The Hillfolk

[osprey_archer]

Ever since I read The Grim Gray Hills, which I admire and envy, because I want to be able to harrow readers like this - it begins This is what it means, to be a noble in the Hill Country: you are a traitor to your people. - I’ve started twitching every time a Tortall book mentions the Hill Country. I am all “It is the hillfolk, the conquered and oppressed people of the great Tortallan Empire, even more despised than the Bazhir!”

Thanks, guys. This adds an extra layer of skeeviness to certain sections of these books. Like right here:

“A dry summer and a delay in the winter rains in the south bred problems. First the hill folk near Fief Shaila tried to rebel, laying siege to the local army fort. Third Company rode to free the garrison and hunt those responsible. No sooner had Raoul punished the worst troublemakers and gotten pledges of loyalty from the rest than word came from the village of Sweetspring...”

Did you catch that? The hillfolk, who are (we are told at other times) poorer than dirt, are rebelling against their Tortallan conquerors, who keep them that way. And the narrative is all, “Silly troublemakers! Why would they rise up against Tortall’s great empire?” and disposes of their silly rebellion in two sentences. Meanwhile the reader cries, Why were they rising? Was it a bad harvest? Was the local garrison behaving badly? Did they just feel the irrepressible urge for FREEDOM?

And how does Lerant react to this? Lerant is one of my favorite characters in Protector of the Small. I have many favorite PotS characters. Kel! Neal! Yuki! Owen! Wyldon! Um, maybe I should just not bother listing them and just admit that I love everyone in PotS and want all the fic about everyone ever.

But Lerant! Lerant is our go-to man for Hill Country angst. He is a scion of Fief Eldorne, which is in the Hill Country. (How much blood do the Hill nobles share with the Hillfolk generally? It wouldn’t surprise me at all if...Jasson, I believe it was, who conquered the Hill Country?...if Jasson had gotten rid of the old Hill nobles, or most of them, and installed loyal Tortallan knights in their stead.)

Do any of the prisoners accuse him of being a traitor to the Hillfolk? Seriously, Lerant is such a sad puppy. The Tortallans don’t trust him because his aunt Delia was in cahoots with Evil Roger the Evil Usurper (and is now perpetually confined in a tower in the capital, apparently? How’s that working out?), and the Hill Folk either think he’s a traitor to his Hill blood or simply a Tortallan interloper, and either way despise him.

Does Lerant feel a twinge of sympathy for his Hill compatriots, rebels though they are? Or is he so intent on assimilating that he just hates them, because this sort of thing makes it harder for all the good Hill Folk to show that they’re loyal Tortallans? OR BOTH? How many different kinds of cultural angsting can we cram into one fic?

Comments

[carmarthen.livejournal.com]

I would like to subscribe to your newsletter! I have strong theories about Delia and Lerant and their relationship to their fief....

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Are these the theories that you wrote about already, or have they evolved since your last essay on the subject? Because if they have changed, I am curious to hear it!

Also, do you recalls if there's any internal evidence in the Tortall canon about whether the current Hill nobles are the descendants of Hillfolk who sided with the Tortallan invaders, or the descendants of Tortallan knights installed by Jasson? Either could be plausible, and either would make a good story, but if we have definite evidence for one of the other I don't want to contradict it.

indeed, it's pretty likely that it's a mix of the two: Jasson kept the Hill nobles who came quietly, installed Tortallan knights into the fiefdoms of the ones who resisted to the bitter end, and since then they've intermarried.

This would definitely be in keeping with the ALL THE ANGST approach. No matter what Lerant does, he'd be betraying SOMEONE.

[carmarthen.livejournal.com]

Oh, gosh, I don't know. Probably not substantively. I have a Delia story I really should finish one of these days, except I started writing it two years ago and should probably gut it and start over.

No internal evidence that I recall--there's really almost nothing about the Hillfolk in canon, so Ankhiale and I have largely been creating theories out of whole cloth.

Jasson kept the Hill nobles who came quietly, installed Tortallan knights into the fiefdoms of the ones who resisted to the bitter end, and since then they've intermarried.

That's my thought.

Does this mean you're going to write angsty Hillman!Lerant fic?

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Does this mean you're going to write angsty Hillman!Lerant fic?

