Ancillary Sword discussion thread!
Oct. 6th, 2014 05:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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Because, yep, it's out tomorrow. :-) There will be spoilers in comments.
And before it gets to us... thoughts on the first three chapters (if you've read 'em)?
ALSO it is probably worth noticing - in case any of you don't subscribe to
annleckie_feed - that Ann Leckie is doing a Reddit Ask Me Anything, with some questions (left in comments at her blog) already answered in the body of the post! I am going to try not to hit refresh endlessly...
And before it gets to us... thoughts on the first three chapters (if you've read 'em)?
ALSO it is probably worth noticing - in case any of you don't subscribe to
![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png)
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Date: 2014-10-06 04:38 pm (UTC)(And, of course, Awn's sibling is still out there...)
(And, of course, there's the question of who exactly this baby Lieutenant is going to end up being; and there's the question -- well, Breq says it's impossible that the baby Lieutenant will ever be their previous self again, but I cannot but remember that Strigan said she was very nearly sure she could restore the existence of Breq's-previous-body-owner. And this brings us right back to the central questions of identity and what it means to have an identity...)
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Date: 2014-10-06 09:42 pm (UTC)The baby lieutenant thread made me nearly cry - I think it's flagged pretty strongly what's going on and I was sharing with Breq the trepidation and wishing-I-was-wrong. What happens next (I will find out tomorrow)
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Date: 2014-10-06 10:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-21 12:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-21 01:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-21 03:01 pm (UTC)*Or, alternative interpretation that occurred to me as I was about to press post, Breq is doing them as a memoriam to Awn.
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Date: 2015-01-15 12:50 am (UTC)I have it from a comment at
(Which you probably have already seen, but just in case!)
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Date: 2015-01-15 01:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-01-15 08:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-01-15 01:28 am (UTC)Keep reading ;)
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Date: 2015-01-15 08:12 pm (UTC)*waves hello*
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Date: 2015-01-15 08:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-06 05:03 pm (UTC)I guess that answers the question of what I'm reading on the train back up North ;) Splending timing!
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Date: 2014-10-06 10:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-06 05:08 pm (UTC)I am going to be good and I am not going to stay up until midnight and then read the kindle version the rest of the night.
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Date: 2014-10-06 05:49 pm (UTC)Ann Leckie says she'll start replies "at about 7pm Eastern" which I think means "about midnight" too.
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Date: 2014-10-06 06:41 pm (UTC)(I won't say more until it's officially out.)
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Date: 2014-10-06 09:39 pm (UTC)IN WHICH I HAVE SOME FEELINGS
Date: 2014-10-09 02:14 pm (UTC)probably more? PROBABLY MORE.
Re: IN WHICH I HAVE SOME FEELINGS
Date: 2014-10-12 04:10 pm (UTC)Re: IN WHICH I HAVE SOME FEELINGS
Date: 2014-10-21 11:54 am (UTC)This occurred to me too.
Re: IN WHICH I HAVE SOME FEELINGS
Date: 2014-10-21 12:15 pm (UTC)*nodnod* Also injuries, like Breq's leg.
I was half-waiting/expecting for someone, probably Anaander Mianaai, to use Seivarden's addiction as a vulnerability to exploit. That was my earliest guess at what was happening with Tisarwat and the drugs (she's going to try to give them to her, or when that fails then plant them on her for Breq to find or even forcibly dose Seivarden up, to weaken Breq's base of people she trusts.) I was very glad to be wrong (even while OMG, LECKIE, WAY TO THINK OF SOMETHING MORE HORRIFYING FOR TISARWAT. D: )
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Date: 2014-10-12 04:08 pm (UTC)I'd assumed Breq was more sympathetic to their Anaander Mianaai than appears to be true. I think she is more sympathetic to the cause of not-blowing-up-gates, admits-exterminating-an-entire-planet-might-have-been-a-tad-over-the-top, but the moment when she strangles Tisarwat to force AM out, plus some later comments suggest she's successfully distinguishing between cause and leader. I do worry over her judgement, hatred for AM is all very well, but AM is the leadership of the entire Radch, take AM (all of them) out of the situation and the Radch descends into chaos and anarchy as every governor, captain, and citizens like Fosyf and Raughd Denche decides now is the moment for them to take charge. Maybe she recognises that, and that's why her focus revolves around the small, intensely personal goal of protecting Basnaaid Elming, but actions like her strangling of Tisarwat are problematic - Tisarwat as AM's glove-puppet was more predictably manipulatable towards those goals than Tisarwat as an abused, emotional 17yo with 3000 years of political manouevring to draw on.
Which raises the observation that if AM recognised Breq as coming closer to her own experience of living than anyone else, then Tisarwat now comes closer to that for both Breq and for AM. (And I wonder at analogies with the Presger Translator - I would have liked to see a lot more of her)
And drawing on both those points; AM and Breq have created a monster, a damaged 17yo with an incredible ability to manipulate to her own ends. Tisarwat's using her powers for good at the moment, but what happens when she and AM come back into contact? Tisarat knows she was essentially murdered by AM, while AM knows Tisarwat has all of her knowledge, but no loyalty to her. It's not a situation that promises to end well.
WRT Kalr Five, this strikes me as a clear nod to the traditions of naval fiction; the captain's servant is absolutely a traditional role that needs to be filled. I was struck when Breq moved herself ashore that she was actually behaving exactly as a Post Captain would be expected to behave in Napoleonic-era naval fiction, making the overall post/port her focus rather than solely the running of her own ship, and AM making her Fleet Captain gave her the seniority to do that, just as making her Mianaai allowed her to act without people assuming superiority through their particular house. It's clear that AM can't directly control Breq, but that doesn't mean she can't find ways to make Breq's aims congruent with her own - she's had 3000 years to practise....
* And in writing this I find I'm now more comfortable talking about Breq as Breq, rather than Justice of Toren/One Esk Seventeen. I have mixed feelings about this.
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Date: 2014-10-12 04:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-12 09:42 pm (UTC)There's an odd parallel here, between this situation, and that on Justice of Toren when AM ordered the execution of Lieutenant Awn, yet it's the arrogant, militant Sword of Atagiris that immediately abandons its mission in order to protect its favourite, while the far more thoughtful Justice of Toren carried through even to the extent of killing Awn with its own hands (as that's what Ancillaries are). Of course it then promptly shot AM, apparently to its own surprise, suggesting JoT may have been (unknowingly) as divided against itself as AM is. The difference of course is the instruction in JoT's case came from the Lord of the Radch, but even for Sword of Atagiris the instruction is from a legitimate superior officer in its chain of command.
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Date: 2014-10-13 12:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-13 08:17 am (UTC)Breq appears to be adopting Awn's MO for her own -- go to the slums, earn the people's trust, fix society's problems from the bottom up. I wonder how much of it is her own moral code and how much of it is a desire to atone by doing things that Awn would do. As Justice of Toren she engaged in territorial wars and killings of innocents/citizens without any apparent moral crisis. However both Justice of Toren and Mercy of Kalr do observe and comment on things like classism with disapproval, though it's hard to know whether it's because of favorites that were negatively impacted by the system, AM's meddling, something they came up with on their own or all three. Not clear what Sword of Atagaris thinks of all this but probably not every AI has the same opinions on the subject.
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Date: 2014-10-13 09:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-19 08:49 pm (UTC)Also, I did not expect to like Mercy of Kalr or her people as much as I did.