group of ladies-in-waiting/bodyguards who travel with the queen. She made a point of seeking Kel out when she was a page and offering encouragement and support. You could view her as a Bechdel-test-passing device – she appears, she and Kel make small talk, she disappears – but in true fandom fashion, a lot of us at Goldenlake have chosen to see her as much, much more. And looking through slash goggles, it does seem like she spends her entire (limited) page time flirting with Kel.

 

Uline was, unfortunately (in a shippy sense), engaged to be married. It's unknown whether she is married now. She halfheartedly tried to match Kel up with her friend Neal, but Kel didn't go for it. Probably because she would rather be with Uline.

I'm devoting all my fandom engery to Team Uline right now, to the extent that Kel/Uline has actually pwned Kel/Aly in my personal fanon.

 

One interesting thing about this fight is that it's less overtly competitive than the current Boys' Fight -- yeah, it's Uline v. Alanna. But on the other hand, most everyone writing for either contestant is just happy to have a few dozen new girlslash drabbles to enjoy. When it's over, whichever lady wins, I think I'll write a ficlet where Kel goes to bed with them both.

If Uline gets past Round 1, everyone writing for her (all 3 of us, at last count) might run out of ideas for Round 2 – or, knowing so little about her, we might be able to keep making stuff up and carry on. It's hard to tell. If Alanna gets past Round 1, I think she'll gain momentum, but I can't guess how far it'll take her. And this one, too, is way too close to call.

ETA that I have no idea why one paragraph is a different color -- it's an Open Office copy-paste to LJ editor issue, which means I'll have to fix it in HTML. And I'm not focused enough to do that right now.

Comments

[q-sama.livejournal.com]

This is a really good assessment of both fights. The Alanna v. Uline really intrigues me, because going in I was all for Uline - her personality in Page worked so well with Kel's. But then after reading stories, I was drawn to the lady-knights-sticking-together approach.

I'm hoping more fights change my preconceived notions.

[peroxidepirate.livejournal.com]

"I'm hoping more fights change my preconceived notions."

Me too! I expect to come out of this with some new favorites.

[treanz.livejournal.com]

Also, I'll mention that I'm doing a bad job of keeping on reading the Boys' Fight forum lately, and a really bad job of commenting there. It's not a lack of love, but there's just too much fic and I can't keep up!

Amen to that :-/

I'm gonna have SO much fun counting tomorrow night...

[peroxidepirate.livejournal.com]

It's nice to know I'm not the only one!

I'm in US Eastern time, so it ends at 6 a.m. here. I will not be staying up all night posting drabbles, but I'm sure some people will...

[q-sama.livejournal.com]

Ditto. I have to work in the morning, so I can't stay up late. This whole thing really makes me miss college, when I could write during class and stay up all night!