The Pathetic Fallacy In Under The Yoke

"...the gardens shone with the cruelly indifferent beauty of nature.
"No, the nun thought. The pathetic fallacy. Nature is merely indifferent, it is the heart of fallen man that is cruel."
-SM Stirling, Under The Yoke (New York, 1989), p. 268.

I have often remarked on the pathetic fallacy in Poul Anderson's works so it is appropriate to find an explicit comment on it in this work by SM Stirling. But there seem to be two meanings of "pathetic fallacy." The nun means the mistake of attributing human feelings to nature whereas I mean the literary device of evoking human feelings by describing parallel natural phenomena: the sun shines when someone is happy etc.

The nun is all too aware of cruelty among her Draka owners. Stirling continues to surprise us by imagining just how depraved a human society might become:

"When the time comes to geld the Yankees an' hitch them to the plough, we'll cut off their balls with a knife they competed to sell us; an' while we rape their virgin cheerleader daughters, they'll still be whimperin' about contracts."

Minutes of the Supreme State Council
Archon Edwina Palme Presiding
Archona, Executive Building
July 10, 1947
MOST SECRET: LEVEL XIX PERSONNEL ONLY (p.311)

They would have to keep such minutes secret. But could any State Council express itself in such terms? Yes, the Nazis were able to plan technological genocide.

In this second Draka volume, Stirling makes more of an effort to convey Draka speech patterns and accents. A master to a serf:

"'...work bettah, and we'll all be happier.'" (p. 291)

This has the pleasing effect of distancing the self-styled "...brothers and sisters of the Dragon breed..." (p. 304) from the reader to a greater extent. In fact, they want to differentiate themselves from humanity:

"'...we never fo'get yo're human...It'd be mo' accurate to say we don't consider ourselves human in the usual sense; we're higher up the food chain. In terms of culture, if not biology, though the eugenics people are workin' on that...yo' farm the earth an' we farm yo'. Domesticated humans are much mo' profitable an' rewardin' than plants and animals...'" (p. 272)

And here is a suitable comparison with a non-human race:

"'Don' you worry though, little ones. Momma an' poppa are goin' give yo' the whole world fo' a toy.'" (p. 260)

On Merseia:

"The small being who lay on the furs wrapped a fist around the gnarled finger that stroked him. Brechdan Ironrede melted within himself. 'You will have stars for toys,' he crooned. 'Wudda, wudda, wudda.'"
-Poul Anderson, Young Flandry (New York, 2010), p. 28.

Theor And The Pathetic Fallacy

When both of Theor's he-parents die, he becomes the new Reeve but the Nyarrans are a free people and need not heed him if he calls on them to surrender to the invaders. In any case, he refuses to make such a call despite the threats of slaughter or enslavement made by Chalkhiz, warmaster of Ulunt-Khazul.

"Chalkhiz made a spitting noise. Thunder banged overhead."
-Poul Anderson, Three Worlds To Conquer (London, 1966), Chapter 9, p. 64.

It seems to be automatic for Anderson to underline a dramatic moment for his characters by immediately following it up with a reference to threatening weather. The pathetic fallacy is almost Andersonian punctuation.

I begin to feel naked if I do not have either a Time Patrol comparison or a pathetic fallacy to draw attention to. Close behind these are multi-sensory descriptions and moments of realization.

Dead Leaves

I asked where Dominic Flandry encounters dead leaves. Sean Brooks replied that Flandry used dead leaves as a metaphor for the decline of Technic civilization and that Flandry and Miriam Abrams walked through autumnal woods. The latter case is a pathetic fallacy because Dominic and Miriam are starting an autumnal affair.

I remembered another pathetic fallacy and found it here. However, the phrase used in the text is not "dead leaves" but:

"...tongue after fire-tongue ripped loose to scrittle off over the pavement. All nature was saying farewell."
-Sir Dominic Flandry, p. 552.

I called this "explicit pathetic fallacy" because nature says farewell as Kossara goes to her death - and the reader has had ample warning that something bad is going down.

There is also irony. As the march approaches Parliament, Kossara says:

"'Here we go, my brave beloved. They'll sing of you for a thousand years.'" (p. 558)

Will they? We soon learn that they will sing of Kossara for more than a thousand years because she is about to die and will soon after that be canonized by her fellow Dennitzan OrthoChristians.

The Pathetic Fallacy On Merseia

Poul Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (New York, 2012).

The pathetic fallacy is the literary pretense that nature mirrors human feelings although, in science fiction, we must say "human or alien feelings."

