#polgara

Mr Wolf: certainly, I'm as sure as I am honest!

(I mean, aside from noticing all the Really Unfortunate Racism baked in, but that one I realized ages ago.)

When I was younger, I never once thought much about how Garion is presented as overreacting about his powers, Polgara's relationship to him, and all that. Like, the text, while at times sympathetic, is firmly on the side of "Garion needs to grow up this isn't that big of a deal".

And like, all I've been able to think about while skimming through sections of the first four books is that... I just don't agree. Garion deserves so much better than he's given, my god.

That boy is 14 to 16 during the length of the first five books, and - just. Hello???

Polgara first upends his existence back in the first book, when Captain Brendig catches up to them. She gives him no heads up before hand, no check in after - and he finds out (via eavesdropping, yes, naughty naughty, but still, they never directly tell him and what this means for his relationship to them!) who they are a little later. And all he basically gets told is "this isn't a big deal, your aunt and I are who we are and that's not any different from before, now is it?"

Except it is! Neither Belgarath or Polgara bother - before it comes to even the first of several heads - to straighten things out! And what's worse, considering I only got more fond of Garion and Polgara's relationship in my skimming is that... Polagara and Garion never really have a talk to clear anything up and out. He is made to apologize several times (and he should), but she never does, they never talk more than briefly and not about THEM, really.

Meanwhile, Belgarath and Garion have several emotionally important relationships - and I do like them. But the lack, then, of something similar, between Garion and the woman who definitely is his adoptive mother, stands out.

He kills Chamdar in a really unsettling way, and we do not get any conversation between them where she actually shows any sympathy or support. The there's the whole slave rescue in Nyissa, and Garion blowing up.

And I can't even say I don't understand, exactly, where he's coming from. Given the previous instances - is it strange that a fifteen year old, yanked about as he's been and not getting any good explanations at any point (especially for things relating to himself and his relationship to her), calls Polgara aloof and cruel and inhuman? In her relationship to him, past leaving Faldor's Farm, what we're seeing in moments of crises for Garion, when he'd both needs and deserves some actual adult and familial support, he does not get it! And worse, he gets no understanding, either by other characters or the text itself, basically

Polgara, grey market dealer in antiquities and magical artifacts and master of using showmanship and strategic disdain to secure a sale.