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A Song of Ice and Fire / Other Topics / Tigana (Spoilers)

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Ran
User ID: 0867924 		Mar 14th 7:07 AM
This is in case, perhaps, folk are interested in discussing _Tigana_ by Guy Gavriel Kay. I'm enjoying the discussion myself, but it's perhaps becoming too dominant on the Reccomended Reading thread. If there's no interest, I'll just delete it. :)
Min
User ID: 0074284 		Mar 14th 7:09 AM
Oh, I'd like to - though there will be another discussion where I will just not manage to persuade Jeff that he's wrong... frustrating. :-)
Min
User ID: 0074284 		Mar 14th 7:12 AM
Oh, and concerning your last comment, Jeff:
I would have liked Brandin to win. Really. I am pretty sure he would have released the spell after the battle, and Tigana would have been free then. I loved the ending as in climax and style, but I was sad about it. I would have wanted him to live, and to rule. Apart from what he did to Tigana out of his old grief, he was a good ruler.
Jeff
User ID: 1536664 		Mar 14th 8:56 AM
Good move, Ran.

Min, I can accept that because its consistent with the way you view the characters. I disagree, though. The one image that I can't get away from is Brandin's continued torture of Rhun/Valentin. Every single day for 20 years, right up through his death, Brandin knew exactly what he was doing to Valentin. That just doesn't fit with the picture of a benevolent guy.

That also doesn't fit with the whole "triumph and epilogue" portion of the story that followed Brandin's death. The tone of most fantasy epilogues, this one included, is that after all the suffering and struggle against adversity, the surviving characters finally get their rewards. But under your reading, Min, nobody deserves any reward. Alessan, etc, are not individuals of particular virtue or nobility, so why should we care about the epilogue? It just seemed sort of disjointed.

I guess my problem with the way GGK handled the whole ambiguity thing was that it was left henging. The Dive creates a huge moral crisis for Alessan and his allies -- do we continue or not? Alessan goes so far as to punch someone in the face for speaking ill of the diver. (Personally, I agreed wholeheartedly with that guy). People even in Lower Corte are cheering Brandin (I found this completely implausible. It cuts against everything we've learned about revolutions. The far more likely reaction would have been increased agitation).

But the issue is never addressed by the protagonists. A huge moral crisis that is never even mentioned in passing by the main characters. Alessan never strengthens the resolve of his friends -- or even himself -- by saying "We still need to go through with this because....", or anything of that sort. Its just left out there, unresolved and unaddressed. That struck me as manifestly unbelievable.
Min
User ID: 0074284 		Mar 14th 11:12 AM
Just a thought: If someone killed my child, I _might_ gladly torture him every day for twenty years, too...
But I admid, that was cruel. I never said Brandin wasn't cruel. He was cruel, and dangerous. Which, perhaps, _made_ him a good leader. Weakness, I think, might not be the best characteristic to rule a country.

As for the other point you made: Perhaps Alessan never even felt the need to talk about it. No matter what would have come, no matter what might have happened, he would have continued. Perhaps this was so natural to him that he did not feel the need to talk. I don't know, though.
Ran
User ID: 0867924 		Mar 14th 11:42 AM
That Brandin makes Valentin his Fool (something which is, BTW, a tradition of his people and a symbol of his kingship) fits the picture of a ruler (who isn't supposed to be gentle, usually) and conqueror and a father grieving to a degree almost like madness, though, Jeff.

Would Prince Valentin had gone easy on Stevan if, say, Stevan had killed Valentin's own sons? He didn't have the means to put him under that torture for twenty years, but I can't imagine Stevan's death would have been easy.

And I don't think there's a suggestion that Alessan has no particular nobility. Or that Duke Sandre didn't, who had a whole extended family set up to take the fall if his plans failed -- when they did, all that family, from youngest to oldest, to several generations, were brutually murdered.

They _do_ have nobility. They are fighting for what they believe. They will not flinch at shedding every drop of blood in their bodies, and every drop of blood in the bodies of a thousand people, to see Brandin and/or Albreico killed. And that's where they fail morally, where they decide to be as hard and cruel and inhumane as those they call opressors. They can wave it away as casualties of war, as the tree of liberty needing to be watered with the blood of unwitting patriots. But it's still a failure.