When Tachwyr the Dark, Hand of the Vach Rueth and Protector of the Roidhun's Grand Council, told his fellow Council members, "'The hour is upon us...'" (p. 264):

"The sun Korych cast brilliance on forested mountainside..." (ibid.)

and:

"A fangryf winged on high, hunting." (ibid.)

When the Merseians think that their triumph is at hand, their sun shines brilliantly and what they see as their Racial hunt is symbolized by a "...fangryf...on high..."

Later, when Tachwyr had to tell them, "'...I have as yet no word of what went wrong...'" (p. 445):

"Winter night lay over the South Wilwidh Ocean. Waves ran black before a harrying wind...
"Seas crashed, winds shrilled around the islet stronghold from which Tachwyr the Dark spoke with his Grand Council." (p. 445)

The Merseians are benighted, unable to see what has upset their plans. They are harried by clever opponents and adverse circumstances. The universe that they try to control crashes and shrills, uncontrolled. We notice that the winter night is appropriate even if we do not reread and analyze every detail of this elaborate pathetic fallacy.

Another Pathetic Fallacy

We have frequently highlighted the pathetic fallacy in works by Poul Anderson and SM Stirling and have made some comparisons between Anderson and Stieg Larsson. I have just found a beautiful pathetic fallacy in Larsson's The Girl With The Dragon Tatttoo (London, 2008).

Retired industrialist Henrik Vanger has hired journalist Mikael Blomkvist to investigate the disappearnce of his great-niece decades previously. Several family members resent and resist Blomkvist's prying. When Blomkvist is discussing the matter with Vanger's lawyer, Dirch Frode:

"Blomkvist looked up at the sky, where rain clouds had begun to gather.
"'Looks like a storm is brewing,' Frode said. 'If the winds get too strong, I'll have to back you up.'" (p. 315)

Explicit Pathetic Fallacy II

A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows, XVII.

I have discussed this paragraph before (see Explicit Pathetic Fallacy) but let's take a closer look at it.

"A west wind skirled against the sun, whose blaze seemed paled in a pale heaven." (p. 551)

The wind comments, as ever. Sun and sky pale as Flandry, Kossara and Dennitza move further into the danger zone.

"Clouds were brighter; they scudded in flocks, blinding white..." (pp. 551-552)

But that is above. Down below:

"...their shadows sweeping chill across the world, off, on, off, on." (p. 552)

The world of men is shadowed and chilled.

"Winged animals wheeled and thinly cried." (ibid.)

Remember, Dennitza has no birds but winged theroids. These are not singing, as they have sometimes done in previous chapters, but crying thinly.

The trees, mostly imported Terran, are described as casting about, creaking and soughing Delphic utterances. Such utterances were at best ambiguous.

The wind rips off leaves, described as fire-tongues, which "...scrittle off over the pavement." (ibid.)

There are wandering rain puddles. In the pathetic fallacy, rain is nature weeping.

Finally:

"All nature was saying farewell." (ibid.)

Indeed.

The Pathetic Fallacy On Avalon

Vodan is going to war. He travels early to avoid being delayed by a storm. They have had three whirldevils recently. Avalonian weather is more turbulent than Terrestrial. Nevertheless, there is pathetic fallacy in the simultaneous approach of war and storms.

The fallacy enters the conversation. After Arinnian has challenged Hrill:

"She considered him for a while that grew. Lightning moved closer on heavy gusts. His rage ebbed and he must fight not to lower his eyes, not to cringe."
-Poul Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (New York, 2011), p. 509.

Do we notice that Hrill's response and the lightning approach together? Before long, she leaves because, if she stayed, they would:

"'...brew one cyclone of a squabble.'" (p. 510)

So the bad weather has got into her dialogue.

An Original Idea II: Responses To Deubel's Sermon

Martha:

"'...just because something big falls on you doesn't mean there's an intention behind it. That's the pathetic fallacy, historical division. Mount St. Helen's didn't blow up because God was mad at the bears.'"
-SM Stirling, Island in The Sea Of Time (New York, 1998), p. 102.

As often as I have mentioned the pathetic fallacy in relation to Poul Anderson's works, it is good to see it referenced here. Martha develops the idea slightly:

the fallacy usually refers to nature, not to history;
it is usually an implied parallel between natural phenomena and human emotions, not an explicit intention behind external events.

