Till We Have Faces: Difference between revisions

''"Oh no, child. What would become of us if they were?"'' }}

 

 

 

Her happiness, such as it is, ends abruptly: after the people of Glome begin worshiping Istra's beauty, Glome is stricken by famine and plague. The high priest of the goddess Ungit declares that these calamities are divine punishment for blasphemy, and that they will end when Istra is sacrificed to Ungit's son, the god of the mountain, the Shadowbrute. The King agrees, over Orual and the Fox's objections (Istra herself is at peace with this decision). Orual falls sick from despair on the night of the sacrifice, so she is unconscious while Istra is chained to a tree at the edge of the god's country and left for the Shadowbrute.

 

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* [[Abusive Parent]]: The King, particularly to Orual. He has no problem calling her ugly to her face and beats her several times.

* [[All Take and No Give]]: Orual is the Giver.

* [[Beauty Equals Goodness]], [[Subverted Trope|subverted]]

* [[Celibate Hero]]: Orual, appropriately enough, given her antagonism to the local love deities.

* [[Crossover Cosmology]]: Implied in the final chapters. (Not to the characters themselves, it should be noted. Modern readers, however, may be able to discern the connections.)

* [[Demythtification]]: {{spoiler|initially.}}

* [[The Ditz]]: Orual's other sister, Redival.

* [[Emotions vs. Stoicism]]: The Fox's character arc, to an extent. He gets bonus points for being a literal Stoic philosopher.

* [[Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep"]]: The king of Glome is, perhaps understandably, simply the King to everyone, save for at the very beginning when he is introduced by his given name, Trom. Similarly, the elder priest of Ungit is simply the Priest.

* [[The Faceless]]: Orual in her mask.

* [[Fairest of Them All]]: Aphrodite's jealousy of Psyche.

* [[It Gets Easier]]: Bardia has Orual slaughter a pig in order to prepare her for killing Argan.

* [[Jerkass Gods]]: Most of the people of Glome see their gods as petty, self-serving forces of nature and try to avoid attracting their attention as much as possible. Orual ''wishes'' the gods were just mindless brutes. The truth is...complicated.

* [[Lady of War]]: Orual.

* [[Legend Fades to Myth]]: Orual lives long enough to see her sister's life become the Eros and Psyche myth.

* [[Love Goddess]]: Glome's two main gods, Ungit and the god of the Grey Mountain, are identified with Aphrodite (Venus) and Eros (Cupid), respectively. At the end of the novel the priest of Ungit even calls himself the priest of Aphrodite.

* [[Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane]]: It's kept ambiguous whether the mysterious events attributed to the Gods actually ''are'' divine in nature. {{spoiler|Up until the moment that Orual sees the God of the Mountain with her own eyes.}}

* [[My Beloved Smother]]: Orual, to Istra.

* [[Painting the Fourth Wall]]: The last paragraph of the book is in italics, signifying that it's in a different handwriting from the rest of the book, namely that of {{spoiler|Arnom, who found Orual dead, her head resting on the scroll she was writing the story on}}.

* [[Perspective Flip]]: The book is a retelling of the myth of Cupid and Psyche, but with Psyche's older sister as the "hero." {{spoiler|However, the book ends up inverting this trope.}}

* [[Plucky Girl]]: Istra.

* [[Promotion to Parent]]: Istra's mother died in childbirth, and their father does not care for any of his daughters, so Orual comes to see herself as Istra's mother.

* [[Star-Crossed Lovers]]: Orual and the married Bardia.

* [[Title Drop]]: "How can they meet us face to face till we have faces?"

* [[Unreliable Narrator]]: Orual realizes she is one after finishing the first half of the book.

* [[White Mask of Doom]]: Orual's veil is described as white, and the illustrations portray it as a white mask, featureless save for two eye holes. Both her enemies and her subjects find it creepy.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Fantasy Literature]]

[[Category:The Fifties]]