Magic's Promise was published by by Mercedes Lackey in 1990. The book is the middle entry in the trilogy collectively known as Last Herald-Mage Series. This series has been justifiably praised as essential volumes in the progress of portraying homosexual characters in fiction. With eyes wide open, Lackey dives headfirst into the murky waters of the notoriously misogynistic genre of fantasy novels to present a hero who was not just homosexual, but very much the portrait of the iconic negative stereotype of the homosexual man.
The protagonist of this series begins the trilogy as an effeminate young man with a propensity for fashion and music, a distaste for violence, and a lust for power. And yet, despite all expectations to the contrary, he goes on to become an unabashedly masculine heroic figure.
This commendable action, however, also serves to makes the pervasive subplot that is treated as a running gag in Magic’s Promise all the more distastefully loathsome. Tracking down analysis of the novel that focuses on its unquestionably positive portrayal of gay issues is easy. It is worth taking the time to focus on this unpleasant aspect of this particular entry in the series, however, because it has become increasingly relevant in the wake of issues surrounding the right to not be sexually oppressed. In the post-Me Too era, there can be absolutely no question that were the situation reversed and it was Vanyel in Melenna’s place and Melenna in Vanyel’s place, the reaction to this subplot would almost certainly be considerably different.
One need only flip the names of Vanyel and Melenna in the scenes under question to gauge the tonal shift and imagine that it is Vanyel doggedly pursuing Melenna with romantic intention over the course of fourteen years. Upon arriving at the realization that she is never to be his, Vanyel instead turns his pursuit to her sister and produces an illegitimate son as a result. It is clear enough that deep down inside, he is still not completely satisfied that she will never be his. And so, after this dalliance with her close relative, he once again sets the sights of his desire upon Melenna. He shows up one night waiting her in bed, naked, exposing himself to her in hopes of finally seducing her. Instead, she escapes to the stable and spends the night among the animals.
Vanyel’s assessment of this delusional behavior on her part only adds insult: “Poor Melenna…what a mess she’s made out of her life.” That simplistic dismissal of stalking as nothing more than a fourteen-year-long case of self-punishment is not the ultimate insult, however. The novel ends with Vanyel actually rewarding Melenna in a way that would subsequently allow the former maid to hold political office.
Vanyel describes his crazed stalker as “Poor Melenna” so many times over the course of the book that it almost comes to be an unofficial nickname. Somehow or another, Melenna is made to become the victim of her choice to expend more than a dozen years trying to get Vanyel to express his undying love. Even as he is dying and is visited upon by a strange figure capable of granting his choice to live or die, she is reduced to pleas related to such a complicated circumstance of sexuality: “Couldn’t you—pretend?...I wouldn’t mind, really I wouldn’t.”
