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[RT][HF] A Practical Guide to Evil: Book 4: Chapter 53: Gloom
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Author: u/Zayits *
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URL: https://practicalguidetoevil.wordpress.com/2018/09/07/chapter-53-gloom/
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Score: 71
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Created: 2018-09-07T04:02:02
Post:
Comments:
u/Ardvarkeating101 [+29] Father of Learning (14 minutes later)
That is just Cat's life in a fucking nutshell, isn't it. She gets all worked up about trying to negotiate then stabbing her way through impossible odds, and not only did she not get to do that she gets blamed for it regardless!
u/Agnoman [+19] (3 hours later)
Maybe I was a coward, because when I gave the order it was for drow to settle it among themselves.
Cat's spent a lot of time talking about killing prisoners recently, but I'm still not 100% sure where she sits on it.
Last chapter she was extremely firm that prisoners have the right to live, but now she's willing to have them killed. If you're a surrendering Praesi mage who's had amnesty extended then there's no question about what to do, and there are no issues with killing one of her fae for no other reason than to keep the rest in line, but Drow slavers warrant half a chapter of debate before the decision to spre them is backtracked and they get mostly offed anyway.
It seems to mostly be a question of how much Cat dislikes you/your nation, how useful you can be, and whether it's convenient to extend mercy?
“I want to be perfectly clear, here,” I said. “If you kill humans, or any other race. It grows the Night?”
“That is so,” the drow reverently said. “All is one. All is strife. The worthy rise.”
So the Drow are incredibly dangerous as allies. Not only are they extremely untrustworthy and "infamously not the most loyal of companions", but they've apparently got the ability to grow exponentially from any fight they're in. Kill a master swordsman and now you've got a better chance at offing a powerful mage. Killed a powerful mage? Now you've got a better chance at killing a Named (or however they learn Secrets like "the Secret of Many Lives"). How are they meant to be kept in line again?
To make matters worse, the Drow seem to have as much incentive to kill Callowans as they do to kill Callow's enemies, if not more. Why not take from the nation that's going to have the most trouble fighting back? The one with mages and priests and humans and orcs and goblins and fae and Named and more? That's quite the buffet.
They've also got plenty of incentive to kill all of the civilians too, which isn't particularly great whether they're on Cat's side or no.
u/akaltyn [+5] (a day later)
Cat's spent a lot of time talking about killing prisoners recently, but I'm still not 100% sure where she sits on it.
I think the whole point of the dialogue and itnernal processes in this chapter was that she doesn't know either. She relaises that her position is inconsistent, but can't find a middle ground between her desire to be ethical and the demands of practicality
u/Agnoman [+3] (a day later)
That's a fair point, but I'm concerned about the inconsistency in her desire to be ethical as much as anything. This chapter Archer asks Cat why the Drowning slavers warrant care and consideration when Praesi murders don't, and Cat's answer was ... pretty much a non-answer? She points out then she'd have to hold the entire civilization accountable then, which would be inconvenient for her (despite how she holds centuries old Proceran crimes against all Procerans, or her feelings towards essentially all of Praes), but doesn't really deal with the morality of the subject and then pretty much drops that topic.
On a related note though, it seems that the chapter has been edited. I'm pretty sure that this paragraph:
Killing Malicia’s minion who’d tried to surrender came much closer to the line, in my eyes, but it’d been a trick played on an enemy. It felt like a step closer to becoming someone I cared little for to have played it in the first place, but I could swallow my discomfort.
Is a new one. Which is quite interesting - I hadn't realised the work might be edited after being posted. It might be worth flicking through some old chapters now and again.
But I worry about Cat; I don't think her moralising over evil acts really matters too much or wins her any points if every time she's going to choose the evil act. It's one thing to be aware of the slippery slope of evil, and quite another to avoid tumbling headfirst down it.
u/akaltyn [+2] (2 days later)
I checked the email update (which I'm like 80% sure sends you the original version) and the paragraph is there. Though I think other chapters have been edited in the past so you're right in that respect.
