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Subject: "A Fire to be Lighted"     Previous Topic | Next Topic
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Conferences Symphony of the Sword/The Order of the Rose Topic #409
Reading Topic #409, reply 3
Gryphonadmin
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22375 posts
Dec-13-13, 02:10 AM (EDT)
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3. "RE: A Fire to be Lighted"
In response to message #0
 
   LAST EDITED ON Dec-13-13 AT 02:13 AM (EST)
 
... so this is what happens when I have to walk past a computer to get to the bathroom. luckily, this morning's final lecture in Russian History covers a time I watched happen on TV, unlike most of my classmates. :)


>If it were me, I might have added another parenthetical at the bottom
>for atmosphere. Something like:
>
>Yours sincerely,
>(signed)
>CHANGDAO
>Headmaster
>(His Chop, Seal, Lineage Block)

I figure that's more or less what (signed) means in this context.

>>Azana shook her head. "No, I'm an only child."
>
>I find this passage interesting in light of later revelations. There
>doesn't seem to be bad blood between Azana and Zurin... but she
>flat-out scrubs him from her family frame of reference when people
>ask? Not even a "I do, but my brother is thirty years older than me"
>explanation? Just completely denies the existence of a sibling at all?
>
>It seems like there's a story there.

Not really, unless you consider "Zurin is 30+ years older than Azana, they're virtual strangers to each other, and also, have never even slightly shared a household, which is the context in which Karana was asking" a story. She is Izuno and Azera's only child, probably didn't know Zurin was her father's son until some time after first meeting him, and doesn't think of him as her brother in a familial sense. She doesn't dislike him, but she doesn't particularly like him either; she doesn't know him in any meaningful sense.

>Hrrm. The gown and mortarboard is a bit... western, I guess?
>
>On the other hand, it isn't like the series itself is enormously
>consistent in this regard.

... and you've answered your own objection.

>I would very much like to know the story behind that marriage.

So would a great many of the late General Izuno's friends, including Colonel Zurin.

>If it had been me? It would be nothing but names like Summavut. Which
>is near Allavut, north of Nunavut, and west of Henhiavut.

Which wouldn't even make sense, since it's pronounced "noonavoot".

>>"We were hunters and fishers for a long time before we
>>ever took up farming or trading, and the impulse to make our stuff
>>ourselves is still really strong in our culture."
>
>... they farm down there? Really?

A bit, by the coast. Also aquaculture.

>Right. Here's the thing. I'm gonna be charitable and assume you were
>playing this largely for laughs.

"largely"?

>And I could see "Karana is just a
>little bit racist" being an interesting character trait to be
>explored.

Again with the nonsense. Northerners aren't a different race; what she's actually being is politically biased.

Thinking about it, if this sequence hadn't been mainly a studio injoke, Karana would have plenty of room to stand here. I mean, she's talking about the people of a country which has pushed her own around for centuries, and that's before you even get to the fact that a Northern chief once attempted, in what to her would've been the equivalent of about 1890, to plunge the entire world into a seething maelstrom of infinite evil for his personal aggrandizement. I mean, if Queen Victoria had attempted something like that, I would probably not be the Anglophile I am today, I'm just saying. :)

As it is, though, she's a 12-year-old girl speaking overly-broadly in a minor dudgeon. I'm not sure I'd read that much into it.

>Only, the Annotations notwithstanding, it doesn't come off that way. I
>didn't hear Karana speaking here, I heard Ben Hutchins speaking.

Well, that's as may be, although if you did, I wasn't speaking to you. :)

>And I
>didn't get the feeling that the narrative means us to regard Karana's
>opinion on all Northerners being tools neutrally; rather, I got the
>feeling it intends for the reader to take Karana's opinion as -fact-.

Can't help you there, I guess, particularly as she qualified it herself as to the incompleteness of her sample size.

>On a lighter note, I do like to imagine that when Shinzen met them
>again after the holidays, he looked at Azana, looked at Karana's,
>looked at Karana's necklack, proclaimed "I always knew," and then
>glided off with as much regal dignity as a twelve-year-old could
>muster, leaving a very confused Azana and a slightly-too-nonchalant
>Karana behind him.

Heh, well, not quite. Shinzen did know what Karana's necklace was long before Azana found out, but he didn't know Azana had given it to her until she told him in A Bride Too Far. He assumed she was either wearing it for non-matrimonial reasons (like his cousin Katara's historical namesake was known to do) or it had something to do with "back at home" business that was none of his, though he did think she was awfully young for the latter to be the case and that it was thus more likely to be the former.

>All in all, good times. Man, you vanish for a couple weeks and
>suddenly Ben and Phil get all productive and shit. I figured the onset
>of finals meant that I would be safe.

Partly, what you're seeing is a process artifact - much of Goodbye and Hello has existed for months, it's not like it all suddenly came about this week - and partly it's a combination of random inspirations and periods when I couldn't have been getting Real Work done anyway. Laura Kinney and the Maiden in the Ice, A Fire to be Lighted, and A Bride Too Far, for instance, all happened during long stints at my campus job, where I can't get much done on regular coursework for various logistical reasons.

Similarly, there are a couple-three pieces queued up to follow G&H that were finished before it was, but had to wait until after it, so while you will be seeing new material appear during the time when I'm studying for and/or undertaking next week's final exams, I wasn't actually writing it during crunch time.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


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  Subject     Author     Message Date     ID  
 A Fire to be Lighted [View All] Mercutio Dec-13-13 TOP
   RE: A Fire to be Lighted pjmoyermoderator Dec-13-13 1
      RE: A Fire to be Lighted Gryphonadmin Dec-13-13 6
          RE: A Fire to be Lighted Mercutio Dec-14-13 7
   RE: A Fire to be Lighted Bushido Dec-13-13 2
  RE: A Fire to be Lighted Gryphonadmin Dec-13-13 3
      RE: A Fire to be Lighted Mercutio Dec-13-13 4
          RE: A Fire to be Lighted Gryphonadmin Dec-17-13 10
      RE: A Fire to be Lighted Pasha Dec-14-13 8
          RE: A Fire to be Lighted Gryphonadmin Dec-14-13 9
   RE: A Fire to be Lighted drakensis Dec-13-13 5


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