While re-reading In the Hand of the Goddess, I noticed this line in a conversation between Duke Roger and Alanna:

"Roger bowed. 'I appreciate your honesty, Alan of Trebond. Not many dare be so open with me.'

She smiled crookedly. 'Not many have insanity in their families, either.'"

Wait. Did I miss something? Alanna has insanity in her family?
Did any of you catch this before, and which family member do you think she is referring to?

She uses that line several times in the books. I always assumed that it was just a joke, but I'm not sure.

Its an old Tammy line, i think. It is used by alanna mainly, but i recall Daine and Aly both using it a bit. And Thom is crazy, and if he is with Roger, Alanna definately has insanity in her family!!!
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I think it's just a retaliatory thing.

Although, a lot of people thought her father was quite strange.

That'd make a good backstory, though.

I always thought is was a simple Alanna-ism. I mean, I have insanity in MY family, and I'll casually toss that out when I'm being reckless. So for all we know it could be a great-grandfather or something who was a little off, and not worhty of backstory.

As someone else said - Aly says it (which means she took Alanna's joke seriously or there really IS insanity in the Trebond line). Daine does, too, but more along the lines of referencing her own bout with the wolves before learning about her magic.

Overall, I think it's just a throw-away humorous line.

I think we all have insanity in our families. Have you ever met my uncles?

I agree with what everyone else said - it's just a favourite line of Alanna's.

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I always figured she was making a comment that no one else would fully understand about herself being insane enough to try for her shield.

  

I always thought it was just Alanna retorting to Roger too. But you know, it's possible that her great-aunt was insane or something like that. I agree that Thom was a little out of it too. Anyway, I always assumed it was just a joke.

~Annie

I'm still looking for the fred and george banner.

I thought it was a serious reference to her family-- thought that one of her parents had died due to insanity or something. (her father?)

~*~

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No, her mother died in childbirth and her father never really got over it. I think he died of some illness like consumption - he never seemed to go outside or even leave his study. He wallowed in grief and ancient books.

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aah... see, i being young and foolish probably confused grief for insanity... *smile* thanks!

~*~

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<_n_
 `B'\)
 /^>
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Yeah, I think she just meant it as a joke, though I believe she was sort of (jokingly) referring to her father, who wasn't exactly crazy but did become extremely distant after her mother died. Another thing she may have been referring to could be the switch she and Thom made that started the whole thing...I believe she mentioned to him that if they were caught they'd be in serious trouble and they must have been nuts to be doing it. Or maybe she just thought that, I dunno.

Either way, though, I believe it was meant as a joke with a mildly serious undertone.


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I always figured it was true but she used it as a joke. Like maybe a few generations back one of her relatives was insane, or something.

I can't really see it as a random joke line.

~

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>I can't really see it as a random joke line.

It's funny, but it never actually occoured to me that it might be anything more than exactly that. Now, of course, I'm wondering like anything..

Lass

Yeah I always thought it was a joke and that she didn't seriously mean she had insanity in her family, right?

I remember Aly and definitely Daine using it before...

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Most noble families are a bit inbred... stands to reason.

I use that line occasionally; I had a couple of great-uncles in asylums. We think they actually had early-onset Alzheimer's, though.

Daine thought she was insane.

Moonlightrider

I think that Alanna ment the opposite of what she said. Mabe she ment that she knew things like girls can be knights. The world thought that they couldn't. She was saying that she had uncommen sense

I always figured it was something further back, like the great-great grandfather or something.

hmm... I always just thought it was a joke

i think u use the term 'insainity' to litterally. by insane she probably ment herself, or thom, or her dad. but prbably thom. think about it. read his letters to her.notice the fact that thom RAISES A GUY FROM THE DEAD!!!!!!!!!!!!! i think thats insane.
but thats just my opinion

Thom would have been insane about raising the dead only if he'd had no Gift and wasn't planning to dig them up. Or even if he did dig them up and thought he could do the spells despite having the Gift.

But seriously, folks, if you go back far enough in anyone's tree, you'll find everyone's family had some nutballs, to greater and lesser extent, in it. And these days, with everyone in some kind of therapy or on some kind of medications at some point in her/his life, is it even fair to use it as a judgment?

I had to cut a whole bit with Kel and one of the other squires facing the Ordeal who was genuinely afraid he would go mad and who knew of a previous squire who had suffered a psychotic break in the Chamber. It made for too much book, so it had to go.

But it's a joke. Everyone has someone who copes with alternate realities in their family trees, going sideways along the cousins, or back along the greats. Alanna and Co. are simply being puckish.

And when you're a blue-blooded noble in the Book of Gold like Lord Alan, you're not crazy, only eccentric.

Tammy

“No person is your friend who demands your silence.”
Alice Walker

so if we all pretend we're blue blooded nobels can we tell the nice men trying to put us all in strait-jackets that we arn't crazy, just eccentric?

Charlotte Elizabeth III of Raylon A.K.A CENA-she who weaves smoke and shadow.
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