2013-05-29: [CT] Knick-Knack

[The Comment Golem]

Discussion thread for [CT] Knick-Knack

[eee]

I think a meeting and discussion between Ian and Sarine would have gone something like this:

Ian: ENRAGED accusations against the Elves of GENOCIDE!, racism, oppression, and crimes against man and half-Elf, the Gods, and Nature! And the expectation that Sarine will kill him, too.

Sarine: Doleful agreement on the first part, poker faced deferral of the latter.

Ian: A bit of confusion, then FURTHER outraged charges of arrogance, murder, manipulation, and cruelty on the part of Elves and the wish they would have stayed locked up behind their barrier and rotted there.

Sarine: Further agreement, including that the world probably would have been better off if the Gods had snuffed the Elves and let the Trolls and humans handle things.

Ian: Expression of suspicion that Sarine is playing him.

Sarine: Long speech acknowledging her people are the biggest buttheads in existence - not all of them, but most - who have screwed things up constantly with regard to humans, half-Elves, and even themselves; an outburst of extreme sorrow and guilt about how things have turned out; vague mention of how she and some others have tried to save all the Errants who were saveable while working to change her people's attitudes but that the hate and self-righteous stupidity are too strong; and wistful comments about how things could have been so much better if everyone could just get along.

Ian: Great confusion, because one of his enemies... doesn't seem to be an enemy...

Yes, if Ian and Sarine had just met and talked, I think the story might have turned out so much different.

[Graybeard]

Meji says something here that I didn't note as significant at the time, but it provokes a question now that we know more about how the Errant World works.

Just so long as it's ugly, made by some impoverished, indigenous people, and...

The question is: what impoverished, indigenous people?

If you compare the human population of the Errant World to the way the real world works, and keep an eye on its geography, it is not so obvious where the "impoverished, indigenous people" come from. In our world we have a pretty good answer to that: they radiated out from Africa on a time scale of tens of thousands of years, found places to live, and became "indigenous" until somebody else came along with a higher level of technology, whereupon they also became "impoverished." Sometimes that was real -- the more technologically advanced invaders beat them down -- but more often it was just a matter of comparison. In any case, there was room for them, because the world is big enough, and transportation difficult enough, that there wasn't much interaction between "impoverished, indigenous people" and more technological (I will not say "affluent"), but geographically distant, cultures until recently.

That isn't the way the Errant World works. The explosion of humankind into most of the world happened very rapidly because of the elves, and they were technologically and thaumatically homogeneous when they did it. Furthermore, unless there's a great deal more to the Errant World than the five or six countries we know about, there isn't really much of a place for them to live. Farrel and Veracia, at the minimum, shouldn't have much room for indigenous tribes. The Tsuirakushiti dwellers may snobbishly consider themselves superior to the Kiyokans and others down on the surface, but there's no reason why those surface dwellers should be any more backward or "impoverished" than the people of the Northern Confederacy or Farrel or Veracia. We don't know much about the Confederacy, but we do know that the cities there interact with each other, they have highly advanced weaponry, and even Santuariel isn't really impoverished; at least the cart that Leah and Riley were driving is as advanced as in other non-magic-using parts of the world, and they're clearly not upper-crust Santuarielites. (I'll concede the possibility that "impoverished, indigenous people" may still live up in the northern wastes, where they were when the elves first found them, but we don't know that, and they've never appeared in the story.)

So where do these "impoverished, indigenous people" come from?

[Imp-Chan]

Sometimes a punch line is just a punch line.

-_-'

[BloodHenge]

I imagine that everyone outside Tsuiraku is "impoverished" and "indigenous" in the elder Miss Hinadori's mind.

[Graybeard]

Sometimes a punch line is just a punch line.

Fair enough.

[Bytemite]

Plus all the other nations of humans apparently lack indoor plumbing, so I'm going to second the "everyone but Tsuirakushitti" as the "impoverished indigenous people." Meji certainly thinks all the other human cities and the inhabitants are primitive and has said so in long rants about the lack of progress of said cities despite access to a warp gate system. Her attitude probably comes from her mom.

It's also interesting, in that we're given this initial impression of Meji's mother and her grandfather as being total arsefaces, but there's little hints here and there that there's actually still affection between them all despite the screwed up family dynamics and dysfunction. Meji talks about her mother with complete disdain, and yet wants to buy souvenirs for her. It's the kind of gesture someone with an aversion to sentimentality might make, getting someone a present that shows their real esteem while bitching the whole time about how stupid and worthless it is.

[Itterind]

But they did meet. Ian tried to blow her into pieces before she could say anything meaningful (was it one word in reflex, or Meji or nothing at all?).

It wouldn't have to be just a meeting, Ian would have to be unable to attack somehow.

I'm not sure Sarine would go so far as to think the world would be better without the elves at all though. I mean, for all the strife they caused they helped accelerate the humans, though they slowed down the trolls.
---

Esteem isn't the same thing as love, but yeah, it's real charming to see Meji buy something for her mother.
She also seemed to have a bit more respect towards Veracia's technology, like she expected better from Farrell being so close to Tsuiraku geographically and politically for decades, but not the Confederacy, though she laughed more at Veracia's god than anything else.

[BloodHenge]

It's also interesting, in that we're given this initial impression of Meji's mother and her grandfather as being total arsefaces, but there's little hints here and there that there's actually still affection between them all despite the screwed up family dynamics and dysfunction. Meji talks about her mother with complete disdain, and yet wants to buy souvenirs for her. It's the kind of gesture someone with an aversion to sentimentality might make, getting someone a present that shows their real esteem while bitching the whole time about how stupid and worthless it is.

Seems like a relatively typical teenager: She talks trash about her mother behind her back, but deep down, she really does love her.

[RGE]

I-it's n-not as if she likes her mother or anything, she just had some time and money to burn. Jeez!