The World
The world that the author writes about has been invented, but it remains steadfastly within the template of the world we know. There are trees and wolves and astronomical bodies and though also filled with things which we do not have, one can read it fully invested in the natural order of things. Part of this investment is made by imagery which brings to vivid life that part of this world we know so that it becomes easier to accept that part of this world we do not know:
“The gibbous moon shone white on the snow, giving nearly as much light as a full moon, it seemed. Until scudding clouds began to hide it, and moonshadows raced across the snow, thicker and thicker. Snow began to fall with a dry rustling. Snow that would bury traces and tracks. Silent in the cold, the two men stood there, watching into the snowfall, waiting, hoping.”
Character Description
The cast of characters populating this fantasy series is literally in the thousands, plural. Over 2000 different characters pop over the course of its entirety. As a result, description is absolutely necessary simply to distinguish one from another based on physicality. Imagery comes in quite handy for this purpose:
“Tylin turned in a chair carved to look like gilded bamboo and stared at him over her golden winecup. Waves of glossy black hair touched with gray at the temples framed a beautiful face with the eyes of a bird of prey, and not one best pleased at the moment. Inconsequential things seemed to leap at him. She kicked her crossed leg slightly, rippling layered green and white petticoats. Pale green lace trimmed the oval opening in her gown that half exposed her full breasts, where the jeweled hilt of her marriage knife dangled.”
Evil
Like almost all fantasy series, this one ultimately boils down to being a narrative that builds to a climactic showdown between the forces of good and evil. As a result, one can expect to come across much in the way of imagery that situates the appearance of that which is deemed evil. Sometimes, in fact, the imagery becomes almost a little intense to bear with a grin:
“She had known about the wound in his side from Falme, never healing completely, resisting all the Healing she knew, like a pustule of evil in his flesh. Now there was another half-healed wound atop the old, and that pulsed with evil, too. A different sort of evil, somehow, like a mirror of the other, yet just as virulent.”
“Cold, Fat Raindrops”
Some of the most memorable individual examples of imagery in the series is to be found in the chapter titles within the books. For instance, Chapter 30 of this entry is titled “Cold, Fat Raindrops.” True to its word, rain is of particular importance in the description of the setting:
“The noon sky was gray and cold, and if the rain had slackened, it was not by much, and driven by blustery lake winds, it was enough to have driven almost everyone from the streets. He held the cloak around him one-handed, as much to shelter the drawings in his coat pocket as to keep the rest of him dry, and used the other to hold his hood against the gusts. The windblown raindrops hit his face like flecks of ice.”
