Noir Tarots in Amber – Part 2: THE GUNS OF AVALON
This is part of a series examining noir tropes and tarot archetypes in the first set of Chronicles of Amber Books. As a dabbling neophyte in tarot and a noir enthusiast, I’m fascinated by worlds peopled by people with ambiguous morals doing terrible things , but also by the Jungian archetypes in the tarot that are proliferate in the fantasy genre. Fair warning, there will be major spoilers as this is a deep dive of the books that will go into a great deal of plot detail.
So the Hive has kindly given me free roam to post reviews of the Chronicles of Amber as well as my thoughts and impressions of the books through the lens of noir and tarot.
This week I’m going to be looking at The Guns of Avalon by Roger Zelazny.
The Guns of Avalon is an allusion to the 1961 war film The Guns of Navarone, in which an allied commando unit seek to destroy a German fortress that threatens allied forces. Similar to the movie it’s referencing, it’s a book about Corwin gearing up for war, gathering resources and allies to attack an unassailable force in a position of considerable power – Eric of Amber.
It’s a book about Corwin learning and facing the consequences of his actions, whilst trying to reconcile the warring parts of himself – his old ambitions fighting against his new found humanity. The story begins with him pulling his sword, Grayswandir, from the hollow of a tree. We’re already in Arthur country and we’re not even in Avalon yet. On his travels he comes across an old friend who is grievously wounded, the famous knight Lancelot du Lac. Lance doesn’t recognise him, as he makes efforts to keep himself hooded and disguise his voice. Lancelot, could most likely inhabit the archetype the Knight of Swords, much as Julian did in Nine Princes In Amber, due to his primary characteristic being his martial skills. As he bears him towards the Keep of Ganelon, Lance fills Corwin in, Corwin being in disguise as “Sir Corey of Cabra,” in on what has happened to this land. He tells of the men he slew and refers to them as Wardens of the Circle, the dark circle they came from resembling what Corwin seen in the Vale of Garnath at the conclusion of the previous book. The Circle is reminiscent of faerie rings, and a child and her father had perished when coming in contact with the circle. Corwin defends the prone Lance from vicious cats the size of tigers and successfully dispatches them, but not as one of the cats says in a monstrous voice “Opener, why do you slay us?” Dark questions for Corwin’s conscience that will be addressed later. Corwin successfully bears Lance to the Keep of Ganelon.
Corwin knows, or had known a Ganelon. The Lancelot he saved wasn’t his Lancelot, but a parallel one from a different shadow. He questions whether this is the same Ganelon who was his faithful lieutenant, before he betrayed Corwin and was horrifically punished for it. Ganelon becomes a vital character during Guns of Avalon and is best represented by either the Hierophant or the Emperor, a patriarchal figure who is in charge. Corwin as Corey bluffs Ganelon and Lance and much of the camp in a similar canny way that he does with his family in Nine Princes of Amber. At first he had intended to merely bear Lance back to Ganelon, thanks to his newly grown conscience, but that conscience has once again stung him into taking responsibility for his actions. He feels responsible for the monsters plaguing this land, for the Vale of Garnath and numerous other terrible events throughout shadow and he seeks to undo them if he can, or die trying.
During his training, he has a romance with a groupie called Lorraine, and it is here that we finally find out what the country is called through Corwin’s hardboiled narration: “The country was called Lorraine, and so was she.” Lorraine could be viewed as the card the Star, with her link to the land, her spirituality and her gift of foresight, with one foot in the water and one in the earth symbolising her link to both the spiritual and the material world. There is also the obvious card of The Lovers, representing both Corwin and Lorraine at this moment in time. Unfortunately, theirs is a doomed love not destined to last long, which she herself has prophesied through her gift. We find out that it was Lorraine’s child and husband who had died in the faerie ring and that her gift of foresight had brought her nothing but trouble and heartache.
Corwin’s father Oberon tries to contact him via trump, mirroring Corwin’s contact with him in the previous book, but he blocks the contact in case it’s one of his other relatives trying to seek him out and harm him, much as Eric held him in place in the previous book and burned his fleet around him when he answered the call.
As the previous book had Corwin dream of the family rising and falling upon the Wheel of Fortune, this time around he has a dream of his family as if they were just playing cards, reminiscent of the revelation Alice has in the end of Alice’s Adventure’s in Wonderland where she denounces reality and shouts “you’re all just playing cards!” and the world disintegrates around her. It’s worth examining how a lot of Corwin and his family’s problems revolve around the fact that they inhabit rigid roles based on their lifetimes of over a millenia and also based on their expectations of each other. The fact that Corwin, and to a lesser extent Random have shown the capacity to change, to break out of the roles determined for them is a revelation.