Cofflin:

"God's not in time. God's outside time. He's eternal." (p. 103)

I used to believe that but what does it mean? The Biblical God definitely acts in time and even in history. Of course, He might be intervening from outside it. However, I suggest that a merely atemporal consciousness without any duration would be as impossible as a merely flat plane without any depth. But might the term "transtemporal" have some meaning? A solid incorporates planes so the transtemporal might incorporate times? The transcendent Hindu Brahman might be transtemporal in which case some lesser manifestation of His, or Its, might be acting in time? Fortunately, we can meditate and act while remaining agnostic on metaphysics.

The Pathetic Fallacy And Commissioner Desai

The pathetic fallacy is the literary pretense that nature reflects human feelings. It rains when a character is sad etc. I quoted some powerful pathetic fallacies from Poul Anderson's Time Patrol series. In The Day Of Their Return, the last passage to feature Chunderban Desai begins:

"Chimes rang from the bell tower of the University. They played the olden peals, but somehow today they sounded at peace."
-Poul Anderson, Captain Flandry: Defender Of The Terran Empire (New York, 2010), p. 232.

And the passage ends:

"As Desai closed the door behind him, he heard the tadmouse begin singing." (p. 236)

Bells are artificial, not natural, but "...the olden peals..." should sound as before. However, Desai has just helped to prevent a war so the peals sound peaceful to him. The Aenean household pet singing confirms for the reader that, thanks to Desai and others, including the tadmouse's owner, Aeneas will remain at peace.

Pathetic Fallacy Continued

See here.

When the Wanderer tells Ulrica and Alawin that all the Teurings who attacked Ermanaric's hall have been killed:

"Morning brought rain. Driven on a hooting wind, hail-cold, hail-hard, it hid everything but the thorp that huddled beneath it, as if the rest of the world had gone down in wreck." (Time Patrol, p. 456)

Nature weeps for the Teurings and the hard rain is like the end of the world. This pathetic fallacy works on the reader whether or not s/he recognizes it as such. I would not have been as conscious as I now am of literary devices the first time I read this story.

"'Ermanaric lives, but maimed and lamed, and poorer by two sons.'" (ibid.)

- and will fall within three years. He kills himself as both a storm and the Huns approach. Anderson seems to be unable to stop writing pathetic fallacies...

Anderson has to let Ermanaric win the fight but does not let him benefit or profit from it. Alawin must lead the remnant of the family to join the West Goths, burning Heorot behind him. It will not be remembered that that famous name was used here as well - or Carl would not have used it. The West Goths move to south Gaul and Alawin's descendants help to found the Spanish nation. I saw recently on television that the Arian West Goths who moved to Spain found themselves surrounded by Catholics and therefore adapted to Catholicism. I had wondered what became of the Gothic Arianism.

Pathetic Fallacy

"The early sunset smoldered above the forest. Boughs were like black bones athwart it. Puddles in field and paddock glowed dull red with it beneath a greenish sky as cold as the wind that eddied whimpering across them. A flight of crows passed. Their hoarse cries sounded for a while after the dusk had swallowed them up."
-Poul Anderson, Time Patrol (New York, 2006), p. 610.

I quote this opening paragraph of a chapter in the Time Patrol story, "Star of the Sea," for two reasons. First, its beauty, which includes the author's careful attention to even the minutest detail of the scene described, like the red sky reflected in pools of water and the sound of the birds lingering after they had disappeared.

Secondly, it sets the scene for a crisis between the characters. The prophetess has to be persuaded that her goddess wants her to change direction. A dark sky is the perfect preparation for a dark message from heaven. When studying aesthetics, I was taught that the "pathetic fallacy" is an author making nature reflect the characters' feelings.

Tobias Frogmorton And The Pathetic Fallacy

Poul Anderson, Operation Luna (New York, 2004), Chapter 21.

Tobias Frogmorton:

has taken a Hermetic Oath (p. 195);

quotes a little more Latin which, however, I do not feel like deciphering right now;

refers to World Wars I and II as the Kaiser's War and the Caliph's War, respectively (we remember that these conflicts had other names in the Draka timeline);

describes a magic sword that might make a suitable weapon for the Matucheks.

When Frogmorton says:

"'...here may be a weapon proper to your hands.'" (p. 195)

- Chapter 21 could have ended, dramatically enough. However, there are two more sentences:

"Lightning flared. Thunder crashed." (p. 195)

I have said before that the pathetic fallacy is so inherent in Anderson's texts that it resembles the grammar, unnoticed yet essential to the meaning. Thunder and lightning underline the potency of the weapon especially since the sword in question:

"'...came to England with the Vikings...'" (ibid.) -

- those violent men who worshiped a god of thunder.

