The Death Gate Cycle

For those who like Death Gate Cycle, I made a public server! For discussions, sharing art, fic, and anything else! Feel free to use as much as you would like.

Much of this server is a work-in-progress, so any suggestions on what channels to add or things to incorporate are encouraged! You can also just talk about death gate, it’s all good. Please remember to be courteous to everyone!

Nearly three months after I started, it’s finally time to say goodbye to the Death Gate Cycle. I’m a bit torn to be honest. I wouldn’t describe any of these books or the series as a whole as amazing, but on the other hand, I can’t at this point think of a single other series I’ve read that’s this long, this cohesive, and that maintains this level of quality throughout. And I guess maybe that’s amazing in its own way.

The final entry is a story of love, redemption, and the nature of divinity. It brings together vast forces of unimaginable power in an apocalyptic confrontation, casts down proud and powerful leaders, stymies the machinations of devious foes, and ultimately is resolved by a dog biting a dude in the junk.

As for this review, well… I’m going to do my level best not to write about any of that.

This is probably the best description for them. And Haplo is the grumpiest of them all. (Or used to be). Now I’m imagining Alfred as the nice, well-meaning neighbor that accidentally knocks over Haplo’s lawn gnomes when he comes over to give him a house-warming gift. Haplo also has one of those ‘Beware of Dog’ signs when his dog is the most welcoming animal there ever was.

The little fanservice in the end will always be my favorite - it’s a nice end to a book that, while still had its problems (like Hugh’s, uh, less than stellar ending), was still really fun. Also, that would be a pretty awkward family reunion if the real Rue ever showed up, wouldn’t it? Luckily, Patryns have shown themselves to adapt to situations really well, as we have seen. :P

When it comes to Rue, I’m sure things would work out. Eventually. But not before the other parts of Patryn nature make for a great big tangled mess of drama and passive aggression and hurt feelings that absolutely no one but Alfred will acknowledge even exist. And yet, somehow they’d work their way through all of it and come out the other side as a real family.

“I don’t understand. Why would I be angry that my parents rescued and adopted literally every Rue in the Labyrinth that wasn’t me? It isn’t like I was expecting anything from them after they abandoned me. As an infant. Without even bothering to tell me their names. Or leave a note. Maybe a portrait. Or a dagger. You know, to fight off the horrible armies of monsters I couldn’t defend myself from.”

Time for more Death Gate. Where this time Weis and Hickman heard you liked death so they put some more death in your Death Gate so you could read about death while you read Death Gate.

There are a few different places I could take this review. But what really comes to mind is something I missed the first time around but has become much clearer to me over the years after having it rubbed into my face by every series out there and particularly Star Trek.

It turns out that the more some fantasy culture brags about some part of its culture, the less that thing is actually a real part of their culture.

For example, using Star Trek. Vulcans brag about their logical nature but are in fact barely controlled seething masses of emotions who are astonishingly bad at even the most simple logic. The Klingons are a proud warrior race whose culture is centered around honor and hand to hand combat, but essentially every Klingon we ever see is a dirty, lying, dishonorable coward who couldn’t win a thumb wrestling match against an arthritic Ferengi. And humans in Star Trek pride themselves on their peaceful nature and their ability to resolve problems without murdering everyone around them…

I bring all of that up because in The Death Gate Cycle, we have a race of obscenely powerful sorcerers who pride themselves on their honesty, trustworthiness, wisdom, and just general all-around goodness.

They’re called the Sartan, and this book is about them.

Consider yourself warned.

So Patryns in the Labyrinth canonically have same-gender marriage (WELL it specifies that that practice isn’t necessarily romantic but then Xar and Marit rune-bond and they call each other husband and wife SOOOO) and I get the impression that they’d be pretty open about something like polyamory, like, it’s already a bit weird to have a committed partner in the Labyrinth as far as I can tell, so why not a poly relationship, you know? 

On the other hand, I get the impression that the Sartan culture would be more closed about that kind of thing (can’t really point to anything specific, just an impression) and then Alfred spent all that time in Arianus and yeah, basically I seriously doubt the concept of a relationship with Haplo and Marit would occur to him.

