The Hero and the Crown

Books of this kind don't get much better than The Hero and the Crown. It's got all the usual trappings of a fairy tale/fantasy: kings, nobles, wizards, mages, dragons, demon mischief from the north, magic lakes, etc. It's about a painfully isolated young girl and an impossible quest. Or two.

But the characterization is excellent and the writing is gorgeous. Actually, the structure of the book is pretty remarkable as well - Part One is mostly a flashback but the way it's done is just superb, not quite linear but never choppy.

One thing that really impressed me, that may kind of get at why the book is so good, is that Aerin (the heroine) can get hurt, and when she's hurt she acts like she's hurt. She doesn't suffer some horrible wound and show more then run off to perform more heroic feats; she doesn't recover from injuries in the blink of an eye and then run off to perform more heroic feats. So even though it's a fairy tale in the best sense of the word - a morality tale, I guess, a story about good and evil - there is also a kind of brutal honesty to it.

McKinley's writing is very intense, very atmospheric. The best word to describe it, and the story in general, is: poignant. It's moving, bittersweet, the kind of book where you'll be smiling and crying at the end. show less

To start, I recently saw this book lumped into a fantasy webpage with K.A. Applegate's Everworld and Garth Nix's Sabriel--two books which I started and never finished due to sheer boredom (I think I got up to page 20 in Sabriel and up to the fifth book in Everworld; sheesh, what a waste of time!) Clearly, I was extremely disturbed by such an insult to The Hero and the Crown. You simple cannot make those comparisons. Period.

Let's start with the fact that The Hero and the Crown is a Newbery Award winner.
Ch-yea!
...Okay, yes, I know that's practically the kiss of death to young, modern readers but in this case, NEWBERY ACTUALLY GOT IT RIGHT!
It won the award back in 1985, but don't make the mistake of thinking it's outdated. There is a show more damn, good reason why it has stuck around on the shelves of bookstores for so long--IT'S A FANTASTIC BOOK!
And not just that, it's memorable. I have never, ever read such a unique medieval story.
It's just like: WHOA.

The book's summary:

"Robin McKinley's mesmerizing history of Damar is the stuff that legends are made of. The Hero and the Crown is a dazzling "prequel" to The Blue Sword.

Aerin is the only child of the king of Damar, and should be his rightful heir. But she is also the daughter of a witchwoman of the North, who died when she was born, and the Damarians cannot trust her.

But Aerin's destiny is greater than her father's people know, for it leads her to battle with Maur, the Black Dragon, and into the wilder Damarian Hills, where she meets the wizard Luthe. It is he who at last tells her the truth about her mother, and he also gives over to her hand the Blue Sword, Gonturan. But such gifts as these bear a great price, a price Aerin only begins to realize when she faces the evil mage, Agsded, who has seized the Hero's Crown, greatest treasure and secret strength of Damar."

Aerin is, without a doubt, one of the greatest heroines ever to hit literature. Her flaming, red hair is as distinctive as she is, and her story is leagues ahead of its peers. Her adventure takes its physical, emotional, and psychological tolls, which is what'll keep you turning the pages.

McKinley creates a perfect, little world with its own legends, myths, customs, and culture. It's something you can really sink your teeth into--especially if you're sick of reading story after story in the same, old, stone castle.

Most interestingly, the dragons in this story are very different from some of their other, popular books. Here, you'll find no cuddly Saphira from Eragon. Indeed, if you'll pardon the following puns, dragons in this book are dark, malicious, and evilly delicious (just look at Maur on that cover; I could stare for hours!) Don't worry, though, Aerin has her "lucky charms" and a thoroughly charming (and stubborn!) stallion to help her out.

This book has imprinted itself on me like no other and you'll be denying youself something fierce if you don't read it!

