In which Aelliana does not feel safe under Mizel’s roof.
The heading quote is being pointed again, but in a slightly more underhanded way. Some of the people who constitute Aelliana’s clan do indeed frown on her conduct, but I am confident that this is a deficiency in them, not in Aelliana. (It makes a pair with the last time this heading quote appeared, which was the chapter in Scout’s Progress that revealed how much the clan’s beloved son Ran Eld was undermining the clan for his individual gain.)
The part where Delm Mizel accuses Korval of attempting to coerce Aelliana and valuing her only for her exploitable resources strikes me as one of those occasions where the guilt a person sees most readily in others is the guilt they would find if they looked straight into themselves.
And she does rather undo any mollifying effect she might have achieved (perhaps she was still counting on Aelliana to be obedient to the delm regardless) when she admits that regardless of Aelliana’s achievements she would rather have had anybody else if there had been anybody else to have.
PA: the guilt a person sees most readily in others is the guilt they would find if they looked straight into themselves. Agreed. The guilt, yes, but even more, the fault in character. The faults we see in others are inevitably those we are the most familiar with…because they are a part of us.
Mizel had told Ran Eld that he was being cast out because Mizel does not sanction kin-slaying…the delm is unable to do otherwise than declare you dead, and she tells Aelliana that Your brother is made clanless by reason of his attack upon your person, making it sound as if perhaps she actually cared about Aelliana. But I have to wonder, taking into consideration the remainder of this chapter, whether Mizel’s decision…while sanctified by the code…wasn’t partly an emotional response to finding how badly he had handled the clan’s finances, that is, finding out how he had embezzled more and more funds over the years, leading the clan to the brink of ruin.
I have known people—parents and teachers, in particular—who tend to turn a blind eye to the very things they ought to nip in the bud while they are still small, and then are forced to come down heavily because they let it go on too long to deal with it any other way. Much better to apply discipline lightly, but consistently, and avoid having to deal with big messes. (some 20-20 hindsight speaking here)
In any case, the remainder of the chapter serves to show that Birin is herself too focused on the grief of having to cast out Ran Eld to show any care for Aelliana, just proving to Aelliana that nothing had actually changed.