Corwin, Ganelon and Lancelot mount an attack on the wardens of the circle with their men, and Corwin battles their leader who is a goat man. The Goatman a representative of chaos, and makes a glyph sign with his hand and gives Corwin a brief vision of exactly what his curse has unleashed: the Courts of Chaos. The goatman offers him the throne if he lends them his aid, and could be interpreted here as the card The Devil representing Temptation. He also reveals Corwin’s identity in front of Ganelon, whom already seemed to have his suspicions. Resisting temptation he kills the goatman, but at a cost; Lorraine leaves him upon his identity being revealed, as one of Corwin’s shadow selves executed her grandfather, despite his protestations it wasn’t him. Her death prophecy begins in earnest, and tragically she will soon be found dead at the hands of a knight that used to beat her. Corwin finds her body and exacts his revenge upon the knight swiftly and brutally. He parts from the woman Lorraine as well as the land, but only one recovers.
Corwin divulges his plan to Ganelon, that he is going to obtain jeweller’s powder from Avalon, as it’s the only substance that will ignite in Amber to make gunpowder and to invade Amber through modern weaponry. Ganelon agrees to accompany him.
“Evil? Hell, I’ve done more of it than most men, but I had picked up a conscience too, somewhere along the way, and I let it enjoy one of its rare moments of satisfaction. Once I held Amber, I could allow it a little more leeway, I felt.”
The pair are almost robbed on their way to Avalon by a deserter, and Ganelon hangs the boy from his right ankle, mirroring the card the hanged man. Ganelon interrogates the boy, swinging him round like a tennis ball on a string, taunting him with the point of his blade whilst asking pointed questions. Avalon’s forces were engaged in a fight with similar to wardens of the circle, pale women like furies that are supernatural beings. This somewhat complicates Corwin’s plans for gunpowder, he needs to solve this problem before he can move on. The youth has no name, but the hanged man is a card that represents portents and is reminiscent of Odin hanging on Yddrasil for knowledge, and this deserter gives a similar look forward to the situation in Avalon for Corwin and Ganelon.
We next meet the Protector of this version of Avalon – Corwin’s brother Benedict. He greets him warmly but has no time for talk of succession. At Benedict’s request, Corwin recaps what happened to him. Benedict reveals that their father, Oberon, just vanished & didn’t abdicate the throne. Benedict has lost an arm in conflict with the furies, enemies similar to the Wardens of the Circle. He gives him hospitality, but Corwin doesn’t tell him about Dworkin or the nature of his escape, and he leaves out the fact that or that he laid a curse that is responsible for the problems across the multiverse, and that he is indirectly responsible for Benedict losing his arm. He notices him use the tarots to call someone but he doesn’t see or hear who.
Corwin has another dream of him and his siblings being on a roulette wheel them all screaming for it to stop for them when in their ascent and screamed as they descended once more. His dream is interrupted by a woman who calls him by his real name Corwin, which should be noted as strange as only Benedict and Ganelon know he’s Corwin here, his cover name has been Corey. She refuses to give him her name or any answers until they have fenced. A brief aside here, Zelazny knew his stuff when it came to fencing, sword fighting and martial arts as he had experience of all of this and was actually part of a society of sword fighting fantasy authors. The sword fight here is a bit like a seduction, tentative, trying each other out, testing each other, Corwin desiring for the encounter to be prolonged, a meeting of near equals before she stops the duel herself, apparently due to exhaustion. This is Dara.
Dara is a series of contradictions but is an excellent character – she is Benedict’s great granddaughter (unbeknownst to him), and will become the main antagonist of the books. Much like Corwin, there are several archetypes that Dara could actually fit her, but in Guns of Avalon the Page of Swords is the archetype that I think fits her the best due to her boundless curiosity and thirst for new knowledge. Biddy Tarot says
“The Page of Swords shows a young man standing with his sword pointing upwards to the sky. His body and the sword lean in one direction, but he looks the other way as if to see what else is happening around him. A breeze blows through the young man’s hair, and the clouds behind him appear to dash through the sky, bringing dynamic energy to the card. The ground on which the Page stands is green and fertile, suggesting that the Page’s ideas are likely to bring positive change and forward movement.”
