Traitors and Monsters

[zodiacal_light]

Tyrans had this tendency, Ozorne noted, to omit the proper titles of the people they were dealing with. They rarely showed proper deference; if anything, they tended towards defiance.

Stiff-necked, the lot of them. That's what you got, Ozorne supposed, when you overthrew your nobility and turned your country over to merchants - a whole race of people who forgot the proper order of things.

Young Arram had been no different, but with him the typical Tyran attitude was less arrogant defiance and more a bizarrely charming sort of cluelessness. Ozorne had been drawn to the boy immediately, and as Arram progressed rapidly towards mastery and beyond, Ozorne knew he'd been right to befriend him.

Ozorne always did have a natural knack for making useful friends.

But Ozorne was somewhat surprised one day, when he looked at his younger friend and realized that the distracted sixteen-year-old was quite handsome.

(In later years, there would be nothing between them but cold bitterness and hot anger. Arram would leave behind his name, his standing, his whole identity abandoned along with his lover, and would die thinking of Ozorne as nothing but a monster. Ozorne would die much sooner, in a body not his, killed by his determination to kill the girl who'd had the arrogance to take everything from him - his palace, his throne, his humanity, and his mage, and he would die with his heart broken, still fervently believing young Arram had betrayed him.)

(But things start somewhere, and betrayals require a relationship to break. Even monsters and traitors are capable of love.)

(Some would say love is a requirement, to be a monster or a traitor.)

(Some would say love itself is the heart betraying the mind.)

Here and now, Ozorne, entranced, gently traces Arram's cheekbone.

Arram looks up, startled, and smiles.

Comments

[elsceetaria]

It never ceases to surprise me how amazing your fic can be. This is wonderful.

[zodiacal_light]

Thank you!

This bit me last night and wouldn't let go. So, random Ozorne fic.

[lotesse]

this is delicious. mmmm.

[zodiacal_light]

Thank you! I'm glad you liked it.

[carmarthen]

Brrrr. Oh, I want to know more about what makes Ozorne tick.

[zodiacal_light]

I see Ozorne, though we have no canonical age for him, as being about Alanna's age - 3 years or so older than Numair. So in this fic he's still young, but.

I also see the Carthaki court as having always been cutthroat, very much like Rome under some of its more paranoid emperors, and Ozorne growing up steeped in paranoia to survive.

Honestly? I'm always surprised Kaddar is so nice, given that environment.

And what a lot of people don't get about paranoia is that it is a pattern of thinking, and the more you think like that the more paranoid you get. (This is why, seriously, that studying conspiracy theories can, um, skew your relationship with reality.) So here Ozorne is both paranoid, by necessity, but not as paranoid as he will eventually become.

This is a more innocent Ozorne, weird as that may be to contemplate, who's just found himself attracted to/in love with his best friend, and hasn't yet grown suspicious of him.

[carmarthen]

Kaddar doesn't really make sense to me, either--my best guess is that his mother managed to keep him fairly sheltered from the court (which would make sense--he's more likely to survive to take the throne if Ozorne doesn't notice him too much), and then he was mostly at the university. But.

I would not complain if you had epic Ozorne/Numair plotbunnies. :D

[zodiacal_light]

That's my best guess, too, but there are all these little lines about how, well, paranoid he's learned to be and how cutthroat the court is, and I'm just all "...so why don't you SEEM paranoid, or like you're really living in fear of poison/whatever?"

I think it's the weird hard dualism Tortallverse suffers from cropping up again - Kaddar is Good, so he has to be nice, not paranoid, and has to read like a Tortallan (or modern) transplant in Carthak.

...I so wish Pierce had kept the damn camel chapter in. I really really do.

I would not complain if you had epic Ozorne/Numair plotbunnies. :D

I have a couple on my list of doom. Dunno when they're gonna get written - I've got a couple essays coming up.

Ozorne/Numair is fun.

[carmarthen]

Maybe Kaddar thinks he's paranoid, but he's really survived due to his mother's efforts and sheer good luck...and he will get eaten alive by the court after he becomes Emperor.

What was the lost camel chapter?

[zodiacal_light]

That would be interesting...

The camel chapter.

...Good God, Daine is an ass in that. Understandably, in a way, but given how contrived the whole slavery issue is in Tortall...

[carmarthen]

So is it just me, or is it kind of hinky that in the Tortallverse Australia analogue, there are lots of cute duckmoles and whatnot, but no humans? Goodness knows WHERE Australia-analogue is, though, since Carthak apparently borders Antarctica.

(The "two-legger" thing got worse as TIQ progressed--initially, animals said "humans." And don't birds have two legs? YES, THEY DO. And Kidunka the world-snake gets called a "two-legger," which totally puzzles me--I assumed that he takes the form of a snake. I admit, I do like the hyenas and the darkings.)

"I'm Daine," she told the camel. "Perhaps you've heard the People talk about me."

LOL DAINE. Argh, I hate that all the animals chat with each other (in between eating/running away from each other, I guess?) and Daine just assumes they have all heard of her and loooove her.

IDK, though--camels can be cantankerous nasty beasts, but they can also be really sweet animals. It's just that they're really smart (like llamas and alpacas), so they will put up with less crap from humans.

"Why are there so many beggars, and poor folk? We don't have near this many in Corus--at least, I don't think we do."

BECAUSE TORTALL IS PERFECT.

Daine is even more annoying in that chapter than the rest of the book--kind of makes me wonder if the editor got her to tone Daine down.

"Nonsense. You're afraid to do anything to really offend him, and you won't do the things that would make the Carthakis prefer you to him--like feeding them, or getting rid of slavery."

Great political thinker, isn't she?

