Perfect Pathetic Fallacy

Gratillonius must address the people of Confluentes to inform them that:

they are now all full citizens of the Roman Republic (Empire);

he is no longer King of Ys but a curial of Aquilo with responsibility for former Ysans;

he must collect (ruinous) taxes, enforce laws and return runaway slaves to where they belong.

How does the citizenry respond? Maeloch spits. Bomatin glares. Bannon clutches his knife. And how does nature respond? It always does in an Anderson text.

The Dog And The Wolf, Chapter XII, section 2, ends with short excerpts from Gratillonius' speech, then with a single concluding sentence expressing perfect pathetic fallacy:

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

We become very familiar with dead leaves as with the wind. Where does Flandry encounter them?

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.

Selador And The Pathetic Fallacy

See Three Thousand Years Of Peace.

I discussed a passage before and skipped over its pathetic fallacy as if that were of no account:

"The liturgy went on. Drums and whistles joined in. The people began to sway and stamp their feet.
"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."
-Poul Anderson, Starfarers (New York, 1999), Chapter 48, p. 461.

Earth is at peace but Anderson wants Zeyd and us to wonder how deep the peace is. He has four ways to do this:

the liturgical chant becomes shrill;
heretics are denounced;
simultaneously, a carnivore screams;
the scream is "...off in the dark...," away from the light.

Life is not all peace and light. There are carnivores and darkness as well. Are the carnivore and the darkness, the "protean enemy" of Anderson's Psychotechnic History, still within? Yes, if heretics are still being shrilly denounced.

More On The Pathetic Fallacy And On Exploitation

In Poul Anderson's The Shield Of Time (New York, 1991), Aryuk's daughter, oppressed and made pregnant by the invaders, dies and loses her baby in childbirth. Immediately after this:

"Afar, a mammoth trumpeted. The wind loudened. This was going to be a cold summer." (p. 193)

The invaders are mammoth-hunters. A mammoth trumpets their triumph. This will be a cold summer for Aryuk, whatever the weather. The pathetic fallacy yet again.

The issue raised here is addressed, although I think inadequately. One of Aryuk's sons wonders how the invading Cloud People find time to build "...great huts of stone, turf, and hides." (p. 188) Aryuk replies that they kill large animals that feed them for many days. Yes, but Aryuk's people do not make large kills yet now spend many days serving the invaders who want brought to them over many days' journey:

good stone for tools and weapons;
peat and dung dried for burning;
pelts;
dried fish and blubber.

Aryuk protests that the invaders require so much that the aborigines can hardly feed themselves. I would say instead that they would be unable to feed themselves. The Time Patrolman who is with the invaders does point out to them that they can get nothing from the natives if they cause their deaths. Instead, the invaders must give their new subjects fish hooks, spearheads and clothes. Of course, they do feed Aryuk and his sons when this small group arrives laden with goods - but it is not enough. The Tulat would surely be unable to survive such treatment.

(I must exercise this afternoon and practice Latin this evening.)

Storm

Poul Anderson, The Broken Sword (London, 1977).

Sometimes the pathetic fallacy is so integral to Poul Anderson's narrative that it goes unnoticed, like the grammar. In Chapter XXV, there is wind, rain, thunder and lightning while Valgard rages. In Chapter XXVI:

"Battle past and sword sheathed, [Skafloc] felt a return of weariness. The storm was dying overhead..." (p. 189)

It is no coincidence that there was a storm during the first battle in the elven reconquest of England because Skafloc's fleet had crossed the channel:

"Under cover of an autumn storm..." (p. 185)

Nevertheless, there is definitely a pathetic fallacy when the storm dies just as the battle ends. I approach the end of The Broken Sword. Several concluding events have still to occur: the recapture of Elfheugh; what did Odin want? etc. After that, I will reread The Demon Of Scattery.

A Concluding Pathetic Fallacy

Poul Anderson, Vault Of The Ages, Chapter 20.

There is a lot of fighting, which I will not summarize, in the concluding chapters of Vault Of The Ages. As a result, the invaders are defeated and the taboo on ancient scientific knowledge is lifted. After all that action and violence, this juvenile adventure novel ends with an appropriate Pathetic Fallacy, not a winter storm bringing more war but the exact opposite:

"Carl went softly to the door and opened it and looked out into the summer night. It was dark now, but dawn was not far off." (p. 189)

Temporal Pathetic Fallacy

(These two covers represented the entire Time Patrol series - until Poul Anderson wrote more.)

