Escape Artists
PodCastle => Episode Comments => Topic started by: Ocicat on October 17, 2012, 07:10:51 AM
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PodCastle 230: Little Better Than A Beast (http://podcastle.org/2012/10/17/podcastle-230-little-better-than-a-beast/)
by T.A. Pratt (http://www.timpratt.org/).
Read by Marguerite Croft (http://albionidaho.livejournal.com/).
Originally published in Those Who Fight Monsters (http://www.amazon.com/Those-Who-Fight-Monsters-Detectives/dp/1894063481), edited by Justin Gustainis
Marla picked up a letter opener shaped like the grim reaper’s scythe. “So I was supposed to get this a week or ten days ago?”
“Thereabouts,” Granger said, head bobbing, happy they were in agreement.
If I could fire him, or have him committed… But Granger was a powerful magician, in his way, and even if he wasn’t much use to the city’s secret shadow government of sorcerers, he mostly stayed out of the way in the park, and his elementals had been formidable warriors in last winter’s battle against the nightmare-things. She considered reprimanding him for not bringing the letter on time, but it would be like hitting a puppy fifteen minutes after it pissed on the carpet — the poor thing wouldn’t even understand what it was being disciplined foor.
Marla used the letter opener to pry up the wax blobs and unfolded the envelope, which wasn’t an envelope at all, but just a sheet of paper folded in on itself. The message wasn’t very long, but it said everything it needed to.
She came around the desk, shouting “Rondeau! I need you!” and clutching her dagger of office. This was going to be a bloody afternoon.
Rated R: Contains Language, and Monster
(http://escapepod.org/wp-images/podcast-mini4.gif) Listen to this week’s PodCastle! (http://media.rawvoice.com/podcastle/media.libsyn.com/media/podcastle/PC230_LittleBetterThanABeast.mp3)
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Well, I would expect nothing less from Tim Pratt. This was a fun tale. I like the idea of the sorcerer just dumping the monster from the past on the unsuspecting future. I also really enjoyed the sorcerer's completely bigoted and sexist attitude and Marla's way of dealing with him.
The only issue I had with the story, and maybe it's a hole that was plugged and I just missed it, was: If the Sorcerer went out into the woods by himself, without telling anyone his plan, and then never returned because he accidentally got caught up in his own time-travel spell... who wrote the letter warning the future? I doubt the sorcerer would have written it before he left because he had no idea he wouldn't be coming back. And if I heard correctly, he didn't tell anyone else of his plan, so no one like his assistant could have written it either. If it was explained in the story, someone please clue me in because I missed it.
Even still, that minor plat hole didn't detract from the overall satisfaction of the story. And I admit, I don't usually get into urban fantasy because of the almost requisite Bad-A attitudes of all urban fantasy MCs. It usually gets on my nerves. But not in this one. Well done, T.A.P.
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I'm with Cutter.
Actually, a better way to put it would be "I'm in the same direction as Cutter, but much further along."
I hated Marla as a protagonist - with that kind of attitude, she'd make a far better villain. Marla is far from "a benevolent ruler." She's a malevolent, cruel, spiteful bitch who dooms someone to life imprisonment for the awful crime of disagreeing with her. Is the fact that he was racist and sexist supposed to make it ok to lock him in a single freaking room for the rest of his freaking life? That goes beyond cruel and unusual punishment into the wildly amoral, the blatantly sadistic, the crazy, and the villainous. Where's the novel where all the other magicians rise up against Marla's insane rule and put her down like a mad dog?
That said, I didn't like the time-lost magician any better - he was just differently obnoxious. Honestly, I would have preferred a story where Marla and he were forced to deal with each other more, came to see that each embodied the others' flaws, and both grew from the experience. Of course, that would require a degree of self-reflection (and, you know, depth) that neither character possessed. There wasn't any growth in this story, just power flexing its muscles. If I want to see that, I can just tune in to the real world.
I don't think that badass and amoral main characters is a necessity for urban fantasy. Check out Jim Butcher's Dresden Files. The series is certainly flawed in a variety of ways, but the protagonist, Harry Dresden, is not a generic amoral urban fantasy badass. Oh, sure, he tries to pretend he is from time to time. In reality, though, Harry Dresden is a very complicated character who has thinks about his choices and their consequences, struggles to do the right thing, and grows from his mistakes. I didn't see any of that in Marla Mason, and this story suffered for it.
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Check out Jim Butcher's Dresden Files. The series is certainly flawed in a variety of ways, but the protagonist, Harry Dresden, is not a generic amoral urban fantasy badass...
Heh. I'd actually argue that Harry Dresden is a dumbass. Which is waaaaaaaaaay more frustrating for me. But fair enough :) (FWIW, I don't think you're supposed to take Marla's line "Don't let anybody tell you I'm not a benevolent and enlightened ruler" at face value.)
Cutter, I think you mentioned that you were relatively new to PodCastle? If so you, I can't recommend checking out the backlog of stories we've run by Pratt enough. I'm sure there's plenty of disagreement as to what the best is, but that's half the fun :) (This thread might prove helpful for searching. (http://forum.escapeartists.net/index.php?topic=5378.0))
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Check out Jim Butcher's Dresden Files. The series is certainly flawed in a variety of ways, but the protagonist, Harry Dresden, is not a generic amoral urban fantasy badass...
Heh. I'd actually argue that Harry Dresden is a dumbass. Which is waaaaaaaaaay more frustrating for me. But fair enough :) (FWIW, I don't think you're supposed to take Marla's line "Don't let anybody tell you I'm not a benevolent and enlightened ruler" at face value.)
Wow, we really have different tastes.
The funny thing is, all throughout this story, I had a very interesting relationship with your intro.
At first, I though "wow, this story doesn't seem interesting at all - Dave's making Marla out to be really unsympathetic."
And then it turned into "good thing I didn't let Dave's intro turn me off to the story. Marla's not so bad."
And finally. "Oh, God. She's just as bad as I thought. I wish I hadn't listened to this story."
I agree that Dresden starts out as a dumbass - no argument here. However, I think he grows into something more interesting. Which brings me around to having some patience for this story, because I suppose if you took a snapshot of early Dresden - especially in the context of a short story-sized slice of his adventures - he might seem like an uninteresting putz. Ultimately, though, I think I prefer uninteresting putzes who grow up to malicious sadistic villains who grow souls. The latter can make a good story, but you have to work a lot harder to get me invested, initially. It needs to be made clear to me that I can expect the character to be judged, to grow.
I think what bothered me most is that in this story, the author seemed to be cheering Marla on. There were no nods to the heinous immorality of her actions - at least, no substantive nods. No one got in her way, which left me thinking that either they feared her, or they were just as bad. If there had been even a single character with the guts to stand up to Marla and even a single moment of her reflecting on her choice, I could have swallowed this story as the start of something, part of her journey towards humanity.
As it was, it seemed like a dictator and her fan club, written by the president of the fan club, and it really bothered me.
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If this was your first intro to the Marlaverse, I can see where you wouldn't "take" to her right away. She certainly is a flawed character, she might even be the first to agree. But she does have depth. And don't take my word for it, read the books and see for yourselves. There's obviously much more room for growth and introspection. (And, you may get a bit of what you are looking for, ElectricPaladin...)
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This was my first introduction to Marla Mason. I can definitely see where ElectricPaladin is coming from, but I didn't react nearly as strongly, probably because I seem to have instantly hated the chauvinistic pic way more than he did.
The solution (for both the beast and the chauvinistic pig) seemed to come too easily, so I think the story could definitely have used another 10-15 minutes full of the two/three of them fighting it out. Maybe this would allow the councilwoman and other sorcerers to originally welcome the chauvinistic pig and try to incorporate him into their circle. Marla would hate it and perhaps be challenged to see how she shares some of his flaws, but eventually all would decide that he needs to go. Because he's a chauvinistic pig. ::)
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Wow, we really have different tastes.