So I’m reading Seventh Gate and I can’t stop thinking: Marit and Haplo think they’re already in a relationship with Alfred, but Alfred doesn’t know that’s a thing. Like, they all know how they feel about each other but Alfred’s thinking “I want them to be happy, I’ll remove myself from this” and that’s how the kids come to call him Grandfather, because Haplo’s like “Well if Marit’s mother and I’m father what do you want them to call you?” And Alfred’s like “hahaha Grandfather works I guess” and Haplo’s like “well that’s weird but Alfred’s always pretty weird so whatever”

Dude I have been thinking about how the Patryns might think about polyarmory for a long while too. Because like! The Patryns have always tried to go beyond and outright rebel against the Sartan’s own conservatism in multiple ways (in magic, in their ways of life, their perception of mensch). The binding ceremony-marriage thing is one of them, since they also can bind with a person of the same gender (I wish the books had shown this instead of just told but oh well). And they also have a concept of sharing things, that the Sartan do not. They share food, the raising of kids, and lovers too. So!!

Alfred would not think twice that his relationship with both Haplo and Marit could be something more, because he doesn’t want to intrude, or ruin things. But I like to think that Haplo and Marit could be very open to it, and slowly get Alfred to understand it, they accept him, and love him to this level. And Alfred is so very open to understanding, he just doesn’t think he deserves all the good things in life (but he totally does.)

talesofsymphoniac:

likes-words-and-shrimp:

talesofsymphoniac:

I’ve been on a bit of a Death Gate kick so I wanna talk (for a long time apparently wow) about the romances in the series, especially the treatment of women in the romances

Keep reading

Loved all of this. Orla/Alfred is probably my most favorite romance in the books, as I feel it gives both of them growth, and delves into Orla’s character pretty well. Also that it showed how they are both pretty similar in a lot of ways, actually? They’re very passive people that know that things within their societies aren’t correct, but are also hesitant to change it. Orla tried to do so, and it only resulted in some of her people getting sent to the Labyrinth instead. Alfred tried in other ways, such as with Bane, and it failed him hard. Honestly, them vowing to go together and take their exile by Samah just- It showed how far they’d come! And then the authors ruined it by killing Orla off because why not. (I am very bitter about this STILL).

Haplo/Marit go through their own growths, too, and yeah, Marit paralleled Haplo’s own journey very much. Just, I really really wished they hadn’t imposed the weird husband/wife thing with her and Xar? It didn’t? Really need to do that?? They’d already done this with Iridal/Sinistrad, and Orla/Samah, so it was, pretty redundant by this point. Also that whole rune-binding scene was awkward, and kinda made me dislike both of them for a while. I liked Marit afterwards, but that scene totally soured me on everything. (Also, if Xar had that ability, why didn’t he just use it on Haplo before? IT’S VERY CONVENIENT, WHY DIDN’T HE? Answer: the authors just pulled that out of nowhere.)

Pryan relationships were the most uninteresting of the bunch, especially with how sudden these relationships were. And I liked Aleatha and Drugar, but again, SUDDEN. I’d rather it have been a friendship instead of one-sided romance, but well, Pryan likes its romance. 

Jonathan and Jera is actually something I wanted to write about one day - dunno, there’s a lot to build off of I think. Also, “Haplo found her attractive too, and blamed Alfred for him finding a Sartan attractive.” Well, there was that one section in Fire Sea where Alfred was dancing and Haplo was -entranced- so hey, maybe, haha.

The King and Queen of Arianus I hadn’t thought about too much, but I’m starting to get intrigued now. It was a rather nice surprise happy ending for them both, wasn’t it?

Heck yeah, I always thought there was more that could have been done with Orla after the fourth book and instead they just killed her, like???? All that character development and focus on her character, making her the most developed female character up to that point, and she just gets killed offscreen???????? But yeah those are some good points about Orla

THE WEIRD RUNE-BINDING THING WITH XAR AND MARIT. Like, it was doubly weird because they’d already established that the Patryns had a “marriage” ritual and then it was weirdly retconned, like “oh well this is even MORE intimate even though we already said that that ceremony was already ridiculously rare” and also, yes, it would have made so much more sense for Xar to do it with Haplo, but then they couldn’t have given it all those uncomfortably sexual vibes (well, they could have, but then it’d be gay and uncomfortably sexual, not to mention vaguely incestuous) and obviously that wouldn’t do.

Honestly Aleatha and Drugar would have been awesome as just a friendship, and I prefer to read it that way, viewing Drugar’s feelings as primarily friendship even if there’s a crush involved there, too. It worked for their character arcs to give Drugar a crush on her, but also meh, you know.

Jonathan and Jera have a lot of potential tbh, it just isn’t fulfilled because Jera dies. I would have liked to see how her character could have been expanded otherwise, and her relationship with Jonathan, too. And lol, I think there’s an actual line where Haplo’s like “Jera would be a good partner in the Labyrinth, wait, what did I just think, damn you Alfred” and it’s like. Okay then.