John Sandoval contemplates the Chinese conquest of North America:

"'Good God, Manse! When Columbus gets here, he'll find his Grand Cham all right! The Sachem Khan of the strongest nation on earth!'" (Time Patrol, p. 149)

Next, something remarkable happens that I have not remarked on before, not in terms of fictional events, just in terms of Anderson's prose:

"Sandoval stopped. Everard listened to the gallows creak of branches in the wind." (ibid.)

Of course Sandoval stopped speaking but Anderson states this in order to convey that there was then a silence during which:

"[Everard] looked into the night for a long while..." (ibid.)

The gallows of the history protected by the Patrol? Wodan and his wind returned from earlier centuries? The pathetic fallacy in time as well as in nature.

The Reborn Year

Poul Anderson, The Broken Sword (London, 1977), Chapter XXIII.

As Skafloc rides like Loki to Vigrid, Poul Anderson describes the country through which he rides. We look out for:

vivid descriptions;
appeals to at least three senses;
shafts of sunlight;
several colors;
birds and their songs;
seasonal changes;
the pathetic fallacy.

We might not find all of these ingredients but we know by now that Anderson will deploy most of them.

"He went over hills, the reborn year around him. It had rained in the morning and the ground was muddy, pools and rivulets glittering in the sunbeams. The grass grew strongly, a cool light green to the edge of sight; and the trees were budding forth, a frail tint of new life across their boughs, the vanguard of summer.
"It remained chilly; a strong wind gusted across the hills and whipped Skafloc's cloak about him. But this was a wind of spring, frolicking and shouting, lashing the sluggishness out of winter blood. The sky stood high and altogether blue, the sun struck through white and grey clouds, lances of light smote the wet grass in gleams and sparkles. Thunder rolled through the darkened southeast, but against that smoky cloud-mass shone a rainbow.
"The honking of geese came from overhead, the wander-birds were homeward bound. A thrush tried out his song in a dancing grove, and two squirrels played in a tree like little red fires.
"Soon would come warm days and light nights, green woods and nodding flowers. Something stirred within Skafloc as he rode, the unfolding of a buried and almost forgotten gentleness." (pp. 167-168)

Spring reminds Skafloc of gentleness but does not appear to express it independently so this is not quite the pathetic fallacy. However, Skafloc rides to turn the war from defeat to victory so maybe the spring expresses that?

"The sky stood high..." recalls:

"High is heaven and holy." (Rise Of The Terran Empire, p. 662)

Latter Days

The last time Queen Gunnhild walks and talks with her son Harald, Poul Anderson describes a "...boundless blue..." sky, clouds, mist, green growth, trees, footfalls, birdcalls "...and a lark high overhead."
-Poul Anderson, Mother Of Kings (New York, 2003), Book Six, Chapter XVIII, p. 536.

We look for at least one more sense and find it in the last sentence of quite a long descriptive paragraph:

"Thyme lent a slight sharpness to sweet earth-smells." (p. 537)

Later, because of Harald's ill-advised and ill-fated expedition, Gunnhild and her two surviving sons must go into exile in the Orkneys for the third time and the pathetic fallacy returns:

"The wind howled louder. Rain roared. A burst of hail rattled over shingles and timber. This was the first bad weather in a mild and bountiful summer. It was as if the land were casting them out."
-Chapter XXII, p. 552.

Or is it fully the pathetic fallacy when the author points it out instead of leaving it to the reader to notice it?

"...folk streamed to welcome Harald Grenska and join his host...the North had risen on behalf of its Jarl..."
-Chapter XXII, p. 550.

Despite this overwhelming popular vote of no confidence, Gunnhild's sons plan long term to reconquer Norway. I would be ashamed to assert my right to rule after such a decisive rejection.

Gunnhild prays for a sign. If if is from Christ, then she will suppress paganism. If it is from Odin, then she will burn churches. If it is from the elements, then she will go easier on the Finns. It is to be hoped that the gods and powers unite to reply, "No sign."

Thunder Resounded

Mirkheim.

