Dorothea Vol 1

[meganbmoore]

 In the medieval town of Nauders, albino children are viewed as special and are protected. The outside world, however, fears albinos, and condemns them as witches. Dorothea is an albino of Nauders who has been raised been raised to be a swordmaiden and defend the town. However, when her childhood friend, Gyurk, returns from two years in the mercenary corps (with, it seems, a massive torch for Dorothea) with a proposal to keep Nauders protected from the war (the mercenary corps will put Nauders under their protection, provided Nauders provides them with soldiers) Dorothea decides to leave Nauders with him and join the mercenaries in the war.

The first volume deals primarily with introducing us to Dorothea and Gyurk’s characters, and the conflict between the relatively peaceful Nauders and the outside world, as well as Dorothea’s idealism and the more jaded worldview Gyurk acquired while away. I was expecting it to be mostly action, but this volume, at least, was pretty character driven. Albinos seem to be rather commonplace-if prejudiced against-in this world, as well as having certain mystical powers that aren’t fully explained yet, though Dorothea seems to think she’s less powerful than most. It hasn’t really explained yet why Nauders reveres albinos while the outside world doesn’t, but the new lord of Nauders (also the father of Princess Else, another albino and a childhood friend of Dorothea and Gyurk’s) shares the outside world’s view.

A few small things that amused me for unknown reasons:

1. When Gyurk first appears, the translation calls him "Gyrich." When Dorothea later wakes up to see him waiting beside her bed (she passed out after the battle from too much sun, which, I believe, is a RL problem with albino-ism[?]) she hugged him and went "Gyurck! Gyurk! Gyurk!" I thought it was an odd translation of sobbing, which would make sense under the circumstances, but then I realized that it was his name.
2. In the opening battle where we meet Dorothea, the bandits she fights keep wondering about the hooded "male" warrior and going "He! He! He!" I wanted to shout at them "Do you not see the skirt? Do you not see the obvious girl parts? They are very modestly covered girl parts, but they are very clearly girl parts!"
3. Right after the "Gyurk! Gyurk! Gyurk!" part, Gyurk decides that the best way to say "Hi! I missed you!" is to stick his tongue down Dorothea’s throat without permission. He gets a dagger to the throat over this. Later, they go to visit Else and when he tells her she got pretty while he was away, the girls go off to wonder exactly what it was he spent the last two years doing.

I picked this up on a whim expecting…well, actually, I’m not quite sure what I was expecting. But not the fairly serious and epic-seeming period action drama this seems to be so far. Based on the first volume, I’d recommend it. On thing, though: The book comes with a "Parental Advisory: Explicit Content" warning. The back warns of "nudity, violence, mild profanity, suggestive situations." The first volume doesn’t really have much of that. There’s violence, but not incredibly graphic(then again, consider some of what I read…) and no bad language jumped out at me. The only bit of nudity was one of those nude "character pondering inside head" things with Dorothea’s private parts covered/shadowed, and the closest thing to a "suggestive situation" is that kissing without permission bit. Has anyone heard anything about this one turning graphic or hardcore down the road? I can see the potential for all sorts of things(young woman joining mercenaries in faux medieval Germany? When it’s already been stressed that it could be dangerous for her in several ways? Not to mention the war part? And the fact that the romance-which I suspect will turn to epic angst before the end, if not fairly quickly-is already being pushed forward?) but the first volume doesn’t seem to be leading towards gratuitous sex, nudity and violence.