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9/21/2020 7:01 am  #21


Re: Λα Διϝεργενζα (Divergence spoilers)

I think, in many ways,  she considers Bren to be her successor. Like her, he is knowledgable, powerful, and outside the usual power structures.  They even have some resonance regarding the protection of tradition, and he is clearly very loyal and trusting (a man'chi like bahavior) -- "I have always drunk the tea". Bren is clearly concerned about the Guild”s cell/satellite phones.  She continues to put him in greater positions of influence and independence as she tests him (and her own judgements).

I greatly enjoyed the new confusion and lack of understanding over the instincts of man’chi, including the influence of other factors, namely “biology” aka lust. As Cajeri grows, the influence of his human “friends” will be fascinating.  

Last edited by Aja Jin (9/21/2020 7:04 am)

 

9/21/2020 10:53 am  #22


Re: Λα Διϝεργενζα (Divergence spoilers)

While we're on that topic: if any disaster should befall the aiji-dowager, gods forfend, who indeed could take the man'chi of the East and rule in Malguri? Her direct line are all minor children save the aiji, and is all bound in the succession of the aishidi'tat and the midlands-- Cajeiri might, but he's Tabini's heir foremost, and Seimiro is of course heir to Atageini. There's cousins and other relatives of course-- Drien-daja, the Calrunaidi-- but Ilisidi's succession seems oddly undefined, and never has been through all these books.

Considering that the new peace in the Marid is now heavily dependent on the trade association with the East, I'd be very, very worried about the dowager's health, and for reasons beyond just assassination. I've been rereading the series in the last week or so, and it does feel like her health has been described such that it seems to be going downhill in the last 3 arcs, since the return from Reunion, actually.

 

9/21/2020 1:59 pm  #23


Re: Λα Διϝεργενζα (Divergence spoilers)

I've been thinking about the dowagers heir for a few books now. 

I can think of two possibilities for Bren making decisions in the last book.

1) The dowager came to the west to marry the Ajii when she was very young. She ruled as regent when her son and grandson took control but no one in the west wanted her to rule because she was too eastern. I think its a cultural thing. She does subtle things that a human would never notice but comes across as strange to a westerners eyes. Like having an all male bodyguard. She realized her mistake and slowly changed much of her behavior to be less strange to westerners eyes but its too late for her to be Ajii. Now she's considered by most westerners to be sort of an adopted westerner who has some eastern ways rather than simply an easterner. 

Now she's going to be dealing with the Marid. The Marid's culture is an island culture totally distinct from eastern and western culture. She was dealing with the Marid from a distance for a while but now she is going to be dealing with it from the inside. She doesn't want to make the same mistakes she made before. She decided to send in Bren. Bren can make the mistakes and no one will really get angry with him because he's a human. People expect humans to be weird. Then she can avoid a major cultural mistake which could mess things up. If Bren makes a cultural mistake its easier to fix than if she does. 

She let Bren make the decisions because she knew whatever decisions that he made she could work with it and if they turned out to be bad culturally (rather than politically) it wouldn't have a bad long term effect. 

2) The dowager favors Bren. She knows that he doesn't have manchi to her but he behaves as if he does. She also knows that he is as devoted to Cajeri as she is. And he gets along well with the Ajii. He's also capable of standing up to her and to the Ajii which few people are without being a political threat to either. But he's different enough that he can do things that are totally unexpected but things that she can use to her benefit. Being unpredictable is something that both the dowager and the ajii do to maintain power and Bren fits right into that. 

Bren is the Paidhi for the dowager in this situation. That is well known by everyone. The Paidhi can make decisions on her behalf by law and custom. So he really does have the power to make decisions if she allows him too. Maybe she really was sick on the train and unable to make decisions. By law and custom, the guild cannot make decisions of a political nature. Cenedi knew what she wanted but he could not look like the one making the decision so he asked Bren who is legally able to make that decision. When he told Cenedi to do what he thought best that gave Cenedi the political cover he needed to do what the dowager told him to do.