And that makes them human. They're not perfect. They're good men in hard times, and one moral failure, or two, or half a dozen does not make them evil. They do the best they can, the best they know.

And that's exactly, precisely, what Brandin does. I do not exonerate him for what he did. It was wrong. It was undeniably vicious, how he crushed Tigana (the only place where he had men, women, and children killed indiscriminately) and made Valentin his Fool with the most agonizing tortures. It's not something that can be forgiven.

But it was born of a grief that was, really, rooted in madness. After all, the entire _reason_ for invading the Palm was to give his younger, beloved son a kingdom of his own. When that hope was shattered at sunset at First Deisa, Brandin didn't just soldier on to hold Albreico at Certando and let his troops win, as was proper -- he ran to Tigana, giving Albreico free reign in two of the provinces, to avenge his son. Which he did, beyond all reason and sanity, was to avenge him with the blood of thousands of innocents and the freedom -- of body, mind, and soul -- of their valiant prince who fought for them.

And that was _wrong_. And so was Sandre wrong for setting up that old rival family to take the fall, to be death-wheeled by the score. And so was Alessan wrong to lower himself to enslaving Erlein the wizard.

But does committing a wrong act, an evil act, make the man evil? Necessarily?

Ghenghis Khan saw whole cities be slaughtered. China under the Mongols saw millions of farmers die to make more pasturage for the horses. Was Ghenghis Khan evil? To the Chinese he was, certainly. But what does it take to see a man evil? Why are people interested in reading about him, marvelling at what he did, speaking of his strength and ability?

How about Julius? Who butchered thousands of Gauls, who enslaved their women and children? Was he evil?

What about Alexander, that brilliant megalomaniac with a god complex? He murdered men who offended him, even if they had served him loyally. He purportedly dragged the body of an enemy commander along the ground from his chariot, emulating Achilles, until there was hardly any flesh left on him.

How about Charlegmane, who systematically executed thousands of Germanic warriors who he had defeated in battle? It took an entire day to do all that butchery. And Richard I, Couer de Leon, who did the same to Arab men, women, and children when he couldn't afford to keep them hostage?

Were any of these men evil? Are we suddenly uninterested in their stories because they did stomach-turning, revolting things in the name of their god(s) or their empire or their duty?

Not really. I don't want to sound like I'm preaching -- I hope I'm not -- but this isn't an issue of moral relativism or anything like that. It's an attempt to point out that evil deeds do not, necessarily, make men evil, and that there are reasons for everything. Do we have to forgive evil acts? No. Can we try to understand the context in which they were done? Yes.

I'm not sure there is a huge crisis for Alessan. He _knows_ what he wanted -- he wanted Dianora to succeed:

"If the Certandan woman fails Brandin is lost I think. I am almost sure."
Devin looked quickly over at him. "Well then, that means..."
"That means a number of things, yes. One is our name comes back. Another is Alberico ruling the Palm. Before the year is out, almost certainly."
Devin tried to absorb that ...
"And if she succeeds?" he asked.
Alessan shrugged... "You tell me. How many people of the provinces will fight against the Empire of Barbadior for a king who has been wedded to the seas of the Palm by a sea-bride from this peninsula?"
Devin thought about it.
"A lot," he said at length. "I think a lot of people would fight."
"So do I," said Alessan.

I decided to give the last few lines, BTW, to show why so many people fought for Brandin. That ceremony was _extremely_ important to the people.

Alessan's only moral dilemma is whether he can really hate her (he decides he can't, at all) and Brandin so much.

Brandin was a monster of his nightmares, a figure to be despised and hated as inhuman. And yet he saw the most naked show of really, soul-deep joy when she survived. Can a monster be that in love with a woman, that afraid for her? Call it selfishness, having to do only with his wish to dominate the Palm, but Kay goes far and away from presenting it in that fashion.

Jeff
User ID: 1536664 		Mar 14th 12:51 PM
The short answer is yes, a morally corrupt person can be deeply in love with someone else. As for it being grief rooted in madness, I just don't see any sign of madness 20 years later when he still perpetuated that act.

