the main argument of the book is that there comes a point of thoughtless, grinding, ineffective dutifulness that becomes tunnel visioned, and at that point keeping at the duty isn't duty, it's just stupid. And actually, by then, part of what you can't see anymore is that the duty may have changed and grown and you've been going at it all wrong.
I'm certainly susceptible to this argument, and I think she did it absolutely brilliantly in Komarr/ACC, where I was totally, 100% on the side of Ekaterin (both when she broke her oaths and when she was heartbroken about breaking them-- I'd argue that keeping at the duty isn't necessarily stupid, but sometimes you have no other choice but to leave it). And, of course, her literary sister, Harriet Vane, who finds that the duty imposed by love can only go so far, and not extend to breaking her own integrity. And Aral in Shards of Honor, for that matter.
But here, I just didn't buy that Dag had a compelling reason to abandon his duty, so that I felt he was betraying his integrity rather than enhancing it. (Which is kind of what you were saying, I think?) I mean, if he was going about it all wrong (which I know we'll find out in book 3 is the case) I would have liked at the very least a) more development (I felt that the whole "hey, what we're doing sucks!" came up very quickly, and was extremely suspect thanks to his newlywed-to-farmer status), and b) a plan with slightly more chance of success than "hey, let's just leave and go talk to some farmers!" (It's been a while since I read it, so apologies if that's not an appropriate summation of the end-of-book plan) which seems, to me, doomed to failure.
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momijizukamori and
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Date: 2007-10-27 05:05 pm (UTC)I'm certainly susceptible to this argument, and I think she did it absolutely brilliantly in Komarr/ACC, where I was totally, 100% on the side of Ekaterin (both when she broke her oaths and when she was heartbroken about breaking them-- I'd argue that keeping at the duty isn't necessarily stupid, but sometimes you have no other choice but to leave it). And, of course, her literary sister, Harriet Vane, who finds that the duty imposed by love can only go so far, and not extend to breaking her own integrity. And Aral in Shards of Honor, for that matter.
But here, I just didn't buy that Dag had a compelling reason to abandon his duty, so that I felt he was betraying his integrity rather than enhancing it. (Which is kind of what you were saying, I think?) I mean, if he was going about it all wrong (which I know we'll find out in book 3 is the case) I would have liked at the very least a) more development (I felt that the whole "hey, what we're doing sucks!" came up very quickly, and was extremely suspect thanks to his newlywed-to-farmer status), and b) a plan with slightly more chance of success than "hey, let's just leave and go talk to some farmers!" (It's been a while since I read it, so apologies if that's not an appropriate summation of the end-of-book plan) which seems, to me, doomed to failure.