Ayre of the Last God

[Kilarin]

I just finished "Ayre of the last God". Another good story,
thanks!

A few questions/comments.

I'm curious about your choice to have the cats use the term
"sodomite" to refer to male homosexuals. Yes, I said curious
and I MEANT curious, not critical. This is a linguistics
question that doesn't really have anything to do with
homosexuality.

The cats don't approve of homosexual behavior, so they would
obviously have negative terms for it. You need a term that
isn't actually crude, and yet gives that obvious flavor of
disapproval and shame. The cats would probably HAVE no word
for homosexual behavior that didn't carry that connotation.

Ah, but then we hit the interesting linguistics issue. We
are obviously reading the story in english, but we all KNOW
that the cats don't actually speak english.

Which usually doesn't cause any problems most of the time.
When a Mus says "Musket", it doesn't break my suspension of
disbelief because I assume (without even thinking about it)
that it's simply a translation of a Mus word that means
"Musket".

BUT, you can't read "Sodomy" and not think, "Sodom and
Gomorrah", which leads directly to, "But wait, these people
would never have even HEARD that story. They certainly don't
have copies of Genesis sitting around.

So how do you pick your word? Any choice has difficulties.
Sodomite and Sodomy have EXACTLY all the right cultural baggage.
And you WANT a word with cultural baggage, that baggage is
what you are trying to convey. And yet, the only way to get
that cultural baggage across to us is to use OUR culture,
which doesn't actually FIT in Oerth.

The very thing that makes the word fit perfectly in one way,
makes it a complete mismatch in the other.

So I'm curious about your thought process. Did you consider
alternatives and reject them? How does an author resolve
this unresolvable conflict?

And just to make certain I have not given any potential readers
the wrong idea. The book is NOT gay bashing. Nor is it pro-
homosexual. Some of the characters happen to be homosexual.
And they happen to live in a culture that frowns upon that,
and they have to deal with that. Xaa writes about them as if
they were PEOPLE, not cardboard cutouts.

D'Main is homosexual. From our hero's perspective, D'Main is one
of the bad guys. From a different point of view, he could be
the hero trying to avenge his brothers murder. The book isn't
pushing an agenda about homosexuality in either direction, except
to say that right or wrong, they are people and will contain both
dark and light, just like anyone else.

Which is an excellent segue into R'Narr. I love the depth
you have put into this character! He is NOT a nice guy. He
is cold and brutal. R'Narr is a man who can calmly hand women
over to be raped and abused if he thinks it is the necessary
thing to do. And yet, he is soft enough inside to try and find
another way and to reduce the unpleasantness as much as he
thinks he possibly can. And to swear that he will ELIMINATE
this problem in the future. R'Narr is an EXCELLENT study in
light and dark. A man who is choosing, despite his upbringing
and surroundings, to swim against the main current of his
culture and to CHOOSE a bit more light for himself and his
people.

L'Valin's story is very different from R'Narr's, of course,
but still has some similarities. R'Narr's darkness is EVIL,
but L'Valin's shadows are despair. R'Narr resists manipulation
(well, he TRIES to anyway) and chooses his own path, but
L'Valin has been pushed down deep into a well and doesn't have
the strength to get back out without some help. In the end
though, she still makes her own choices and is responsible
for what she becomes.

On to lighter topics!

I LOVED the reference to "The Old Tom of the Mountain". A very
wise teacher once told my wife that the reason to be culturally
literate was so that you wouldn't miss all the good jokes.

I liked Byarl's voting system! But it needs some way to resolve
ties. Especially the risk that the final three could end up in
a "deadly embrace". Of course, perhaps that is a feature not
a flaw? If they can't come to an agreement, perhaps none of
them are really fit to lead anyway? ;D

I really like the binary finger counting! Lets you count
to 31 on one hand and over 4 million on two! Unfortunately,
my fingers have difficulties with some of the numbers.

And finally, I just wanted to say again THANK YOU for releasing
the music. It REALLY adds to the sense of atmosphere to have
the music playing along with each chapter. GREAT work!

Thank you!

[Xaa]

kilarin said:

I'm curious about your choice to have the cats use the term
"sodomite" to refer to male homosexuals.

I chose it because it's the oldest English word that still transmits the meaning with the correct connotations. The term dates from the 14th century, incidentally.