I don't agree that Valentin would have devised a horrible death for Brandin had Brandin killed Alessan. We certainly see no evidence that he would torture Brandin rather than simply kill him. I also think it relevant that Brandin was the aggressor and that Valentin and his people were simply defending their own land. I think there is a moral component to that distinction that is being overlooked.

To the extent Genghiz, Caesar, etc engaged in atrocities to satisfy their own egos, they are equally deserving of condemnation. We focus on their conquests because the ability they showed in those conquests marked them as extraordinary individuals. But that is an evaluation of their achievement, not on the morality of what they did. Are you saying, Ran, that we cannot make issue moral judgments on merciless conquerors?

I would agree that committing an "evil" deed does not make a person "evil". On the other hand, deeds surely matter. We know what Brandin did to Tigana and to Valentin. If it were possible to question Brandin, I think even he would admit that Tigana was not "wrong" to resist him. He would certainly admit that he would have done the same if he were Valentin. Yet he continued to punish Tigana for a full 20 years after his son was killed in a war he started. Committing one "evil" act does not make a person "evil". But perpetuating that act over 20 years and never once showing any hint of regret or remorse does say something about a person's fundamental character. Had he showed such remorse in conjunction with his love to Dianora, the point would be better made. But his continuing crimes against Tigana cannot be washed away simply because he fell in love. With all due respect, that seems like the stuff of dime-store romance novels.

Min, even for Sandor, we talk about redemption in terms of a change in heart, necessarily including regret over bad acts he committed. We seem to be discussing Brandin as if his single act of love for Dianora somehow amounts to heartfelt regret for his prior acts. It doesn't, and there's no hint of it of such regret. In fact, the primary reason he didn't return to Ygrath was solely to ensure that Tigana was punished. It was a malevolence that lasted and was never retracted.
Ran
User ID: 0867924 		Mar 14th 1:12 PM
No one _says_ they're washed away, of course. Or, at least, I've tried to make it plain that I do not exonerate him. Dianora didn't exonerate him, either, and she did not exonerate herself -- she says, early on, that if her father or brother had seen her, they would have strangled her with their own hands ... and she would have accepted it. And that's tragedy, that such love finds itself, between two such complex, brilliant figures, and it's fated to not be because of the sins of the past.

The author, most assuredly, does not exonerate Brandin either. If he had, Brandin wouldn't have died. He wouldn't have been killed by Prince Valentin of Tigana.

As to merciless conquerors, double-edged there -- they showed a lack of mercy. Sometimes. And sometimes they didn't.

Brandin had no mercy for the Tiganans, and he had no mercy for them for twenty years, and even when he wanted to make them a part of his new Kingdom of the Western Palm he still did not withdraw the cruelest of his spells. Yet he was not, all in all, so bad to the other provinces. Business and trade resumed as normal in all the other provinces. Tariffs and taxeswere a little higher, the Tribute Ships took women for the saishan (a custom of the Ygrathans, a symbol of the right to rule, we must not forget), but there was justice there.

Being able to understand the context of what he does certainly makes a him a very human, deeply flawed figure. He is not, in my opinion, 'rotten.' Calling him rotten makes him into a dime-store villain (to modify a phrase) and robs him of his humanity, and thus creates the weakness you found in the story.

Did he deserve the death he got? Oh yes. Assuredly. Unlike Min, I did not root for Brandin. I knew he was doomed, and that he deserved that doom. It did not mean I couldn't pity him, or Dianora. I saw the humanity of Brandin as well, the flaws and virtues, the unbound, over-abundant grief, and the tragedy. He was an exceptional figure, a brilliant figure. He could have turned out better than he did. But he didn't, and that's what's tragic. What he did was awful and tragic, in part because of what it made him become.

It's a very deeply complex novel. It doesn't take the easy course of making moral judgmenets for the reader. It's up to each person to decide how they found the characters, and myraid conclusions can come from it. And they are all, really, valid.

The way a person percieves text is a very individual thing. I've had my opinions of various characters throughout Kay's works modify or even change entirely (_Song_ in particular was this way) after re-readings. It might be, after I re-read _Tigana_ again (soon, I think), that I'll change my opinions somewhat.