Thunder in a pathetic fallacy usually means threat or menace, I think. This time it is different. Benoni Strang, the Baburites' High Commissioner on Hermes calls Grand Duchess Sandra to tell her to cancel all public celebrations on the planetary day, Elvander's Birthday. Initially, he merely states that his call is about the Birthday. At first, Sandra is too weary to respond:

"Then thunder resounded outside, she heard anew the trumpet of wind and march of rain, as if Pete rode by. She straightened in her chair and replied coldly, 'What of it?..." (XVII, p. 232)

Perhaps this is not a pathetic fallacy? The thunder does not merely parallel or echo Strang's call. Instead, it influences, and even heartens, Sandra. Thunder resounds, wind trumpets and rain marches as if her dead husband rides by. The Hermetian elements resist the oppressor.

Life Styles And Pathetic Fallacy

The Byworlder, I.

"'Please understand that this community doesn't disdain cybernation and machines. Without them - without income guarantee, the low price of most necessities, cheap and versatile power tools, everything technology makes possible - I doubt we could have made a go of this.'" (p. 10)

Urania of the Theontological Spirits cult addresses her guest and our viewpoint character, Skip, but she really lectures the reader with a list of aspects of their contemporary society. The author is cutting corners in laying out the background details for this novel. The monastery that supports our meditation group is maintained entirely by voluntary donations from members of the lay sangha (Buddhist community). Without that, the monks would have to be working clergy. "Income guarantee" would go a long way toward supporting a diversity of life styles. 

Something else happens between Urania and Skip:

"They kissed. The sun rose blindingly over a tall peak. A lark whistled." (ibid.)

That much is pathetic fallacy. The following sentence tells us something about the Theontological community:

"A few persons in sight voiced friendly cheers." (ibid.)

Sun, a lark and friendship. All is well, so far. 

Wind Boomed

In Dead Leaves and Explicit Pathetic Fallacy, we recognized extremely powerful use of the literary device of "pathetic fallacy" in a passage of Poul Anderson's A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows. Here it is again. Although Dominic Flandry basically approves of the institution called the ispravka, he realizes that its use on this occasion might help the enemy. When Flandry articulates this concern, the author automatically underlines his words with a reference to the winter elements:

"'Maybe the firebrand who instigated that, uh, ispravka is a Merseian himself, in human skin.'
"The wind boomed between walls."
-Poul Anderson, A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows IN Anderson, Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra (Riverdale, NY, 2012), pp. 339-606 AT XVII, p. 555.

Why did wind boom just then? Of course, we understand that it is booming anyway. But the author mentions it because it is appropriate that the threat from the heard but unseen wind parallels the threat from clandestine conspirators and enemies of the status quo.

Three Features In Two Sentences

Poul Anderson, Operation Luna (New York, 2000), Chapter 43.

"The clouds piled higher in the west, snow-bright on top, blue-black in their depths. The wind piped louder and colder." (p. 393)

This is a mobile scene, clouds and wind heightening. These two sentences display three features that we have already noticed in Poul Anderson's texts:

an appeal to at least three of the senses;
an active role for the wind;
the pathetic fallacy, although I will have to explain the context for this.

Three Senses
We see the clouds mounting, bright above but black below.
We hear the wind loudening.
We also feel the same wind coldening.

The Wind
It pipes again, like a Greek chorus commenting on the action.

The Pathetic Fallacy
While the clouds are piling higher, the magicians are trying to rescue Valeria Matuchek who meanwhile is on a broomstick flying uncontrollably out of the Solar System. What is about to happen is that, on the one hand, they will successfully reverse her path (good) but, on the other hand, she will now be flying not back to Earth but towards the stick's original destination, the Moon (bad). Thus, only partial success. The skyscape symbolizes this. Brightness is hope but blackness, loudness and cold are continued danger. In Anderson's works, every word and phrase counts.

Vocabulary And Pathetic Fallacy

"...the Inuit's new camp...was in a valley, small and snug above a high-walled bight." (The Merman's Children, p. 180)

"Margrete...was attired in a gown and wimple..." (p. 186)

When Ingeborg brings Margrete good news and bids her to heed:

"A flaw of wind swooped into the court, raw and boisterous. A cloud passed overhead like a white banner. Crows laughed." (p. 187)

Boisterousness, a banner and laughter arrive with the good news. Here is the pathetic fallacy yet again.

I have reached the end of Book Three and am about to go out for part of the evening so we have reached a natural break.

