Honor And Gild

The People Of The Wind, XVI.

This book cover image looks like an Ythrian fighting two Terrans. If Arinnian and Draun had held their duel, that would have been a fight between two Avalonians - also between two Ythrians if by that we mean two beings belonging to the Domain of Ythri. Tabitha calls herself an Ythrian in conversation with Rochefort. (XI, pp. 568-569)

What is honor?

Because Arinnian has no cause to challenge Draun, he insults the latter in order to provoke that being into challenging him. In order to do this, he also insults Highsky Choth. Issuing the challenge, Draun invokes the honor of named witnesses.

Tabitha/Hrill interjects that it is not to Draun's or Arinnian's honor to kill or cripple each other during a war. Agreeing reluctantly, Draun insists that meanwhile he must not meet or talk to "'...the Walker.'" (p. 618) (An insult.) Arinnian tells Tabitha that she must be their go-between. Draun reminds her that she too is of Highsky. Tabitha can nevertheless be the go-between.

When the two human choth members, Arinnian of Stormgate and Hrill of Highsky, are alone, he says:

"'I didn't mean that last. Of you I beg grace, to you I offer gild.'" (ibid.)

Having insulted Highsky to provoke Draun, he must now in honor offer gild to Hrill. So what is honor? And what indeed is "gild"?

We are told that choths can differ fundamentally. If I were to join one, then it would have to be very unlike either Stormgate or Highsky.

Fiction And Time II

In Fiction And Time, I contrasted Dornford Yates with Poul Anderson in the belief that Yates mourned the passing of a society divided into aristocrats, their faithful servants and deferential peasants whereas Anderson anticipated different possible futures.

However, in a novel published in 1954, Yates, through the mouth of his character, Mansel, presents this anticipation:

"'In twenty or thirty years, the process of levelling down will be complete. That is, if no catastrophe occurs. Nothing worth having will be left. There'll be no one and nothing to look up to, no examples to follow, nothing whatever to strive for except existence itself. Life will be painfully dull. And those in power will treat all the others like dirt. And then, after much tribulation and many years, the great days will come again.'"
-Dornford Yates, Ne'er-Do-Well (Cornwall, 2001), p. 11.

That last sentence sounds like the "The world's great age begins anew..." (see here) of the Polesotechnic League and the great wealth and ostentation of its merchant princes.

But what of the rest of Mansel's prediction? Is there nothing worth having, no one and nothing to look up to, no example to follow, nothing to strive for except existence? Is life painfully dull? Are we treated like dirt? (Sometimes.) Might a catastrophe occur? (Unfortunately, yes.)

Anderson's Technic civilization emerges form the Chaos but he also wrote dystopias.

Addendum: Mansel, some of us want to level up, not down, and are very far from succeeding as yet. I would love to argue this in the Old Phoenix but not in the Wet Flag!

Malice In Wonderland

Some Christians wish each other ill in the hereafter. See the reference to Milton in Through The Western Gate.

On Avalon, when Draun of the Old Faith kills a Terran, he says:

"'Hell-winds blow you before my chothmates! Tell Illarian they are coming!'" (p. 549)
-copied from here.

At least two fictional characters expect that they themselves will have the power to wreak harm in the hereafter:

SM Stirling's Count Ignatieff expects to be not a victim but one of the torturers in Hell!;

Dornford Yates' Barabbas, knowing that he is about to be executed by his enemies, inquires how his subordinate had slipped up so that he will be able to deal appropriately with him in the hereafter.

In Barabbas' case, the narrator comments:

"So far as I was concerned, that was the grimmest moment of all that terrible night, for here was a malefactor, standing upon the drop, yet so far from considering how he should meet his God, preparing to deal with his late accomplice in crime and actually seeking information to serve his filthy turn in the world to come."
-Dornford Yates, Gale Warning (London, 1939), CHAPTER XIV, p. 280.

I agree. And, again, Poul Anderson never created villains as evil as that!

Your Will

The People Of The Wind, XV.

Philippe Rochefort must choose between keeping his word to Tabitha Falkayn and doing what he thinks is right. He prays:

"- O all you saints, St. Joan who burned for her people, help me!" (p. 610)

"Father, show me Your will." (p. 611)

Rochefort is a Jerusalem Catholic. (Scroll down.)

Human children become self-conscious individuals, persons, by interacting linguistically with other human beings.

Jews, Christians and other theists believe that all human life is a dialogue with a transcendent person - or persons, just to complicate matters. Some of us think that this belief is a projection of social interactions onto natural and (hypothetical) supernatural interactions but theistic language is strongly embedded. I spontaneously think, "Lord!" when I contemplate my own wrong actions and their consequences.

"'I may be addressing it to nothing but a sort of cosmic Dead Letter Office, but that can't be helped. The message itself is plain. It has got to read:
"'To Whom it may concern: Thy will, not mine.'"
-James Blish, The Quincunx Of Time (New York, 1983), CHAPTER TEN, p. 104.

I endorse this agnostic prayer to:

Whatever gods may be
-copied from here.

(For any readers of this blog who may be interested, analysis of Dornford Yates' novels continues here.)

Ythrians And The Elements II

The People Of The Wind, XV.

See:

Ythrians And The Elements
Ythrians And The Weather
Ythrians And The Weather II

Ythrians, intelligent, winged, feathered, unclothed, hunting carnivores can fly through a storm, then kill and eat live prey, a physical oneness with nature impossible to human beings.

An Ythrian's first response to bereavement is to seek solitude. When Eyath learns that Vodan has died in space, she flies alone through a storm, an extended pathetic fallacy.

