Right, savour this cause I've got frickin' BAND CAMP for the next THREE FRICKING WEEKS. FRICK.
The first book opens from Sandry's POV. She is a noble girl with flaxen hair, a petite nose,
and the power of HEART. She is locked in a cellar, because the city is overrun by smallpox, her parents just died, and the dead cover the streets; so everyone still alive decides now is the perfect time to form a mob and kill her nurse because she is of an ethnic minority. While everyone was forming a mob to kill a random woman in a random house instead of looting this apparently large and luxurious house, Sandry's nurse locked her in a cellar with a few supplies, hid it with magic, and then tries to draw the mob away which she apparently sucks at because she's killed right outside the door where Sandry can hear everything.
So Sandry sits inside the storeroom with her supplies for a few days, embroidering with her favorite sewing basket that she managed to grab and contemplating the fact that the supplies will last a few weeks but she'll go crazy before those weeks are up and no one will be able to find her and save her. Apparently her nurse didn't think of a way for Sandry to release the spells on the door and get out from the inside, but I forgive, because of mitigating circumstances, i.e. the mob and putting up with Sandry. Then her lamp starts guttering and Sandry realizes she's out of oil and it's dark. She thinks about how Ethnic Minority
wizards mages call light into rope and how rope is similar to thread, which she happens to have, and even though she has shown no aptitude for magic at all she figures what the hell and calls the light into the thread. However in order for the light to stay in the thread she has to keep braiding it as long as she's awake, but luckily she has nothing better to do.
Then we switch to Daja, who is adrift on the Pebbled Sea. Don't ask me why the sea is pebbled, I don't know. Daja's a member of the Ethnic Minorities, and her ship sank while on a trading route because the captain (
Daja's mom- All minor to middling positions of authority in these books are given to Women) decided to leave port too early and got hit by a storm. Daja wakes up and immediately starts wondering why her skin had turned white. Her first thought is that an enemy Ethnic Minority mage did it. Sometimes I wonder if Tammy realizes how racist that sounds. Then she realizes that it's just salt (
silly Ethnic Minority!), and starts contemplating how her whole family is dead and how she is just adrift on a piece of wood and will also die soon. Then she sees a "survival box" or "
suraku" floating just out of reach. She reaches for it, it drifts farther out of reach, and in trying to reach it she exasperating beckons to it like it's a dog. Then her previously unknown magic is like "fine, jeez" and brings the box back so she can grab it. Her reward for discovering that she has a wonderful life of magic ahead of her is three more days of living in a hellhole with no guarantee of a wonderful life of magic because she's still stranded in the middle of a goddamn ocean. She starts bargining with her gods, saying she's still useful, and she can get better at the stuff she's not good at, and then Deus Ex Machina Man shows up on a boat (
He can see the fuuuuttuuuure) and is all like "hey do you want a ride?" and Daja's like "weeeelll I'll have to think abouYES I WANT A FRICKING RIDE" and they sail off into the sunset.
Alright, next is Roach,
the rogue character a child thief who was cruelly tossed out into an unforgiving world at an early age. He has been caught for the third time stealing in a justice system that works on the three strikes and you're out ideal, (
Does that apply to murder, too?) and is in his cell awaiting his trial. He's all lounging on a bed of moss that he's been growing since the first time he was tossed in this cell for a night because the guards keep placing him in the same cell every time, sneaking water to it and sorta talking to it because this was the best foreshadowing to his power Tammy could sneak in. The next day all the little thieves that got caught in Roach's gang are shuttled through an automated trial line, complete with a bored checkout girl/judge. All of the boys who managed not to get caught before now are led off to be forcibly tattooed with an X on the web of their hand, and the boys who have Xs on both hands are brought to the disinterested judge. Roach is eventually brought up to the judge, has the two Xs shown to prove he's a dirty stinking crook, and is about to be assigned to work at the docks when Deus Ex Machina Man, who has of course been sitting next to the judge this whole time (
He can see maaaagggiiiiic) requests to have Roach
as his boytoy sent to the Temple with Deus Ex Machina Man so he can be
reformed. Roach, proving how unreformed he is, considers that the man has money but then looks in his eyes and considers how unfun
it would be to rob him.The judge doesn't care, but the scribe says he doesn't want to fill out papers for a
Roach, and the man's all, Hey, new name, new start! And so Roach changes his name to Briar Moss, because plants.
Tris, my favourite character, is the last introduced. She is at Other Temple, because her family was creeped out by weather stuff when she gets upset and the magic seer was adamantly saying she had no magic, so her family brought her to the temple and left her there and the temple apparently couldn't refuse to take her in. (
Remember, all these characters are ten. Tris is going to have some interesting psych stuff later.) She is placed in a dormitory with other middle-class girls. She lives there for a few weeks. Then, all the girls who have been wronged in some way by her, either because Tris refused to let them cut in front of her or copy her Maths homework (
serious examples), start gossiping loudly about how ugly and fat Tris is at night when they're all in their beds and Tris happens to be a few beds over. Tris keeps trying to ignore them but failing until finally a window bursts open and all the girl's possessions are knocked onto the floor except Tris's. When the dedicates in charge of the dormitory burst in and see Tris is the only undisturbed person/thing there, they go "I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE" and make her pack her bags the next day. Then they realize they need a place to send her to, so they try to pass her off on Deus Ex Machina Man, who's just passing through, (
H'es really just paaaasssiiiinnng thrrroooouuuugggh). He's all like 'Hell no, I need to get other places' which seems reasonable to me, there might be a puppy in trouble somewhere, and Tris gets mad about being talked about like this and it starts hailing indoors. Deus Ex Machina Man looks at her and is all "you sure you don't have magic?" (
apparently he can't actually do all those seer thiiiinnnggs) And Tris is 'pretty fricking sure, yeah'. And Deus Ex Machina Man says "Well, my name is Niko, I'm a seer (
He's actually a seeeeeeeer), and I change my mind, we're going on a
raodtrip to Temple! We're going to be best buddies!" And Tris glares at him, which she'll be doing a lot.
Then we switch back to Sandry, where she' apparently been doing the braiding thing for a couple weeks. Suddenly! She hears people outside who are arguing about 'here's the door, now pick the lock; I don't
see a damn door; it's hidden by magic you idiot; well how am I supposed to pick a lock on a door hidden by magic;
fine I'll unspell the door'; and Sandry's sure that she's gone insane now. The door is thrown open,
Deus Ex Machina Man Niko introduces himself, and one of the idiots with him shoves a lamp in Sandry's face after she's been in a dark storeroom for weeks. She's blinded.
Chapter Ends.
