Holm's son, Chris/Arinnian, and the Terran Rochefort would each count as the hero of the story if their exploits were recounted in isolation although Rochefort is outwitted because one side has to outwit the other. The Empire always wins when Dominic Flandry is involved but Flandry must first be born and, even then, cannot be everywhere at once. Early in his career, he is on Starkad but not on Freehold. An authentic history presents both victories and defeats. Anderson's Technic History is authentic although it incorporates both the early Dominic Flandry pulp space operas and the later reflective Flandry novels. Flandry defeats an Imperial pretender in The Rebel Worlds but serves a successful usurper in A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows. As in Anderson's Time Patrol series, innocence is lost.
Does Anderson show us both good and bad characters on both sides of the war between Terra and Ythri?
On the Terran side:
Fleet Admiral Juan de Jesus Cajal y Palomares is a quintessentially honorable man;
I think that Imperial Governor Ekrem Saracoglu is meant to be seen as insidious although I have failed to carry this argument in the combox.
On the Avalonian side, Draun of Highsky is repugnant. If he had not died killing Terrans, then he would have faced a duel with Chris/Arinnian of Stormgate.
4 comments:
My comparison to the war between Ythri and the Terran Empire would be the War of 1812.
The war was basically over a series of misunderstandings born of arrogance, ignorance (and hence miscalculations) and incompetence on both sides, and distraction on the part of the British, who were mostly focused on the struggle with Napoleon, quite understandably.
(The American side never realized quite how marginal they were to London, also understandably).
The war basically ended with the status quo ante-bellum restored, after the US failed to conquer Canada, and the British gave the Americans a pummelling but lost the Battle of New Orleans and a few frigate-to-frigate actions.
Men died, people were impoverished, ships were sunk, and basically nothing changed much and the two countries gradually became less and less hostile over the subsequent century, ending up as close allies.
None of the ostensible causes were settled -- the British stopped impressing British subjects (and some Americans) from American ships, but only because with the French wars coming to an end
Kaor, Mr. Stirling and Paul!
Mr. Stirling, I agree with your comments about the War of 1812. As you said, it was an unwanted distraction to the British, focused as they were on the far larger struggle with Napoleon. I think the only reason a basically defeated US did not have to endure a harsh peace was from the UK having too many problems elsewhere to want to demand territorial concessions from the US.
But, the analogy from real history which Poul Anderson had in mind was the siege of Belfort during the Franco/Prussian War of 1870-71. Despite the drubbing France endured, Belfort was not included with the cession of the rest of Alsace/Lorraine to the new German Reich. Because the Prussians had failed to force the city to surrender. All this was discussed by Sandra Miesel in the Introductory essay she wrote for the Gregg Press edition of THE PEOPLE OF THE WIND.
Paul: I know you disliked Governor Saracoglu, but I never got the negative impressions of him that you did in my previous readings of PEOPLE. And I agree Draun was a very repugnant character. It would have been more DRAMATIC if he and Christopher/Arinnian HAD fought that duel.
Sean
Draun was unpleasant in many respects... but he dies a hero's death, defending his own.
Sean: yeah, I know about the Belfort analogy. It's interesting, but I think overall the war isn't much like the Franco-Prussian. For one thing, it's fought between two established states, not as part of one's state-building process as the Franco-Prussian was; note it's not the Franco-"German" war!
And secondly, it isn't the first in a recurring grudge-match like 1870-71, 1914-1918, 1939-45. Instead it was the -last- war the two sides fought.
Note also that the Germans/Prussians took less than they might because after the fall of Napoleon the Little the war ceased to be a "cabinet war" between monarchs and became a "people's war" on the part of the French, accompanied by the social upheaval of the Paris Commune.
Bismarck wanted to get up from the table because of that; he had no wish to see France fall into the hands of socialist radicals, and indeed released prisoners-of-war to fight for Thiers against the Commune. The longer the guerilla war against the francs-tireurs went on, the further the radicalization would go. Letting the French keep Belfort aided that.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree the Ythrian War was not the first in a series of conflicts between the Empire and the Domain. It was strictly a "cabinet war" fought for limited gains or losses. Not an existential struggle remorselessly leading to the utter ruin of one side or the other.
Yes, I recall reading of how Bismarck assisted Thiers provisional gov't in crushing the brutal Commune by releasing thousands of French POWs Theirs would use against the Commune. I can see how a truly harsh peace imposed on France would very likely lead to a truly radical regime seizing power in Paris.
Also, I don't think Bismarck even wanted to wrest territory from France. Because that would have encouraged France to remain vengeful and embittered. But he was overruled, Prussia/Germany wanted its pound of flesh.
Sean
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