"Homosexual" is a word of very recent vintage, historically speaking - it's first appearance is in the 1890's - and it's modern connotations are not the same as the term "sodomite." Calling someone a sodomite implies that they are civilized, yet also somehow sexually warped or perverted. Calling someone "homosexual", today, does not have the same implications - today, people think of it as a "lifestyle choice", like choosing what color pants you're going to wear. "Sodomite" was far closer to the meaning of the word the cats are using. Let's face it, we're living in an era where we can turn on the TV and watch "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" - not only is there nothing negative associated with the term "homosexual", it's actually seen as a bonus, as homosexuals are viewed as being more fashion-conscious and more socially aware. This simply has no relation to the notion that I am trying to get across, here, so I chose the older term.

The cats don't approve of homosexual behavior, so they would obviously have negative terms for it.

The term they use cannot be pronounced by humans (we literally do not have the vocal equipment for it), but it's a short, three-part warbling mrrrowlll that most closely translates as "lover of boys." The term is most often used as an insult to goad someone into a duel - no tom is public about homosexual or bisexual tendencies, as it's considered repugnant in their society.

The cats would probably HAVE no word
for homosexual behavior that didn't carry that connotation.

Nope, they don't.

Ah, but then we hit the interesting linguistics issue. We
are obviously reading the story in english, but we all KNOW
that the cats don't actually speak english.

Nope, they don't. I know what their language is like (I can visualize the characters speaking it easily), but I can't write it down because there are no correlations between how they speak and how we speak.

From a physiological aspect, they have the same larynx set-up as modern felines, and can purr - though their purring sounds more like that of a lion. And yes, lions purr, but not on the intake, just on breathing out (the felines of Oerth can purr on both intake and outbreath). Combine this rumbling sound with the ordinary vocal sounds of modern felines (both big cats and housecats), and you come up with a set of about 345 different vocalizations, none of which humans can emulate. Well, English only has about 42 phonemes, so they have more than enough to put together a language.

When a Mus says "Musket", it doesn't break my suspension of
disbelief because I assume (without even thinking about it)
that it's simply a translation of a Mus word that means
"Musket".

The actual mus word is rr'ahkt-zh'an, or literally "fire-weapon" or "fire-arm". The 'rr' is trilled with the tongue and rumbled with the lower glotta (an organ you don't have), the 'hkt' is similar to the German or Scottish "hard ch", and the "zh" is similar to the "z" in the English word "Azure."

Of course, this will be very diffucult for you to try to speak, as a human. This is why the Oerth Tourism Board's publication, "A Traveller's Guide to Common Mus Words and Phrases", reccommends you use the onomatapoetic word the mus use that means "gun" - pao. The word was, of course, coined by a mustie.

Speaking of Musties, you may find it interesting to know that the language of the musties (and the mice) is definitely pronouncable by humans. I give a little detail as to what it would be like in book IV, but the short of it is that the mice and musties basically sound like you and me. Just not in English.

Oh - and before anyone reads book IV and sends me hate-mail, yes, I *did* use a sort of fractured Old English to represent how the Mus spoke eight centuries before. It was the only way to clearly carry the gist of what's happening in the story.

BUT, you can't read "Sodomy" and not think, "Sodom and
Gomorrah", which leads directly to, "But wait, these people
would never have even HEARD that story. They certainly don't
have copies of Genesis sitting around.

True. However, the connotations are "civilized, perverted, homosexual," and these are the correct connotations.

So how do you pick your word?

See above.

And just to make certain I have not given any potential readers
the wrong idea. The book is NOT gay bashing. Nor is it pro-
homosexual. Some of the characters happen to be homosexual.
And they happen to live in a culture that frowns upon that,
and they have to deal with that. Xaa writes about them as if
they were PEOPLE, not cardboard cutouts.

That pretty much sums it up, yes. Please note, however, that "frowns on" is not exactly correct. The cats believe that homosexual males cannot achieve true adulthood - in other words, they are not only perverts and obscenities, but they're considered emotionally and intellectually immature and potentially irresponsible, like children.

They believe this to be the case because a homosexual tom cannot achieve his adulthood in the traditional manner - by topping an adult female. Only females can mature on their own, males can only mature by recieving a part of the female's spirit during the act of copulation, and sleeping atop her afterwards.