It's one thing to be aware of the slippery slope of evil, and quite another to avoid tumbling headfirst down it.
Very true, wondering if that might e the central conflict for this part of Cat's story. She's agonized about retaining her humanity a lot, but now she seems to have some control over that but she hasn't worked out how to be a good (in the small g sense) human. Part of that is that she's almost always been acting reactively sine she's had independent power. As Queen in Callow she hasn't been actively imposing her own plan for the nation, but always responding to invasions and other external threats. I feel like she would have no idea what to do if suddenly all her threats were gone and she had the time and resources to do what she liked with Callow
u/Agnoman [+3] (2 days later)
80% sure sends you the original version
The email's the original. I'd be very impressed, and more than a little scared, if WordPress edits could reach into your inbox and change that. To try and save face here, I'm going to lame the blame for my mistake at my being sick and distracted today (also, dammit I wasn't certain whether that was a change of not, but thought I'd take the chance). Thanks for pointing that out.
As Queen in Callow she hasn't been actively imposing her own plan for the nation
I'm not sure I'm sold on active Cat being a good person. One of the first pivotal decisions she made was to instigate a civil war in Callow to cement her control over the country, well before she set foot into the pressure cooker of the more recent books.
Yeah, she'd almost definitely be an ok person if circumstances were perfectly set up to allow that and all her problems were solved for her, but that's not a terribly high benchmark to cross. Most people are going to be moral if it's as easy as the alternative, but that's not really the point of being good.
u/CouteauBleu [+1] We are the Empire. (10 hours later)
How are they meant to be kept in line again?
Eh. I'm sure Akua and/or Masego and/or Legion mages can come up with some sort of Suicide Squad setup to force the drows to stay in line. I'm more worried about Larat's inevitable betrayal, because he has the potential to deal damage Catherine would not recover from.
u/Agnoman [+1] (a day later)
Maybe? I'm not always sure on what problems Masgeo can or can't solve, but that sounds like something he could do. I definitely don't think Akua should be trusted with this, though she's probably the one with the best suited skillset.
I'm not sure it works as a solution though. Even if Cat could get the Drow to agree to that, with her somewhat-less-than-stellar negotiation skills, it doesn't resolve the problem where the Drow can apparently get very good at magic by just killing a bunch of magic users. And then there's the fact that the evil army being held in line through sorcerous means is a story that's just begging for the monsters to be let off the leadership, and probably at the worst possible moment.
u/HeWhoBringsDust [+15] (51 minutes later)
Fuck she’s either going to start eating Drow or be eaten by one and then perform a hostile takeover on Night because it’s technically her domain
u/ZeroNihilist [+24] (an hour later)
Cat spends an hour trying to figure out how to extract Night from a corpse, finally managing to get a small sliver of power. She lets out a clever one-liner, then turns to Indrani for her reaction.
Indrani just points to Akua, who is tossing a corpse into an enormous pile of fully-drained Drow.
u/akaltyn [+14] (5 hours later)
Akua powered up by Drow is a terrifying idea, one of the few plausible ways she could break out of the mantle. Would lead to an interesting moment if she has a chance to betray Cat and decides not to
u/CouteauBleu [+3] We are the Empire. (10 hours later)
if she has a chance to betray Cat and decides not to
I'm pretty sure she's physically incapable of that.
u/Croktopus [+10] (10 hours later)
Well, she already has a traitorous lieutenant so it wouldn't be very sporting of akua to steal that role.
u/akaltyn [+2] (a day later)
Also, where would she go? She has no political power base left, no possessions, no body of her own even. And every nation or named would try to kill herif she turned up in their territory. Staying with Cat is her best chance of surviving and having a pleasant (un)life
u/akaltyn [+15] (5 hours later)
The Night is a really cool concept for a magic system. Makes the whole society inherently unstable and zero sum. Some thoughts:
– Does knowledge from non-drow get absorbed? I’d guess not given their technological stasis, they would have killed someone with knowledge of blacksmithing or whatever eventually.