Heh. Well, yeah, probably. Such is life. ;D
And look, I'm not trying to be overly harsh on Dresden. I get people love him and those stories, and that's cool. I don't, but I can kind of appreciate them, and certainly get their appeal.
Here's the best way I can sum up my own tastes.
I've read a couple of the Dresden books and a couple of the short stories. In the second book, toward the end, he has the drop on the villain - a Very Bad Guy, and Dresden gets to monologuing, while holding a gun on the dude. Of course, I know where this is going as I'm listening, but I'm still screaming inside my head: Just shoot the guy - before he totally gets the drop on you, Dresden!
But of course, the bad guy gets the drop on Dresden, because Dresden doesn't shoot.
Marla would have shot first.
As for entertainment value, etc., I think it's completely fair to judge this story on its own, because that's how it's presented. But I don't know that it's fair to contrast Dresden's character arc over the expanse of a whole lot of novels and short stories to Marla's arc (or lack thereof) in a single short story.
(And a little disclaimer - I always feel as awkward as hell discussing the stories in these threads instead of being a fly on the wall. Hopefully it's just me and I'm not being totally awkward. If I am, apologies - and I'll back out. Not my intention to make the conversation weird, or kill it.)
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Personally, what this story is opening up for me is the question of what makes a character too morally dark for me to sympathize. I also find it interesting how different characters get viewed differently based on... I don't know.
For example, take the eternal pseudo-hero Thomas Covenant. He's basically a jerk (the phrase Asshole Leper Hero (http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=asshole%20leper%20hero&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CCEQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fmightygodking.com%2Findex.php%2F2008%2F10%2F20%2Fmgk-versus-his-adolescent-reading-habits%2F&ei=rCyAUOuNKqKWiQKz24GgDg&usg=AFQjCNFrDJ4bxjpPUWKWr8vf7lP2Vte76Q) comes to mind). He even - famously - has an attack of rage and helplessness and sexually assaults someone. A lot of people lose sympathy with him at that point and stop reading the series - and even though I love the series, I can't really blame them. Covenant's crime is a tough one to read past, and even when told that he regrets it and spends pretty much the rest of his life trying to atone.
Then we have Marla Mason, who is - I am given to believe - wildly popular. However, what's the real difference? I'd argue that her actions in this story are roughly morally equivalent. She doesn't use (as much) physical violence, but she exerts humiliating power over someone, completely removing his ability to influence the course of his own life, forever. One could even argue that what Covenant does is ultimately less bad - his victim, at least, has a chance to put her life back together (she never really does, but that's a different story).
Author's Note: I don't actually want to get into that argument - I'm not entirely sure, myself - and I don't think it's the point. Comparing shades of moral atrocity is ultimately kind of boring and pointless, and besides, that would totally derail the thread.
The difference for me is that Covenant is reflective and tormented. He does something seriously wrong. It's treated as a terrible act by everyone around him. We get a chance to look inside his head, at the hellish vistas his act opens up inside him. He spends a long time trying to fix it for others, and finally, trying to fix the thing inside himself that led him to do something like that. Mason - it seems at this point - is not. For me, that's the real killer.
Now, I know you could argue that this is a short story, and the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant is a series. That's fair. And, if all I'd read of Thomas Covenant was the rape incident, I'd probably have not read any further. Reading what came before it gave me the inertia to read what came after. I accept that Marla Mason might be in the same category. If my to-read pile wasn't so big, I'd even pledge to read Marla Mason next and find out for myself. As it stands, I'll say that she isn't off my list, but neither, realistically, is she likely to be next.
What I find interesting, though, is the audience's reaction to the story Pratt actually wrote. Pratt clearly knows his audience, because it seems like most people buy Marla Mason as a hero, even after a story like this. Even after a short story like this. The same isn't true of many readers after half a novel, in Thomas Covenant's case.
I wonder why.
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What I find interesting, though, is the audience's reaction to the story Pratt actually wrote. Pratt clearly knows his audience, because it seems like most people buy Marla Mason as a hero, even after a story like this. Even after a short story like this. The same isn't true of many readers after half a novel, in Thomas Covenant's case.
For me, it makes her a cartoon character: they slam their adversaries, throw them on spikes and make them explode. And oddly, the adversaries tend to survive the treatment that would be of utmost cruelty if taken literally.
And that's the problem with this story. The premise -- sexist and racist 400 year old master sorcerer comes back to the present -- is an interesting one, and the story & characters had enough depth to make the 2-dimensional cartoon reading impossible. Therefore, I was disappointed. It's a bit typical for Pratt, and sometimes actually works. "Another end of the empire" had a lot of exaggerated violence -- though that civilization's trajectory was towards less of it -- but was enough of a humorous tale to be entertaining nonetheless. Sometimes, his stories are sweet in a shallow way, and he's a bloody good storyteller. Sometimes, the moral ambiguity serves to interrogate the audience. But often enough there's this bad aftertaste of interpersonal conflict just being resolved in a pat and ultimately objectionable manner.
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I generally enjoy Tim Pratt's work, but I tried to read the Marla Mason series, got halfway through the first one, and put them down forever, pretty much because of what ElecPal pointed out here: Marla is a horrible person whose company I do not enjoy and whose actions I find reprehensible, and the narratives she lives in don't ever seem to notice. If anything, they seem to think she's put-upon and showing admirable restraint when she does what she does. It's like watching Fox News, and it makes me feel similarly tired and angry at the same time.
(RE: The Dresden Files - I like them, but they're pretty schlocky, and honestly I'd rather have read the Lieutenant Murphy Files, if such a thing existed. I resent rolling my eyes at Harry's maudlin self-pity less than I resent trying to root for someone who appears to have no moral compass beyond pragmatism.)
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This is what I love about this place and humanity in general. Things one person loves, the next person is lukewarm about, and the person after dislikes. I know I've said it before, but I love the character of Marla Mason. She is unapologetic and harsh and violent, yes. All reprehensible traits. But she's written in a way that makes me forgive her for some of them. Her motives are generally genuine.
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It's like watching Fox News, and it makes me feel similarly tired and angry at the same time.
This is a very good way to describe how this story made me feel. It's looking into an entire world that's unself-consciously ethically off-kilter from mine. It's like reading one of those old sci-fi stories where the manly male scientist calls his secretary sidekick "kitten" and pats her on the butt without permission, and this is treated as not only right and proper, but evidence of his manly vitality and virtue. My modern brain is like "wtf?" Or, it's like that book I read where the villain is the survivor of incredible parental neglect, raised by his jerk dad after his mom ran off with her boyfriend, and then by a series of uninterested relatives after he died, and his only crime (at least in the beginning) is having a bit of a mad-on for the main character, his bastard half-brother. I'm expected to buy that he's doomed to become a scenery-chewing monster, but actually I just feel sorry for him and want to know more about his point of view. Or, it's like that Bram Stoker horror I tried to read, but couldn't continue, because I got too distracted with the narrator's obsession with how dark skinned (and therefore, clearly, degenerate and dangerous) the villain's sidekick was.
There's a moral hole in the story, and eventually I fall into it and can't go on.
When it's a single note in the story, I can tolerate the dissonance. When it's a big deal - the origin of the story's main antagonist, the conclusion of the story's main conflict - it becomes too much for me to ignore.
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I have no complaints about the story, except for how Marla dealt with Malken in the end, which everyone else is already discussing. The reason I’m posting here is to complain about the lack of scene breaks in the reading. I had no other problems with the reading (well, inconsistent name pronunciations, but that’s easy to overlook), but plowing through the end of one scene into the next, no indication that time has passed and we’re somewhere else now—that’s a real problem for me.
