The Castle of Llyr

[cornerofmadness]

The Castle of Llyr by Lloyd Alexander

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I thought I had read all of the Prydain books but listening to this audio book I'm not so sure any more. Nothing was familiar and everything was disappointing. This should have been Eilonwy's story but it wasn't. If you look at the blurb, you're certainly expecting it, even knowing that yes, Taran is the main character of the series. I kept reminding myself that this was written in the mid 1960s so I shouldn't have been shocked that the only girl in the series is basically benched and waiting for rescue. (it's not wonder there was such a wave of self-rescuing princesses and why as a child I identified so hard with Princess Leia who played a large role in her own rescue).

Eilonwy is sent away from Caer Daerban and Taran to a small kingdom to learn how to be a young princess vs being brought up on a farm with an assistant pig keeper as a best friend. Eilonwy is upset by this, Taran is even more so to the point he and Gurgi go with her to the kingdom just so he can check it out and hope it's good enough for her. Once there things go from bad to worse when Taran catches wind of the fact the king and queen plan to marry her off to their hapless son, Prince Rhun who has never been challenged a day in his life and is utterly useless at most things (to his credit he's somewhat aware of this and wants to change it which is his arc in this thing)

Just as Taran runs into both Flam and Gwydion (who just so happen to be there, knowing something bad is about to go down), Eilonwy is kidnapped by the king's top man who is a servant of Archen who still wants her own power back and to rule all of Prydain. Naturally the men go off to rescue her and I'm actually okay with that part. I should want her friends to help.

What bugged me was we almost never see her again until the last quarter of the book (so for about half this short novel she's M.I.A.) and when we do, Archen has her bespelled and mindless. SIGH. Worse, Eilonwy is taken because she's of a powerful magical lineage and is on the cusp of womanhood and being able to access those powers. That's why Archen wants her. She has the potential to be more powerful than any of the men in this story (as does Archen).

So how are the only two women in the book treated? SPOILERS!!!

They are broken. Yes, you read that right, they are broken. To save everyone and herself, Eilonwy burns up all her magic (or some equivalent nonsense). Her magic is gone. She is crushed. She is not okay. The one thing she wanted to be an enchantress has been stripped from her forever (and I know how this feels when an injury robbed me of the ability to do the only job I ever truly wanted within a few years after achieving that goal). She is broken.

She heartbrokenly says "I'll only be just a girl,"

Prince Gwydion responds, "That is more than enough cause for pride." And yeah okay that's problem feminist and forward thinking for the freaking 60's but damn, yeah it is but she just had all her potential ripped from her for very little reason. There should have been another way to do this and it smacks of worry the girl might overshadow our male hero. Eye roll.

Worse, she's left with Prince Rhun's family (adamant she will chose who she marries and not some older man, we'll see how that turns out) because now she needs to be trained to be a lady even more than before because of the changes. Sure Taran (and Rhun) get their big growth moments, what was Eilonwy's? Not losing it after all that was done to her? Sigh.



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