Monday 15 February 2016

Legends In Their Own Lunchtimes

Some fictitious characters become celebrities and even legends in their fictional worlds. Poul Anderson's Nicholas van Rijn is quoted as a public figure while he is alive. Further, stories are still being told not only about van Rijn but also about his protege, David Falkayn, centuries after their deaths. Some of the stories about van Rijn are told by Dominic Flandry and, when the latter is getting old, a wandering Wodenite says that he has "'...encountered tales of Admiral Flandry's exploits...'" (Flandry's Legacy, p. 213)

In SM Stirling's Conquistador (New York, 2004), John Rolfe founds the Commonwealth of New Virginia in the North America of a parallel Earth and has a granddaughter called Adrienne. When Adrienne introduces herself to an Indian chief, the chief exclaims:

"'You're Johnny Deathwalker's kin?'" (p. 532) -

- then, after taking a closer look:

"'Yeah, that's what the legends say. Hair like an angry sunset, and eyes green like river rocks and colder than glacier ice.'" (ibid.)

A former colleague of James Bond wrote popular accounts of some of Bond's exploits but was not prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act because his accounts were so inaccurate.

Among James Blish's works:

The Night Shapes combines two Edgar Rice Burroughs themes: African adventure and living dinosaurs (Tarzan and The Land That Time Forgot). Its central character, Kit Kennedy, has a strange affinity not with apes but with snakes and is a living legend: Ktendi, Son of Wisdom, King of the Wassabi, Master of Serpents. One officious European, unaware that he is addressing the source of the legend, says:

“There’s no such thing as Ktendi…And, as for you, Mr Kennedy, why don’t you mind your own business?” 2
- copied from here.

8 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I would argue, however, that in later centuries of the Technic History, Nicholas van Rijn was better or more widely known than David Falkayn. We see Old Nick cited as a folk hero on Unan Besar in "The Plague of Masters," but I can't recall any mention by name of David Falkayn in works chronologically later than THE PEOPLE OF THE WIND. So, aside from the planet Avalon Falkayn seems to have faded away in public memory.

Sean

Paul Shackley said...

- which is a pity because Falkayn's achievements and contributions are arguably greater. However, Hloch tells his Avalonian audience:

"You may well be surprised to learn that on numerous other worlds, it is [van Rijn] who lives on in folk memory..." (Vol I, p. 136)

Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Exactly! Hloch was warning his Avalonian audience not to too provincially exaggerate the role of Falkayn in the known Galaxy. But I do agree the consequences of Falkayn's deeds both on and off Avalon are INCALCULABLE.

Sean

David Birr said...

Paul and Sean:
The series *The Lost Fleet* by Jack Campbell (pseudonym of John G. Hemry) concerns a space navy officer who became legendary for his heroic "last stand" in the opening battle of a huge, LONG war. When found in suspended animation a hundred years later, with the war still going on, he was horrified to learn he was a legend -- especially since that legend was being misused to justify spaceship maneuvers resembling the "tactics" of the French knights at Agincourt.

On the plus side, the fact that he, alone of all the officers alive by then, remembered how to apply real tactics meant that once his subordinates stopped demanding "honor" and started following his orders, he built himself a NEW legend as his fleet wiped out enemy forces that had them outnumbered. On the minus side, he didn't like being a legend THAT way, either.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Hi, David!

Your comments were interesting and amusing! While modesty and disinclination to exaggerate one's abilities is good, this navy officer simply couldn't avoid being hero worshiped by his men, precisely because he was able and SUCCESSFUL.

As for the French knights at Agincourt, that was an example of courage running away with good sense!

Paul and I have mentioned how Nicholas van Rijn became a figure of legend within the sphere covered by Technic Civilization. Manuel Argos, the Founder of the Terran Empire, himself became a figure of myth, as Donyar Ayeghen wrote long, long afterwards in the preface he wrote for "The Star Plunderer": "...he must have been trying throughout the book to give a true picture of the man who even in his own time had become a legend."

Sean

David Birr said...

Incidentally, Paul, one John Pearson reported in 1973 that the British Secret Service ENCOURAGED the writing of those fictional accounts of Commander Bond. The inaccuracies were there BY DESIGN, to mess with the Soviets' heads and leave them uncertain just HOW some of their operations had REALLY gone wrong.

Paul Shackley said...

David,
Yes, Pearson wrote biographies of both Fleming and Bond. I thought that Pearson's idea of Bond being real but written up as fiction was good but I did not like the way he made up details to fill in Bond's earlier life and events between novels.
Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Hi, David!

Very interesting, what you said about how the British Secret Service used the stories about Commander James Bond for spreading disinformation to confuse the Soviets.

I did think the meeting of the heads of SMERSH/KGB at the beginning of WITH LOVE FROM RUSSIA rang true. That is, the cynicism, cruelty, and ruthlessness we see there certainly fitted in with the actual history of Soviet behavior.

I didn't like how SMERSH/KGB was replaced as the opponent Bond fought in the later books by SPECTRE. I can imagine freelance terrorists for hire but not on the scale of SPECTRE.

And, I've actually thought Poul Anderson's stories of an intelligence officer working more than a thousand years from now more satisfactory than the Bond stories. I mean, of course, Dominic Flandry.

Sean