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

[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. :)