I don't disagree about the exemplars: Bannor, Brinn, Cail (and Stave) as defining and developing the Haruchai. Each one made the Haruchai feel more human. But, remember we were always working away from the extremity of the Bloodguard. The Haruchai themselves in the 1st and 2nd Chrons were always, for me, presented as harsh but passionately human. I don't even argue that how SRD presents the Masters is logically inconsistent with what has gone before, my main is thrust is that it doesn't feel consistent or right.Vraith wrote:Hmmm.
I thought the bifurcated Haruchai [the tribe and the outcasts...I'm tempted to include Cail in there with Brinn, Bannor, and Stave] were the definition of development, outcomes, and integrity.
The feel of the Haruchai in the LCs is distinctly different and added to that there is the superhuman elements like accelerated healing (Ceer didn't seem to have this ability), refusal of treatment and not needing sleep. These feel like unnecessary additions to what we knew about the Haruchai. We knew that they were hardy unflinching laconic warriors, we didn't know that they were semi-superhuman, semi-fascist assholes in need of salvation.
I actively hated the way Brinn was presented in TLD. I felt that it was a travesty. Instead of a sage with the wisdom of the ages, we got someone who didn't even speak like a Haruchai. Every word out of his mouth felt wrong. Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! He talked like a character out of a soap opera (except for using the word 'simony' ).
I'll admit that the scene involving Clyme and Branyl was moving in its own appallingly graphic way, but even that, the gory dismemberment of a Haruchai felt like desperation on SRD's part.
I do not doubt that Stave was becoming more human, but the act itself was superhuman. It feels inconsistent. Bannor became more human and thus more seemed more physically frail. Cail similarly. Stave's development actually seems the reverse of this, and the slaughter of the Haruchai isn't consistent with it either. If they were less inhuman (and thus more human) should they not have become more capable of superhuman feats (like Stave)?Vraith wrote:I don't see the human/superhuman as you do.
Stave at the fane is a perfect example. He was not capable of that because he was superhuman. It was because he was becoming more human. That's the purpose of our named line. The tribe as a whole wasn't a matter of human/superhuman. It was a matter of being INhuman.
I think I understand the line of thought about the tribe and the named line, but it still doesn't feel right to me. I didn't want the Haruchai to be transformed into humans, I wanted the Haruchai to become transformed Haruchai (and thus whatever that means for our own projected human traits).
Again, I can agree with the logical necessity for this at that stage of the plot as it had developed, but I can't help feel that it's a travesty of what the Haruchai are. A travesty rather than a transformation. The Haruchai haven't been transformed into something more human, they have been reduced to mere humanity. You can say that they find the strength in weakness; that allowing themselves to be slaughtered was the only possible way for them to achieve their objective. But in that they are no different from any other human tribe except, perhaps, the number of bodies that needed to be sacrificed. If I want to read about slaughter like that I can read accounts of the Somme or the Russian defence of Stalingrad. I learn about the limits of human bravery, but it tells me nothing about the Haruchai and thus, I feel, adds nothing new about SRD's story (in fact it risks devaluing or debasing something that was fantastically valuable and precious).Vraith wrote: [[I don't quite go with slaughtered in the sense I think you mean it...as if they were wasted. They were much more like the cannon than cannon-fodder...to the extent they WERE slaughtered/fodder, it would not have been necessary if they hadn't, mistakenly and intentionally, made sure that there was no one else with the slightest hope or capacity for action.]]
As I have said upthread, I have my own guesses as to why SRD may have chosen to do this, and maybe I'll ask him to find out if I'm right
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BTW, Vraith and Z (and others): I know you won't be at the 'Fest, is there any question you'd like to ask SRD. Maybe when I've got through my own I might get to ask him an additional couple!