EA, please insist that your readers pause a moment between sections, or insert silences in the recording before posting it. It’s very confusing when you have no idea that it’s suddenly later.
Of course, this is all assuming that the story itself has breaks. If it didn’t, then everything I said here applies to Pratt rather than the reader.
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While I enjoyed this fine, I did think the "I'm going to lock this guy up as a madman" was morally dubious. About as morally dubious as sending a terrible monster into the future so that our descendants have to deal with it (and depending on your political leanings--and if you're American--I'm either hinting at the coming storm of climate change or the debt). So, sure, Marla was like the first sorcerer: willing to do anything to get her way and protect her vision of the city.
Now, whether you think this story is advocating Marla's position or critiquing it, is another matter.
More troubling to me, from a narrative standpoint, was that the solution to the Beast problem felt a little deus ex. We heard a little bit about the technomancer, but it's kind of just spring on us.
Now, there's a nice parallel/reversal in how Marla deals with these living relics: both the wizard and the Beast would like thing to go back to how they were when they were in charge, but only the Beast gets to live out his fantasy. Why not just hook up the wizard to a world where white men have all the privilege? Would he fight that utopia?
I think that's one reason why people are reacting so strongly to Marla's solution with him: the monster gets a fantasy, but the wizards is getting punished for having out-of-date thoughts about what sort of world he wants to live in.
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I think that's one reason why people are reacting so strongly to Marla's solution with him: the monster gets a fantasy, but the wizards is getting punished for having out-of-date thoughts about what sort of world he wants to live in.
My thoughts on this: The “monster” isn’t a monster. He’s just a beast, as everyone calls him, an animal (though this is debatable). He’s not evil, he just is. Malken, however, kind of is a monster, at least from the other characters’ point of view. They probably took him out like that so that he wouldn’t have a chance to attempt to take Marla’s position by force, which he would probably have been more than capable of and willing to do. In their eyes, he deserves to be locked up, while the beast just needs to be prevented from killing folk.
As I’ve said, though, I still disagree with how they handled the situation in the end.
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This was my first exposure to Marla Mason. I've heard her name so many times, and somehow I got it in my head that she is a noir detective--just the name sounds very noir-ish I guess and I've been hearing it in Tim's biographies for years. So that took me a little time to come to terms with, no fault of Tim's.
Interesting idea for the story, having an old-time sorceror tossing the beast ahead several hundred years.
This is the Marla Mason I've heard people saying is so awesome? She's a psychopath dictator. She didn't even resolve the beast conflict, that was the technomancer guy. All she did was "solve" the problem with the sorceror. Which wasn't really a problem to begin with. I mean, yes, the guy is sexist, racist, and just generally an a-hole, but he wasn't a danger. He was just annoying. He threatened to take over her position, but it was clear (or seemed to be anyway) that he would never get away with any attempt to do so. It seemed clear that everyone was on Marla's side from the beginning (presumably because they'd wee their pants just at the thought of what she'd do to them at the first voiced opposition), and that Malken was a loudmouthed jerk, but an impotent one. His very impotence in this modern environment is a fitting punishment enough. He's used to being in charge, he isn't. He's used to having certain ideals held high that now everyone around him considers backwards and wrong. He has no power, and I thought that was kind of funny and fitting, and his discomfort at having to find a way to fit into this society fit even better.
And then Marla had him committed, while someone else was resolving the actually dangerous adversary, and the tone of the narrative made me think I was supposed to cheer this behavior on, for some reason? WTF?
The fact that the beast was handled offscreen by a minor character, coupled with the choice of the title, made me think that Malken was supposed to be the main antagonist, and I just didn't agree with that in any way. He's annoying, and pathetic, but he is a poor antagonist.
Sooo... The Marla Mason books have now slipped a ways further down my endless reading stack. Maybe this was just a poor introduction to the character, but when you publish a standalone story based on your novel character, you have to keep in mind that if she comes off badly in the story, you might be pushing people away from the book rather than drawing them in.
Which is too bad, because Tim Pratt is still my favorite short story author, and his novel Briarpatch was awesome. I was hoping Marla Mason would likewise be up my alley.
(And a little disclaimer - I always feel as awkward as hell discussing the stories in these threads instead of being a fly on the wall. Hopefully it's just me and I'm not being totally awkward. If I am, apologies - and I'll back out. Not my intention to make the conversation weird, or kill it.)
It's just you. Stick around. Pull up a chair. As long as you don't shoot sewage from your hands, you're welcome to be here.
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I'm still on the fence about whether we're supposed to cheer Marla on here or recognize her abuse of power...
But I was just listening to some other Tim Pratt stories--"Cup and Table" and "Captain Fantasy," and I feel there's a strong theme running through them of "Does the ends justify the means?" This is explicit in "Captain Fantasy," where the narrator wonders about the lies told him by his secret masters (they master secrets) and he comes down firmly on the side of "Yes, sometimes eggs have to be broken to make omelets/old sorcerers have to be incarcerated to protect the future."
But still, does that character's feelings capture the theme of the story?
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Personally, what this story is opening up for me is the question of what makes a character too morally dark for me to sympathize. I also find it interesting how different characters get viewed differently based on... I don't know.
For example, take the eternal pseudo-hero Thomas Covenant. He's basically a jerk (the phrase Asshole Leper Hero (http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=asshole%20leper%20hero&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CCEQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fmightygodking.com%2Findex.php%2F2008%2F10%2F20%2Fmgk-versus-his-adolescent-reading-habits%2F&ei=rCyAUOuNKqKWiQKz24GgDg&usg=AFQjCNFrDJ4bxjpPUWKWr8vf7lP2Vte76Q) comes to mind). He even - famously - has an attack of rage and helplessness and sexually assaults someone. A lot of people lose sympathy with him at that point and stop reading the series - and even though I love the series, I can't really blame them. Covenant's crime is a tough one to read past, and even when told that he regrets it and spends pretty much the rest of his life trying to atone.
Then we have Marla Mason, who is - I am given to believe - wildly popular. However, what's the real difference? I'd argue that her actions in this story are roughly morally equivalent. She doesn't use (as much) physical violence, but she exerts humiliating power over someone, completely removing his ability to influence the course of his own life, forever. One could even argue that what Covenant does is ultimately less bad - his victim, at least, has a chance to put her life back together (she never really does, but that's a different story).
Author's Note: I don't actually want to get into that argument - I'm not entirely sure, myself - and I don't think it's the point. Comparing shades of moral atrocity is ultimately kind of boring and pointless, and besides, that would totally derail the thread.
The difference for me is that Covenant is reflective and tormented. He does something seriously wrong. It's treated as a terrible act by everyone around him. We get a chance to look inside his head, at the hellish vistas his act opens up inside him. He spends a long time trying to fix it for others, and finally, trying to fix the thing inside himself that led him to do something like that. Mason - it seems at this point - is not. For me, that's the real killer.
Now, I know you could argue that this is a short story, and the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant is a series. That's fair. And, if all I'd read of Thomas Covenant was the rape incident, I'd probably have not read any further. Reading what came before it gave me the inertia to read what came after. I accept that Marla Mason might be in the same category. If my to-read pile wasn't so big, I'd even pledge to read Marla Mason next and find out for myself. As it stands, I'll say that she isn't off my list, but neither, realistically, is she likely to be next.
What I find interesting, though, is the audience's reaction to the story Pratt actually wrote. Pratt clearly knows his audience, because it seems like most people buy Marla Mason as a hero, even after a story like this. Even after a short story like this. The same isn't true of many readers after half a novel, in Thomas Covenant's case.
I wonder why.
I know you said you don't want to have this discussion, and I don't want to derail the story thread either, but you did bring it up.
Covenant rapes a young woman - someone who (at least in the first book, IIRC - I never made it into the further books) showed him compassion, did not threaten him, and was essentially innocent.