Yes, probably!

Also angsty Lerant who has an unrequited crush on Raoul, and angsty Lerant who realizes that he is beginning to like Kel against his will. ALL THE LERANT ANGST.

[carmarthen.livejournal.com]

YES I SUBSCRIBE TO ALL THESE THINGS.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

there's really almost nothing about the Hillfolk in canon

Thinking about this a bit more - it's really astonishing that the Hill theories hold together so well, because it's clearly not an intentional subtext: the books are so utterly unconcerned with the Hillfolk as anything but an impediment to Tortallan visions of grandeur.

Possibly that's why, once you see it, it's such a convincing portrayal of empire: because "these people don't matter except for how they figure in our plans" is such an imperial way of thinking.

These books have such a compromised liberalism, it's really rather disheartening.

[carmarthen.livejournal.com]

It is odd how well it fits, yeah.

There's a sense, I think, in which the Tortall novels over time became sort of a fantasy version of American imperialism, filtered through a liberal lens--Tortall isn't actively imperialistic anymore (but it's odd that Jon seems to have more respect for his blatantly imperialistic grandfather than his peacemaking father), but it Holds Its Borders; it's the best most progressive country apparently in the world, and it got there remarkably fast, solely by benevolent monarchs imposing change on the populace.

I don't feel that way about SOTL, but by the later book, Pierce seemed to embrace writing Issuefic, and did so in a not always thoughtful way--and her feminism and liberalism are in general, I think, not very consciously examined.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Do we know for sure that Jon has turned away from imperialism for moral rather than practical reasons? For most of his reign, Tortall is embattled: Scanran raids, tension with Carthak exploding into the Immortals War, and while we don't hear about continued tension with Tusaine, they did have a war there during SotL, which was not too long ago.

I always think SotL happened way before PotS, because there's such a different feeling to the world. But no, it's only like twenty years. Social change can happen awfully fast, so I suppose this shouldn't really surprise me?

Anyway, maybe Jon yearns to go on imperialist adventures, but he's barely holding the borders as it is, so he refrains. For now.

[carmarthen.livejournal.com]

We don't, and practical reasons make way more sense, I think.

I always think SotL happened way before PotS, because there's such a different feeling to the world. But no, it's only like twenty years. Social change can happen awfully fast, so I suppose this shouldn't really surprise me?

Yeah, although it's not just the social change that affects the feeling of the world (or the Immortals everywhere, although they kind of break things for me). I mean, yes, social change can happen awfully fast, but...I don't know, in a feudal society, and some of the things shown as normal in POTS (women being clerks, blacksmiths, etc.) seem to have been established for a lot longer, suggesting that maybe the Women Are Ornaments only applies to the nobles. Except there are occasional efforts, even in SOTL, to show that noblewomen have other skills...and I have a bit of a problem with a medievaloid society where women have all kinds of rights and jobs available to them...except for fighting. It seems narratively convenient.

I dunno, I know SOTL is technically the worst-written, but I think it's the most interesting from a world-building point of view.

(That is pretty much what I think of Jon, ha.)

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Women Are Ornaments pretty much has to apply only to the nobles: the lower-class women have to be working, doing all the backbreaking work that subsistence-level farmwives do, to keep the economy running.

The rights and jobs things seems to be rather cobbled together. Like, exactly what powers do the Goddess's warriors have? Supposedly they can go after nobles who abuse women, but if so, why don't they go after Joren for Lalasa's kidnapping?

Probably they're technically allowed to go after nobles, but in practice rarely can make that stick.

[carmarthen.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes, but they don't necessarily have to be allowed to become clerks (requiring education) or blacksmiths, or any number of other jobs we see women having in POTS, like it's commonplace. I just have trouble--reconciling all of it.

And yeah, the rights of women are all over the place.

[anait.livejournal.com]

Thanks for that rec. I went and read and left copious praise.

Wow. It's instant head-canon for me. Just: Yes. Alex and Delia and Roger.

And yeah, that premise just adds layers upon layers to Lerant. It works every bit as fantastically well when applied to him too!

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

I know! It makes their motivations a thousand times more understandable than they are in canon!

Plus of course the bonus Lerant angst it inspires.