Tag Archives: Dagmar Collier

Conflict of Honors – Chapter 49

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Master’s Tower, Theopholis
Witch’s Hour

In which Balance is achieved.

Not the usual sort of settling of accounts one might expect at the end of an adventure story, but one which suits Priscilla’s character, and also helps demonstrate that “Balance” is not necessarily the same thing as “revenge”.

On which note, Delm Plemia clearly expects Korval and Priscilla to demand more in balance of Sav Rid’s follies than they actually do. It speaks to his melant’i that he doesn’t try to argue his way out of anything; he’s seen the evidence and he knows it’s a fair cop.

Conflict of Honors – Chapter 47

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Crown City Theopholis
Judge’s Hour

In which Sav Rid’s delm has words with him.

Seeing how unaware Sav Rid is of how far he’s strayed from the path of a man of honor and a trader whose actions reflect well on his clan, I find myself wondering if the trouble that’s about to fall on him from a great height might not be a fortunate event for him — though of course he’s not going to see it that way, regardless — and even if attacking Korval might have been, if not the wisest thing he might have done, the thing that led to the best outcome he could have reached. Supposing that he’d stuck to slightly less dramatic forms of dishonor, avoided the notice of his delm, and continued down his present path, I can’t imagine it leading to any better outcome than this, and I can imagine several outcomes for Sav Rid and his crew that would be much, much worse.

Conflict of Honors – Chapter 44

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Precinct House Detention Hall
Crown City, Theopholis
Hour of Fools

In which Shan takes Priscilla home.

And now the Hour of Fools, which makes me wonder if the naming of the hours is drawn from the Arcana of the Tarot. And also whether we’re supposed to infer that one or more of the characters in this chapter is a fool, which would be rather uncomplimentary (though not, I suppose, any more so than the previous chapter being the Hour of Demons).

Conflict of Honors – Chapter 43

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Precinct House
Crown City, Theopholis
Hour of Demons

In which the legal system of Theopholis does not show itself in the best of lights.

This is another chapter where I would probably have had more to say about it on first reading, but on re-reading my main reaction is “Yes, that’s about how I remember it”.

I’m curious about how the hours are named on Theopholis. I thought at first, with the Kings and the Knaves, the theme might be card-related, but then there was the Viscount, so I thought it might be rulers. And in this chapter, there’s a mention of the Regent’s Hour, which would fit, except that there’s also the Hour of Demons, which doesn’t. (And I wonder whether it’s significant that there are multiple Kings and Knaves and Demons, but only one each of the Viscount and the Regent.)

Conflict of Honors – Chapter 42

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Master’s Tower, Theopholis
Viscount’s Hour

In which Shan receives more bad news.

It occurs to me that events on Theopholis are echoing events on Arsdred: a confrontation involving Collier, Priscilla, and Gordy; Priscilla taken into custody; Shan called away from a pleasurable negotiation to straighten matters out… Some of the echoes are deliberate on the part of the characters (Collier deliberately picking on Priscilla and Gordy together because it was Gordy who intervened last time), others not. Bookends.

I appreciated it being mentioned that Daxflan officially has still not arrived at Theopholis. After Arsdred, it would have been spectacularly foolish for Priscilla and Gordy to be wandering around by themselves if they had known Collier was also in port.

Conflict of Honors – Chapter 41

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Crown City, Theopholis
Hour of Knaves

In which Dagmar Collier encounters the Tree and the Dragon.

This confrontation between Priscilla and Collier goes very differently from the one on Arsdred. Priscilla is a lot more self-confident now, and has access to abilities she didn’t know she had then. She’s got… call it room to maneuvre: on Arsdred, she was fighting from moment to moment to keep on top of the situation, but here she has the opportunity to consider what approach to take. I think it’s worthy of note that her first choice is to offer Collier a way out, and hold the Dragon in check as long as they can; there are people who, if they had a Dragon, would use it first chance they got. (I don’t know, mind you, whether such people would be able to achieve the study and discipline required to achieve such a Dragon as Priscilla has.) In a way, it brings Priscilla’s story back around to the incident on Sintia that got her into trouble in the first place.

Conflict of Honors – Chapters 38, 39 & 40

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Shipyear 65
Tripday 177
Second Shift
9.00 hours

Master’s Tower, Theopholis
Hour of Kings

Raggtown
Local Year 537

In which a delayed shipment goes by another carrier.

If memory serves, this is the first time in this re-read I have scheduled multiple chapters on a single day, except for a one-page interlude in Crystal Dragon. I can see why I did it, though; the three chapters are each very short, and they all relate to a single situation. In a book that didn’t divide the chapters by location, they might well have all formed part of a single chapter.

It’s instructive to compare the responses of the two Olaneks to learning that Dutiful Passage has taken Daxflan‘s cargo. Taam Olanek’s angry (and ill-directed) initial reaction suggests that there may be a family trait contributing to the way Sav Rid is, but at least after the initial outburst he is able to take himself in hand and consider the matter rationally. Sav Rid, though, continues raging, and his grudge against Korval seems to have parted company with rationality entirely. Which leads to another point of difference between them: the delm’s first thought on learning that his clan’s ship has caused a situation is to take responsibility for seeing the situation resolved; Sav Rid on the other hand seems utterly determined to place responsibility on anyone but himself.

There’s some interesting handling of bad language in this portion of the novel. In the first of the three chapters, there is Ken Rik’s uncomplimentary remark about Sav Rid, which is left untranslated, presumably to avoid bruising the sensibilities of the reader. In the third chapter, there’s Sav Rid’s uncomplimentary remark about Priscilla, which on the other hand is given a direct literal translation that doesn’t make it immediately apparent how insulting it is in the original Liaden.

And now, with the Passage and Daxflan both headed for Theopholis, and representatives of both their clans waiting to greet them, things are beginning to come to a head…

Conflict of Honors – Chapter 19

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Shipyear 65
Tripday 143
Third Shift
16.00 hours

In which Shan has some explanations.

This is a significant turning point for Shan and Priscilla, with Shan finally explaining what’s going on and the two of them agreeing on a future course of action.

We get another mention of that elusive person, Anne’s brother Richard, and perhaps the most extensive account of him, in Shan’s description of his conflation of Liadens with elves. Shan doesn’t say why Richard picked on Val Con for the role of “king of Elfland”, but presumably it’s because he had heard some account of the Contract which once prompted Anne to accuse Val Con’s father of being King of Liad. In which case, I’m pretty sure this is the first intimation, in published order, of the existence of the Contract.

Conflict of Honors – Chapter 17

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Arsdred Offworld Bazaar
Local Year 728
Dawn Bazaar

In which Shan helps put up a pavilion and is nearly run down by a jitney.

I like how this chapter fleshes out the details of Shan’s work as a Trader and his interactions with Ken Rik.

This is the chapter in which Shan gives Priscilla an account of how Clan Korval came to be which differs in a number of respects from the more detailed account we eventually got in the prequels. I’m not sure what to make of that; Shan has no reason to tell Priscilla anything other than the truth as he knows it, and I can think of no reason for him not to know the actual date of the clan’s foundation, since the foundational paperwork is presumably among the things a ranking member of the clan would be expected to have read.

Conflict of Honors – Chapter 15

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Shipyear 65
Tripday 143
First Shift
2.00 hours

In which Gordy and Priscilla have both done very well.

Gordy’s grandfather is in the running for being one of the most prominent and influential characters never to appear in the Liaden series. He’s mentioned several times in this book, and was mentioned several times in Local Custom, and will be mentioned in at least one short story that would arguably be very different without his involvement in the backstory, but he never makes a direct appearance.