It is night. Wind rises. Clouds break. Morgana flees between them. Surf threshes. Trees roar. Human beings are fully clothed. Tabitha Falkayn draws her cloak tight.

Later but still at night, wind drops, clouds reform and rain falls, "...slow as tears." (p. 606) Another explicit pathetic fallacy.

At dawn, the rain has stopped, Laura rises blindingly, the sky is blue, leaves and blades are jeweled:  violence passed; world cleansed.

Original Scripts?

When I speculate about screen adaptations of Poul Anderson's Technic History, I usually mean faithful dramatizations of Anderson's texts but another possibility would be original scripts extending and expanding the stories of his characters in their diverse settings. However, the possibilities are much vaster than anyone could feasibly address:

exploration of the Solar System
the Grand Survey (like Star Trek)
early histories of Hermes, Dennitza, Aeneas etc
Nicholas van Rijn
Jim Ching
Emil Dalmady
Falkayn's team before and after Coya joined it
the team that Chee Lan joined later
early days on Avalon
Manuel Argos
Philippe Rochefort
Max Abrams
Dominic Flandry
the Aenean exiles
Aycharaych, assuming he survived Flandry's bombardment of his home planet, Chereion
Diana Crowfeather and her non-human friends
Roan Tom
Allied Planets expeditions (another Star Trek)
Daven Laure, Ranger of the Commonalty

Potentially, this one future history series lays the basis for innumerable spin-off series.

Heroes, Villains And People II

In Poul Anderson's The People Of The Wind, Daniel Holm of Avalon faces off against Admiral Cajal of the Terran Empire whereas, in Anderson's Ensign Flandry, Dominic Flandry of the Terran Empire faces off against the Merseian, Brechdan Ironrede, Protector of the Roidhun's Grand Council. However, we take the side of Holm against Cajal and of Flandry against Brechdan. Thus, we are first against, then for, the Empire.

Cajal is an honorable enemy attempting no more than the rectification of a border dispute whereas Brechdan is a fictional "villain" plotting the subjugation or extermination of mankind. Flandry's other indisputable "villain," the Chereionite Aycharaych, cynically manipulates populations and individuals for what would have been a worthy end, the preservation of his racial heritage, if his means had been less devious, destructive and demonic.

Thus, Anderson excels both at "heroes and villains" narratives and at rounded novels presenting both sides of a conflict. However, Ian Fleming, Stieg Larsson, SM Stirling and Dornford Yates routinely present vastly viler villains. In Yates' Gale Warning, at the end of Chapter X (of XV), two of our heroes finally behold for the first time, through binoculars, across a valley, their long sought quarry:

"Barabbas...robber-chief...a great, big bull of a man, all dressed in white."
-Dornford Yates, Gale Warning (London, 1939), CHAPTER X, p. 210.

The drive and force that make this "Barabbas" a lawless puppet-master are visible across the valley. Maybe we should be relieved that Anderson did not turn his considerable creative talents to describing individuals as evil as Fleming's Rosa Klebb, Larsson's Zala, Stirling's Ignatieff or Yates' several equivalents?

(For some information about Yates' two main "heroes," see Mansel And Chandos.)

Addendum, later the same evening, then the following morning: See also The Structure Of A Series: Dornford Yates and The Structure Of A Series: Dornford Yates II. (Yates matches Anderson for series complexity.)

Heroes, Villains And People

Poul Anderson's The People Of The Wind has no single hero or villain, just many people on opposite sides of a war. Daniel Holm, Second, then First, Marchwarden of the Lauran System, is very far from being the only viewpoint character of the novel but might he count as its main one?

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.

Fiction And Time

Fiction reflects life. Therefore, serious fiction reflects the passage of time. An unserious fictional series can show its hero as always in the prime of life even though years or even decades should have elapsed since the series began.

Authors who do acknowledge the passage of time can do this in completely different ways. Thus, to summarize in a single sentence, Dornford Yates, whom I am currently reading, regrets the passing of the Edwardian Age whereas Poul Anderson, whom I always reread, looks with interest towards possible futures - continuing the project of HG Wells' Victorian Time Traveler.

Readers can appreciate both perspectives although I do not share Yates' idea that life would have been better if times had not changed. (That phrase deserves to be capitalized: "...that Life would have been Better if Times had not Changed.")

In his Time Patrol series, Poul Anderson uses time travel to look not at the future but at the past and with different results. Whereas Charles Whitcomb contentedly leaves the Patrol to settle down in Victorian London, Manse Everard has learned better than to return to the Midwest of his boyhood. (Scroll down.)

Jack Finney's time travel is nostalgic whereas Wells' is futuristic. Anderson, of course, gives us both.

Defections And Deceptions

The People Of The Wind, XIV.

Arinnian's plan:

let some defectors go the enemy;

even let a prisoner of war escape;

the defectors and the escaped prisoner will genuinely believe that the Terrans can safely and advantageously land a beachhead on the Avalonian continent of Equatoria;

Equatoria, already naturally inhospitable, will be a carefully prepared deathtrap from which the Terrans will be unable to escape unless their brass order a ceasefire and accept Avalonian help;

any survivors will wind up as hospitalized prisoners of war in facilities already secretly prepared to receive them.

We are not told all these details in XIV but, of course, I have already read the novel several times. I am interested in the use of deceived informers. See Deception. No doubt real world intelligence services do spread disinformation in this way but what we need now and in the future is a world order in which, like the international scientific community, everyone cooperates in sharing information.