Tuesday 24 May 2016

Grallon's Daughter

About to drown and meet Lir, Dahut screams in terror:

"'Father, help me!'"
-Poul and Karen Anderson, Dahut, Chapter XIX, section 7, p. 454.

Corentinus' Christian advice to Grallon is:

"'No, you fool!...Leave that bitch-devil to her fate!...Take her with you, and the weight of her sins will drag you down to your death...'" (ibid.)

I must reply, "No, Corentinus. Like Grallon and unlike you, I am a biological father. If my daughter appealed to me like that, then I would try to save her life even if, which gods forbid, she had tried to kill me and even if she had (unwittingly) caused the destruction of our city."

How would Dahut have lived if she had survived Ys? In Corentinus' view, that was not going to happen because she was already under judgment. The true God had given her into the power of the Ysan Gods.

Soren Cartigi, the Speaker for Taranis, said:

"'...it could be that this is the last Council of Suffetes ever to be held in Ys.'" (Chapter XVIII, section 5, p. 406)

It was.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Of COURSE any decent father would want to save his child from drowning. At the same time I can't help but see Corentinus' point, Dahut's crimes would somehow drag down Gratillonius to his own death. It's a hard question.

Sean