And idk I just really like the King and Queen, their story made me smile a lot even though it was so small :)

Man, I’ll always be so bitter about Orla’s story though, just so much potential thrown to the wayside because the authors had written themselves into a corner with her (at least I’m assuming). I don’t totally resent that she was a tragic character, just… they could have done it better?? I once read a fanfic where it still went through with her death, but instead of being trapped in the Labyrinth with Alfred, she had been exiled by herself, with no hope of ever getting back. So she was stuck in a bad place with no support, cut off from everyone, so the circumstances of her death I thought made more sense there. BUT, that’s fanfic, and the book authors instead just wrote her off in such a lazy way, arrgghh.(But an AU where she lives though, ah, that would be something).

Haha, it would’ve been very uncomfortable with Haplo and Xar with the rune binding, which is why I very much believe they came up with that at the very last minute. They should’ve just not inputted it at all, because it also makes one of the few highlights of Elven Star just… not seem as important anymore. That Haplo flashback to the marriage ritual was one of my favorites, but now there’s RUNE-BINDING for SUPER BONDING, and it’s like, man whatever. I’m just looking at the rune-binding as something Xar mostly made up for his own purposes (which he apparently used plenty of times), or something that was a more invasive corrupted version of the marriage ritual (which is already called a binding ceremony anyway). Because I love that marriage ritual and I wanna keep it with the vows and everything plz.

I forgot to mention this before, but yeah, the Haplo/Alake was all the NOPE for me. lol Haplo, why you gotta do this? I guess it foreshadowed that Xar, which he imagined telling him to take advantage of the situation, is a huge creeper. Moment of weakness for him, I’ll get past that for Haplo, but STILL THAT WAS WEIRD.

Johnathan and Jera situation kinda catches my attention since we never see Jera again after Fire Sea, and I keep kinda wondering why Johnathan was basically the chosen one/messiah for that world. Keep playing with the idea that they interact again after Haplo and Alfred leave, and maybe that’s why we don’t see her afterwards? (It’s a plot bunny that keeps teasing me).

And lol, I think there’s an actual line where Haplo’s like “Jera would be a good partner in the Labyrinth, wait, what did I just think, damn you Alfred” and it’s like. Okay then.

Haplo just constantly blames Alfred for these vague moments of attraction it’s hilarious. And they’re always just randomly thrown out there too. Or when just thinking about Alfred in general. Pretty sure in Serpent Mage he compared the color of his runes to Alfred’s eyes please. (I could swear he did this in Elven Star, too, comparing the sky to his eyes before). Haplo, you and your Alfred obsession.

Yeah, it’s not really so much Orla’s death that makes me :/ as much as the wasted potential there. Like, come on. After all the attention and development in the fourth book, you’re just gonna kill her offscreen? Weird choice.

“One of the few highlights to Elven Star” EXACTLY lol, Elven Star is honestly my least favorite one, it felt so disjointed from the others? It pretty much felt like it was there to 1. Introduce Pryan as a Thing that Exists and 2. Set Haplo up for the beginning of his character development in Fire Sea. I mean, it’s got themes of its own that it explores, like every book, but… yeah, not my favorite entry. But the binding ceremony was one of the few details that I liked, and then, like you said, they kinda threw that away for RUNE-BINDING. DOUBLE MAXIMUM SOUL-BONDING. I could almost see Xar having just made it up except that for some reason it seems to be an established part of Patryn culture, which is ALREADY weird considering the regular binding ceremony was made out as super rare already. Yeah, I’ve never liked that explanation, that’s for sure.

Haplo/Alake is a world of NOPE like. ‘Nuff said there tbh. Do not pass go, do not collect $200.

Actually they did the same with Hugh by the end of the series. His character was so good both in book 1 and 5, and after that I think they floundered on what they wanted to do with him next, and finally finished him off with an off-screen death. Almost even less attention from that than with Orla, lol it’s so sad though.

Oh yeah, the Alfred obsession is real. It’s weirdly there even as early as in Elven Star, where a passing line just mentions how Haplo felt an affinity for Alfred, and how they were both ‘strangers to the rest of the world - but they were not strangers to each other.’ Haplo, man, you knew him for like a week calm down. 

Modern era!Death Gate Cycle because the idea of Grundle and Alake as college students is waaaaay too tempting for me.

And I just realized Alfred hasn’t changed clothes in months.

HAPLO YOU KNOW IT LOOKS BEAUTIFUL. DOG UNDERSTANDS.

I don’t think I’ve seen fanart of Alfred dancing before, which is like his entire thing. Which makes me love it all the more yes thank you so much.

We don't really have any fandom memes but if there was ever going to be one... I think we know what it is!