17 KiB
[RT][HF] A Practical Guide to Evil: Book 4: Chapter 14: Arabesque
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Author: u/Zayits *
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URL: https://practicalguidetoevil.wordpress.com/2018/05/16/chapter-14-arabesque/
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Score: 72
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Created: 2018-05-16T04:03:30
Post:
Comments:
u/leakycauldron [+23] Imperium of Man (19 minutes later)
I don't foresee Catherine losing this: She has every side of the story nailed down. Trickery by a foreign religious authority killing her beloved soldiers, the inevitable doom of her fight with a single Name changed to mere doom as she takes down 7, only 7k infantry engaged (very managable by Army of Callow).
Angels can't be used, this is not a holy war at all from the Story's perspective - this is an invasion for political reasons against a struggling country. Everything points to Catherine winning.
u/aeschenkarnos [+11] (3 hours later)
Also, there's this:
Making decisions where part of my forces were openly deemed more expendable than others hadn’t grown any more pleasant with time, that unspoken admission that some lives were worth more than others.
Whatever her aesthetic, Cat definitely isn't evil, and therefore, ultimately should not count as a Villain.
u/Anderkent [+14] (6 hours later)
Vilains in PGtE aren't about evil, they're about chaos / disruption. 'evil' = chaos/change, 'good' = order.
Cat is very much disruptive to the world order, and so evil.
u/Cryxx [+5] (15 hours later)
The prologue of the story isn't the be-all end-all of what defines villains and heroes, but it shouldn't be ignored either.
First of all, follower-Named are in a special position because their alignment likely just depends on what their leader's alignment is. If a Named changed alignment (and possibly Name with it) their follower-Named, like Adjutant, Captain, Page, etc. would most likely follow, partly because what caused their leader to change would have affected them as well.
Now, independent Villains always work towards their own agenda. That can be entirely selfish one, as many Dread Emperors and Empresses probably had (I want to rule the world! Why, you ask? Why not?). Arguably Black's as well, because his fight against fate is motivated by personal frustration and disgust with the game of the gods. But it can also be one concerned with the welfare of others, as with Squire!Cat.
"Independent" heroes always follow a higher authority, at minimum that of the Heavens. They believe that someone else knows better: they have faith. Connected to that, they feel compelled to adhere to the heroic paradigm. Even the Saint of Swords doesn't just slaughter every noble she comes across, even though she'd obviously like to, because she is bound by the paradigm. Heroes refuse to accept the possibility of peace with Villains because the paradigm proscribes that Heroes can never suffer a Villain to persist.
As to the chaos/order dichotomy: Heroes try to impose the specific order of the Heavens upon the world, but are ready to effect whatever changes are necessary to achieve that. A villain's agenda could be to make the entire world run like clockwork, and as long as that's his idea and he's ready to work at it against any and all opposition, he's a right proper villain. Actually, in theory a Villain could even work towards preserving the status quo at any cost, if he's motivated to do that.
Thaaat's my perspective on the matter, anyway.
u/DTravers [+1] (13 hours later)
I disagree. If villains are not biased towards being evil, then we'd have seen more non-evil villains by now - the ones I can think of are Cat, Adjutant, Captain and Hierarch.
u/Anderkent [+7] (13 hours later)
I don't know if you would. In villain-aligned cultures, those villains that aren't ruthless and vicious probably get outcompeted; in a low-trust culture being 'good' isn't very successful.
In hero-aligned cultures, villains get vilified no matter if they're good or evil.
Also you see quite a lot of really evil heroes.
u/Wolpertinger [+1] (a day later)
There's also the fact that the story has to decide you qualify for a Name that is villainous without already being, or rapidly becoming, evil. Becoming an apprentice to someone evil in exchange for power and being corrupted by it is a common trope, so it's those transitional and follower names that are probably the only ones with enough leeway.
u/asuffield [+1] (18 hours later)
I'm with Black on this one: the problem with the world is also the point. Villains aren't Villains because they are evil, they are Villains because their role is to serve as a foil for the story of the Heroes.
Cat isn't following the path that Black has laid out precisely, but she's still very much his creature. She isn't here to try to be the least-evil Villain that she can. Cat is here to change the genre of the story.
It might be wise to judge her cautiously, if at all.
u/Locoleos [+3] (5 hours later)
She makes people eat their fingers as punishment for attempted murder. She is not always evil, but she is definitely evil some of the time.
u/notagiantdolphin [+9] (5 hours later)
Three fingers, and it was a fae who was going to have an entire tavern butcher each other for her own amusement rather than just one. Still pretty gritty.
u/DTravers [+2] (13 hours later)
Better example - telling an uppity smuggler to choke to death on her own tongue, and watching it happen.
u/sparr [+1] (a day later)
Are you sure that makes her evil?