– They talk about absorbing skills and secrets, but not memories. Why are those different? Or are they doing so, hence why the guide refers to its past self as a different person. Could one use it to obtain passwords, battle plans, etc?
– Can non-Drow learn how to absorb the Night? If so thats a massive available power source. You could make your own version of the Watch by powering up human soldiers with Night from the Drow.
– Hyothesis for how the Drow society collapsed: While they had a steady stream of Night coming in from surface enemies (the cattle) one advanced by doing raids and getting their share, and the proceeds were spread around the rest of society. But when the supply dried up (due to the Chain of hunger, Dead King etc) the “economy” of night collapsed, it became more effective to avance by killing other drow and stealing their Night, so it became a zero sum all against all continuous war, and cooperation to do large scale raids, infrastructure, etc, collapsed.
Masego will be pissed he didn’t come. This seems totally different from the rest of magic in Calernia.
u/CouteauBleu [+9] We are the Empire. (10 hours later)
– Does knowledge from non-drow get absorbed? I’d guess not given their technological stasis, they would have killed someone with knowledge of blacksmithing or whatever eventually.
Would they? As you point out, they have buffers between them and the closest human civilizations.
Plus, I suspect that knowledge learned through the night can't be taught, or at least drow civilization is resistant to drows teaching things to other drows.
So let's say you form a raiding party. You have to go through the Dead Kingdom or the Elf forest somehow (and you don't have access to Faerie portals); after taking some casualties, you make it, and murder a bunch of peasants before the local lords catch on and organize a militia with 10 times your numbers, lead by a Heroic named. At that point, your only choice is pretty much to run away and go back to the Everdark.
Congratulation, for all your efforts, your entire clan now has 3 blacksmiths. Until someone else hears about them and steals them from you.
(also, presumably drow supply chains aren't that great)
u/BlackKnightG93M [+9] (56 minutes later)
Huh, so all the subterranean races (Drow notwithstanding) are technologically inclined?
Dwarves have a penchant for machinery and the goblins for alchemy. I bet the Gnomes had a penchant for natural physics and mathematics, permitting them to build airships and WMDs.
I'm willing to bet the Dwarves have history with the Gnomes.
u/None [+16] (2 hours later)
[deleted]
u/rabotat [+5] (12 hours later)
Gnomes are stereotypically found underground in most fiction where they appear.
u/MaddoScientisto [+5] (2 hours later)
Cat is already duchess of moonless nights, looks like the Night is made exactly for her
u/akaltyn [+16] (5 hours later)
Not sure how much they're actually similar other than the name, since "duchess of moonless nights" is a subset of Winter, and the Night seems to be a totally seperate magic force. Though this being a world run on narrative naming and thematic similarity might work pretty well
u/Mountebank [+8] (10 hours later)
Well, Cat did con her way to that Fae title with some makeup and a rumor, so narrative is much more important than truth.
u/TaltosDreamer [+3] (9 hours later)
I guess this is one way for Cat to pick up an 2nd aspect... Winter & Night
u/Zayits [+2] (2 hours later)
I, for one, am interested in how would the Night and sentient Winter undead interact. They already have access to their memories, but would they if the corpse would have been harvested first? Does killing them add to the Night? Can they harvest / be harvested? What the bestowal Ivan talked about entails? Will Cat just raise those or combine them into one Renaissance Drow and leave?
u/rabotat [+2] (12 hours later)
As someone mentioned in the last chapters' thread the drow seem to have elements of Slavic mythology.
Ivah seems similar to Ivan, Sve in Croatian and probably other Slavic languages means All or Everything.
u/None [+2] (22 hours later)
I'm not sure it's her style, but this would have been a great way for Wandering Bard to cripple a society.
u/pwahs [+3] (2 hours later)