Marla had a sexist, racist, dangerous sorcerer committed. Someone who threatens Marla (and the Chamberlain) with violence because of their sex and race.
So, no, I'd argue that the two actions are not at all morally equivalent.
FWIW, in the series Marla goes to hell (or at least the underworld) and does have to wrestle with the demons of her actions. (That said, I do agree this story should be able to stand on its own, and don't think that knowledge should affect whether or not you like/dislike the story.)
I'm really fascinated by the divide on Marla's actions in this thread, and would love to hear more thoughts on it.
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I know you said you don't want to have this discussion, and I don't want to derail the story thread either, but you did bring it up.
Covenant rapes a young woman - someone who (at least in the first book, IIRC - I never made it into the further books) showed him compassion, did not threaten him, and was essentially innocent.
Marla had a sexist, racist, dangerous sorcerer committed. Someone who threatens Marla (and the Chamberlain) with violence because of their sex and race.
So, no, I'd argue that the two actions are not at all morally equivalent.
What I was talking about was the pure moral weight of the actions involved, independent of the circumstances. Some might say you can't talk about actions in that way, but I think it's at least interesting to try. If you want to talk contexts, the situation becomes a lot more complicated. If you weight their actions against the contexts, both characters benefit. Marla was imprisoning a potential rival who had at least implied violence; Covenant was mentally ill at the time of his crime. I don't know that either is an excuse.
The biggest difference I see is that Marla's action was tactical, with definite benefit for herself and a potential benefit for others, while Covenant's action was born rage, confusion, and demented self-hatred. Again, I'm not entirely sure that Marla wins the high ground in that comparison, either.
What I was interested in was considering the actions, independently: sexual assault vs. life imprisonment. Independent of context, I think they're comprable enough that I don't want to get into it at all and refuse to get into it. I'll tell you right now that I'd rather be raped than be in prison, kept there by people who treat me like a lunatic, for the rest of my life. [Requisite privilege disclaimer: I totally accept that someone who's been there - or, being female, lives under the threat of sexual violence - might feel differently. If you want to claim to be female (this is the Internet, after all) and let me know, feel free to chime in.]
The point I was trying to make is that really, I'd rather not have either happen to me, thank you very much if it's all the same to you, because they're both pretty awful. At the very least, whichever you think is worse, I don't think there's a huge moral gulf between these two atrocious actions. What interested me at the time was that the story (and, until then, the audience) was treating Marla like a victorious hero, rather than as a tortured anti-hero. That was interesting (and, truth be told, a little warped, in my opinion).
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I'm really fascinated by the divide on Marla's actions in this thread, and would love to hear more thoughts on it.
While I find Marla's solution (to the wizard) abhorrent as others above have posted, I really couldn't feel any anger towards her. Her actions are just so over the top absurd that they're comical. Like rooming your adopted son under the stairs (Harry Potter) or your family being so poor that you make ends meet by screwing the tops onto toothpaste (Willy Wonka). Both examples taken from children's literature, but I get the same impression from this story. I can't take it seriously.
The fact that the beast was handled offscreen by a minor character, coupled with the choice of the title, made me think that Malken was supposed to be the main antagonist, and I just didn't agree with that in any way. He's annoying, and pathetic, but he is a poor antagonist.
I didn't find very much satisfaction in either the conflict nor the resolution. Everything was tied up in a neat little bundle at the last second in a very 80s sitcom fashion. Roll the credits.
In the end I've still enjoyed some of Tim Pratt's other works, but I don't think I'll be checking this series out any further.
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This story had the early Laurell K Hamilton vibe, before her books turned into erotica masquerading as horror. Kickass heroine who doesn't take crap from anyone and can solve her own problems and is also smart.
I'm with some of the other commenters who didn't like her, though. I don't think the story was long enough to make her likeable in the way that LKH did with the early Anita books. Marla didn't seem to have any weaknesses other than the inability to tolerate anyone's BS. Again, something that is probably handled in the books.
I was expecting a quasi-retelling of "Beauty and the Beast" and didn't get it, which was somewhat disappointing.
I would have preferred the narrator be a little less precise in her speech. Marla Mason doesn't strike me as the kind of person who thinks quite that well-spoken-ly.
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A fascinating discussion, and it's nice to read such thoughtful comments. I am not surprised people are divided on Marla. People always have been, since the first story about her. I'm often divided about her myself.
I certainly wouldn't expect people to cheer on her resolution to the problem -- she could have dealt much more humanely with Malkin, but didn't, because she is vindictive. I like unsympathetic characters, though; maybe it comes from reading too much noir at an impressionable age!
The "little better than a beast" characterization applies to several of the characters in this story, really; Marla included. Her arc across all the stories and novels is, basically, to gradually come to realize she is part of a community of human beings, and that she needs to learn to function with society, not impose her will upon it. She gets smacked down in the novels, hard, for her hubris and short-sightedness and cavalier attitude, and she learns from that. (Which has no bearing on this story as a standalone; I offer it merely as a point of interest.) I have described her long-term character development as going from "thug to statesman," and that general trajectory is still one that interests me. In this story, at this point, she's still mostly thug.
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A fascinating discussion, and it's nice to read such thoughtful comments. I am not surprised people are divided on Marla. People always have been, since the first story about her. I'm often divided about her myself.
I certainly wouldn't expect people to cheer on her resolution to the problem -- she could have dealt much more humanely with Malkin, but didn't, because she is vindictive. I like unsympathetic characters, though; maybe it comes from reading too much noir at an impressionable age!
The "little better than a beast" characterization applies to several of the characters in this story, really; Marla included. Her arc across all the stories and novels is, basically, to gradually come to realize she is part of a community of human beings, and that she needs to learn to function with society, not impose her will upon it. She gets smacked down in the novels, hard, for her hubris and short-sightedness and cavalier attitude, and she learns from that. (Which has no bearing on this story as a standalone; I offer it merely as a point of interest.) I have described her long-term character development as going from "thug to statesman," and that general trajectory is still one that interests me. In this story, at this point, she's still mostly thug.
Thank you for offering us a bit more insight into the character as a whole. It's great to form an opinion on a story, get the chance to listen to other interpretations and finish up with the author's point of view.
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This story had the early Laurell K Hamilton vibe, before her books turned into erotica masquerading as horror. Kickass heroine who doesn't take crap from anyone and can solve her own problems and is also smart.
Thank you! I've been trying to figure out why I liked this story despite me agreeing with most of the disenters. I think spending my high school years reading LKH and Anne Rice has made me to sympathetic to the-horribly-flawed-character-who-is-really-really-cool trope.
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This story had the early Laurell K Hamilton vibe, before her books turned into erotica masquerading as horror. Kickass heroine who doesn't take crap from anyone and can solve her own problems and is also smart.
Thank you! I've been trying to figure out why I liked this story despite me agreeing with most of the disenters. I think spending my high school years reading LKH and Anne Rice has made me to sympathetic to the-horribly-flawed-character-who-is-really-really-cool trope.
And maybe that explains part of my dislike, because I often don't think things are cool that everyone expects me to think of as cool (even in a genre-loving audience). I could like a character who was flawed but cool, but I don't think she's cool at all based on this story. I don't understand, at all, how Marla Mason is supposed to cool.
As another example of me not grokking crowd-viewed coolness, consider "All Praise Awesome Dinosaurs". I can recognize that that story is plumb full of things which I am assumed to consider cool, but I didn't get the coolness at all.
Go figure.
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This story had the early Laurell K Hamilton vibe, before her books turned into erotica masquerading as horror. Kickass heroine who doesn't take crap from anyone and can solve her own problems and is also smart.
Thank you! I've been trying to figure out why I liked this story despite me agreeing with most of the disenters. I think spending my high school years reading LKH and Anne Rice has made me to sympathetic to the-horribly-flawed-character-who-is-really-really-cool trope.