This review is an entry on my blog. show less

I have loved The Hero and the Crown since I first read it in junior high, and I was excited to teach it, but I recognize that it is an odd book. Aerin embraces her magical destiny and falls in love with the immortal Luthe-- but puts that love to sleep so "that she might love her country and her husband" (246). One of my students was excited at what she saw as the embrace of polyamory, but I don't think that's quite what's happening here. In addition, you get the really surreal stuff when Aerin goes to confront her evil uncle Agsded. This is the part of the book that's stuck with me the most since childhood. The tower Aerin climbs to confront Agsded is nearly infinite: "She had been climbing forever; she would be climbing forever. She show more would be a new god: the God That Climbs" (182). Then, when Aerin defeats Agsded, she falls almost as long and ends up in a strange place. What had been a tower in a wasteland is now rubble in the middle of a jungle. She sees people there, and is then jerked back to where she had been, the desolate plateau from which the tower had risen, and Luthe explains to her that she had traveled "a few hundred years" into the future until he pulled her back (200). Aerin then returns to her native land of Damar and defeats the remnants of the evil that threatens it before marrying Tor, the new king.

What's going on here? I have a friend who strongly reacts against Aerin's double marriage, and some of my students definitely considered the whole tower battle and journey into the future extremely weird. I think that looking at The Hero and the Crown's place in both the fantasy genre and the young adult genre helps provide an answer to this.

In her excellent monograph Rhetorics of Fantasy (2008), Farah Mendlesohn divides the fantasy genre up into a number of different approaches, based on the relative positions of the reader, the protagonist, and the fantastic. In the portal-quest fantasy, the protagonist "leaves her familiar surroundings and passes through a portal into an unknown place" (1): The Wizard of Oz, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone are all prototypical examples of the form. The immersive fantasy, however, "presents the fantastic without comment as the norm for both the protagonist and for the reader: we sit on the protagonist's shoulder and [...] we are not provided with an explanatory narrative" (xx), for "the point of view characters of an immersive fantasy must take for granted the fantastic elements with which they are surrounded" (xxi). Then there's the intrusion fantasy, where the fantastic breaks into a "normal" world (xxii). (Mendlesohn also has the liminal fantasy and the "irregulars," but those are less relevant to my purposes here.)

On first glance we might see The Hero and the Crown as an immersive fantasy: it takes place in a magical land, different from our own, from the beginning. However, as you dig into both it and Mendlesohn, you start to realize that's it's not so simple. (Genre never is, except when it gets, well, generic.) The novels bears traces of the intrusion fantasy as well. The threat to Damar is an external one; the dragons that Aerin battles throughout the novel might be in Damar, but they are not from it. They are magical creatures from beyond. Furthermore, the book is extremely reminiscent of the portal-quest fantasy, and we should note when using the term that though portal-quest fantasies depart from a real world, they do not have to depart from our real world. One of Mendlesohn's prototypical portal-quest fantasies is, after all, The Lord of the Rings, which starts itself in a magical land, the Shire, but she argues that Tolkien makes the Shire real so that it can frame an adventure into a fantastic land, that of the rest of Middle Earth (2, 31).

Something similar is happening in The Hero and the Crown.  It incorporates many of the typical features of the portal-quest fantasy: quests (well, duh); an alliance of perspective between reader and protagonist, both of whom are naïve; portals that transition between places and times; exploration of an unknown land; a thinned land that requires restoration by the story's end; a connection between the king and the well-being of the land (when the right monarch is in place, the land itself is also right); and the existence of a moral universe (good and evil are objective qualities). The reason Aerin's journey to Luthe's land (where she also experiences some temporal dislocation) and Agsded's tower are so surreal is that McKinley has to mark them as fantasy worlds within the context of what seems to us a fantasy world. Aerin is used to the magics of Damar; she is not used to the magics of these other worlds that she has passed to.

