Outside of a Dog: Cooper, Susan: (05) Silver on the Tree

charlene

charlene wrote on January 6, 2009 at 11:57 AM:

...Yeah. I adore these books and always have since I read them in fourth grade, but Silver on the Tree especially is a weird collection of (as you say) the wonderful and the rage-inducing (count me in as one of the objectors to the very ending, though I've decided to look at it as another example of the Light being annoyingly "we know what's best for you!!").

I would have fewer problems with Great Britain's privileged standpoint if she hadn't taken such care to point out that the Old Ones spanned the entire world.

I didn't actually think the treatment of women was particularly odd for its time -- there aren't many of them, and they don't really get to do a whole lot, but neither are there in LOTR or the (early) Earthsea books. The Rider, um, subplot in SotT is just plain weird, but it's not the first time the Light has been entirely confused by who is and is not a high-ranking Dark operative (e.g., both the first and third books).

Kate

Kate wrote on January 6, 2009 at 12:16 PM:

Like Truepenny, it's the contrast to _Greenwitch_ particularly that bugs me--Cooper could do more and better than here.

Another Andrew

Another Andrew wrote on January 16, 2009 at 11:01 AM:

Plot tokens: absolutely. I was really shocked when I found that this battle of apparently cosmic scale turned entirely on who was in possession of a particular tree at a particular moment of time. J.K. Rowling gets criticised a lot for her use of plot tokens, but it seems to me that what she does with them is a lot more meaningful and more rooted in the story than what Cooper does, even though Cooper's world as a whole is richer and deeper.

Importance of Great Britain: because of the tree? Once there is one important magical thing or place or whatever in a country, it's not wholly unreasonable that others would then gather there.

The Drews: I suspect they are meant to be random. They are 'three from the track'; they represent ordinary people.

I have a strong sense that she hadn't really worked out the end in advance; not only does the tree pop up from nowhere, but one might expect to have heard of the White Rider earlier - the gap between her appearing and her being unmasked isn't long enough to be really effective. I wonder if she (Cooper, not the White Rider) had originally planned to write one book for each plot token and one for the final battle, and then Greemwitch happened, changing the schedule and forcing her to finish in a rush.

Kate

Kate wrote on January 16, 2009 at 11:10 AM:

Another Andrew: I'm not sure if the tree is sufficient to explain it, since it's only accessible that one time and the Rising in Arthur's time, for instance, doesn't seem to have anything to do with it.

Excellent point about the pacing, and I don't know.