...in the continuing RPG tie-in novel saga. I'm going to be doing art for the rest of the evening instead of reading this book and thinking about all the skeevy gender and racial politics in the series, but I thought I'd let this part of the book speak for itself:



This is the introductory scene for the majority of our Generic RPG Party, which consist of Fredegar "Fret" Rockcrusher, a dwarf scholar who appears to be the prissy etiquette master for his king, or some such thing, Gabriel, a male human fighter, and Dove Falconhand, a female human ranger. In this scene they are getting ready to enter the presence of the king and Fret is trying to get Dove to take the formality level seriously and change out of her travel-stained clothing, while she's enjoying twitting him.

"I mean, you do have an audience with Helm Dwarf-friend," Fret went on, regaining some pride. "One should be proper when seeing the Master of Sundabar."

"Indeed one should," Dove readily agreed. "Yet all I have to wear you see before you, dear Fret, stained and dirtied from the road. I am afraid I shall not cut a very fine figure in the eyes of Sundabar's master. He and my sister have become such friends." It was Dove's turn to feign a vulnerable pout, and though her sword had turned many a giant into vulture food, the strong ranger could play the game better than most.

"Whatever shall I do?" She cocked her head curiously as she glanced at the dwarf. "Perhaps," she teased. "If only..."

Fret's face began to brighten at the hint.

"No," Dove said with a heavy sigh. "I could never impose so upon you."

It really just stuck in my craw that the only major non-evil female character I've seen so far is introduced using transparently ridiculous feminine wiles, even though it's supposed to be her teasing an old friend, who only mostly falls for it (he's mentioned later as not being entirely sure he believes her). I'd be a lot happier if we saw her fighting prowess first and established the joking nature of the relationship before we saw this scene. As it is, all we know is that (a) she's good at pretending to be a simpering idiot and (b) men in this world fall for that.

Blarg.