GGK is the author whose books I most re-read. That's the genius of him -- the nuances are layered deep, and each re-reading can be a revelation.
Arend
User ID: 8590713 		Mar 14th 2:03 PM
I always thought that one of the big themes in Tigana is pride. Brandin did a very cruel thing, and keeps doing it out of pride. He is not stupid, he is probably very aware of the cruelty of his action. But it defines him. He keeps himself alive longer to maintain the curse, even gives away most of his kingdom to do it. Sound like pig headed pride to me. And pride is the fodder of tragedy.

The trouble with the Brandin character is a) we never actually see his POV, only Dianora's skewed perception (note that this is not the case for the other sorceror), b) the one time we see him from a distance (at the Dive) he is basically too distant, and c) he is not a historical character, i.e. we do not have multiple perceptions and/or culural backgrounds to assess him by.

The ending of Tigana, Jeff, I always found ambiguous. There is a big sense of reward in some sense, but we do not actually learn if these rewards are actually received. GKK has a great sense of history and history doesn't always reward the deserving. I get that sense in all his books: there is clear destiny or fate, just free choice, its consequences and from that flows history and the story that you're reading.
Ran
User ID: 0867924 		Mar 14th 2:09 PM
I'm not sure that Dianora's perception of Brandin is all that skewed. She's extremely honest with herself about what he's done and the pain it brings her, and even more honest about her inability, her lack of desire, to bring about the reprisal she once dreamt of. Like I said, she sees herself as a betrayer.

And you're absolutely right about that ambiguous end. Three men see a riselka -- meaning that one of them will die and one of them will have his life change fundamentally and one will be blessed. Well, that one guy will be lucky, but the other two -- particularly the one who is to die soon -- are getting a, uhm, mixed bag.

Life goes on. People die, deserving or not. People win fortunes, deserving or not. Kay doesn't make it easy. There's never a 'happily ever after,' in his books, not really. They're all rather bittersweet.
Ser Benjen
User ID: 2122084 		Mar 14th 2:15 PM
Jeff and Ran, after doing some serious post reading I will say that you both have convincing arguements. One thing at least can be said about the book, which is made apparent in your postings, is that it stirs up strong, but, at times, conflicting emotions in the readers that don't quickly abate. Which says something about the work in and of itself.

BTW, I enjoyed Tigana thoroughly, and thought Brandin's character was a very credible portrayal of what a conquerer is or needs to be to remain in power. He had great capacity for the full range of virtues and vices. His vengful obsession with his son's death was his undoing, which fits his character. I think the obsession itself was GGK's effort to portray how much Brandin loved his son. Doesn't make what he did moral, or right. Doesn't make him a "good guy" either. But being a parent, I know that I would be sorely tempted to cross the line if someone hurt my son, Brandin just had the power to take that notion and run with it. He just went way to far, and it cost him. Which is justice, IMHO.


Ran
User ID: 0867924 		Mar 14th 2:17 PM
Well put, Benjen. I agree completely.
Arend
User ID: 8590713 		Mar 14th 2:39 PM
Absolutely Benjen.
Jeff
User ID: 1536664 		Mar 14th 3:42 PM
Ditto. But I still think he was a bastard. :-))
Luke Mar 14th 4:00 PM
This is great. Tigana really was a great book, I'm suprised to see that people actually rooted for Brandin. Seems that the whole tragedy of the guy was that he was basically good, but did bad things. Continually, to the point where nobody could really root for him. Thats how I saw it, but what always left me guessing in that book was the epilog. The three of them(I forget names. The kid the duke and the other guy) see the riselka so according to legend, which we can ssume works flawlessly, one will die another is blessed and the other forks. I can't really figure which happens to who but it always left me curious.
Ran
User ID: 0867924 		Mar 14th 4:26 PM
I always figured it was Sandre who dies, Baerd who is blessed, and Devin who forks -- but that's more or less because that's the 'nicest' possible way to see it. Sandre lived a long, full life, Baerd definently deserves a happy life after all his tragedy, and Devin is young enough to have a lot of life (and the surprises, good or bad, that come with it) left to him.