Okay, but so what? Something we should always keep in mind when discussing genre, is that genres have not just features (characteristics) but projects (things they do). Mendlesohn mentions that "the classic portal tale is much more common in children's fantasy than in that ostensibly written for the adult market" (1) and she also says that portals "mark[ ] the transition between this world and another; from our time to another time; from youth to adulthood" (1, emphasis mine). So why is this the case? I think it's because of portal-quest fantasy's commitment to a moral universe: Mendlesohn says that "a quest is a process, in which the object sought may or may not be a mere token of rewards. The real reward is moral growth and/or admission into the kingdom, or redemption" (4). Young adult literature is often about teaching readers moral lessons, for better or for worse, and so the form of portal-quest fantasy is well-suited to it. The reader and the protagonist are positioned together, and so when the protagonist accomplishes moral growth, so too does the reader. Aerin accomplishes a lot of moral growth in The Hero and the Crown: she learns how to take responsibility for herself, learns how to channel her anger appropriately, learns how to set a long-term goal for herself and work toward it, learns how to coexist with those who dislike or resent her, learns how to bridge the gap between aristocracy and commoners, learns to like education and reading, learns how handle romantic and sexual feelings, and probably learns other things I'm forgetting.

So I think there's a couple things going on with the weird doubling effect at the end of the novel. Partially, there's a recognition that childhood remains when you pass into adulthood. Aerin may have crossed the portal from reality to fantasy, from childhood to adulthood, but childhood never goes away, you always carry both worlds within you, and so does Aerin.

Additionally, Aerin has to move from her immortal life back to her mortal one in order to implement the moral lessons she's learned-- because if the protagonist does not implement them, how can the reader? We're explicitly told that "it was her love for Luthe that made her recognize her love for Tor" (207). If fantasy worlds exists to teach the reader how to behave in the real world, we have that literalized in The Hero and the Crown, hence both worlds must persist. But unlike in Narnia or (to bring up another portal-quest fantasy) Susan Cooper's The Silver on the Tree, Aerin does not need to give up her fantasy life. In what surely is a fantasy (in the imagining-you-have-obtained-an-unobtainable-thing sense) she can have both lives. show less

This review and others posted over at my blog.

Yo, where has this book been all my life? Oh, I know; on my shelves for at least 9 years! [x_x[] I waited far too long to read this book – though I suspect from the cracked spine and lipstick prints on the inside of the back cover (don’t ask, there’s no reasonable explanation) that Middle School Milliebot did read this book and Adult Millie has completely forgotten it. Regardless, it was fabulous!

If all YA books were written by McKinley, or in the spirit of this book, I’d actually be a fan of the genre! Originally written in 1984, The Hero and the Crown truly stands the test of time and is now my new standard for judging YA fantasy.

Aerin is a great character – determined, show more intelligent, caring, socially awkward and not impervious to bouts of self-doubt and definitely not above getting beat down. She’s by no means a special snowflake. Rather than be told about how amazing and special Aerin is, she proves she’s tough by actually being tough! She has to learn her lessons through hard work and determination and she develops her riding, swordplay, and herbalism skills by working relentlessly at them. She falls, many times, and continues to get up, though sometimes more slowly than others. Here’s a heroine who gets her ass handed to her in battle on more than one occasion, rather than just strolling onto the scene and defeating everyone effortlessly.

I also loved that while she’s generally viewed as an outcast at her father – the king’s – court, she’s not completely isolated. She has her loyal caretaker, Teka, her supportive cousin, Tor, and her trusty and intelligent steed, Talat. I just realized now that everyone’s name starts with T…anyway! Aerin’s relationship with her father is more awkward than strained – it’s clear he loves her, he’s just not sure what to do with her. But he doesn’t try to prevent her from adventuring off and slaying dragons.

I appreciated that Aerin falls somewhere in the middle of the ‘completely isolated and unloved heroine who must defeat all odds and save the day’ and ‘ultra-special sexy snowflake chosen one heroine who must save the day’ scale. She’s a true underdog who’s easy to root for.

The beginning of the book was slightly confusing for me though. There are several flashbacks to how Aerin trained Talat, ate some drug leaves and took a bad trip, and developed her fireproof salve. For a while, I didn’t understand that those scenes weren’t ‘the present.’ This wasn’t a major issue because I still loved everything I was reading, but just something I figured I’d point out.