Which is an excellent segue into R'Narr. I love the depth
you have put into this character! He is NOT a nice guy. He
is cold and brutal. R'Narr is a man who can calmly hand women
over to be raped and abused if he thinks it is the necessary
thing to do.

Not true. He would hand the women of his ENEMY over to be raped and abused. Women of his own clan, he would not - he would fight to the death to defend them. This is a cultural thing, more than anything else.

Note that once he realizes the horses *aren't* sub-intelligent, his attitude towards them changes. He turns them over to the warriors with a great deal of internal regret for the necessity of the situation.

R'Narr is an EXCELLENT study in
light and dark. A man who is choosing, despite his upbringing
and surroundings, to swim against the main current of his
culture and to CHOOSE a bit more light for himself and his
people.

We get into the "why" of his choice in a brief scene in book IV.

L'Valin's story is very different from R'Narr's, of course,
but still has some similarities. R'Narr's darkness is EVIL,
but L'Valin's shadows are despair. R'Narr resists manipulation
(well, he TRIES to anyway) and chooses his own path, but
L'Valin has been pushed down deep into a well and doesn't have
the strength to get back out without some help. In the end
though, she still makes her own choices and is responsible
for what she becomes.

L'Valin is supposed to be a character that can be easily empathized with - many of her choices were choices of desperation, and being forced to live with the consequences.

I LOVED the reference to "The Old Tom of the Mountain". A very
wise teacher once told my wife that the reason to be culturally
literate was so that you wouldn't miss all the good jokes.

Yep. I wish I'd had time to bring the Nitsu-clans more to the fore, but I didn't. Oh, well - perhaps in another book when I take up the series again.

I liked Byarl's voting system! But it needs some way to resolve
ties. Especially the risk that the final three could end up in
a "deadly embrace". Of course, perhaps that is a feature not
a flaw? If they can't come to an agreement, perhaps none of
them are really fit to lead anyway? ;D

They got into a tie in the story as it was. Bear in mind that this system works because there are three candidates, not just one. Though the system could be played (I vote for the one I want and two guys who I think will elect him), to succeed at rigging the system requires that everyone else agree to play it the same way. And bear in mind that the mus all generally think that way because the Last God made their brains to think the way they do, just as he made the brains of Musties to think like they do, mice to think like they do, etc, etc, etc. A lot of this behavior is hard-wired. Though there's a large amount of lee-way for individual behaviors, there are baseline elements of psychology that they all share. This means that in a worst-case scenario, you'll end up with two powerful candidates that pretty much everyone agrees on, and a third "also-ran." And the situation will resolve itself pretty much the way it did in the book - the third guy ends up making a choice between the first two. It's a "checks and balances" deal that should hold them until they get to the equivalent of the Information Age, then they'll have to think of something else.

I really like the binary finger counting! Lets you count
to 31 on one hand and over 4 million on two! Unfortunately,
my fingers have difficulties with some of the numbers.

Incidentally, there were real live human beings who used binary in just that manner. Several groups of polynesian islanders were using binary on their fingers when they were first discovered. Christian Missionaries in the 19th century, naturally, broke them of this "backwards" habit and made them all learn decimal, so they could have the supreme joy of re-learning binary when the information age dawned a hundred years later.

In book IV, we get hints of what's to come regarding the musties and binary - and we finally find out what in the hell that "click-click" thingie Merle mentioned in Book I really is.

Oh - and the limit on two hands is 1023. This is why the Mustie word for 1024 (exotet) is semantically equivalent to "a million" or "lots and lots". Where a human would say "Hey, that's a long time from now, a million things could happen by then!", a mustie would say "a thousand and twenty-four things could happen by then!"


From: Children of the Last God (book IV)
"Well, it's what the mice call 'binary'," Merle replied in her language.
"It's how we musties have always thought of numbers. You can do it on your
fingers really easily, C'dera - see? Up is one, down is none. See, you think
of numbers like this:" she explained, and switched to the language of the mus.
"One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine; then ten and one, ten and
two, and so on. Ones, tens, hundreds, thousands, and so on. Well, we think of
numbers like this; Single, pair and none, pair and one, quartet and none and
none, quartet and none and one, and so on," Merle explained, and switched to her
own language again as she began pointing at the fingers of her paws as she
continued. "Single, pair, quartet, octet, hextet, duo-hextet, quadro-hextet,
octo-hextet, hexo-hextet, summo-hextet, exotet."