I dunno... I read those books in high school, too, and I couldn't stand this one. In fact, I have a serious mad-on for characters who are too cool for ethics.
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I can recognize that that story is plumb full of things which I am assumed to consider cool, but I didn't get the coolness at all.
Go figure.
I feel the same way about "Big Bang Theory." I'm told all of the time that I should love it, it's all nerdy and sciency, so why wouldn't I like it? I don't. I can't sit through an episode of it, I find it that awful.
But, as I wrote earlier in this thread
This is what I love about this place and humanity in general. Things one person loves, the next person is lukewarm about, and the person after dislikes.
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I can recognize that that story is plumb full of things which I am assumed to consider cool, but I didn't get the coolness at all.
Go figure.
I feel the same way about "Big Bang Theory." I'm told all of the time that I should love it, it's all nerdy and sciency, so why wouldn't I like it? I don't. I can't sit through an episode of it, I find it that awful.
But, as I wrote earlier in this thread
My wife and I tried to watch Big Bang Theory. The problem with that show is that it's humor about geeks, but increasingly written for non-geeks. All the jokes are at the expense of the geeky characters, and in some pretty cruel ways. Thanks, but I don't need to watch a show insisting that geeks are sexless, pointing out that people with Asperger's are funny, and that geek pursuits are silly. I got enough of that BS when I was still in school.
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This story had the early Laurell K Hamilton vibe, before her books turned into erotica masquerading as horror. Kickass heroine who doesn't take crap from anyone and can solve her own problems and is also smart.
Thank you! I've been trying to figure out why I liked this story despite me agreeing with most of the disenters. I think spending my high school years reading LKH and Anne Rice has made me to sympathetic to the-horribly-flawed-character-who-is-really-really-cool trope.
I dunno... I read those books in high school, too, and I couldn't stand this one. In fact, I have a serious mad-on for characters who are too cool for ethics.
That's admirable. I have a real problem with loving characters I would loathe IRL; and vice versa hating characters that are admirable people I would want in my life if they existed.
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I can recognize that that story is plumb full of things which I am assumed to consider cool, but I didn't get the coolness at all.
Go figure.
I feel the same way about "Big Bang Theory." I'm told all of the time that I should love it, it's all nerdy and sciency, so why wouldn't I like it? I don't. I can't sit through an episode of it, I find it that awful.
But, as I wrote earlier in this thread
My wife and I tried to watch Big Bang Theory. The problem with that show is that it's humor about geeks, but increasingly written for non-geeks. All the jokes are at the expense of the geeky characters, and in some pretty cruel ways. Thanks, but I don't need to watch a show insisting that geeks are sexless, pointing out that people with Asperger's are funny, and that geek pursuits are silly. I got enough of that BS when I was still in school.
That was my impression too, the first several times I tried to watch it. There was one episode in particular that bothered me before I knew the characters, where Amy experiences her first crush and is trying to analyze its symptoms, and Walowitz and Raj face off in a wrestling match. I got the same impression that you did about it seeming to assume that all geeks are sexless, but I realize in retrospect that I was drawing too broad a conclusion from that one episode.
I don't think your characterizations of the show are accurate in the long run though.
--The show does not at all insist that geeks are sexless. Only Sheldon seems to be sexless, the other geeks have varying (but some very strong) sex drives. I don't think it's unreasonable for an asexual person to be drawn to science as an occupation; I don't think the show implies at all that geeks are sexless as a rule, or even commonly.
--I don't find Sheldon funny, but I find the show funny. Sheldon is certainly a source of tension and a plot-driver, but I don't find him funny.
--I think the show does draw some comedy from geek pursuits being silly, but I think it spends enough time establishing that other people's pursuits are no less silly.
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First of all, when I heard Dave say "T. A. Pratt" I was all Oh, so Tim has an A?. I didn't think it was somebody else.
You can't fool me, Dave!
Second, was it just me or did Dave record the intro and outro for this one in a different sound theater? He sounded a little off.
And now, to the story.
Just like any Tim Pratt story it was amazing. I loved it, and am now scouring my local bookstores for the Marla Manson books.
The reading was little bit off, to my ears. It sounded like she was putting a lot effort on enunciating the words correctly (kudos for that!) but it sometimes sounded slightly robotic. It broke the flow of the narrative sometimes.
Also, it hurts me to say this, but I think the story ran on a little bit too long. I would have ended it with "You'll like it there" and he fired the stun gun.
That last scene in the Wacky Wizards Ward was a bit too much, and ended the story on a less upbeat note, in my opinion.
Well... not less upbeat, but more like we actually care what happened to the guy. He made a dick move 400 years ago, kept making dick moves now, so he gets a face full of stun and we never hear from him again. I don't care that the hot doctor in charge of the asylum wants to cure him.
Unless he comes back...
Despite all that, this was a wonderful story, it had me hooked from beginning to end. I was completely swept away in the world and characters, just like Mr. Pratt knows how to do. It left me with a thirst for more from this world.
Thank you.
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And now that I
read skimmed the thread I have one thing to say:
The fact that Marla is a kickass-no-holds-barred bitch is what appeals to me. I'm tired of the holier-than-thou heroes and heroines. It's time for somebody with a different set of morals to take charge. And that's what Marla is. She's not evil, she just has a slightly skewed (from our perspective) set of morals and priorities.
She doesn't strike me as the power-hungry dictator of the wizards council doing whatever it takes to maintain a stranglehold on the city. She strikes me as someone who has one objective in mind: protect her city. And yes, it is her city. She is as protective of it as a mother is of her children. When something threatens the city, be it a monster from some other dimension or a bigoted bastard from 400 years ago, she will do whatever it takes to protect her city.
She doesn't have to rationalize anything. She may see the issues in black and white rather than shads of gray, but her intentions are honorable and her results can't be argued with.
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When something threatens the city, be it a monster from some other dimension or a bigoted bastard from 400 years ago, she will do whatever it takes to protect her city.
But was the bigoted bastard really a danger to her city? I didn't think he was. If she'd committed for endangering her city that would be another thing, rather than committed him for disrespecting her. For an egotist like him, it would've been fitting enough to just let him suffer through discomfort at the state of modern society.
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And now that I read skimmed the thread I have one thing to say:
The fact that Marla is a kickass-no-holds-barred bitch is what appeals to me. I'm tired of the holier-than-thou heroes and heroines. It's time for somebody with a different set of morals to take charge. And that's what Marla is. She's not evil, she just has a slightly skewed (from our perspective) set of morals and priorities.
She doesn't strike me as the power-hungry dictator of the wizards council doing whatever it takes to maintain a stranglehold on the city. She strikes me as someone who has one objective in mind: protect her city. And yes, it is her city. She is as protective of it as a mother is of her children. When something threatens the city, be it a monster from some other dimension or a bigoted bastard from 400 years ago, she will do whatever it takes to protect her city.
She doesn't have to rationalize anything. She may see the issues in black and white rather than shads of gray, but her intentions are honorable and her results can't be argued with.
The thing is, I'd totally appreciate your point of view (except for the 'it's time for...' part - actually, I think antiheroes are way more in right now than straight-up genuine heroes) except for one detail. To me, it isn't that Marla has a 'different' set of morals, it's that she has 'no appreciable morals.' It isn't that she grapples with hard choices, makes tough decisions, and is self-reflective about the evil she creates in her desire to do good - or she isn't self-reflective, but at least someone in her vicinity is - it's that she barrels ahead making terrible choices and doing awful things, without comment.
In other words, while my critique manifested as an argument against Marla, what I'm seeing now is that that's never what it really was. It's really an argument against the story Marla lives in. Marla isn't that sympathetic, and that's only kind of a problem. She's amoral, selfish, arrogant, and cruel, but those are just personality traits, and she probably has other traits in there, too. The problem is that the world she's in - at least in this story - doesn't call her on any of it, and that's disturbing and off-putting.