But this leaves open the question, if the Dowager is really sick, who is her heir. She has one child, (deceased), one grandson (the ajii) and two great grandchildren both of whom are ineligible to be her heir. Who will she pick? My total guess is that she will pick some small grandchild (great-grandchild) of Drien-daja to be her heir since that would be her closest living relative. But in her will she will make Drien-daja, Bren and Cajeri as co-regents. Drein knows the east, Bren knows the west and Cajeri is very good at drawing Manchi to himself. Put Cajeri in contact with her 5 or 6 year old heir and he will get that heirs manchi over time. Maybe even a marriage.They be 5th or 6th cousins so they wouldn't be that closely related. The ruler of the east married to the ruler of the west has happened before. She'd be recreating her own life through her great grandson and great grand-niece. 

No one person can do what the dowager does in the East and the West. Bren can handle her duties in the west but he needs to have the political backing to do it. As the regent of her heir, he can stand in for her in the west. He cannot handle the east but Drien is very well respected there. Bren stood up for Drien once and helped get her the independence from the dowager that she had been fighting for for decades. She may not favor him but she has seen him working up close. Plus I doubt that she would be interested in having anything to do with the west. The dynamics would be interesting. Drien would assume that Bren would play the same role for her that he played for the Dowager but he would not feel the same way. But she also knew that he is essential to keeping the west happy with the east because there really isn't anyone else to fill that role. Most of the time, they'd be at opposite ends of the continent so they wouldn't interact much. 

Drien would be a rival and threat to Cajeri but Bren would be there to act as a go between and protector. She is regent in the east and her great grandchild is the dowagers heir so she has everything to gain by this. Having Cajeri as a co-regent would give him real power in the East but since he would be one of three he wouldn't be in sole control which no one would accept since he is a child. He would have time to grow into the role because Drien would be handling the East and Bren the west most of the time. His role would be more of a go between and tie breaker at first. The East would never accept two regents. Two regents would be too unstable. But a well known and respected easterner, a human who has been the dowagers right hand man for decades who would be in the west most of the time and her natural heir who cannot by law take the position for himself would be a good combination. 

Cenedi and the rest of the dowagers guild serve the new heir but officially take orders from Bren, Cajeri and Drien (mostly Drien) until the heir came of age. Bren would effectively control of the Dowagers guild in the west. But he wouldn't be a threat to the Ajii because everyone knows he has manchi to the ajii and as a human he cannot get power for himself. He can only get power through the ajii and the heirs. He's the safest person to give control of an army to until the heirs come of age. Cenedi would be a check on Drien since he could call on the other two regents if he felt that Drien was doing something really dangerous. Cenedi got along very well with Cajeri so we know that he is good with children. Now we have 5 power centers in the east, Bren, Cajeri, Drien, Cenedi and the new heir taking the dowagers place in the east. 5 is a nice stable number. 

Last edited by scenario_dave (9/21/2020 4:05 pm)

 

9/21/2020 4:35 pm  #24


Re: Λα Διϝεργενζα (Divergence spoilers)

I wonder if Damiri will move in to take Sidi's place in the story.
I also have been trying to figure out how CJ will solve the problem of who rules in the East when Ilisidi dies. And where Cenedi goes. I have thought for quite some time that he would go to Cajeiri. But now that Cajeiri has his senior aishid, it isn't clear how Cenedi would fit into that.
All these problems to solve. Complications upon complications. There are still places the story can go.

Last edited by lynxlacelady (9/21/2020 4:55 pm)


Wild about cats, handmade lace, CJ Cherryh.   politics junkie
 

9/21/2020 4:54 pm  #25


Re: Λα Διϝεργενζα (Divergence spoilers)

lynxlacelady wrote:

I wonder if Damiri will move in to take Sidi's place in the story.

Possible. I'd bet the east will feature in the future. I can see a Bren story line with Damiri being important along with a Cajeri storyline in the east. 

 

9/21/2020 6:52 pm  #26


Re: Λα Διϝεργενζα (Divergence spoilers)

My understanding was the originally Cajeiri was intended to bring together the Padi Valley families and the East/Malguri in a personal union.