There is a smidgen of romance in this book, so if that’s important to you in a YA novel, fear not! It might even be classified as a love triangle, though it’s not nearly as tropey as today’s fare. I don’t want to spoil anything, but rest assured, there’s no insta-love and Aerin doesn’t spend the majority of the book worrying over which man she’ll choose. I really appreciated how her two love interests were handled. There’s also implied sexual content, though it’s very light, so nothing to worry about if you don’t really care for sex in your romance or fantasy.

This is just an all-around fabulous book. I love the characters, I love Aerin’s journey, both plotwise and emotionally, and there are dragons and magic! This is a great take on the ‘hero’s quest’ trope and one I should have picked up much sooner. I have several of McKinley’s books on my shelves and I can’t wait to read them all!

I recommend this for:
+ Those of you looking for a YA that focuses on plot and character development, not love triangles
+ Fans of characters who actually earn their skills and fight for their place in the world
+ Anyone looking for a low-key fantasy that still has dragons and magical items of lore, but is light on the world building and magic system
+ Everyone – just read it, please show less

Technically speaking, The Hero and the Crown is the second book published in the Damar series though events are sent many years prior to The Blue Sword. The hero of legend, Aerin Firehair, wasn't always a hero. Once she was the shy, awkward only child of the King of Damar. This is her story about her coming of age and how her legend was made.

The story is a classic hero's quest though it has some unusual elements in the second half. I absolutely loved Aerin's character, how real she feels and how hard she works to earn her place. Arein is an unsatisfactory princess - she isn't beautiful, her mother was a "witch" and she yearns to become a dragon slayer, which in this world an unglamorous job since dragons are seen as vermin and their show more slaying as no more than a chore. The more effort she goes to in order to prove herself to her father's court, the more she's underappreciated, never mind that all her accomplishments are quite valued by the common people she helps. She even uses methodical persistence to work out a scientific problem, with much success and was pretty cool because it's not something you see often in this kind of story. Seeing as this is a hero journey, Aerin continues her struggles until she's ultimately successful, proving herself beyond all doubt by saving the day in the end.

And now for the unusual stuff. Spoilers ahead. There is a fight that requires Aerin to travel back and forth in time. It was very confusing to read. I'm really glad one of the other characters explains it afterwards because it felt more like a dream sequence than an actual battle. Also interesting is how the author made depression a plot point. Discussing mental illness was virtually unheard of in any of the 80's fiction I read, especially not in a YA adventure story. It's handled quite well, both caused and cured by magic, yet shows the hero's resilience as she doggedly continues on her quest regardless. Highly unusual is that our hero ends up with two love interests, has relationships with both and yet this isn't a love triangle. Aerin understands that after she's become immortal, she can marry and live with her mortal lover and then join her immortal one later. Yet there is never any romantic angst. She makes her decisions level headed and when she feels like she's ready.

This story resonated with me due to all the hardships Aerin endures and over comes. I can see myself rereading this one in the future. I also greatly enjoy McKinley's prose. I need to check out some of her adult books in the future. show less

Classic fantasy tale, extremely well told. Aerin, with her all-too-human imperfections (and her wonderfully sarcastic wit), makes for a great narrator. The only child of a king, but removed from the line of succession because her parents' marriage was ruled morganatic, Aerin struggles to fit in with the rest of the ruling class. Her pursuit of a mysterious shield against dragonfire, though, brings her great acclaim ... and a quest against a more powerful foe than any dragon.

Highly enjoyable from first to last.

This was only my second Robin McKinley book, but it won't be my last. Though it took a few chapters to get pulled into it, primarily because there are so many characters introduced so quickly, the story was impossible to walk away from once it got started. Full of atmosphere, engaging characters, and compelling turns, the story was simply wonderful. Notably, McKinley's descriptions are gorgeous, but she also proves herself a master of writing about animals believably, both as they behave naturally and as they interact with humans.

Simply, the book made me feel rather as if I'd been sucked into a fairy tale all over again, and it was wonderful.

Recommended.