Dragaera

Paarfi's account vs... (major spoilers for Sethra Lavode)

Fri May 14 10:56:03 PDT 2004


On Wed, 12 May 2004, Philip Hart wrote:

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@> > Whether he'd fire lightning bolts is a tricky question. Right now, we
@> > don't think he's a sorceror, but that's only because Paarfi said he
@> > wasn't,
@>
@> and would have no reason to lie about it

To preserve the image of his character, rather than tainting him with
hints of the modern? Sure he does. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if
Aerich was a sorceror all along, and Paarfi just omitted that detail
because he could create a purer character without it.

@> > and we know Paarfi is a liar.
@>
@> Do we?  There's one mix-up in _TPG_ which I blame on Someone Else, and
@> some angry academics, but anything solid?

Sure.

1) Paarfi =~ Dumas, and Dumas was a liar. (A good one!)
2) Brust has said ex cathedra, that Paarfi was writing fiction rather than
history (although he'd rather write history), and in general was making
things up to fill in the blanks.
3) Sethra Lavode said some things about the Dragon/Jhereg war, and Paarfi
made a half-assed attempt to pretend he didn't make things up, which did
nothing but underline the fact that he made things up.

I'm sure there's more than that, and someday I might even shift the burden
of laziness long enough to look some of it up.

@> > Post-interregnum, it seems as if virtually everyone has picked up some
@> > number of tricks, and it wouldn't be at all surprising if Aerich had
@> > learned some of the basics. And since he didn't survive to the present
@> > day, it might not be common knowledge that he'd done so.
@>
@> Remember, this is a few years after the New Orb, and Aerich is not a man
@> to cut his coat to fit the fashion of the day.

True. On the other hand, he also isn't an idiot. He was willing to take
advantage of the post, etc.

@> > He'd chase a Teckla if the Teckla tried to harm him and then ran
@> > away. After all, he couldn't just let a commoner get away with
@> > something like that. "That peasant! How dare he strike me!"
@>
@> It would be beneath his dignity.  He might ask another Teckla to bring 
him
@> a knave.

There were no other Teckla around.

@> But he wouldn't allow a Teckla to hit him.

Heh. He didn't have a choice in the matter.

@> > That said, might Paresh have exaggerated a little bit or (more likely)
@> > have been temporarily blinded by fear? Maybe. But I'm going to assume 
the
@> > truth is a /lot/ closer to his version than Paarfi's, which just made
@> > absolutely no sense at all.
@>
@> I don't see this.  Aerich shows up, Paresh is insolent but Aerich can't 
be
@> bothered to thrash him.

The Paarfi version is more like:

1) Aerich appears.
2) Paresh says a couple of rude things.
3) Aerich thinks about it, then decides to ignore him and wanders around
the castle.
4) Paresh teleports away for no apparent reason.

A noble just lets a commoner be rude to him without any kind of response?
Paresh leaves the only place he's ever lived to head into a completely
unknown area without any kind of motivation? And abandons his library,
foodstores, etc? And doesn't go back later? Nah. Doesn't wash.

@> Paresh says the Duke is his age.  Just wrong.

Which is another interesting detail. Whatever else you may be contending
that Paresh lied about, it makes absolutely no sense for him to claim that
Aerich is his age. If he's trying to make himself seem like a hardass,
he's going to paint a picture of someone older, wiser, and stronger than
he is. Not someone who's just his age. Honestly, I wonder if Paarfi heard
the story and just drew the same connection that people on the list did
(it's about the right time, it must have been Aerich!).

@> Plus he'd have to know who the Duke was.

Why, exactly? He doesn't have any particular need to. Teckla are
customarily parochial.

@> > Seriously, Paresh is a heavy presence throughout the book. He doesn't 
have
@> > that much dialogue, but he doesn't need it, really. And even Vlad 
admits,
@> > eventually, that he's not a coward. Paresh is a stand-in for all the
@> > Teckla supporters of the revolution (since the rest of the folks that 
Vlad
@> > interacts with are human).
@>
@> And Paresh is rather knee-jerk in judging Vlad.  I don't find him a
@> dispassionate reporter.