Runes And Seid III

To practice the sinister magic called "seid," Gunnhild needs privacy and secrecy. Servants must go elsewhere overnight. As soon as she is alone, the pathetic fallacy comes into effect:

"As evening closed in, she shuttered windows and bolted doors. The weather had changed. Wind whined; rain whispered. Lampflames wavered; smoke and smell eddied. Dusk deepened, and shadows stirred, misshapen as trolls."
-Poul Anderson, Mother Of Kings (New York, 2003), Book Two, Chapter XII, p. 132.

(How many verbs follow the subject "Wind..." (and here) in Anderson's texts?) Seid is trollcraft and Gunnhild's preparations for seid are accompanied by troll-like shadows. In a locked room within the locked house, she wears only a necklace, secretly made and carefully concealed, woven from eagle feathers, wolf's teeth and wildcat's claws bought over the years from hunters who would remain silent, while dried mushrooms soak in a bowl. Knowing that seid is dangerous, she reflects:

"For Eirik and their blood, she went into childbed over and over, as he went into battle." (p. 133)

Warriors killed in battle go to Valhalla. Women killed by childbirth are welcomed by Veleda's goddess, Niaerdh, but that is in another history. Here, in any case, Gunnhild "...set forth on a way that might go down hell-road." (ibid.)

This "...hell..." is the Pagan underworld, not the Biblical Hell.

After eating the mushrooms, she preserves secrecy by avoiding the sound of a drum but instead claps while dancing around a lamp set on a tall stool, gazing at the flame until it becomes a gate. Then she kneels, sways and sings, waving two rune-carved deer bones. Here, the pathetic fallacy resumes, unless Gunnhild's magic does affect the weather:

"The rain strengthened. Its rushing filled her skull. The wind wailed. It lifted her..." (pp. 133-134)

Half of Gunnhild sings spells. Half flies through the flame into the sky. What she sees there is divided between Aesir and Vanir. Whereas the North Star is said to be the eye that Odin gave for wisdom:

"The moon belonged to older Powers, to earth and sea, begetting and bearing, wizards and witches." (p. 134)

The difference between the two practices is spelt out:

"Norsemen offered to the gods in hopes of winning their goodwill. Shamans sought oneness with the world in hopes that it would do their will." (ibid.)

Shamanism is more primitive. Its practitioners have not yet separated themselves from the world or imagined gods looking down into it. Poul Anderson takes us there.

Stormclouds

We Claim These Stars, CHAPTER XI.

A party of Ardazirho whirring down a Garth street on their unicycles:

"...left a wake of frightened silence behind them." (p. 70)

Poul Anderson describes not only the invaders but also their effect on the subdued Vixenites. There follows another sentence that also serves two purposes:

"The winter sun burned low to northwest, big and dazzling white in a pale sky, among hurried stormclouds." (ibid.)

First, a description of the Vixenite environment. The white sun is another welcome difference. Secondly, pathetic fallacy. Hurrying stormclouds match whirring invaders. Readers recognize the appropriateness of the stormclouds even if they do not analyse Poul Anderson's literary techniques.

Pathetic fallacy continues as Flandry keeps his assignation with Kit under "...the gloomy winter sky..." (p. 76) at the Rocket Fountain (scroll down) in Explorers' Plaza.

Palpable Pathetic Fallacy

Poul Anderson's "The Sorrow Of Odin The Goth" is an inexhaustibly rich text. As the narrative approaches its climax, Anderson deploys almost palpable pathetic fallacy. Carl Farness, Time Patrolman, partly observes and partly lives events that were the source of a tragic story. Thus, he foreknows what must happen although the details may differ.

As the year 372 nears its end, so do the happy lives of the Teurings:

"On a dark day before solstice, when a few snowflakes drifted down onto frozen earth, hounds barked outside the hall." (Time Patrol, p. 439)

Randwar and two farmhands, all armed, must go to see who approaches. Randwar's wife, Swanhild, comes only when she has heard that there is no danger. She and her white gown are the only brightness - and soon will be no more. The Wanderer, Carl, visits but is unhappy and soon must leave.

