A review by pacifickat
Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher

adventurous mysterious reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

Overall, this was a diverting little story. I like the descriptions and characterizations of the various types of fairies, from the small and impish to the great and terrible. The worldbuilding is quite good, and makes the reader feel like they’ve arrived somewhere vaster than just this story. The plot and structure follow many of the comfortable conventions of traditional fairytale stories, but turn some tropes on their heads in interesting ways. In some ways the main character reminded me of the children in Seanan McGuire’s Every Heart a Doorway,
learning to conform to a world not her own and then unable to fit back into where she came from originally. I also really liked that our heroes often don’t know what to do with the lot they’ve been given. Their uncertainty of purpose and lack of clarity as to the best path forward is refreshing. There is no obvious “right” path to take, and in the end their earned trust in each other is the true tide changer.


Some more detailed thoughts on the story:

 *spoilers to follow...*

1. The feeling of making oneself small and convenient, taking up as little space as possible in a world that doesn’t seem to have room for you as you are, is a painfully familiar one.

“Another fairy might have played up their status as exiled healer, demanded special treatment and catering to their every whim. But Toadling tried to be helpful, and stammered when she was nervous, and had beautiful worried eyes and a homely face. Her transformation into a toad was shocking, true, but […] she was such a small inoffensive toad and such a small inoffensive human. And she went out of her way to change behind buildings and things where people would not see it and be troubled by it.”

I thought it was particularly interesting that one female character, Toadling, makes herself small for human comfort. The other, Fayette, will not, and cannot, because it is not in her nature to do or care what humans think or feel. One is cast as the protagonist, the other the villain. Yet the world isn’t the right shape for either of them, it seems.

2. There’s a type of societal acceptance that is not actual belonging.

The story deals with the idea of being held in contempt even when contorting oneself into unthreatening and unobtrusive shapes, becoming a comfortable emissary of one’s culture in a world that fears differences, holding them in longstanding suspicion.

“‘Poor thing. I don’t think our fairy quite knows what to do with herself.’ Toadling, who had excellent hearing, caught this, and ‘our fairy’ warmed her and frightened her in equal measure.[…] It seemed that his mortal world was determined to lay claim to her in some fashion whether she wanted it or not.”

“If she had pretended to be a grand person, she might have earned resentment. But as it was, she reaped good-natured contempt. Her status was roughly equal to that of the priest, and he was old and at trifle fuzzy, and was also held in affectionate contempt. But he was ‘our priest’ and she was ‘our fairy’, and they were both expected to intercede with other worlds because that was their job. She wondered sometimes if he felt as frightened and overwhelmed as she did […]. He taught her the Lord’s Prayer that she might say it and prove herself not a demon thereby. And then he tried to have no more to do with her.”

The irony is that Toadling was the true princess all along, stolen from her cradle and changed into something magical by the fairies who found her after her abduction and raised her as one of their own. She has all the empathy, fortitude, responsibility, and dutiful self-sacrifice any kingdom would value in a queen, but because she doesn’t look or act the expected part, the truth would never be believed. Mistrusting external appearance is an example of a genre trope done well in this story, I think.

3. It is a refreshing thing when a female character reclaims the word “beautiful” as something she has the power to prescribe rather than having it applied to her externally without her agency.

“‘I have many mothers. If I am hideous, then we are hideous together.’ And that made it easier, because in her heart of hearts she could not believe that her mothers were anything but beautiful.”

4. The gentle knight is another refreshing reimagining of the fairytale trope of masculine chivalry.

Does this story have a damsel in distress? Yes. Is that damsel who we would expect at first glance? No. I think the beauty in this retelling is that the “prince charming” character is charming because he cares so much for things that are unlike himself. He walks carefully and dislikes physical violence. He will never be successful as a knight in the Medieval world, and will never stand out as handsome or brave. He is considerate and introspective. In a reversal of The Frog Prince story, he finds love with a Toadling woman exactly as she is. There is no magic kiss, just long conversations over a campfire. He affirms that she is worth more than she seems to believe, and in this way helps her set herself free without changing anything else about her. I think that’s the more compelling tale in this novella, not the more obvious remix of the Sleeping Beauty narrative.

5. I am uncomfortable with evil babies as villains, even if they are the equivalent of demon spawn in the story – especially if they are female and being “contained”, “silenced”, and kept comatose to deny their agency throughout the narrative.

“‘Can Fayette be cured?’ Toadling shook her head. ‘No, only contained.’”

Yes, I realize the Changeling in this tale is completely dangerous and simply wearing human skin. I still don’t like stories that mark inconvenient, disobedient girls as “devil touched” villains. It sets a bad precedent for laying too much culpability on very young children’s shoulders, when crying, biting objects, grabbing hair (and anything in reach), and throwing tantrums are developmentally normal behaviors. If the expectation is that female children in particular should always be gentle, quiet, unobtrusive, and easy to handle as Toadling is (a harmful trope), many girls would be left feeling out of place (or abused) when trying (or forced) to fit that tiny mold of acceptability. Some girls are born to shake the shape of their cultural context more vocally and forcefully than others, refusing to sit in silence for the convenience and comfort of others. Do they need to learn emotional regulation and how not to harm others in the process? Absolutely. However, stories that label children as evil or “wrong” create a dangerous precedent for how children are understood and treated in the real world.

Additionally, Fayette didn’t conform to the human realm because she didn’t belong there and is entirely out of place through no fault of her own. She could have fit in her own fairy realm, but among humans she is monstrous and seemingly sociopathic. It’s actually rather sad, which Toadling admits even as she can’t figure out a better alternative to handling the situation – a situation which is well above her pay grade and power level mind you. The gods, it seems are the real villains, stealing each other’s children for sport and then dispassionately watching them wreak havoc on the human realm, ordering unequipped lesser fairies to handle their messes.

6. This story breaks the trope that love is always enough in the end.

The villain, who appears to be the damsel in distress, cannot be loved into changing to fit the human realm. I found this turning of the trope that love always prevails to be refreshing, but also sad. Love is powerful, but it cannot make Fayette into an entirely different sort of being, even if it is not her fault for being out of place. Her presence is cataclysmic in the human realm, but she did not choose that fate.

7. The paralysis of being without a long-held task or mission was a keen observation to include.

There is story beat after the main conflict has been resolved where Toadling no longer has to single-handedly manage the situation as she has for centuries. The text describes her feeling of being a bit lost, not knowing what to do now that she has no clearly defined duty to tend. This feels like an apt observation, something many feel when they graduate college, leave the military, become empty nesters, or retire at the end of a long career. ‘What next?’ can feel a bit hallow and weird. Uncertainty can be scary. The fact that Toadling had others in her life to help her embrace a future of her choosing is a lovely and hopeful detail to include in the epilogue. 
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