Wind Hooting, Biting And Scattering

The Dog And The Wolf, XII, 1.

When the scheming and conniving Procurator Bacca says that:

"'the interests of Rome...are the interests of civilization itself...'" (p. 235):

"Wind hooted and dashed rain across roof tiles." (ibid.)

Roof tiles represent civilization. Hooting wind represents the hostile elements but also Bacca's threat to the freedom of the former Ysans.

When Gratillonius informs his people of their admittance into the "Republic" (Empire), the weather, including of course the wind, provides a pathetic fallacy:

"The market day shone bright. Clouds scudded over the blue, wavelets ran upon rain puddles, the woods tossed and distantly roared as wind bit into them, leaves broke free of yonder red-brown-yellow minglement and scrittled across fields, the last migratory birds trekked aloft with cries ringing as cold as the air, all the world seemed to be in departure. That, at least, was right, thought Gratillonius." (p. 237)

This time, the viewpoint character confirms the pathetic fallacy: the brightness of a new beginning and the departure of olden freedoms.

When he has finished speaking:

"The wind scattered his words with the dead leaves." (p. 240)

Section 2 begins:

"He shut it out when he closed the door of Cadoc's house behind him." (ibid.)

"...it..." is the wind, ever present although we can shut it out for a while.

Subjective Feelings Or Pathetic Fallacy On Roland

Poul Anderson, New America, "The Queen of Air and Darkness."

Sherrinford tells Barbro:

some archetypes are not individuals;
these include the Anima, the Shadow and the Outworld;
the Outworld involves magic, glamour, enchantment, half-human beings like Ariel and Caliban and "'...dwellers in dusk and moonlight...'" (p. 228);
the Rolandic natives knew what sights to show, what illusions to spin and what songs and legends to initiate;
also, men might have re-created the Outworld as they sensed that they were "'...living on the edge of the world...'" (ibid.)

When Sherrinford finishes speaking:

"Shadows stole across the room. It grew cooler and the traffic noises dwindled." (ibid.)

Does Barbro subjectively feel darker, cooler and quieter or does the approach of evening explain the lengthening shadows, the decreasing temperature and the diminishing background noises? If the latter, then this passage expresses a Pathetic Fallacy, objective nature seeming to match subjective feelings.

Shadow And Milky Way

Chinook's boat, Williwaw, has been incommunicado but is at last returning safely from the turbulent atmosphere of the gas giant planet, Danu. Brodersen announces:

"'Good night. A real good night, ain't it? A real good night.'"
-Poul Anderson, The Avatar, XXX, p. 262.

Usually, in an Anderson text, such a piece of dialogue would be followed by something like: "Suddenly, the sun rose from behind the planet." We have often commented on the Pathetic Fallacy. Instead, this time, we get:

"(Chinook entered the shadow cone of Danu, and half of heaven was blotted out.)" (ibid.)

A negative Pathetic Fallacy, clearly intended to warn us that all is not alright. Anderson would have known the effect of what he was writing.

Meanwhile, the Milky Way is never far away:

"He felt her tense in his arms, saw in the ring of the Milky Way how she mastered her lips." (XXX, p. 264)

"...the galactic river..." (XXXI, p. 265)

"The Milky Way in a viewscreen crowned her uplifted head." (XXXI, p. 268)

Again we distinguish between descriptions of the Milky Way and objects, including human heads, seen against the Milky Way.

The Pathetic Fallacy On Earth And Harbor

Poul Anderson, Starfarers (New York, 1999).

In a Seladorian ritual, the leader chants, "'...oneness.'" (p. 461) Then:

"The voice grew shrill. '...bring down the falsehoods of the Biosophists...'
"A carnivore screamed, somewhere off in the dark. Zeyd wondered how serene Earth really was and how long its peace could endure." (ibid.)

A carnivore screaming in darkness is a perfect counterpoint to, and comment on, someone chanting "oneness," then denouncing falsehoods. Are the the carnivore and the darkness within the Seladorian?

Nansen the starfarer visits an empty Kith Town. History, indeed. We saw this place bustling with life millennia earlier and, even then, were given a brief history of how a city had grown up around the Town, then the surrounding City district had economically declined. Five years after visiting Earth and its empty Kith Town, Nansen leads the new Venture League on Harbor at Tau Ceti:

"Though it was summer in this hemisphere, to Earthside eyes the sunshine spilling from the blue would have had a mellow, autumnal quality." (p. 464)

Nansen has returned from far space to the autumn of interstellar travel but hopes that it will have a new spring and summer. Another perfect pathetic fallacy. Mirkheim ends with a sunrise (a beginning) that is red (the color associated with sunsets, an end). Anderson's prose affects his readers whether or not they analyze it.

