From: mcconnel@Nimitz.mcs.kent.edu (Mike McConnell)
Subject: Re: Cherryh's female characters
Organization: Kent State University
Date: Sun, 4 Oct 1992 19:43:03 GMT

In article <5979@vexpert.dbai.tuwien.ac.at>, mst@vexpert.dbai.tuwien.ac.at (Markus Stumptner) writes:
|> From article <1992Oct1.212035.16838@hsv3.lsil.com>, by mvp@hsv3.lsil.com (Mike Van Pelt):
|> > I think there's a tendency (mostly unconscious, since no one will argue
|> > for it when stated so baldly) to assume that the author approves of the
|> > "hero" of the book.  I remember reading an interview with C.J. Cherryh
|> > in which she said "Captain Mallory is *NOT* a nice person!"
|> 
|> I hope this does not sound simplistic, but personally, the impression
|> I received from the book was that Cherryh approved of Mallory's being
|> not nice.  That "tough people in a tough world" stance is already
|> evident in the description of the superbeings in "Hunter of Worlds",
|> her first book I read, and I'd say it's most evident in the Dying Suns
|> books.  The Mri surely are fascinating, but definitely not nice.  And
|> what the series leads up to (the cultural goal, if you want) in a
|> manner that to me has the author's approval, judging from the way she
|> describes it, is for humanity to "wield the sword" that the Mri
|> represent.
|> -- 
|> Markus Stumptner                                mst@vexpert.dbai.tuwien.ac.at
|> University of Technology Vienna                 vexpert!mst@relay.eu.net
|> Paniglg. 16, A-1040 Vienna, Austria             ...mcsun!vexpert!mst
 
 I think that it is not that your impression is simplistic, but that the whole 
question is very complicated.  After all, think of yourself in the role of an 
author.  To write an entire book or, at times, a series of books about a main 
character or cast of main characters as protagonists (not necessarily heroes) 
means, at least for most writers, that you have to be able to identify with those
characters and their motivations--at some level.  Otherwise, how would you be 
able to keep the reader interested.  Now couple this with the fact that in most
books the reader is seeing the narrative is told by a major character, or through
the observations of main characters.  Therefore, the information will be tinted
(tainted?) by that person's world view, even though it may not be the same as the
author's.  In fact, the best authors (IMO) are the ones who can make this line
between their view and the character's view the hardest to find.
 Anthony Burgess, in A Clockwork Orange, is a good example of this.  Clearly, Alex
is a reprehensible sociopath.  Clearly, Burgess wants his readers to get this 
impression of him.  But at the same time, while reading the book, I cannot help 
but also feel some empathy for Alex.  He has his postive attributes.  And, it is
just as apparent that Burgess does not agree with the government's method for 
rehabilitating Alex into a "clockwork orange."  The right and wrong in the 
situation just aren't clear or distinguished; perhaps they don't even exist.  But
most importantly, Burgess doesn't try to show the reader where *he* might draw 
the line.
 I think that Cherryh has a similar ability to keep herself out of the ethical
argument, you might say, that is evolving in her stories.  You used the Faded Sun
series as an example, so I'll follow that line.  On the one hand, Cherryh is 
creating a society, in fact a whole civilazation, with the Mri and then exploring
the implications of their society.  We see in the main characters the psycholog-
ical effects this has on the people growing up in such a highly structured, high
pressure society.  But she also deals with the clash of cultures: the Mri, their 
employers (whose name I can't recall), and the humans.  It is in the misconep-
tions that each have about the others that the major conflicts of the series arise
and it is in how well they can adapt to each other and learn to "reconceive" each
other that they are succeed or fail.
 I don't know whether Cherryh agrees, on an ethical scale, with the Mri culture.
I don't know for sure that I disagree with it.  But one thing that she makes 
clear, or rather the Mri make clear, is that they are willing to see themselves as
weapons for sale.  Their outward image that they project to aliens is that of 
warriors.  In this role, they are honest and very dependable.  The numerous 
destroyed planets that they pass on their return to homeworld come, not from their
actions as warriors, but rather from the actions of those who had "weilded" them,
then grew afraid of them.  This, I think, is the final question that Cherryh is 
posing.  From the standpoint of the humans, the Mri are a sword, a weapon.  Like
all weapons, the level of their use, positive or negative, will be decided by the
hands that wield them.
 However, we see the action in the series from the eyes, generally, of the Mri 
characters and the human who is trying to live like them.  Therefore, what we see
cannot help but be tinged by their perception of the conflict and by what they see
as right.  As I see it, this is part of the challenge of these books, and many of
Cherryh's works.  She presents characters who have either lost or abdicated much 
of their ability to make clear moral/ethical decisions and still survive.  
Therefore we see them doing things which may contradict our moral/ethical sense.
The challenge is to see their actions from the context of their mindset and their
world-view, not just our own.  How well we, as readers, can acquire an understand-
ing of their world-view gives us an idea of how open-minded we are.  I don't mean
to say that you should finish the book feeling that they are morally correct in 
what they do.  You may find that your own beliefs have not changed one bit.  But 
by being open-minded, you should have a better understanding of your own beliefs
and a clearer sense that other people have beliefs that are different from the 
ground up.
 Think about Bosnia-Herzogovina.  Think about Somalia.  Think about Pretoria and 
Tianamen (sp?) Square.  Think about L.A.  

Mike McConnell
Dept. of Mathematics
Kent State University
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written