-David Lagercrantz, The Girl In The Spider's Web (London, 2015), p. 220.
Paradoxically, good people are going to be troubled by conscience a lot more than bad people. However, Poul Anderson's good characters do not seem to be troubled by their consciences and Manse Everard says that they should not be:
"'...I'm not so weak or selfish I can't shoulder guilt if necessary.'" (The Shield Of Time, p. 416)
"'Get off that guilt trip. What are you, some kind of liberal or something? Let's put sentiment on the shelf and think about the matter from a Patrol point of view.'" (Time Patrol, p. 597)
"'I've killed before, and probably I will again. I wish to Christ things were otherwise, but they aren't, and I can't afford to brood over it.'" (The Shield Of Time, p. 432)
""I hope we won't hurt any innocent bystanders too badly.' Sometimes the Patrol must be as ruthless as history itself." (Time Patrol, p. 758)
Patrollers from different periods and generations are bound to have different moral attitudes:
"Born and raised when she was, Wanda disapproved of bloodsports. His background had been different." (The Shield Of Time, p. 294)
Indeed, when Everard started at the Academy, his class was told:
"'...the hunting and fishing are still pretty good even in this neighborhood, and if you fly just a few hundred miles they're fantastic.'" (Time Patrol, p. 8)
So was Wanda's class told something different? And would there be some Patrol agents who thought nothing of killing innocent bystanders in the course of their work?
8 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I think the second paragraph of this blog piece was too broadly written by you. And I do realize you were focusing on Anderson's Time Patrols stories. But, Dominic Flandry, in the Technic Civilization stories, is occasionally troubled by some of the things he did defending the Empire.
Sean
Sean,
Yes, Flandry is a different character. Maybe you can remind us of incidents that troubled him?
Paul.
He had to arrest his son. Nobody would like to do that of course, but I seem to recall that he didn't like the effects of the interrogation methods that would be used as he had been conditioned.
John,
No, indeed. I am contemplating a brief post on comparing Anderson's characters.
Paul.
Gentlemen,
I'm writing in haste. But I agree with John's example of how Flandry regretted the methods needed to find out what his traitorous son Dominic Hazeltine knew.
I also recall the sadness felt by Flandry over the need to hunt down and kill the Merseian agent stranded on the planet Nyanza. And I'm sure I could find others, given more time.
Sean
I particularly remember how gloomy Flandry was about the prospect that so many of the Nyanzan rebels, earnest young patriots, would AT BEST spend the rest of their lives in prison -- especially troubling when he compared their character to that of Emperor Josip. Also, in "A Message in Secret," he takes the motorbike of an enemy guardsman he's killed, and spares a moment's thought to wondering what the fellow had been like in life.
Flandry doesn't simply dismiss the killing he has to do, at least not the deaths of men he's no reason to believe the worst of ... and despite Everard's brave words that you've quoted, HE is distressed at times, too. There's a line that I can't trace just now, about how no matter how case-hardened Everard got, something inside "wept" at some of the things he had to do -- or to simply stand aside and permit.
For instance, history records that the Romans raped Boudicca's daughters. A Time Patrolman who witnessed that would be DUTY-BOUND to stand there and not lift a finger to save two young rape victims. A time traveler who felt no horror at that inaction would be someone I wouldn't want to know.
David,
See TIME PATROL (New York, 2006), p. 177.
Paul.
Hi, David!
I agree with the examples you cited of the sadness Flandry and Everard felt at either the pain and death they had to sometimes inflict or at how much truly rotten history Everard and the Time Patrol had to preserve.
You mentioned Nyanza and the Merseian fomented revolt on that planet which Flandry helped to scotch. He managed to arrange matters that it was OTHER Nyanzans who suppressed the rebellion--without needing to call in regular Imperial forces. That makes me hope it was Nyanzans who handled the trials and dispositions of captured rebels. I would like to most ordinary rebels got off lightly and that even the leaders were treated leniently (say a few years in prison or possibly exile from Nyanza).
You mentioned Emperor Josip. I agree he was a bad, weak, and irresponsible ruler. In fact, I discussed him at some length in my essay "The Imperial Gardener" (which you can find in the "Contributor Articles" section of Paul's blog). While I certainly stressed how Josip was an unworthy descendant of mighty forebears such as Manuel the Great, Manuel the Wise, Isamu the Great, and Pedo II, I pointed out one or two faint flashes of something better in Josip than complete degeneracy.
But the main point I need to stress is why Dominic Flandry supported Josip when almost anyone else (even Aaron Snelund!) would have been a better Emperor. Flandry supported Josip as long as that Emperor lived from the urgent to protect and defend the principle of legitimacy. As Flandry said in Chapter VI of STONE IN HEAVEN: "Once as a young fellow I found myself supporting the abominable Josip against McCormac--remember McCormac's Rebellion? He was infinitely the better man. Anybody would have been. But Josip was the legitimate Emperor, and legitimacy is the root and branch of government. How else, in spite of the cruelties and extortions and ghastly mistakes it's bound to perpetrate--how else, by what right, can it command loyalty? If it is not the servant of law, then it is nothing but a temporary convenience at best. At worse, it's raw force."
Sean
Post a Comment