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When something threatens the city, be it a monster from some other dimension or a bigoted bastard from 400 years ago, she will do whatever it takes to protect her city.
But was the bigoted bastard really a danger to her city? I didn't think he was. If she'd committed for endangering her city that would be another thing, rather than committed him for disrespecting her. For an egotist like him, it would've been fitting enough to just let him suffer through discomfort at the state of modern society.
I think you could make a case that he is, or at least: that Marla thinks he is. Marla believes Malken sacrificed humans in the past in a (failed) attempt rid Felport of the beast, and that's not something she wants in her city.
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When something threatens the city, be it a monster from some other dimension or a bigoted bastard from 400 years ago, she will do whatever it takes to protect her city.
But was the bigoted bastard really a danger to her city? I didn't think he was. If she'd committed for endangering her city that would be another thing, rather than committed him for disrespecting her. For an egotist like him, it would've been fitting enough to just let him suffer through discomfort at the state of modern society.
I think you could make a case that he is, or at least: that Marla thinks he is. Marla believes Malken sacrificed humans in the past in a (failed) attempt rid Felport of the beast, and that's not something she wants in her city.
Also, what would happen if he were to be allowed to roam free? Here is a man with little value to human life (human sacrifices) who is suddenly thrust into a world where "his" city contains millions of people that he sees as "inferior". If he's as powerful as they say, what will stop him from "purging his city of all those who are unfit"?
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When something threatens the city, be it a monster from some other dimension or a bigoted bastard from 400 years ago, she will do whatever it takes to protect her city.
But was the bigoted bastard really a danger to her city? I didn't think he was. If she'd committed for endangering her city that would be another thing, rather than committed him for disrespecting her. For an egotist like him, it would've been fitting enough to just let him suffer through discomfort at the state of modern society.
I think you could make a case that he is, or at least: that Marla thinks he is. Marla believes Malken sacrificed humans in the past in a (failed) attempt rid Felport of the beast, and that's not something she wants in her city.
Except of course that Marla is practicing "human sacrifice for the greater good" in her own way by locking Malken up to protect the city. Sure, it's not like she's killing him, but she is preventing him from having a full life.
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Oh, don't get me wrong: I think that's an absolutely valid interpretation. I really like it, personally - because it just adds to the comparison Rondeau drew between Marla and Malkin.
But I think in Marla's eyes, if it's a call between her sacrificing Malkin vs. allowing Malkin himself to pick a sacrifice from her city...well, it's an easy call for her to make.
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But I think in Marla's eyes, if it's a call between her sacrificing Malkin vs. allowing Malkin himself to pick a sacrifice from her city...well, it's an easy call for her to make.
Exactly. Because the way I see it Marla isn't evil, she just needs to protect her city.
Sort of like Dr. Horrible. Sure he wants to rule the world, but it stems from a desire to fix everything that is broken in our society. I'm not saying he's right. Or that Marla is right. I'm saying that according to their world view and their morals they are right.
And who are we to judge?
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When something threatens the city, be it a monster from some other dimension or a bigoted bastard from 400 years ago, she will do whatever it takes to protect her city.
But was the bigoted bastard really a danger to her city? I didn't think he was. If she'd committed for endangering her city that would be another thing, rather than committed him for disrespecting her. For an egotist like him, it would've been fitting enough to just let him suffer through discomfort at the state of modern society.
I think you could make a case that he is, or at least: that Marla thinks he is. Marla believes Malken sacrificed humans in the past in a (failed) attempt rid Felport of the beast, and that's not something she wants in her city.
Also, what would happen if he were to be allowed to roam free? Here is a man with little value to human life (human sacrifices) who is suddenly thrust into a world where "his" city contains millions of people that he sees as "inferior". If he's as powerful as they say, what will stop him from "purging his city of all those who are unfit"?
Okay, fair enough. Then lock him up in jail, try him for crimes against humanity, and deal with it properly. She has the power to do it properly, everyone seems eager to kowtow to her every whim. That combined with her lazily stepping aside to let someone else handle the immediate threat bothers me. And I think I agree with EP as well, in that it may not be her lack of morals that bothers me, but the fact that no one else calls her on it. My interpretation is that they are all so terrified of her that no one would dare question her.
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While listening to this story the general lack of morals bothered me, for about two seconds. Then I asked myself this:
How do we impose our moral system on people with magical powers?
One could make the argument that with additional power comes additional responsibility. And it would be a valid argument.
But I don't want to go there.
Rather think of this: what is the mindset of a person with magical powers? How different is it from ours? Clearly a different set of rules applies here. And that set of rules is (I should think) imposed by the wizarding community. They must have some set of rules that they lay down to keep themselves in order. And it would surely be vastly different from our own.
I can't fathom what their rules would be, I can only speculate how I would draw up the rules. I wouldn't allow casual terrestrial law breaking (jaywalking, theft, mugging, rape, etc') because there is no conflict of interest. I would only allow murder under the most dire of circumstances. Think of James Bond, he has a license to kill, but doesn't shouldn't abuse that power. And when he does abuse it, it is revoked. The purpose of this license is to allow him to do his job: maintain world peace. (or those parts of the world that Britain has an interest in)
Similarly, wizards might have a license to kill or banish to the Dungeon Dimensions without having to get a court order. Because when you are dealing with this kind of thing there often isn't time for a court order.
They must, of course, employ a system of checks-and-balances to maintain order. When somebody does the wrong thing he or she needs to be corrected. Such a system exists in the world of the story, as evidenced by the institute for deranged and dangerous sorcerers.
Would the wizards choose a pencil-pushing, rule-following bureaucrat to lead them? I should hope not. Such a leader would have let several people die before managing to take care of the Beast. They need somebody who doesn't always play by the rules.
Do I agree with how Marla handled Malkin? I'm still not sure. But if I were there I would allow Marla the occasional, relatively harmless indiscretion. Without it, she couldn't do her job properly: protect the city. If she were constantly hobbled by what-ifs then she would be useless. A weapon in the hands of someone afraid to use it. Her greatest strength is her "Hulk smash" attitude. And it gets results. If we were to make her stop and rethink every decision, or drag her over the coals for actions taken, then she'd be less than useless. She'd be a liability. Because she'd still go ahead and do it anyway, only this time without support.
So, in conclusion, I don't think that we can judge her based on our rules or morals, and based on the conjectured rules of that universe, she was probably OK.
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Would the wizards choose a pencil-pushing, rule-following bureaucrat to lead them? I should hope not. Such a leader would have let several people die before managing to take care of the Beast. They need somebody who doesn't always play by the rules.
Do I agree with how Marla handled Malkin? I'm still not sure. But if I were there I would allow Marla the occasional, relatively harmless indiscretion. Without it, she couldn't do her job properly: protect the city. If she were constantly hobbled by what-ifs then she would be useless. A weapon in the hands of someone afraid to use it. Her greatest strength is her "Hulk smash" attitude. And it gets results. If we were to make her stop and rethink every decision, or drag her over the coals for actions taken, then she'd be less than useless. She'd be a liability. Because she'd still go ahead and do it anyway, only this time without support.
So, in conclusion, I don't think that we can judge her based on our rules or morals, and based on the conjectured rules of that universe, she was probably OK.
She didn't break the rules by the way she took care of the beast. That was a clear and immediate threat and she delegated the work to a techie to handle while she took care of Malkin.
I'm not saying that she shouldn't have taken steps to neutralize Malkin's potential threat, put him in custody for the protection of himself and others for now so that he doesn't kill someone, but having him committed for life should not be the first resort.
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I'm not saying that she shouldn't have taken steps to neutralize Malkin's potential threat, put him in custody for the protection of himself and others for now so that he doesn't kill someone, but having him committed for life should not be the first resort.