Later, when Carl leaves the house of his great-grandson, Hathawulf:

"Soon he was walking off, he and his spear-staff, down a road where lately fallen leaves flew on a chill blast.
"And soon after that, the terrible news came to Heorot." (p. 443)

Lately fallen leaves parallel a soon-to-be-fallen house. Carl goes "...down a road...," down Hell-road? Previously, when young Alawin had accompanied the Wanderer on a journey, those who watched the young man riding away beside the blue-cloaked gray-beard:

"...did not utter the thought that was in them: how yonder sight recalled that Wodan was the god who led away the souls of the dead." (p. 436)

What terrible news comes to Heorot? On "...a bleak evening, where wind shrilled..." (p. 444), Ermanaric the king has Alawin hanged and Swanhild trampled to death. History is following the script of the Volsungasaga. Now Hathawulf and his brother must go to their deaths...

The Pathetic Fallacy In FLAG

Poul Anderson, For Love And Glory (New York, 2003), Chapter III.

Sorry, folks. I got into an argument on another blog. And I had to attend the remnant of our sf group, where we mentioned some old Philip Jose Farmer novels while mainly discussing other topics.

Meanwhile, in FLAG, Lissa jumps up angrily:

"'Whoa, there!' Hebo rose too. A cloud passed over the sun, blown from the west. A wild creature screamed." (p. 25)

A cloud obscures the sun just as the characters are, potentially, about to fight. But why should the cloud be blown from the west? The characters are on an extrasolar planet. Thus, east and west can have no symbolic significance, as they do on Earth where both "the West" and "the East" have acquired powerful connotations - and not always what we think. To Chinese Buddhists, their wisdom had come from the West. Thus, there was even a mythical Western Paradise. Returning to the pathetic fallacy on an extrasolar planet, the wild creature simultaneously screaming is very explicit.

Returning to the character interactions in FLAG, how does a "'...free-lance entrepreneur...'" (p. 21) earn a living in a civilization with faster than light interstellar travel? Learning of the discovery of an Earth-like planet, Hebo goes there. Someone wanting to colonize the planet might pay for specific information. In fact, there is a Forerunner artifact on the planet so a news agency or a scientific institution might pay to be told about that.

"'Information's really the one universal currency.'" (p. 26)

- as James Blish's John Amalfi said, although he used the word, "knowledge."

However, Lissa's expedition has arrived and will not oblige Hebo by keeping the existence of the artifact secret. This is one of the things that people might fight about in an interstellar civilization.

The Ubiquituous Pathetic Fallacy

After their meal (see here), Evagail suggests that they make love. Ridenour, remembering that he is not a peace-maker but an Imperial spy, declines. Many of our fictional spies are not so scrupulous! Poul Anderson, of course, does not merely recount their conversation. He also punctuates it in his usual way:

"He looked at the candle flames, not her, and mumbled: 'I'm sorry. It mustn't be.'
"'Why not?' The wind raved louder, nearly obliterating her words."
-Poul Anderson, "Outpost of Empire" IN Anderson, Captain Flandry: Defender Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 1-72 AT p. 50.

Evagail's inner turmoil is exactly matched by the storm outside. Anderson gives the impression of writing like this almost without noticing that he is doing it. Evagail's two words are followed by a question mark, a quotation mark and a pathetic fallacy.

Irumclaw

In Ensign Flandry, there are Irumclagians and, at the beginning of the following volume, A Circus Of Hells, Flandry is on Irumclaw.

Any sf writer can tell us that an interstellar empire is declining and withdrawing from its periphery but Poul Anderson is also able to present imperial decline in social terms with a hint of the pathetic fallacy to back it up.

First, the pathetic fallacy - Flandry leaves the naval compound:

"Soon after the red-orange sun had set..."
-Poul Anderson, Young Flandry (New York, 2010), p. 203.

Anderson gets his readers to imagine sunset colors - not only has the sun just set but it was red-colored to begin with - immediately before he discusses declining empire. I have used the accompanying color illustration, although we have had it recently, because of its appropriate background coloring.

Next, as Flandry walks between the homes and private parks of the wealthy, he reflects that "...they epitomized man's trajectory." (p. 204) When the settlement had been large, prosperous and well inside the Imperial boundaries, it had attracted both mercantile commerce and aristocratic culture but now the mansions are either empty or owned only by those who prey on the declining numbers of spacemen and Navy personnel while, outside the treaty port boundaries, the natives revert to barbarism.

"Tonight Irumclaw lay like a piece of wreckage at the edge of the receding tide of empire." (ibid.)

It is appropriate that Flandry's somber reflections occur just after nightfall. They prefigure the Long Night of Empire that haunts Flandry's life.