[zodiacal_light]

is it kind of hinky that in the Tortallverse Australia analogue, there are lots of cute duckmoles and whatnot, but no humans?

I completely missed that. Good point.

On two-legger - I hate it for two reasons. First, because I hate the use of cutesy terms for no good reason; "Big Cold" annoys me just as much. If Daine's translating animal speech, she needs to translate the idioms too - what she does is just bad translating.

But second, it's distancing, and especially with all the "the People" stuff for animals makes humans out to be lesser. That could have been interesting if we were shown a Daine who can't connect with humanity, but Tortall's heroines can't have real flaws, so that went out the window.

I sort of love the camel chapter, because it added depth and cultural difference to Kaddar and Carthak, it showed an animal not bound to a goddess who couldn't stand Daine, and it showed Daine being so caught up in her righteousness she stopped actually thinking.

I don't actually blame Daine for how she reacts to Kaddar telling the family to sell the kids; if Tortall really is as slavery-free as that implies, then sure she'd find it distasteful, and Daine isn't quiet over things. But yeah, her whole "you're afraid to do anything to really offend him" thing made me facepalm.

OF COURSE HE'S AFRAID TO OFFEND OZORNE. Daine, what do you want, Kaddar to "vanish"?

...of course, part of me is now wondering if Pierce thinks all Ozorne needed was people brave enough to stand up to him.

[carmarthen]

*nodnod*

I like that the camels don't like her, but I also don't like the...stereotyping of camels? Anything as smart as a camel has more settings than "I HATE YOU ALL."

And yeah, her reaction is understandable, but it's also a ridiculous take on Kaddar's political situation, or Carthak in general (and the assumption that the Carthakis would automatically prefer a ruler who abolished slavery--well, that's only if slaves wildly outnumber free people, which is unlikely, or there's a very strong abolition movement, which I'm not so sure about).

If "northerners" don't like slavery, too, that makes "northerner" basically synonymous with "Tortallan," since the other countries of the Eastern Lands are all about slavery.

[zodiacal_light]

I also don't like the...stereotyping of camels?

That's typical of Pierce's take on animals - they're all stereotyped, which is why I dislike them. I was annoyed at the way she wrote the rats, too.

it's also a ridiculous take on Kaddar's political situation, or Carthak in general

Yup, which is why I find Daine in that deleted chapter particularly obnoxious. What's worse is the implication I get from how Pierce talks about that chapter, that Daine here is being the author's mouthpiece.

When I read that chapter, and read what Daine was advocating, what came to mind for me was John Brown, who got himself killed for trying to (violently) overthrow slavery. Being an outspoken advocate for change is not always a good thing, or the best way to go about changing things - it seems to me that under an emperor as paranoid as Ozorne, Lindhall with his smuggling slaves out was doing more good than Kaddar would've had he stood up to Ozorne like Daine (and Pierce) wants.

If "northerners" don't like slavery, too, that makes "northerner" basically synonymous with "Tortallan," since the other countries of the Eastern Lands are all about slavery.

Yup. But I like my Scanran Lindhall too much to change that. :P

[carmarthen]

It would be a different take from yours, but Lindhall could be an escaped thrall.

[zodiacal_light]

True. Or, y'know, there were always some people who were never slaves themselves who didn't like slavery.

Randomly, so does Tortall run on a feudal system or not? Because if so, all this "omg slavery sucks, Tortall is so much more awesome" is once more disappearing all the commoner serfs whose lives would not be very nice at all.

[carmarthen]

Oh, for sure. I think it could be an interesting thing to explore, though.

Randomly, so does Tortall run on a feudal system or not? Because if so, all this "omg slavery sucks, Tortall is so much more awesome" is once more disappearing all the commoner serfs whose lives would not be very nice at all.

Yeeeeeah, well, I can't get a handle on Tortallan politics, you know that. Probably because they bounce back and forth between "this is medieval!" and "modern sensibilities!" Like, for example, the handling of treason. Half the time, it's the medieval concept of "punish the whole family; traitors come from bad stock" and the other half it's "Oh, but Maura/Lerant/whoever weren't directly involved, so it would be unfair to punish them for their relatives' actions."

I would have no problem with either attitude--Tortall isn't medieval Europe, and in many ways does have more modern sensibilities, and I think that's potentially interesting--but bouncing between them is bizarre.

[zodiacal_light]

It would be interesting to explore.

I would have no problem with either attitude--Tortall isn't medieval Europe, and in many ways does have more modern sensibilities, and I think that's potentially interesting--but bouncing between them is bizarre.

Same. It's also frustrating because you can't help but get the sense that Bad People aka Conservatives run on some variant of feudalism and keep the common man down, but Good People aka Progressives are all modern and enlightened and want to (condescendingly) help commoners, and that bothers me.

The feudalism thing also bugs me in relation to Scanra - we get vague descriptions that sound like a clan system, but of course Maggur has to be shown as the Evil Villain who has a fief full of unhappy serfs. Um.

The treason thing bothers me even more after you pointed out Jon treats Malven like a treasonous fief - and thinking about it, there is no reason whatsoever for Dunlath to not be so treated.

I'm wondering about the feudalism thing because I'm working on the sequel to Difference, and I'm wondering how Tortall looks to someone not from it. Someone from, say, a neighboring merchant republic.

[carmarthen]

Yeah--had the Malvens not disinherited Ralon pre-treason, that would have been one thing (although Dunlath should still have been punished), but...no.

*sigh*

I actually hope to address a LOT of this in the Filipa of Gregorié fic, but I need to reread Jane Yolen's Books of Great Alta first, and brush up on my Pompous Historian Style first. That is going to be the most meta fic that ever metaed.

[zodiacal_light]

But it will be awesome. :)