Another interpretation of this, thanks to Wikipedia, is that The Page of Sword’s has “The ability to observe others keenly, while concealing one’s own nature. The talent for keeping secrets. Keeping one’s head in the face of danger. The ability to endure suspense.”
Both of these interpretations fit Dara’s character very well, as well as the fact that Dara is fencer. Literally the first thing we know about her is that she is challenging Corwin to a duel.
After quitting the swordfight they share a picnic they brought and duel verbally with no shortage of flirtation. She, like most Amberites lies about her origins or tells part truths, mostly about Benedict knowing who she is or of her existence and puts across the idea that Benedict is there as protector of Avalon to protect her as well. She tells of a dream of walking the pattern to get from her secluded safety of a place called Tecys back to Avalon, and then she is able to walk in shadow. Corwin takes her under his wing somewhat, tells her never to trust a relative and takes her for a stroll through shadow to show her how to do it – he tell her she has to walk the Great Pattern of Amber in real life to master walking through shadow and to create and travel to worlds of her whim. It is also from Dara that we hear about Julian and Gerard being injured by something called the Black Road. Dara is desperate to walk the pattern and embrace her destiny as a scion of Amber, but Corwin warns her off due to his war plans against Eric.
He then travels to a parallel Earth and harvests diamonds from an Africa that has never been inhabited by human life. When he returns, he and Dara become lovers. Although Corwin’s previously noted that he has grown a conscience, it bears noting that that conscience seems to stop at incest, perhaps because it’s a royal habit? Corwin obtains the jeweler’s rouge he’s previously noted is necessary to make in large quantities along with the diamonds to make gunpowder that will ignite in Amber. While travelling Corwin and Ganelon notice the black road that Dara spoke of, cutting through all Shadows all the way to Amber. Ganelon is snared by a section of the dark road on a patch of grass, and is unable to get free until Corwin is able to destroy a section of the black road by concentrating on the pattern. He is pursued doggedly by Benedict who he avoids fearing he is angry at him for sleeping with Dara or that he has discovered his plan of using Avalon as a means to invading Amber and attempts to flee, only to be doggedly pursued and caught by Benedict who accuses him of murder. Corwin only escapes by tricking him to stand on a section of this black grass to become ensnared as Ganelon did allowing him to knock him unconscious.
From there he travels to Earth to make arrangements for manufacturing the ammunition he needs for the invasion and visits his old house on Earth. He finds there a message from Eric suing for peace, which he prompt rejects. He recruits his army from shadow, trains them with his new weapons and marches on Amber to being his invasion. However, he finds upon arrival that he is in the midst of an already ongoing invasion from the wyvern riders from the Courts of Chaos, and has no choice but to actually join in the defense of Amber as opposed to the invasion of it. He finds Dara on the battlefield and gets her to safety. After helping get rid of the threat of the invading army, he is thwarted again as when he confronts Eric he finds him dying on the battlefield due to a mortal wound, denied his revenge. Eric gives Corwin the Jewel of Judgement and directs his own death curse to the invading enemies, echoing Corwin’s curse in the previous book.
But now there is a new problem, Dara has escaped and is riding towards Amber. Corwin contacts Random who pulls him through to Amber itself. They are already too late, Dara is already walking the pattern, her body morphing into non-euclidean shapes that would give Howie Lovecraft the jitters. Upon completing the Pattern she states to Corwin in a monstrous voice that “Amber will be destroyed”, before disappearing. Earlier I interpreted Dara as the Page of Swords, but by the end of the book she has shifted into the role of the High Priestess. According to A. E. Waite’s 1910 book Pictorial Key to the Tarot,[6] the High Priestess card is associated with:
“Secrets, mystery, the future as yet unrevealed; the woman who interests the Querent, if male; the Querent herself, if female; silence, tenacity; mystery, wisdom, science. Reversed: Passion, moral or physical ardor, conceit, surface knowledge.”
The archetype fits Dara like a glove. It also fits well into the femme fatale archetype; seductive and destructive, leading our anti-hero, and in this case, his world to doom. Dara’s journey at the end of the book mirrors Corwin’s in Nine Prince’s in Amber. In the previous book Corwin had become the archetype of Death, something he achieves in his invasion and defence of Amber. Our book ends on a fatalistic note, but would you really not expect fatalism from a femme fatale?
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