Let's suppose, to start, that capital punishment would not be evil. The death penalty for attempted murder seems to fall solidly under Good alignment in this universe.
Do you think the fae in question would have preferred eating their fingers over being killed? If so, is giving them their preferred punishment evil?
u/Locoleos [+1] (2 days later)
Yes, most definitely. Within the context of medieval society, you don't have the necessary resources to maintain a prison system, and so with the need for a functioning justice system, you pretty much have to rely on financial, corporal and capital punishment. And Labour camps (which pay for themselves) or forced military service, I suppose.
Within that context, cutting the hand or ear or a pair of fingers off an offender, is not necessarily evil. Making them eat those afterwards though, would definitely be both cruel and unusual, even within the context of Callow. It's the difference between hanging someone and torturing them to death. One is evil, one is not.
And your last question is rather disingenuous: it's not like the only other option was execution, or as if the fae had a choice in the matter.
u/sparr [+1] (2 days later)
And your last question is rather disingenuous: it's not like the only other option was execution
How is that relevant? You're suggesting that it is Evil to give a prisoner a punishment they would prefer over a punishment we know to be Good.
u/WalterTFD [+3] (8 hours later)
Cat's totally evil.
Per Cordelia: "Sentiment is only meaningful if followed by action. If your grief at all the woe you have caused changes nothing, it is merely self-pity."
Cat is making Callowans defend their enslaver. Fighting for the Tower is vile.
u/None [+15] (9 hours later)
[deleted]
u/Wolpertinger [+2] (a day later)
This, Cat is offering an unprecedented alliance and an attempt to hurt Praes in a way that hasn't been seen in a very, very long time, but because the heroes are so uncompromising and the nobles involved so greedy they're throwing away a much greater good so they can go after a lesser, but more profitable one.
u/ATRDCI [+12] (33 minutes later)
On a more meta note, there seems to be a Callowan pattern with Procer invaders with both Jehan the Wise and the Lone Swordsman from the Good!Cat AU (from ellision) both hanging 7 princes and one. Indeed Larat seems to have intentionally tied himself to it when he asked for 7 crowns. Given her much greater emphasis on named it's not too far fetched Cat could twist that pattern to beat 7 named from Procer on her own
u/WalterTFD [+2] (8 hours later)
I dunno. Like, the fact that Cat loves her soldiers doesn't mean anything to the story, nor does her disdain for religion. The heavens/hells don't partake in her feelings.
u/leakycauldron [+4] Imperium of Man (9 hours later)
If you don't think her inner dialogue about appreciating her soldiers matters, you're crazy. It's the structure of the story, arguably, the only thing that matters is her Role here. Logistics and structures find their place to the Story.
u/CouteauBleu [+13] We are the Empire. (2 hours later)
My soldiers returned a ragged volley of their own, save for the Watch. Throwing hooks above the fences, the Deoraithe found physical purchase and began to climb.
The charge continued. The remainder of the Watch split in half, heading for the edges of the fences on both sides.
These guys are awesome.
It's too bad they keep taking these losses, because at that rate I don't think there will be any of them left by the end of the book.
u/Zayits [+12] (57 minutes later)
Well, that looks grim. Over the course of the entire chapter, the defenders, with Masego's help, managed to break one fence. It's a miracle, so it can't be shut down by magic directly, only through physical impact. The only evident limitation on them is their total amount; otherwise they're just instant mobile fortifications forty feet tall, anywhere, at any moment the crusaders feel pressed.
The only upside to this I can see is that Catherine didn't have to fight that in a narrow passage that would allow to cut anyone off with just one pane. Regarding the current confrontation, only thing that could break a pane so far was concentrated mage fire, but that's something that can be used only on one point of the front. Other options include tying them down with continuous fire directed on the crusaders, but that doesn't seen to tie down enough. The fences won't do much against traps and landmines, but given that Cat let out her skirmishes and cavalry on the very same field, there's gotta be limits to how much munitions she had buried.
That said, avoiding the direct clash where crusaders can deny engagement and ignore siege engines at will and instead taking advantage of the both camps being in sight of each other is seemingly Cathrine's best bet. The only way the panes become manageable is if there's not enough of them to suddenly encircle a legion's worth of troops, and that means not enough priests to form them. Cat doesn't have enough Watch to stall until sundown and then dispose of the priests permanently, but they aren't going anywhere for the duration of the current battle either. How would you fight a numerically superior army with the ability to instantly make walls and cover?
u/18scsc [+6] (an hour later)
Goblins
u/Zayits [+2] (10 hours later)
Goblins what? She just sent three thousand of them into the skirmish and onle about five hindred returned. Her entire regular army was twenty thousand (of which five are the knights, and over ten - volunteers), so there's not likely to be manu more. Not enough to handle several hundreds of priests in a fortified camp with thousands of regular soldiers around.
