(ii) Bad guys whom it is expedient to have on our side:
"'...he may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch.'"
-Poul Anderson, A Circus Of Hells IN Anderson, Young Flandry (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 193-365 AT CHAPTER TEN, p. 263. (See also Now It Can Be Told.)
(iii) "Honorable Enemies": "villains" only in the sense that they are on the other side. Anderson's Tachwyr and Aycharaych; Stirling's Horst; Stirling's and Drake's Tewfik whom our hero, Raj, is damned if he doesn't like.
5 comments:
Paul:
Isaac Asimov showed us a Type III in The Stars Like Dust: Simok Aratap, the highest-ranking Tyrannian actually shown in the story. He was ruthless but not needlessly cruel, clever and intellectual, and in one conversation with a subordinate speculated on the possibility of developing a new art form. At the end, one of the would-be rebels said that he'd join the Tyranni fleet if all Tyranni were like Aratap (which they weren't). Aratap himself thought, "I am growing completely decadent. How many of us are beginning to like individuals among our subjects? How many of us wish them well?"
David,
During their opposition to the Moscow show trials, Dewey said, "Trotsky, if all Communists were like you, I'd be a Communist!" Trotsky replied, "Dewey, if all liberals were like you, I'd be a liberal!"
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I have to disagree about Trotsky. His brutal and bloody record during the Russian revolution, civil war, and first years of the Soviet regime FOREVER makes it impossible for me and many, many others to admire Trotsky. He got what was coming to him when Luz knocked him off in Stirling's THEATER OF SPIES.
As for Josip III and his sinister favorite Aaron Snelund in Anderson's THE REBEL WORLDS, I agree the latter man was a THOROUGHLY bad sort, despite his many and very real abilities. And the harm Josip could do was limited by him being too weak and stupid for his viciousness to be very effective.
I have to admit Leon Ammon WAS "our son of a bitch." That is, a bad but also very able man whose plans for bringing the mines of Wayland back into production would strengthen the Empire.
Aycharaych was not ALL bad, I agree, but he was callous and amoral if that was what it took to achieve his goals, for Merseia and for keeping the Merseians from gutting his home planet of Chereion. And I have to admit to liking Drake/Stirling's characters Horst and Tewfik.
Sean
Sean,
Aycharaych crossed a line when he caused so much suffering to further his ends. Imagine if, while still possessing all the resources of Chereion, he had secretly offered to help the Empire to sabotage the Roidhunate.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I agree with what you said about Aycharaych. What made him from, say, Dominic Flandry, was that were merely sometimes regrettable means and methods for achieving necessary goals for the latter became ARTISTIC means/methods that the Chereionite took aesthetic pleasure in, despite the pain and agony that often caused.
Not that Flandry, a professional spy, didn't also also take pleasure in a well done bit of intelligence work, but he never became engrossed in that art for its own sake and took pains to limit harm as much as possible.
Sean
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