Sure, he's knee-jerk about judging Vlad. (Although he is also
substantially correct in his observations.) And I'm not claiming he's
dispassionate, just more honest than Paarfi.

It may be that this reduces to the fact that, as characters, I like Paresh
and I don't much like Paarfi.

@> > @> > And, in fact, Paarfi's version simply does not square with the 
character
@> > @> > that Vlad met, who was not particularly cowardly or deferent in 
any way.
@> > @>
@> > @> Sure it squares.  Just imagine Paresh making up the chasing bit.
@> >
@> > Well, this is the part I can't imagine. And, particularly, I find it 
much
@> > easier to imagine that Paarfi just made everything up.
@>
@> I don't think this is a good line of argument.  Paresh has a lot to gain
@> by telling people he stood up to a noble.  He's got a high self-regard
@> and had to scratch a living by his wits.

And Paarfi has nothing to gain by rocking the boat, and everything to
lose. More on this in a second.

@> > Piro wasn't present at the time of the encounter. As for the rest, if
@> > you're relying on Paarfi's unreliability to explain how Aerich could 
have
@> > transmitted the story, what makes you think the story itself, which 
also
@> > comes from Paarfi, is reliable?
@>
@> Because it's simpler and more reasonable and less motivated.

I disagree with every one of those statements. Perhaps we will simply not
see eye-to-eye on this issue for that reason.

@> And I think there's a big difference between giving A a nice
@> death scene and papering over an ambush, which would be of
@> interest in making that chapter more exciting.

Imagine the actual scene involved. Aerich appears, and a Teckla jumps on
him and they have a pathetic slap-fight. Nobody reading the book is going
to believe that the Teckla is any kind of serious threat to him, even if
he actually was. It can't do anything but damage his dignity, and dignity
/is/ Aerich's character in Paarfi's works. No actual person is going to be
as simple as a character in a story, and no Brust character is going to be
that simple, either. Was Aerich really as Paarfi portrayed him, for
whatever value of 'really' applies in a metafictional work like this? The
only evidence we have of that is what Paarfi himself has said.

@> > Which is one reason the Paarfi books aren't always going to match up 
with
@> > the Vlad books, because they lack that counterbalancing viewpoint. And,
@> > frankly, I trust Vlad more than Paarfi, too. Or, at least, I expect him 
to
@> > lie about different things.
@>
@> As I averred elsewhere in this thread, Paarfi is not in sympathy with
@> central ideas of the nobility - he's explicitly anti-House.

See, here's another place where I disagree. Paarfi holds certain liberal
points of view, from a Dragaera perspective, but he's still somewhere
around the point where, metaphorically, he's wondering if maybe all those
darkies ought to be paid for picking that cotton, or at least given the
weekend off. He's also got to deal with the beliefs of his audience,
because if he says something they believe to be false. It's OK for Teckla
to be brave, as long as they're dying in defense of their noble masters,
or in an army, etc. A Teckla doing things on his own? Having his own
opinions? Aspiring to command? Preposterous. I won't read any more of this
trash! Have that author beaten.




The one thing that leads me to believe that Paresh told the more accurate 
account is his discussion of the Dukes reaction. He spends several 
paragraphs on it, and it very much resembles Aerich. Although he has many 
excellent qualities, Aerich reminds me of the accounts of some of the 
"Southern Gentlemen" prior to the American Civil War. He looks on Teckla as 
something between an animal and human, with useful qualities, to be sure, 
but not anything that is capable advancing itself beyond it's "station in 
life". The idea of a Teckla doing something beyond what it has been told, or 
refusing to do what it is told is so outside his experience that the 
description that Paresh uses (and I would love to quote, but I haven't the 
book on hand and it would be an injustice to mislead you on the phrasing) of 
how the Duke he faced was so astonished is apropos for Aerich. As a Lyorn 
Noble facing a Teckla with the audacity to ignore him, and then attack him 
in a manner more befitting nobility himself would cause Aerich to look at 
Paresh in a whole new way, as he has removed himself from the niche that 
Aerich fit him into.

Or perhaps I have had to much coffee, and the Author is sitting at his desk 
laughing as his literary manipulations have us all scrambling for 
explanations.


Jeff
Not a Phoenix, but in Phoenix.

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