So, I want to riff a bit more of this observation I made about Fantasy coronations, specifically Maia’s in Goblin Emperor and Kelson’s in whatever Deryni book it was where he got crowned.
In some ways these are very similar. The ruler spends some time in seclusion, then goes through some rituals and ends up with a crown. There are specific important words spoken by a Prelate or Archbishop, and also lots of political undercurrents. The thing about Kelson’s coronation is that the young king has allies at court and a political awareness. He knows what he’s trying to accomplish (getting his magic), and as an author, we know what Kurtz cares about (the actual mechanics of the ritual, and specific political maneuvering).
Maia is still finding his footing. He’s had a couple of very long and bewildering days, and now he needs to sit by himself for a while and then later he walks some places, endures the coronation, and then goes to bed and collapses. In some ways, what’s going on is that Addison really does wants us to understand this character, and so we’re tightly focused on Maia’s feelings and what he notices: the attempt to re-connect to his mom’s meditation practice, his awareness that there are a lot of people at court and he should try to notice who is acting in what ways, but because he’s out of his depth he can’t really, etc. This is well done, but what it means is that we’re following along with a very passive character, which at least for me detracts from the scenes.
As an aside, a few scenes earlier, Maia insists on meeting his household servants. A day or so earlier he attended a funeral for not-nobles. I couldn’t tell you anything specific about those household servants, or how Maia remembers them (except the one we’d already met). When passing by the places where the commoners review his procession, Maia doesn’t see or recognize anyone - the relative lack of specific individual interactions in the coronation is aligned with the lack of any connection to previous scenes in which Maia set himself apart from other Emperors by being interested in people who aren’t politically important.
There are three things I’m noticing on this read of Goblin Emperor: the first is that I really am rooting for Maia. He’s a basically good guy in a very difficult situation, and I want to enjoy reading a book about his journey to be happy and successful as emperor. I want this to be a story about Maia coming to power and using it well. The second is that there are a lot of ways that Goblin Emperor is very consciously in dialogue with the fantasy tradition: whether or not Addison is specifically writing to Kurtz, the notion that the ceremony by which a new ruler comes to his power is important isn’t novel - here as with many other scenes, Addison is telling us about Maia and how he fits in as a character in a fantasy world. Finally, I’m unfortunately very consciously that I just don’t like the choices at a craft level. I don’t think the scenes tell us much about characters beyond the obvious thing intended in that particular scene. I don’t think the details are dense enough or illustrative enough of what’s most important. The world and characters around Maia just don’t feel lived-in to me, in ways that I am consistently disappointed by.