Goetic Pathetic Fallacy

(Once or twice, there has been a problem with accessing images. That is happening now. Later: images back.)

(Since an occasional blog theme has been the life and times of the blogger, please bear with me while I follow up from the conclusion of the previous post. I arrived at the advertised time but Dalton Square was already full of socially distanced, peaceful, black and white people shouting a name and quoting his words, "I can't breathe!" A great event, unfortunately marred right at the end by a very unpleasant, "I'm not racist but..." intervention. I could write a longer report but let's leave it there.)

Operation Luna, 21.

The Pathetic Fallacy is a major sub-theme during the composition and casting of the mysterious spell discussed in the five preceding posts:

"Outside, the rain had gone heavy, filling the windows with murk. We heard it hammer on walls and roofs. Wind piped. Inside, lights dimmed to embers and dusk laid hold of us." (p. 190)

Why should indoors lights dim? We have already read:

"We were in dusk till Frogmorton barred the door and touched an object. It was a bronze statue, Greek or Roman, of a torchbearer whose branch flared with sudden cold corposant light. More light streamed from the eyes of a grinning Mayan jaguar or feathered serpent or whatever it was." (pp. 185-185)

Does the murk in the windows merely counteract the light from the statue and the Mayan object or do their sources of illumination dim in response to the weather? No. They have dimmed in response to the spell. When it is completed:

"Corposants brightened to normal." (p. 191)

When Frogmorton and the Matucheks relax:

"We sat for a while in companionable silence. The weather wildened." (p. 192)

When Frogmorton says that conceivably he might be able to help but:

"'...cannot promise more.'
"The wind skirled." (p. 193)

He looks into darkness in the corners and under the ceiling despite the lamps. When he might be able to give them a suitable weapon:

"Lightning flared. Thunder crashed." (p. 195)

Something Monstrous And An Oncoming Machine

This is not quite the Pathetic Fallacy:

"Brechdan Ironrede and his Grand Council...had put something monstrous in motion. Wind and surfbeat sounded all at once like the noise of an oncoming machine."
-Poul Anderson, Ensign Flandry IN Young Flandry (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 1-192 AT Chapter Eleven, p. 108.

In the Pathetic Fallacy properly so called:

Flandry would realize that something monstrous was in motion;

then the narrator would emphasize this for the reader by describing, e.g., the sound of an oncoming storm or the cry of a beast of prey;

thus, an external process would exactly parallel Flandry's inner reflections.

In Anderson's prose, such parallels sometimes seem as integral to the text as its grammar. In this case, p. 106 had already described booming breakers and a wind smelling of cinnamon - three senses: heard breakers; felt wind; smelled cinnamon. The sounds do not change but Flandry himself suddenly hears them differently. The concluding sentence of a paragraph often comments and completes in this way.

The Pathetic Fallacy In The Sacred Wood

Three of his Queens confront Gratillonius, King of Ys. One says:

"'..Let the wombs that were shut be opened. Let the dead quicken. Taranis, come unto Belisama.'
"Lightning burst." (Roma Mater, pp. 345-346)

Lightning is followed by thunder, hail, wind and rain. And Gratillonius is possessed. The God in the man knows the Goddess in the three women. Afterwards, when Gratillonius is alone, he shouts to the Gods in Ysan that he does not understand what has happened and retreats into a Latin prayer to his own deity, Mithras.

The reader, carried along by the text, must surely recognize the dramatic effect of the lightning arriving with the women. And, in this case, perhaps it is not a pathetic fallacy because the Gods Who possess the man and the women also command the elements.

Wolves On The Wold

Poul Anderson, Three Hearts And Three Lions (London, 1977), Chapter Twenty-Three.

Is a "wold" a wood or a moor? In either case, it is the occasion for yet another pathetic fallacy. Holger and his companions bury the dwarf Hugi who had been mortally wounded by the troll:

"Afterward they heaped rocks above, and stabbed Hugi's dagger into the cairn with the hilt up. Wolves howled, miles away on the wold." (pp. 147-148)

Just as they stabbed the dagger, wolves howled miles away. Coincidence? In Anderson's works, the pathetic fallacy is almost like the grammar. A sentence ends with a full stop - and, when appropriate, is immediately followed by an echo in the natural world. A body is buried. Wolves howl.