On Mon, 19 Jan 2004, Jeffrey Kiok wrote: > >> Kelly was more of a mass murderer than Vlad was, because he was >> convincing people to, in effect, kill themselves for him. > >I would strongly disagree here. Kelly wasn't asking people to kill >themselves for him, he was asking people to kill themselves for >themselves. Kelly was asking people to revolt and to face the might of >the empire on behalf of the lower classes of Teckla of Easterners, not >on behalf of himself. I am not sure he was even quite asking them to do that. In /Teckla/, he wanted those who believed in him to go on strike until justice was done for their murdered comrade. In /Phoenix/, the violence mostly occurred because (a) he asked them to reject conscription, and (b) the Guard house was torched (which turned out to be a Jhereg action, of course, to make Kelly's movement look guilty). What Kelly is doing, for now, is offering Teckla and Easterners a different way to live. Things like classes in reading are part of it, (aside: I wonder how Cawti dresses when she teaches - Jhereg blacks and grays, or something closer to the peasant colors of the Teckla?) but also importantly, he's offering them a different path from the various traps that drain away their money and time and freedom, mostly gambling, the stupors and frantic excitement of drug highs, and prostitution. And he's teaching them that they *can* organize, and *how* to organize. None of these activities would have brought his group into conflict directly with the Empire *yet* - but the Jhereg Organization sees the latter sort of activities as being a direct threat to their income. So it is in their interest to *force* Kelly into conflict with the Empire - and Kelly is not averse to this, perhaps because, as a matter of principle, he wants to demonstrate that an effective group of organized Teckla and Easterners *can* resist the Empire. > >None of the Teckla and Easterners deserved to die, but if they feel >that they don't deserve to be oppressed by the Empire either. And if >one wanted to work under the assumption that Kelly ordered all of this, >when he ordered his "troops" (if you will) to confront the Phoenix >Gaurds, he didn't think they would lose, he thought they would win. In a sense, they sort-of won by getting back the moral high ground, after Vlad's testimony to the Empire proved that the Jhereg had been playing "let's you and him fight", and Vlad's deal with the King of Greenaere ended the *need* for conscription. >Sure, that's letting some people die, because, it's war (class warfare, >quite literally, to be exact), but it's convincing people to kill >themselves, but rather, convincing people to kill their oppressors. Recall that what they were doing was resisting military conscription - Kelly can make an excellent case that they are risking their lives for their *own* cause rather then being forced to risk their lives for the *Empire's* cause. It really makes a lot more sense when you think about it like that.