What sort of custody would contain a wizard? Maybe the jail cell at the 13th precinct? County jail? Alcatraz?
I got the impression that there really is only one place that could contain such people, and that's the facility for dangerous sorcerers.
Maybe that's the only such facility they need. Perhaps the wizard mindset is such that to turn evil and criminal is to be mentally unstable. Maybe they'd like to think that only the mentally deranged wizards can be dangerous. Maybe that's how they define mentally unstable.
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I'm not saying that she shouldn't have taken steps to neutralize Malkin's potential threat, put him in custody for the protection of himself and others for now so that he doesn't kill someone, but having him committed for life should not be the first resort.
What sort of custody would contain a wizard? Maybe the jail cell at the 13th precinct? County jail? Alcatraz?
I got the impression that there really is only one place that could contain such people, and that's the facility for dangerous sorcerers.
Maybe that's the only such facility they need. Perhaps the wizard mindset is such that to turn evil and criminal is to be mentally unstable. Maybe they'd like to think that only the mentally deranged wizards can be dangerous. Maybe that's how they define mentally unstable.
It's a magical society, I'm sure they have some means for containing criminal elements. Even if they locked him up on grounds of being dangerous it would be better than just pretending he's insane. I'm still not at all sure that he would hurt someone. Everybody has the potential to become dangerous, so if you're going to imprison somebody for life based on their potential for harm, then we should all be locked up.
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Many of the characters I love to read are people that I would never want to know personally.
In that spirit I just read Blood Engines and ordered the other books in the series. Marla is much fun to read about.
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Some times i feel the residents here take every story as a serious think piece. sometimes they're just for fun. plot flaws, characterization flaws and all. just for fun.
Did anyone else expect Squonk to show up?
It was a fun tale.
I didn't read all the comments on this one. all the analysus and comparison with "The Dresden Files" upfront got me frustrated. It was a well written fun story. yes it had some social commentary, but that wasn't the focus of the story. to me it was a fun introduction to a character i would like to hear more about.
and it was a PRATT story, 'nuff said
laters taters
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Did anyone else expect Squonk to show up?
I expect Marla would've thrown him in the insane asylum too, just for good measure.
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nah, she would have just sent him to the park to frolic with Granger.
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Some times i feel the residents here take every story as a serious think piece. sometimes they're just for fun. plot flaws, characterization flaws and all. just for fun.
I feel like that sometimes, too.
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I think there's only two Tim Pratt stories I've really enjoyed and this wasn't one of them.
(FWIW, I loved "The Christmas Mummy" and "From Around Here", the latter about which I am seriously biased as I corralled a full-cast audio-productiuon of that one).
Not sure why but I didn't find any of the characters compelling. Not detestable or morally bankrupt or anything like that -- not compelling. I didn't care what happened to any of them. And I think I find "out of the ordinary" endings becoming a feature of Pratt stories so I'm both less surprised and less satisfied by them.
And what kind of solution is long-term incarceration anyway? That's little better than sending the Beast forward in time -- postponing the problem for someone else to deal with. I mean, look what happened with holodeck Moriarty!
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I think there's only two Tim Pratt stories I've really enjoyed and this wasn't one of them.
I think there's only two Tim Pratt stories that I HAVEN'T really enjoyed. :)
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I'm not saying he's right. Or that Marla is right. I'm saying that according to their world view and their morals they are right.
And who are we to judge?
Whoa, wait, what?!
Everyone has that point of view - according to their own world view and values, what they do is right, to them. That includes Genghis Khan, Napoleon, the Columbine (and similar) shooters, abortion clinic bombers, Idi Amin, Joseph Stalin and Nicolae Ceaușescu.
Because they all had a world view and 'morals' that supported their actions. And therefore, we aren't to judge them?
Sorry, can't get there.
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I'm not saying he's right. Or that Marla is right. I'm saying that according to their world view and their morals they are right.
And who are we to judge?
Whoa, wait, what?!
Everyone has that point of view - according to their own world view and values, what they do is right, to them. That includes Genghis Khan, Napoleon, the Columbine (and similar) shooters, abortion clinic bombers, Idi Amin, Joseph Stalin and Nicolae Ceaușescu.
Because they all had a world view and 'morals' that supported their actions. And therefore, we aren't to judge them?
Sorry, can't get there.
Bingo.
I like to call myself "a moral relativist with balls."
Yes, the world is subjective and there is no absolute wrong or right.
Yes, I still think that I'm right and you're wrong. I can prove it, too. And if I can't prove it to you, and I think you're wrong enough, I have no compunctions about using the authority at my disposal to compel you.
Morality is relative. The world we actually live in is absolute.
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Well, not necessarily. Under the best theories at our disposal, the world we live in actually appears to be fields of probability interacting in unimaginably complex ways, and thus reality actually has wiggle room, of a sort.
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Well, not necessarily. Under the best theories at our disposal, the world we live in actually appears to be fields of probability interacting in unimaginably complex ways, and thus reality actually has wiggle room, of a sort.
Like.
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Well, not necessarily. Under the best theories at our disposal, the world we live in actually appears to be fields of probability interacting in unimaginably complex ways, and thus reality actually has wiggle room, of a sort.
And you teased us for discussing SOP naming protocols? :P ;D
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I'm not saying he's right. Or that Marla is right. I'm saying that according to their world view and their morals they are right.
And who are we to judge?
Everyone has that point of view - according to their own world view and values, what they do is right, to them. That includes Genghis Khan, Napoleon, the Columbine (and similar) shooters, abortion clinic bombers, Idi Amin, Joseph Stalin and Nicolae Ceaușescu.
Because they all had a world view and 'morals' that supported their actions. And therefore, we aren't to judge them?
Sorry, can't get there.
But all of the people that you mentioned are home sapiens sapiens. They are human beings like you and me. Their thought patterns are very similar to your thought patterns and mine. They may have had some kind of psychosis or some methodology for explaining, at least to themselves, why whatever theydo is justified. And if we were to sit down with those people with an open enough mind we might be able to understand those justifications. Probably not agree with them, but at least understand them.
Furthermore, those actions all took place in a human culture, one which we (somewhat) understand, and which does have its own set of rules and morality code. Even if not everybody agrees to each and every one of the rules.
However, the people in the story are not humans. They don't live in a human culture and society. Their lifestyle and thought process is so far removed from our own that we probably can't even understand why they do things they do, even if they were to try to explain it to us.
For all intents and purposes, people with magical powers are not really human. More than human, less than human, neither more nor less just different from human... it doesn't matter. We can't hold them up to the same morality scale that we hold to ourselves.
Just like we can't judge chest-bursting aliens, we can't judge wizards. We're out of our frame of reference, we have no yardstick to measure them by. We're just too different.
And not different in the way that a libertarian is different from a fundamentalist. But different in the way that monkeys are different from whales.
There just is no similarity. They're both mammals, but that's about it.
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Why does the ability to do magic make someone not human, but the power that comes with massive wealth or at the head of a dictatorship doesn't? If the power to hurl fireballs makes one inhuman, surely the power to have, say, ten random people off the street shot to amuse you does, too.
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A definition of what makes you human is a pointless argument in semantics.
But just as our thought patterns today, when we live in a world immersed in technology, would be unfathomable to a swine-herding serf from the ninth century, so too would those of a magically advanced (like technologically advanced) society be to us.
"Indistinguishable from magic" works both ways. Our technology looks like magic to the serf, and it has shaped our society and ourselves so much that we may not be able to understand how he thinks, and certainly won't be able to understand how we think. So too, a society that is advanced magically would shape and form their thought patterns so that we would be unable to understand them.