Basically, when they hit the 11th bit, it's "exotet", a number larger than they can easily count, and in their language a number that means "lots and lots". Of course, these words are only English equivalents cobbled together to emulate the meanings of their words, but the reader should be able to get the drift. This doesn't mean that musties can't *conceive* of numbers larger than 1023 (they can) or do higher mathematics (they can). It just means that their language and the way they speak about numbers is, of course, influenced by the number system they developed.

This is similar to our own language - notice that we say "eleven, twelve", then suddenly it's "thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty". Hello, Germanic influences! In German, it's "elf, zwolf", then "drietzeihn, fiertzeihn", etc.

Well, back in the old days of our language's origins (like even before Old English), a LOT of things were based on 12's (dozen) and 20's (score) - particularly (and most importantly) money. We also had a love of the Gross (12x12=144), but this didn't show up in money as much as the dozen/score system did. However, this is where we get influences from German, and the old pfennig/groschen/florin system, which became the English penny/shilling/pound system. In short, it's 12 "pennies/pfennig" to the next coin up, the groschen/shilling. It was then 20 groschen/shillings to the next coin up, the florin/pound.

This system evolved in Europe sometime during the late Roman Empire (possibly even earlier), but note that we did NOT inherit it FROM the Romans - the Romans used a completely different system. The lowest coin was the as, of which 2½ asses made a sesterces, 5 asses made a quinarius, and 10 asses made a denarius. For those who've studied how Roman Numerals work, this pattern of fives and tens should seem familiar.

In any event, our language evolved with the "dozen-score" system already in place, as it had been since the time of the late Roman Empire, apparently a construct of the early Frankish and Germanic cultures. So, our words for numbers and how our language is structured to converse about numbers reflects this early bias.

Oh - and also, for a stone-age mustie (or pretty much anyone else living in the stone age), it's difficult to accumulate 1024 of anything significant, anyway. Even after you invent pockets, where do you put 1024 of anything? This is another reason 1024, "exotet", means "lots and lots" to them.

Hmmm... While I'm on the subject...

Musties read their binary numbers the traditional manner - least significant digit (or bit, for them) to the right, most significant to the left. And, when speaking of numbers quickly, they don't use the full term, they just say "one" and "oh", like you would expect. Separators for legibility are used every five bits, not four (as with computers) or three (as with decimal). So, the number eighty-nine would be written as 10,11001 and spoken as "quadro-hextet and none and hextet and octet and none and none and single", or just "one-oh-one-one-oh-oh-one." It's this lengthy verbiage when it comes to talking about numbers which leads Tinker in the first book to comment that the mustie's number system was "dumb" - however, as the musties are raised to think about numbers like this, it isn't really a problem for them.

And finally, I just wanted to say again THANK YOU for releasing
the music. It REALLY adds to the sense of atmosphere to have
the music playing along with each chapter. GREAT work!

Thank you!

You are welcome.

[Kilarin]

This is why the Oerth Tourism Board's publication, "A Traveller's Guide to Common Mus Words and Phrases", recommend you use the onomatapoetic word the mus use that means "gun" - pao. The word was, of course, coined by a mustie.

ha! Very onomatopoetic indeed! Now I just need a copy of that guide...

Kilarin:

R'Narr is a man who can calmly hand women over to be raped and abused if he thinks it is the necessary thing to do.

Xaa:

Not true. He would hand the women of his ENEMY over to be raped and abused. Women of his own clan, he would not - he would fight to the death to defend them.

But the Mares were NOT his enemy, and he already REALIZED they were intelligent at that point. He made a cold calculation, these are not MY people, and any method of avoiding this will cause more trouble for both me AND them, so they'll just have to put up with it. He didn't LIKE it, but he could do it if it had to be done.

Note that once he realizes the horses *aren't* sub-intelligent, his attitude towards them changes. He turns them over to the warriors with a great deal of internal regret for the necessity of the situation.

