We read Sidir's account of "civilization":
"...law, stateliness, well-being, security, the brotherhood of man under the fatherhood of the Glorious Throne. When one day yonder emptiness was rich fields and happy homes, when the Horn of Nezh bore gardens, for humanity had conquered the inhuman, then would [Donya's] ghost know peace?" (p. 181)
How do we respond to this? Many of us say that we can know brotherhood without needing that kind of fatherhood. We have not yet been told in so many words that the Rogaviki are a different species but in any case they remain rational, self-conscious beings, in that sense alone "human" as against (just) "animal." (Words are ambiguous here. In another sense, we are indeed animals but, in Aristotle's words, "rational animals.") The Rogaviki are not "the inhuman." It is not right to wage war and to drive them out in order to transform their hunting territories into "rich fields and happy homes" for the subjects of an Emperor.
Sidir's last thought about Donya as he approaches the Rogaviki who wait to kill him is:
"She is not human." (p. 182)
2 comments:
Humans fight each other over territory. That's a universal constant. It's also a universal constant for every other social predator.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
And genetically hardwired to living along the Jugular River as bison hunters puts the Rogaviki at a serious disadvantage competing against humans.
Ad astra! Sean
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