     Thread Starter
 

9/21/2020 6:54 pm  #27


Re: Λα Διϝεργενζα (Divergence spoilers)

The Husai plotline was yes, also jarring, because Bren's instinct wanted to impute a romance between Husai and Nomari, his rational mind telling him that this was not possible.  What it was is still not resolved: we are now supposed to think of it as a combination of physical attraction and personal affinity/Nomari's trauma?

     Thread Starter
 

9/21/2020 7:54 pm  #28


Re: Λα Διϝεργενζα (Divergence spoilers)

Eupathic Impulse wrote:

The Husai plotline was yes, also jarring, because Bren's instinct wanted to impute a romance between Husai and Nomari, his rational mind telling him that this was not possible.  What it was is still not resolved: we are now supposed to think of it as a combination of physical attraction and personal affinity/Nomari's trauma?

While Atevi don't possess the emotion of love they can be strongly sexually attracted to each other. Sometimes these attractions lead to a kind of mutual manchi to each other or powerful association of some sort. They talk about this in one of the earlier books where two people developed an attraction to each other but who had different manchi. Bren was associated with both of their lords and agreed to take both of the people involved into his manchi. He figured that he'd help out the poor couple and both lords would owe him. It was in a telephone call back to his apartment when he was waiting for the Ajii to answer his question. It was kind of a throw away scene and they never went back to it. 

I believe that the Ajii and Damiri started something like that but because she was the potential heir to an important house and someone who he valued for her intellectual capacity as well as physical he decided to go with it. 

There have been a few other mentions of Atevi getting inappropriate sexual attractions like in the plot of a play. 

 

9/21/2020 8:08 pm  #29


Re: Λα Διϝεργενζα (Divergence spoilers)

Eupathic Impulse wrote:

My understanding was the originally Cajeiri was intended to bring together the Padi Valley families and the East/Malguri in a personal union.

He cannot be the lord of Malguri and the lord of the west. The Dowager doesn't have time to teach Cajeri what he needs to know to rule the east or get the manchi of the people.  He cannot spend as much time there as he'd need to to get the manchi of enough people to rule.  Give the Dowager another 10 or 20 years then he probably could rule the east. But right now they would revolt. He's too young and not enough people in the east really know him. The dowager has to go back to the east regularly to maintain manchi. Cajeri hasn't spent enough time them to obtain it. He has three pins on his map in the east, Malguri for his great grandmother and his great grandmothers cousin and his cousins who visited him in the capital. He really only knows his great grandmothers people. Everyone else in the east are strangers. That's not enough to rule. In the west he knows everyone important and has many of their manchi already. 

But he can marry the Lord of Malguri just like the Dowager did. He needs to be the lord who accepts his wives manchi rather than the other way around. If the Dowager's heir to Malguri manchi was to Cajeri he would rule the east through her. It would be easier if she were younger than him. That way he would be more likely to gain her manchi and she would be young enough to spend time in both the east and the west to learn both. Then their child could be a child of both east and west and rule both. 

The east and west would be in personal union to Cajeri but through his wife in the case of the east. The scenario I see is that the dowager names a 5 or 6 year old her heir. Cajeri has a part in teaching her. She develops manchi to him. The east accepts her as the heir of Malguri because she is eastern. As she's growing up, Cajeri visits often and meets a lot of people. They eventually marry and share the rule but he's the one in charge because she has manchi to him. Since he's the dowagers natural heir no one is all that upset about it. 

Last edited by scenario_dave (9/21/2020 8:14 pm)

 

9/22/2020 10:43 am  #30


Re: Λα Διϝεργενζα (Divergence spoilers)

Currently on Pretender in my reread of the series, and just realised that Damiri's parentage was retconned at some point (anyone remember which?). In that book it was her mother that was Ajuri clan, and not her father; Bren remembers having briefly met the lady. Not that the current arrangement of details doesn't make for good storytelling, and seeing more of Tatiseigi's history and character fleshed out as the series grows is excellent; it's still interesting to see the things we all tend to forget in the course of a decade and a bit in real time.

 

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