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This is MJ, I'm an author, I'm an artist, I'm an analyzer.

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Find all my work at MJMunoz.com

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Prepare yourself for some off-the-cuff book talk as I tackle another middle grade book chapter by chapter.

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So, the Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander, Chapter Two, features Taron meeting Gwydian,

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this figure out of his fantasies, this figure out of myth and legend as he knows it.

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I mean, he thinks he's true, he knows he's a real person, but in his mind Gwydian is this mythic feature,

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mythic creature, rather, and he has certain expectations of him, and when he meets him, when he sees him,

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he's nothing like he expects.

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We learn that Taron has never left...

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Sorry.

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We learn that Taron has never left Cairdolvin, and at one point it says,

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and this was the farthest he'd ever gone, ever dared to stray, or something like that, from Cairdolvin,

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and at this point Henwin is just looking at it, and he keeps chasing after her.

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If we go back real quick, he encounters the Horned King and his horde, his warband, I guess you would say,

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and when that happens, he is attacked by one of his men.

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What's the significance?

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No, it's just this guy's like a cruel face, so he runs over, he pulls out his sword because he spots him,

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and Taron tries to run, and he splashes him across his back.

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I don't know if it's like shoulder to hip, or if it's shoulder to shoulder, or where the slash lands,

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but anyway, the guy splashes him, and he doesn't give chase after him.

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I wonder if he thinks he killed him, I don't know, or if he figures it's good enough.

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I'm not really sure. I'm not sure why the guy tried to kill him.

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I don't want to just assume that he's a mustache-twirling villain, and he's going to kick puppies and things like that

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as his heart leads him to.

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So, anyway, I don't really understand the full context of this guy and why he attacked him,

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but yeah, that was interesting that he did that, and anyway, that led to Taron meeting Gwydion.

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Somehow Gwydion found him, and he took care of him.

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He put his cloak on him and kind of patched him up.

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It doesn't really say, it doesn't fully say that he rendered care to him, but it sounds like he rendered care to him.

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And they have this conversation, and really my main point that I want to get back to is that when he sees Gwydion,

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he doesn't believe it's Gwydion.

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I think he actually says, like, you're not Gwydion.

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And then after taking him in for a moment, he realizes, oh, I guess this guy is Gwydion.

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And it's because his skin is dark from the sun.

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He looks ragged.

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He's wearing, I think, a gray cloak.

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His hair is gray streaked, and I think they described him as having wolfish eyes.

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No, it's the gray streaked hair of a wolf is what it is.

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He's got these green flecked eyes.

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And anyway, just Tarin doesn't expect him to be him based on what he knows and based on, I guess, his preconceived notions and his prejudices.

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And that's really interesting.

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And it reminds me of the great line from The Fellowship of the Ring about how Frodo doesn't want to trust Strider at first.

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He says, actually, if you were an agent of the enemy, I think you would look fairer and feel fowler.

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And obviously, if you think about that for a moment, he's saying that Aragorn Strider looks foul, but he feels fair.

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So there's something. He's a grim guy.

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He doesn't look like a friendly person or whatever.

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He looks like somebody you should be scared of, but he feels like somebody you can trust.

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And that feeling only comes after the interaction.

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And we have kind of a similar thing here.

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And I wouldn't be shocked to find out that Lloyd Alexander was inspired by Tolkien at all.

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I mean, I don't know for a fact, but I wouldn't be shocked.

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And it reminds me of that in a really positive way.

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So I like that a lot.

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But the overall chapter, it's well written.

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It draws Tarin out of his world.

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It gives him a moment to see the enemy.

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He sees the Horned King, and he's terrified by him.

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The dude's shirtless in a cape.

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Why not?

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And his arms are stained crimson with blood.

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Whoa, he's blue. So I don't know.

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It was something.

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And he's got these crazy flashing eyes that are contrasted by the pale skull skin, human skull.

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Or not the skin, but by the pale bone of the human skull that is on his face with these cruel antler horns coming out.

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That's how Eligintiger describes it.

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And it makes the guy scary. It makes his warband scary.

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And yet Tarin is so foolhardy that he says, give me a sword.

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We'll go attack them. We'll stop them.

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And we'll stop them from getting to Cairdalldun and whatever.

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And Gwydin says something really interesting.

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I have a quote from him.