Exactly. Light and dark. He CAN do it. They aren't his clan, so he can make the tough choice, even though he doesn't like it. I'm not certain Xaa could. (he MIGHT, but I doubt it). Xaa empathizes better and more easily sees duties beyond his clan. I suspect Xaa would have rather seen the entire thing collapse than to hand those mares over to the soldiers. Not to mention that he would have considered his honor at stake. Of course, on the other side, Xaa is VERY capable of making calculated strategic decisions when necessary, So I wouldn't be CERTAIN he couldn't have done it. Xaa has a few VERY dark streaks inside. Of course, it's somewhat of a ridiculous hypothetical situation anyway because Xaa would have any soldiers in his army who DEMANDED the mares castrated on the spot.

I REALLY don't think Merle could have handed the mares over. I just can't see it. Now Smith, I think Smith would have made the same decision as R'Narr. If this is what is required for their own survival, then this is what we must do. One reason those two hate each other so is that they have some similarities.

But yes, I did not mean to imply that R'Narr took the situation lightly, he didn't like it one bit and tried to reduce it as much as possible. He even swore he would completely eliminate the issue as soon as he had the power to do so. But (as you point out) I don't think he could have made that decision with cats of his own clan. Amani empathizes so strongly she doesn't even want to hurt her own enemies. Merle can kill an enemy whenever it is necessary, but still empathizes with them. I don't think she is capable of the purer hatred Xaa can achieve. Xaa DOES empathize, but not at the same level Merle does. Xaa is a killing machine, but one with a heart. He easily expands his "clan" to include new people, and even his enemies find that, despite his deep hatred, he IS capable of dealing with them and will do so in a more than fair manner.

R'Narr IS capable of empathizing with the mares, but he doesn't connect as closely as I think Xaa would have. He doesn't automatically see "innocent and helpless" and include them in his own clan's circle like Xaa would. It is NOT that R'Narr is evil, just that, as you said, because of his culture, his training, and genetics, and even his own choices, he IS capable of distancing himself somewhat from people not of his clan. The light in him is that unlike many of the other cats, he does not feel that he has NO duties to those not of his clan. He does try, and I suspect there may be more interactions between him and the horses in the future. They seemed to understand and respect the practicality and fairness of his decisions regarding them. And I strongly suspect that Omoi has actually made the crossover right into R'Narr's clan circle.

We get into the "why" of his choice in a brief scene in book IV.

I'm looking forward to it!

Oh, well - perhaps in another book when I take up the series again.

Oh, now THAT is a nice idea!

I really like the binary finger counting! Lets you count
to 31 on one hand and over 4 million on two!

and the limit on two hands is 1023.

ARGH!!!! I'm an idiot. I shouldn't post late at night when I'm sleepy. Honestly, I use binary all the time, I really CAN figure out that 10 bits=1K. No clue what I was thinking there. That would be, what, 22 fingers? Sheesh...


Anyway, thanks for the linguistic and cultural insights!
AND, I heartily recommend everyone purchase their own copy of the Oerth series today! This discussion will be much more interesting if you actually understand what we are talking about.

downloads: www.diskuspublishing.com/jimfarris.html
dead trees: www.cafepress.com/diskusbooks/413273

[Xaa]

kilarin said:

Xaa empathizes better and more easily sees duties beyond his clan. I suspect Xaa would have rather seen the entire thing collapse than to hand those mares over to the soldiers.

Actually, he'd simply kill the cats. I know, I know, you're trying to say "if he was in the same situation", but it's literally impossible for him to get in a situation like that.

Setting the hypothetical of "Xaa in R'Narr's place" doesn't work, either. If you remember from book 2, he finds the whole notion of a warrior who fights for money instead of honor or duty to be disgusting. Moreover, he'd never be able to understand the cat's mercenary's motivation in this regard.

Mus don't rape - neither do any of the other races, for that matter. Their females only come into heat twice a year, and male responses are built around that. Cats, however, come into heat five times a year, and sexual relations is how females keep males under their thumb. A tom's attitude towards sex is shaped by both his biology and his culture - and in their culture, rape is one of the spoils of war. She-cats have more power and respect than than human females did in the equivalent cultural/technological era (bear in mind that they all have claws and fangs), but a lot of their sexual relations are based on exchanges of power.

