Priests in Sutcliff
Aug. 2nd, 2012 01:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerAre there any good priests in Sutcliff? There are a few who are simply ineffective: the fellow who teaches Randal to read in Knight's Fee, and the guy who teaches Minnow to read in Lantern Bearers.
No, wait, Lantern Bearers also has the monk fellow with the bee skeps who helps Aquila. He was awesome. I latched onto him like a bear to honey because he was the only happy person in that whole book.
Plus he had bees. Beekeepers are automatically amazing.
But otherwise, Sutcliff's priests always seem to be whipping people into violent frenzies. (The bee monk never seems to preach to people; possibly that's why he's a good guy.) In Eagle of the Ninth it's the druid priests who drive the locals to their suicidal attack on the Roman fort, and the druid priests stir up trouble again in Frontier Wolf (though of course there's more to it than that). In Knight's Fee, the bad guy dresses up as a priest to rally a nearby village to attack the castle where Randal lives.
It's too bad that Randal didn't catch hold of the villain then, because I bet the church would have happily dropped a cathedral on his priest-impersonating head. And I can't imagine anyone would have trusted De Courcy again after that. It's hard to get less honorable than pretending to be a priest in order to bring a witch hunt down on your enemies.
And of course the action in Sword Song kicks off when Bjarni drowns a priest who kicked his dog. Bjarni and the narrative seem to agree that this was a regrettable but nonetheless justified act, which is a little weird. Not that I'm in favor of kicking dogs, but murdering dog-kickers seems like an overreaction.
(I'm having trouble getting into Sword Song. Bjarni is prickly and self-centered, and not in a fun way. He seems to think it vaguely unjust that he's being punished for committing murder.)
...as so often with these posts, I don't have some grand theory to wrap this up: it's just a pattern that I've noticed. And I think a story from the point of view of one of those trouble-making druids might be interesting.
No, wait, Lantern Bearers also has the monk fellow with the bee skeps who helps Aquila. He was awesome. I latched onto him like a bear to honey because he was the only happy person in that whole book.
Plus he had bees. Beekeepers are automatically amazing.
But otherwise, Sutcliff's priests always seem to be whipping people into violent frenzies. (The bee monk never seems to preach to people; possibly that's why he's a good guy.) In Eagle of the Ninth it's the druid priests who drive the locals to their suicidal attack on the Roman fort, and the druid priests stir up trouble again in Frontier Wolf (though of course there's more to it than that). In Knight's Fee, the bad guy dresses up as a priest to rally a nearby village to attack the castle where Randal lives.
It's too bad that Randal didn't catch hold of the villain then, because I bet the church would have happily dropped a cathedral on his priest-impersonating head. And I can't imagine anyone would have trusted De Courcy again after that. It's hard to get less honorable than pretending to be a priest in order to bring a witch hunt down on your enemies.
And of course the action in Sword Song kicks off when Bjarni drowns a priest who kicked his dog. Bjarni and the narrative seem to agree that this was a regrettable but nonetheless justified act, which is a little weird. Not that I'm in favor of kicking dogs, but murdering dog-kickers seems like an overreaction.
(I'm having trouble getting into Sword Song. Bjarni is prickly and self-centered, and not in a fun way. He seems to think it vaguely unjust that he's being punished for committing murder.)
...as so often with these posts, I don't have some grand theory to wrap this up: it's just a pattern that I've noticed. And I think a story from the point of view of one of those trouble-making druids might be interesting.
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no subject
Date: 2012-08-05 04:11 pm (UTC)I tried, yeah--still ran up against the Bjarni Has No Feelings problem, and why the fuck does she even like him. I dunno, maybe someday--because they are a wonderful candidate for interesting genderplay stuff.