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I disagree. Human nature is human nature; I've never read a history book and gone, "My God, what would possess them to do THAT?" Even cultures that are very different from my own and involve values I emphatically do not hold (raiding/looting adventurers a la Vikings, or feudal Japan), I can still *understand* the drives. As I am today, I wouldn't disembowel myself with a dull katana to clean my family's honor, but I can understand the concept of honor in that context, and I understand attachment to family and altruism; I can follow the logic of a man who made such a choice and confirm that it is internally consistent.
Your hypothetical serf might not ever be able to earn his electrician's license or lecture on the structure of the atom, but I bet he'd be able to understand a nuclear disarmament treaty and why one might be necessary.
(Not to mention that you introduced the discussion of relative degrees of humanity, so claiming it as a derail is a trifle disingenuous.)
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Your hypothetical serf might not ever be able to earn his electrician's license or lecture on the structure of the atom, but I bet he'd be able to understand a nuclear disarmament treaty and why one might be necessary.
Perhaps. But could you explain to him the concept of intellectual property rights? Can you make him understand why people would be forced to pay millions of dollars for copying lines of code? Or what that code is and how it works and why some people think it needs to be protected by law?
Probably not. Those are all very new concepts, and strongly grounded in our information-based society.
So too I can't be expected to understand what it is that motivates magicians. If our society is information-based, theirs is magic-based. They may have their own codes and rules and regulations regarding magic and the use of it that I can't be expected to understand, since I don't live in such a society.
And speaking of derailing, my original point was that perhaps these people see mental illness as a crime (or vice versa) and therefore are perfectly justified in doing what they did. In a magical-based society, where one's mind is the most powerful weapon there is, perhaps they need to be extra careful of mental illness. Or perhaps their worldview is structured so that to commit a crime is to be mentally insane.
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I'm confident that, once I explained to the serf the basic functionality of things like the internet and so on (and I don't argue this wouldn't take a long time), that I could also explain why there is a fight about intellectual property. I'm not saying I'd convince him to start his own PirateBay or something - in fact, I expect someone from that time period would think the whole mess was very silly and would insist that paying for anything that isn't a "real thing" is foolish - but I think I could at least explain what the various sides believed in such a way that he could understand it.
As far as the idea that this world has criminalized insanity, well, one would think, given that a non-magical author is writing this story for non-magical readers, that were such specific mores intended to be encoded as part of that culture, they would be demonstrated or elaborated upon in some way so as to make them less jarring. We've seen many stories featuring cultures with wildly different ideas of propriety and appropriate responses, but I don't see anything in this story suggesting that its intent was to explore that sort of alternate worldview; Marla seems very grounded in the "real world," as far as such matters extend.
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People are people, magic-using or not. And this particular world is not terribly far removed from ours, using magic in the way that technology would be used in ours, so they don't even feel very foreign.
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Well this isn't the discussion I expected to find. In the intro I understood that this was a YA story, and as such, characters and motivations tend to be flattened into a single theme. I would have really like to see more from Malkin. Since he's so smart, I would have expected that he withdrew to a conservative mental distance then worked to build political ties and regain his rightful office. But this isn't Game of Thrones. Sit on the porch and relax a bit, y'all. You're gonna make yourself sick if you stay stressed out like this.
Also, I think people are underestimating the intelligence and cleverness of peasants. To wit:
ARTHUR: The Lady of the Lake, [angels sing] her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite, held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water signifying by Divine Providence that I, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur. [singing stops] That is why I am your king!
DENNIS: Listen -- strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
ARTHUR: Be quiet!
DENNIS: Well you can't expect to wield supreme executive power just 'cause some watery tart threw a sword at you!
ARTHUR: Shut up!
DENNIS: I mean, if I went around sayin' I was an empereror just because some moistened bink had lobbed a scimitar at me they'd put me away!
ARTHUR: Shut up! Will you shut up!
DENNIS: Ah, now we see the violence inherent in the system.
ARTHUR: Shut up!
DENNIS: Oh! Come and see the violence inherent in the system! --- HELP! HELP! I'm being repressed!
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ARTHUR: Shut up! Will you shut up!
DENNIS: Ah, now we see the violence inherent in the system.
ARTHUR: Shut up!
DENNIS: Oh! Come and see the violence inherent in the system! --- HELP! HELP! I'm being repressed!
That exchange is one of my favourite comedy pieces EVAH!
(Also, The Argument sketch is just brilliantly witty. I'm gonna stop now before the thread devolves further away from the topic and proves Godwin's law)
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I'm a rather late to the party, but after reading through the thread, I wanted to jump in with my two cents.
This was my first exposure to Marla Mason, so I might be reading too much into the setting, but I'm inclined to come to her defense. The means in which Marla neutralized Malken were questionable, but but I think her reasons for doing so might have had some validity. Aside from his other flaws, Malken's first priority seemed to be convening all of the magicians to take power from Marla rather than to address the issue of the Fellport beast - that right there gives Marla a leg up on 'protecting the city' in my book.
Aside from that, I don't think it can be taken for granted that Marla would be able to prevent Malken from taking power. It's mentioned pretty early on that Granger, despite being inbred to the point of mild retardation, is guaranteed a permanent council seat and since Marla's dagger of office is an item of power, it's possible that things like Granger's seat are also assured by powerful magical means rather than pure politics. Given that, Malken might be able to unseat Marla fairly easily and then use his power however he wished. Given his priorities and that he all but promised to make Marla his concubine, I can't really blame her for wanting to prevent that from happening.
As for Marla taking out Malken in a magical duel, I don't think she could have. She talked about time magic being serious juju and (I believe) admitted that she wasn't able to do it herself, so it's possible that Malken may simply have been more powerful than Marla and her only option was to get the jump on him with something quick and dirty.
I don't believe that Malken was a racist, chauvinistic asshole because he was simply a product of his times. It's mentioned that his contemporaries thought he was rather terrible, both in accounts and as ghosts. Other people mentioned that Marla may have taken Malken out because of his potential to do harm to the modern population of the city and I think that's a valid position. I also think that it doesn't really matter that Marla was a woman, Malken seems the type to reclaim power in Fellport regardless of who's in charge and he just seized on Marla's sex as the easiest and most obvious (for him) justification to do so.
So no, what Marla did wasn't right, but it was (to my mind) reasonably justified.
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girlwithsixarms, you've hit the nail on the head. Each nail, in fact. I hope you pick up the books, because they really are a whole lot of fun. Maybe even two lots. A Kickstarter for the eight installment was funded in a day and a half, just this week! There are tons more short stories too, and each Tuesday, Tim Pratt is posting a new one on his website. Here's this weeks, which was the first. http://www.timpratt.org/?p=1628 (http://www.timpratt.org/?p=1628)
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And speaking of derailing, my original point was that perhaps these people see mental illness as a crime (or vice versa) and therefore are perfectly justified in doing what they did. In a magical-based society, where one's mind is the most powerful weapon there is, perhaps they need to be extra careful of mental illness. Or perhaps their worldview is structured so that to commit a crime is to be mentally insane.
Remember this? It turns out that the author himself holds just such a speculation.
The Blackwing Institute didn’t treat diseases of the body, but it contained the diseased in mind — specifically wielders of magic who became a danger to themselves, and others, and occasionally reality. The Institute was funded by prominent sorcerers, who recognized madness as an occupational hazard, and knew they might find themselves in need of treatment some day too.
BBCode is being stupid so I'll post the link to the source of that quote here (http://link=http://www.timpratt.org/?p=1635) and not in the quote tags.
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At this point I'm mostly impressed by the amount of discussion this story provoked, after listening to it I simply moved on as Marla is basically a type of hero I don't find interesting, the kick-assery sorts tend to leave me looking for another hero.
The most interesting thing I see looking back is that I totally overlooked how terrible the way Malkan being locked up really was, in hindsight I can see a lot of offense to take but I really just read him as a "person-to-be-hated" in the story, which is perhaps unfair.