More than likely, one of the younger men is the one who dies. Or maybe not. Or perhaps . . . it's a cruel, cruel ending. ;) But life goes on after the story ends.
Jeff
User ID: 8813033 		Mar 14th 11:21 PM
Luke, interesting comment "he was basically good but did bad things." I guess that sort of gets to the crux of it. To me, that statement approaches being an oxymoron, but I know others disagree.

One other criticism of Tigana -- having finished Fionavar recently, I hope not all GGK books have the "hero-falling-from-fatal-height-saved-by-cushioning-spell-by-good-guy-wizard-who-appears- in-nick-of-time" thing. I mean, twice was a little much in Fionavar, and having it happen again in Tigana left me rolling my eyes a bit.

I'm trying to think of how I would have reacted if Brandin had voluntarily lifted the spell over Tigana, released Valentin, and apologised for what he had done at the same time he lifted taxes. That _really_ would have put Alessan in an awkward position, huh? Being the vindictive guy I am, I suppose I'd still go for killing Brandin, but having to cause the death of other innocents to bring about Brandin's death probably would give me pause.
Ran
User ID: 0867924 		Mar 15th 5:11 AM
Was it twice in Fionavar? I remember Arthur catching the boy, and I suppose his fall was slowed down by the one remaining wizard. I'm afraid I can't recall another.

In any case, no, it's not something that happens again. I never thought of it, but I suppose, in a way, that Kay is making a subtle connection, a sort of deja vu, with Fionavar. He'll continue to do little things of that sort in all of his works. _Lord of Emperors_, recently, provides a couple of good ones.

As to Brandin having done that, interesting what if, though an impossibility. I suppose it _would_ give Alessan pause. I'm not sure what he'd do. Probably the same thing. Although, of course, Brandin would have been able to crush Albreico that much the quicker, no matter how much help he had, because his reserves of power were not partially bound-up in his spell for Tigana. Nor would Valentin have managed to kill him in such a manner, I suppose.
Jeff
User ID: 1536664 		Mar 15th 8:21 AM
The whole Brandin thing does raise an interesting moral issue regarding the value of "freedom". Some might say that if he's not a bad ruler, then causing additional deaths simply because he didn't have the "right" to rule is not justifiable. So, even if his conquest of Tigana could not be justified, you also cannot justify a second war just to push him out if his rule was benign.

I fall into the "death to tyrants" category. To me, the thought of imposing my will by force on others is repulsive in most cases. That bias sort of infects my opinion of Brandin -- he's a bad guy _because_ he's a conquerer.
Ran
User ID: 0867924 		Mar 15th 11:33 AM
What where the dukes of the Palm?

No, I'm not saying that there should be some feeling that, 'Just because they were tyrants who held their place through violence and scheming, they don't have a right to complain about Brandin and Albreico."

But the fact is that the dukes were never painted as anything but tyrants in their own way (save, perhaps, the princes of Tigana, but we know they fought for centuries against Corte and its hard to believe they were never the aggressors and never committed what we would call 'atrocities' in those wars.)

Sandre no doubt assassinated many of his political rivals and disgraced and executed those who displeased him. That's the reality of the kind of politics that you got in late medieval Italy, with the rival city-states and the internal factions, which is what the Palm is closely modelled on. Nice men measured their coffins early.

I don't know. Just because Brandin's conquest is a conquest, an attempt to carve a realm from a formerly-independent series of foreign provinces populated by people absolutely against the idea of being ruled by him, and just because he _is_ a tyrant (even though three of the four provinces he controlled were at about the same place they were before he came), doesn't make him a villain in the dime-store sense. He's much too human, and there's too much of him that's exceptional, to put it that way.

But I'm very much looking at it from a historical perspective, and I've always found it easy to accept people within the context of their lives and times. Brandin did what a king and ruler should do -- expand the power and wealth and thereby improve their security. Being a good king very rarely means being a likable king. It does tend to mean being ruthless and stern and unlikable (or even unsympathetic.)

Sometimes one feels an urge to measure the deeds of rulers by a different standard than one measures the deeds of people, because of the very unique powers and responsibilities they have, and the magnitude of difference their choices can make.

It's a difficult question to decide. In a perfect world, you wouldn't have violence or tyrants or even, I suppose, rulers.
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