Spoiler clearance: Toll the Hounds

   I like Aranatha. Especially since page 371 when she is saying: ‘Do you feel me, Nimander?’ This sentence is so not medieval and yet so very damn cool. Erikson probably considered it for a minute, hesitated, and then decided to just go for it. Really gives us a good sense of who that girl really is: some sort of young Alanis Morissette, at the time of her first album. Wild and wise. (Actually I think she uses these words exactly, in one of her first songs.)

   Anyway, Crone said this funny thing about Rake’s kin: ‘The Tiste Andii are not a people prone to sudden attacks of joy, are they? Dancing into darkness? The wild cheerful cavort into the future?’

   I believe Aranatha to be an exception. She could very well do that stuff – she’s weird enough, isn’t she? Not as far gone as Sinn. Not as sad as Beak.

   Black sheep of the Andii, then. What’s not to like?