Divided Allegiance and Oath of Gold (The Deed of Paksennarion 2 and 3)

Divided Allegiance and Oath of Gold (The Deed of Paksennarion 2 and 3)
Elizabeth Moon, 1988, 1989

Premise: Sequels to Sheepfarmer's Daughter. The continuing adventures of mercenary Paks as she decides what kind of warrior she wants to be. Content warnings for torture and more, explained below.

I had such mixed feelings about these books. I liked them, sort of? Despite the clunky way the story seemed to wander and skip important bits. Except then you have the climax and point of the third book, which.... nope. 

I liked book two, on the whole. The mercenary company Paks is part of begins to be involved with some less-than-savory work, so she breaks off on her own. She has two separate adventures, which both point gently toward her being a destined hero, but from her perspective she's just trying to do right by her family and the communities she passes through. Finally, she ends up enrolling in paladin training and the second half of the book turns into "adventures at paladin school" for a while. And that's a lot of fun! Then near the end, she joins a quest and terrible things happen to her and she's struggling with severe trauma by the end of book two. 

The plot is a bit piecemeal, but overall interesting and ends on a low note for the character to build back from. 

Then in book three that building back happens way too much offscreen for my taste. Some of that part was compelling, but then there was a chapter break and suddenly time has passed and she thinks she's a paladin and immediately faces a weird initiation and is blessed by the gods. Wait, what? I mean, yes, you were implying that she had a destiny this whole time, but it still felt like it went from 0 to 200 with little warning. 

The book tells us that the doubts and difficulties she faced along the way make her a better, more compassionate paladin, but I'm not sure I bought that by the actions that were actually written about. 

Now all paladined up with new powers, Paks starts on a quest, the various phases of which take up the rest of the book. The point of the quest is painfully cliche and upholds stereotypically patriarchal power, and the book even notes at the end that this is what she's remembered for. Yikes. Also near the end is an extended scene of graphic torture and rape -- which is very much played as though she's a selfless, pure, Christian martyr instead of a fantasy paladin (except that she lives through it explicitly because of her gods' interference), so that just made me uncomfortable and unhappy for the rest of the book. 

However, it was definitely exciting enough to keep me reading up until then (and I read the rest even though the final battle was kind of boring and too long).

I have an omnibus of this on my bookshelf, so this was read as part of my current mission to decide which books to keep. And I'm definitely of two minds about this one. I liked a lot about it, but I not only found the end unsatisfying, but I felt it kind of undermined the good that came before. 

Divided Allegiance - 3 Stars

Oath of Gold - 2 Stars