u/18scsc [+5] (12 hours later)
I had infiltration tactics in mind, rather than skirmishing in the field.
u/Yes_This_Is_God [+6] (54 minutes later)
I really enjoyed the descriptions of the differing Proceran and Praesi shields. Always a big fan of seeing DnD staples like Wall of Force come into terrifyingly effective usage. It's a shame Masego didn't have a Disintegrate handy.
u/Zayits [+1] (17 hours later)
I'm looking through DnD-related threads now, and most advises to dealing with it that I found so far are either to rush the caster with the forces that aren't trapped (doesn't work on an actual battlefield, with armies, fortifications and all) or to use a spell to escape (which isn't really a viable course of action with thousands of soldiers, multiple force panes and three gate makers at best). The only thing that could somehow work is to cast ranged spells through the gap between fences, but even that isn't likely to make a big impact on the battle.
u/middleofnight [+6] (5 hours later)
Today's quote reminded me of Pyrrhus of Epirus. His quote being, "If we are victorious in one more battle with the Romans, we shall be utterly ruined". Edit: spelling
u/AurelianoTampa [+3] (9 hours later)
I kept thinking of alternate ways to break through those walls...
- Arcadian portals to bypass the shields.
- Goblinfire (demon munitions versus divine light? Sounds like they'd wink each other out).
- Have Masego attack the priests rather than the shields.
- Have Archer use some kind of piercing arrow Aspect.
Now I'm sure there are reasons those all wouldn't work, the most obvious being that Cat and Juniper were caught unawares this happened in the span of minutes, so they didn't have time to do more than react. But I still feel there were some wasted opportunities.
Besides the weight of the narrative (as several comments here have discussed), Cat still has some things going for her:
- Procer's army still has a supply problem. If more of their levies had been killed it might actually have been better for their army if the battle goes on for longer than a day, because it means fewer stomachs need food.
- It's possible that the priests have more tricks up their sleeve, but while this use was extremely harmful to the Callowan army, it tipped their hand and wasn't a complete disaster. Now Juniper can plan to use it against them in the future.
- With 7 heroes stepping up, Cat can either tap into Woe synergy with Archer and Hierophant (and possibly Thief) to take advantage of the lack of heroic coherence... or she start handing out Winter titles... or she can start using her Aspect trinkets... lots of ways to take them down.
Beat up, back against the wall, outgunned... that's when our scrappy pit fighter usually shines. Looking forward to the next chapter!
u/Zayits [+2] (10 hours later)
Arcadian portals to bypass the shields.
Even in full swing of Winter's power Cat only used portals on short notice to avoid an attack she couldn't afford takind. As she is now, a portal would take a lot out of her diminished pool of power, would require her physical presence in the immediate vicinity of the pane, and would nudge her closer to the Winter mindset. Add to that that Catherine only has three gate-makers and that the time it would take for any significant force to pass through a narrow gate would be more than enough for the priests to bar it, and we can discard this idea for anything other than emergency.
Goblinfire
Goblinfire eats magic. Against a miracle it may well prove inferior, and the main problem is, again, redeployability of the fences. If a burning one is shut down, the goblinfire would bar the passage in its place while the fence is put up elsewhere.
Have Masego attack the priests rather than the shields.
Priests in numbers that big, especially if they are talented ones like the one that had been with the Exiled Prince, would be able to cancel magic out. Since that guy was the reason Silver Spears couldn't have been scried, and Principate, as the biggest nation on Calernia, provided enough priests to cover the entirety of crusaders' camps, magical attacks are a distraction at best.
Have Archer use some kind of piercing arrow Aspect.
Oh yeah, I've been wondering where she is. She'd still need line of sight, and it's her arrows that are special, not the shots themselves, but I think Catherine keeps back her in case she'll need to manage multiple heroes.
Cat can tap into Woe synergy with Archer and Hierophant (and possibly Thief)
Archer wasn't yet shown to have returned, an Thief would be better off raiding the backline now that there's onle five heroes are left unaccounted for. That said Catherine and Masego do have a shared attack, though I find it interesting that they aren't together for it (Masego is with her mages, Catherine was with the general staff and prepares to take the field).
u/sparr [+1] (a day later)
they aren't together for it (Masego is with her mages, Catherine was with the general staff
I am pretty confident that Masego could move his person with pretty impressive speed if that was called for. How much force does it actually take to shoot a person through the sky at the speed of sound, and how much power to shield them from what is really just a strong fast wind?
u/None [+2] (9 hours later)
I wonder if the panes are a 2 way black or just incoming fire