If we ask the question "What would Xaa do in the same situation?", the answer is "he'd never be in that situation to begin with, since he considers mercenaries to be despicable." Mercenaries fight for money - in other words, their primary motivation is greed. And greed, to a mus, is the lowest, most revolting and disgusting character flaw anyone can possibly possess.

The only possible way he can get in a situation like that is if we hypothesize that the war (and the majority of book 3) goes differently, Xaa and an army of mus join R'Narr to fight the Shazad, and R'Narr places feline mercenaries under his command. Then, after they capture a village, the mercenary captain points out that it would be a good idea to let the mercenaries have their way with the mares. At which point Xaa's response would be utter disgust. He already would have an incredibly low opinion of them to begin with, and the idea that he would have to allow them to rape the innocent to keep their loyalty would be, to him, literally beyond the pale. He would order the mercenary captain to insure his troops do NOT do that, and if he refused or tried to argue, he'd simply kill him, have his own forces anihilate the mercenaries under his command (which an army of mus would do quite happily), and go on fighting without them.

I REALLY don't think Merle could have handed the mares over. I just can't see it.

Nope. But Merle couldn't have run an army to begin with. Byarl is a better individual to hypothesize in that situation. Byarl is a mustie, yes, and he's basically a happy-go-lucky creature, like all musties. It's the way the Last God made them. But, as I said before, there's a lot of room for individual variation in what the Last God created. Byarl is a lot more cold-blooded than you think, and he always thinks of the bigger picture. Check out chapter 63 of book I again. It was all his plan. He *knew* that Merle might die, and Tinker might die. But, given what was at stake, he was willing to sacrifice their lives for the chance of a better future for his people. Yes, he has regrets. But he did it anyway, and if he had to, he'd do it again. As he puts it, "That's what it means to be Chief." If we somehow assume Byarl is in R'Narr's place, he would do precisely what R'Narr did, because he'd be more able to see the long-term goal of winning the war. The difference lies in that R'Narr isn't torn up about it afterwards. Byarl would be - and very deeply so.

Now Smith, I think Smith would have made the same decision as R'Narr.

Maybe - but he'd never be able to command that army to begin with, so it's a moot point. In the process of learning to exert his will and figuring out how to dominate a feline (which would be nearly impossible for him as a mouse to do), a lot of changes would happen inside his mind. By the time it came to where he'd have to make that decision, he'd be quite a different creature than he was before the campaign started. Maybe - hard to say. But, he'd never be able to command that army to begin with, so it's a moot point.

But (as you point out) I don't think he could have made that decision with cats of his own clan.

Nope. If the captain had been of his own clan rather than a mercenary, he'd simply have slapped the captain around and dominated him, and ordered him to keep a tighter rein on his toops.

It is NOT that R'Narr is evil, just that, as you said, because of his culture, his training, and genetics, and even his own choices, he IS capable of distancing himself somewhat from people not of his clan.

The largest difference, in this case, is cultural. Their society is built on exchanges of bluff and counter-bluff, the occasional duel, and lengthy and intricate deceptions and manipulations that would make Machiavelli proud.

And I strongly suspect that Omoi has actually made the crossover right into R'Narr's clan circle.

Read chapter 58 of book III again.

[Kilarin]

Kilarin:

I suspect Xaa would have rather seen the entire thing collapse than to hand those mares over to the soldiers.

Xaa:

Actually, he'd simply kill the cats.

Thats what I LOVE about Xaa.

Xaa:

Byarl is a lot more cold-blooded than you think, and he always thinks of the bigger picture. Check out chapter 63 of book I again.

THAT is a very good point. I had forgotten that detail.

Kilarin

I strongly suspect that Omoi has actually made the crossover right into R'Narr's clan circle.

Xaa:

Read chapter 58 of book III again.

That's what I was basing my opinion on.

Oh, and one last point that was so obvious I forgot to mention it.
I really liked the final resolution of the L'Valin story in book III. I was bracing myself to be unhappy with the way that triangle ended up, but you delivered an ending that was unexpected, yet perfectly forshadowed and fitting, and entirely satisfactory.

[Xaa]

kilarin said:

I really liked the final resolution of the L'Valin story in book III. I was bracing myself to be unhappy with the way that triangle ended up, but you delivered an ending that was unexpected, yet perfectly forshadowed and fitting, and entirely satisfactory.

I am glad you enjoyed the work.