From: darknite@camelot.bradley.edu (John S. Novak III)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: _Tigana_ question
Date: 17 Aug 92 21:42:38 GMT
Organization: Bradley University

In <1992Aug17.074842.16149@kithrup.COM> sef@kithrup.COM (Sean Eric Fagan) writes:

>>>>SPOILERS

>>Which one did you think was the 'chief evil guy'?
>Alberico.  Brandin ended up having admirable qualities, but Alberico didn't.
>He wasn't even very good as a mage...

Brandin had _some_ very admirable qualities.  Ripping someone's
name off doesn't sound admirable to me.  And Alberico was a
damned good mage.  That discorporalization trick he pulled was
supposed to be incredibly difficult, and he managed it at a plit
second's notice, without preparation.

Its just that Brandin was superhumanly good.  Alberico was a
distant second, in the Palm, but still second, and worlds ahead
of any Palm wizard.

Personally, I thought Brandin was the chief nasty one, just
because he went so incredibly psychotic in his punishment of the
Tiganese people.  I mean, if someone managed to pull the same
stunt in the real world, like turning Chicago into Upper Peoria
(ack!)  I'd probably murder him with my bare hands.  Revisionist
history is Not Nice.

>I agree with everything you wrote about him.  He could have been a *hero* --
>but he did some things, in his grief, that made him monstrous.  Maybe that
>was one of the things Kay was deliberately trying to say?  If so, I think he
>did a good point; and if not, he did a marvelous job of getting across
>without realizing it 8-).

That is probably what he was trying to say.  Or one of the
things, at any rate.

>I think his empire's practice of capturing the concubines was evil.  I think
>that his actions due to his grief at losing his son were evil.  The rest of
>the things he did... were almost noble.  Some of them were definitely noble.

Tributary whores were probably just an irritation on a national
scale.  Remember the setting we're discussing.

>But, in the end, it all boiled down to him being unwilling to accept the
>consequences of his actions%, until it was either that, or die.

>% The invasion of the Palm was, presumably, at his direction.  And yet he
>was shocked at his son's death?  A man too impressed with his own powers, I
>think, and expecting his most-beloved-son to be the same.

I agree that he was utterly off the beam when it came to his
son's death.  Did he somehow expect the Tiganese to lay down and
play dead just because the Ysgarthan army was coming to destroy
them?  I think not.  There was a serious lack of forethought on
Brandin's part-- in war, people die.  You don't want your son to
die, you don't put him in charge of an invading army.

An interesting point of view, about Brandin overestimating his
own son.  I hadn't quite thought of it that way.

>>Which would you rather live under?

>Brandin, definitely.  Under "normal" circumstances, he was a good ruler.
>But he had too much power for his own good, I think.
I dunno.  I keep thinking about living in 'Upper Peoria' and my
stomach turns.

>-- 
>Sean Eric Fagan  | "You can't get lost in in one room, no matter how
>sef@kithrup.COM  |  little effort you make to learn your way around."
>-----------------+    -- William E Davidsen (william@crd.GE.COM)
>Any opinions expressed are my own, and generally unpopular with others.
--
"There is a subtle difference between a big group of idiots and a
group of big idiots.  The former can be cordoned off and
retrained, while the later can only be cordonned off.
	  -John S. Novak, III, 06-12-92
John S. Novak, III		darknite@camelot.bradley.edu