The Desert Spear

If the first book of The Demon Cycle series was so uneven that it appeared as if it was written by two different authors, The Desert Spear certainly was written exclusively by the worst of the pair: Peter V. Brett’s fantasy novel continues to dismantle the best parts of its characters while offering a troublesome take on sexism – and this time with an anticlimactic ending to boot.

The protagonist is now Jardir, a desert warrior who, after obtaining a magical spear, decides to proclaim himself the sacred leader of his people and start a holy war. Meanwhile, the herbalist Leesha, alongside her friend Rojer, continues her preparations to arm a village against the night demons; the messenger Arlen attempts to warn the northern peoples of Jardir’s threat, and the girl Renna needs to protect herself from the sexual advances of her father.

The initial focus of the narrative is on Jardir’s rise in the kingdom of Krasia. The warrior lives in a patriarchal and sexist society where having daughters is seen as a curse, while boys learn to become the “man” of their respective families. Since Krasians are the only ones in that world that openly confront the demons every night, they value strength above all else, and they even see rape as a form of proof of physical superiority. The characterization of Krasia (which is Asia with two additional consonants) often borders on the stereotype with its heavy-handed mix of elements from oriental cultures: it’s said, for instance, that a group of virgins await in paradise those men who die heroically in battle.

During this first act, some characters stand out among the crowd: Jardir’s first wife, for example, emerges as a sort of Lady Macbeth, pushing the warrior to betray his values in search of glory and the title of the Deliverer which he so desires. The warrior may reflect, “Am I doomed to always have success without pride,” but never strays from the path set by his wife, who is always there to encourage him to do what he truly wants to do. He often brings up the idea of “destiny”, too, represented by the prophecies his wife makes – as she dispenses Shakespeare’s witches assuming their function as well – being troubled by it.  The Merchant Abban, on the other hand, serves as a kind of moral compass, encouraging Jardir to constantly expand his worldview and to embrace other perspectives, trying to prevent him from becoming a religious fanatic.

Jardir’s conquest of other lands, which is made under the guise of uniting all peoples against the demons, is established as the main threat at the end of the first act. The second act, then, returns to the point of view of previous characters. Now, it’s not the demons that function as the main antagonists, but men and their oppressive culture. The narrative, however, fails miserably when working with this subject, bringing together a lot of problematic dialogues and symbolism.

Leesha’s mother, for example, continues to propagate her inhumane worldview, defending that rape has a positive side on their victim: for Elona, being raped means that someone, at least, desired the raped person – and so the victim should be grateful in that regard. “Not how I’d wanted you to lose your flower,” Elona says, “but it was time it was done somehow, and I expect you’re the better for it.” A cruel absurdity that, since Elona is clearly a villain, would have been criticized by the narrative if Leesha herself, who struggled bravely to be independent in much of the previous book, did not end up agreeing with her mother’s general point of view: she deems it heartless, but also realistic. “She sees the world with cold clarity,” Rojer states. “Heartless clarity, is more like it,” Leesha corrects him, changing the wrong word. For those who don’t know what rape culture is, The Desert Spear exemplifies it.

Leesha’s characterization is so problematic that it starts to get offensive. At one point, she chastises herself for drugging a guy who had tried to rape her every night during a trip and even pities him when he apologizes for not being able to get it up. In another scene, she considers having sex with the very same guy and still reflects how cooking for a man is great. There’s a glaring agglomeration of terrible situations, dialogues, and symbols around Leesha, especially considering that the herbalist was first established as one who would combat these barbarities.

When the reader is still trying to recover from these scenes, they are introduced to the girl Renna and may realize there is no salvation for the book: the girl’s character arc involves her being raped daily by her own father. Not only does the author seems unable to introduce a feminine point of view into his series without appealing to rape, but, in both cases, he also uses rape as a narrative device to romantically bring both victims close to the same man.

There are probably more attempts of rape than battles with demons in The Desert Spear, especially since in Krasia the practice is common even among boys. And, to add insult to injury, the attitude of the man who is the victim of a rape is diametrically opposed to Renna’s: while he immediately starts to plan his revenge and trains hard to make it possible, the girl passively accepts her fate, hoping that some enchanted prince will save her: “Her eyes were always searching the road east, praying that one day he would come and take her away.”

Renna is a terribly passive character who is even unable to defend herself in court when tried by her neighbors. The end of her narrative arc is also contradictory: despite trying to show that she has finally decided to stand for herself, the fact is that she fights the crimes of her village only after a man opens her eyes.

The female characters in the book are constructed in only three ways: some manipulate men with their intelligence, some with their genitals, and some with both. In The Desert Spear, the feminine is basically limited to its relation to danger and sex. It’s no wonder that Jardir’s first wife takes us back to the figure of Eve, offering the forbidden fruit and corrupting her man. It’s no wonder that one of the earliest depictions of demons in the book has their long claws compared to “a woman’s manicured nail.” It’s no wonder that the moment a woman tears several demons apart, her sensation at that moment is described as one of lust instead of pride or glory. It’s no wonder that Leesha’s mother says that a woman’s power lies between her legs and “that only a fool chooses not take advantage of it.” Leesha, of course, “opened her mouth to protest, but for some reason her mother’s words rang true, and no rebuttal came to her.”

The author’s attempts to offer a strong and positive portrait of the feminine are sabotaged by the very context in which they arise. There is a moment in which a female character says, “But you ent my da or my husband, and even if you were, my body’s my own, and I’ll do with it as I will,” but she says that in the middle of a discussion in which she is fumbling with black magic and even knows she is doing something wrong.

By the same token, what’s the use of Jardir stating that the women around him are strong if, when a demon prince analyzes his enemies, the creature concludes that Arlen and Jardir’s minds are very resilient and impenetrable, but those of the women around them are weak and fragile, making them easy prey? It doesn’t matter that both Arlen and Jardir are each protected by their own magic charm that could have made them more resilient: they could have been protected by magical lollipops for all it’s worth. When all the characters possessed by demons are women, there is an unequivocal symbolism present in the narrative: women’s bodies are vessels for evil. The moment someone reflects that women are not in the wrong when they refuse to be with a man is almost staggering, constituting a glimpse of the maturity the rest book severely lacks.

Moving on to the returning male characters from The Warded Man, Arlen, who was once the protagonist, here keeps only repeating dozens of times that he is not the people’s savior – called “The Deliverer” – while Rojer remains as disposable and irrelevant as he was before.

Besides that, the book’s ending is also marred by a great anticlimax, as instead of dealing with Jardir’s holy war – the main point of the first act – or the sexist culture of their society – the main point of the second act – it prefers to focus on the confrontation with two random demons whose high rank and sporadic appearances in the story don’t manage to disguise their narrative insignificance. The attempt to equate mental possession with rape is also sudden and either contradictory or very problematic: apart from not being properly prepared by the rest of the novel, appearing out of nowhere, it also means demons would have finally to be compared to men, opposing the rest of the symbolism that surrounds these creatures – that is, unless it’s implying that these “female” demons are even more wicked because they’re raping human “of the same sex”.

The Desert Spear is the worst part of its predecessor magnified. It has some extremely troublesome character development, a misguided discussion on sexism, and an anticlimactic ending. We can only hope that the next volume in The Demon Cycle is written by the Peter V. Brett of the first half of The Warded Man and not this one.

October 30, 2019.

Review originally published in Portuguese on November 18, 2016.