In which Er Thom passes a major hurdle.
Anne appears to have an exaggerated view of the Liaden need to protect one’s melant’i. I suspect she’s not familiar with the anecdote about dessert that’s at the head of the chapter. Instead, she’s taking the tale of Shan el’Thrassin as her model of Liaden conduct, and in so doing she’s misleading herself in several important ways. In general, great literature can be an unreliable guide to how real people act, tending as it does toward dramatic instances. Not every hurt or insult must result in a great big debt-war. In specific, Er Thom is not Shan el’Thrassin, and, crucially, Anne is not Lyada ro’Menlin: Anne’s model is a story about two Liadens, with nothing to say about the possibility and ramifications of one party acting from a strong but alien Code. Anne looks at the story and sees that Shan el’Thrassin had no way out of harming his love to achieve Balance, but she doesn’t see that Er Thom has an out that Shan el’Thrassin didn’t have.
Unrelatedly, Shan yos’Galan is such a cute kid, isn’t he?
My comments on accepting characters in literature (or plays) as role models was left at chapter 3, where the heading is the bit from the novel.
But Shan, yes, an irresistibly cute little one, and in general, cooperative and obedient.
Among other things, this chapter includes at least 13 instances of the word melant’i. In the ebook version I am reading, throughout the book none of the times melant’i or cha’leket are used are set in italics, even though in the later books both of these terms (as well as others, such as denubia) are properly identified as “foreign words” in English by being set in italic font. Being an editor, I find this distracting!
It’s the same in both the print editions I own copies of. I don’t now remember exactly where, but I know I’ve seen an interview where Sharon Lee said that this is deliberate: in books like this one where the Liaden viewpoint is the primary one, Liaden words are not marked as foreign. And conversely, there’s a scene in Scout’s Progress where Daav uses the word “moxie”, and it is in italics, because to him and the person he’s talking to it is a foreign loanword.
Interesting! I hadn’t noticed that, only that in most of the books it is italicized.