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But he says something else interesting, which is that,

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I do not value my life more than another man's, but...

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And then he says something.

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But he's basically saying, I don't want to face this guy and die right now.

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You want to be brave? You want to be heroic? That's great for you, kid.

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But I'm not throwing my life away.

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Instead, we should do this.

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And by the end of the chapter, he's saying, it's kind of funny that we've met here.

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And I can't take you back to Cairdalldun.

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Henwin's not there. That's who I was going to see.

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Yes, this great prince and warrior was going to see a pig.

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Because she has information that is vital to the Rebel Rebellion.

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To the Rebel Alliance, I guess.

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And, anyway.

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I was thinking, she's the MacGuffin of this story.

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And I don't remember... We can talk about that later.

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Anyway, so he is interested in talking to Henwin.

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Or getting information from her.

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And he can't do that.

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But now he's met Tarn.

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Tarn wants to fight with him.

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And he's saying, no, I'm not going to take you to go fight, kid.

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He does say, I will take you with me.

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Because I'm not going to waste time going back there.

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And I can't leave you there and have you be in danger.

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If we get there before the warband, you'll be in danger and you could be killed.

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If we get there after them, there's no point in being there.

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Because Henwin is out here and we need to find her.

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So you're going to ride with me.

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And we're going to leave in the morning.

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And, you know, get some sleep.

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And this is another fun thing.

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Which is that Tarn is shocked to realize that a hero would have to sleep on the floor.

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Sleep on the ground.

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And he is wounded in his back.

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So I can understand why he's extra grumpy about that.

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But, you know, the hardened, tested, proven Gwydian is just...

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He's sitting up leaning against a tree to go to sleep.

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Which cannot be very comfortable.

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But he's making it happen.

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And this kid's thinking, huh, I didn't expect that it would be like this.

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And that's kind of where the chapter closes.

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And I think it's really wonderful.

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I think it's really wonderful for a couple reasons.

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Like it shows us just how rude Tarn is.

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It shows Tarn how unprepared he is.

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And yet it closes on him still thinking that he could be handed a sword.

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And he could stand up against the Horn of King.

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And it also sets his expectation or sets this...

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How do you say this?

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How do I say this?

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That's the board question.

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I don't care how you say it because I can't hear you.

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Gwydian's question about who's destiny...

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Who's destined to help who and whose quest is, you know, kind of this book is about is interesting.

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And I mean the obvious answer is, oh, it's Tarn's because he's who we started the book with.

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But it's not always so.

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And he says something else that is very important, I think, very resonant.

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I think it's a great quote, which is that the deed...

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Is it the deed is more important than the doer of the deed?

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The task is more...

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The deed matters more than the one who does it.

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I think that's the exact quote.

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The deed...

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I have this in my show notes.

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The deed matters more than the one who does it.

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And I think it's a really interesting idea.

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It's very deep.

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And I don't know what to do with that, but I feel like it's part of the heart of this book, maybe part of the heart of the story, perhaps.

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Anyway, I just keep thinking about this and thinking about this.

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It was a joy to get back to the book of three.

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I'm very excited to see or to get into the next chapter next week and talk about it with you.

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I'm really enjoying it.

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There's a lot of depth here, kind of more than I expected, more than I remembered.

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And going through it slowly has given me the chance to really appreciate it.

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So anyway, let me know what you think about it and how much you like this chapter, what you think of Gwydion and his horse.

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Mary doing nuts on her name.

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I don't know the name of the horse, but he's got a cool white horse.

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And you get to see a tiny bit of a relationship between them because they've been through so much together, which is cool.

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So, yeah, let me know what you think about this and look forward to the next one.

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And also check out my chapter by chapter coverage of the Secret Garden.

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I'm up to chapter six.

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I finished chapter six of Secret Garden.

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I have that in the queue in the podcast feed over on the website, mjwinos.com, where you can find everything else I'm doing.

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And it's a really cool book.

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I really like it a lot.

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And I also look forward to continuing to go through that one.

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It's pretty good so far.

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I hope you enjoyed that.

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Please remember to like, share, subscribe.

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I invite you to comment, ask questions and share your thoughts with me.

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It's always more fun when you're part of the conversation.

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Until next time, keep reading, be well and do good things.

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Visit MJMunoz.com for more of my work and help me build up the fortress fiction.