Tag Archives: Gallowglass Chair’s staff of office

Fledgling – Chapter 19

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Number Twelve Leafydale Place
Greensward-by-Efraim
Delgado

In which Theo makes use of her research.

So that wasn’t actually the first time Kamele mentioned the upcoming research trip to Theo. With regard to the concerns I mentioned last time, I actually find this the opposite of reassuring, because it means that the trip has been a topic of conversation for several days without Kamele ever once thinking to mention that Theo would be going too.

There’s an interesting narrative subtlety in this chapter: at the moment the intruder is detected, Professor Kiladi disappears from the narrative. Theo’s father exists, and takes appropriate actions, but the narrator declines to attribute those actions to the person named Jen Sar Kiladi. What with the middle section being narrated from the viewpoint of Theo, who regards him simply as “Father”, Jen Sar’s name doesn’t reappear until nearly the end of the chapter. (Readers familiar with the wider Liaden universe — a phrase I will need to find a good shorthand for if I keep using it — will know what name the narrator is not saying. Although I’m pretty sure that the person who provides the answer to Theo’s question about the ring is Aelliana again.)

In the course of writing out the previous paragraph, I’ve belatedly recognised a similar subtlety back in Chapter Twelve. In between Theo meeting up with her father and the conclusion of their conversation about what name she ought to be calling him by, the narrator avoids calling him by any name at all. (Indeed, the moment she decides to continue addressing him as “Father” is visible even before she gives voice to it, because the narrator resumes doing the same.)

Somehow, knowing the history of the Gallowglass Chair and of this particular incumbent, it did not surprise me that the staff of office is a sword cane. I wonder if that’s standard for every Chair endowed by the Gallowglass Foundation, or an individual improvisation. (I don’t for a moment consider the possibility that it might be a custom of this University: this is Delgado, after all. I expect Admin would be horrified if they had the slightest idea one of their professors was walking around with a bladed weapon.)

Fledgling – Chapter 13

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History of Education Department
Oriel College of Humanities
University of Delgado

In which a late evening is unexpectedly extended.

Sinister hooded figures and a threat to the integrity of the entire University? That’s more like it!

And, speaking of things that are suggestive to the reader familiar with the wider Liaden universe: Jen Sar Kiladi’s alertness behind the wheel of his rally car. We know, though Theo doesn’t, that he used to be a pilot, and he’s been grounded for over a decade; racing the car is likely the closest he’s been able to get to flying in all that time. And, of course, the reviving of the pilot he used to be is accompanied by the reviving of other parts of himself that haven’t seen much use in the last few years.

I can see how the Simples fit in as an extreme form of Delgado’s emphasis on teamwork and consensus. That doesn’t make them less sinister, though.

(And a passing thought, brought on by Jen Sar’s Bjornson-Bellevale College and Kamele’s Oriel College: I wonder if those two colleges are named after women, and if the reason Theo’s school gets the full “Stephen M. Richardson” is because otherwise people would assume it too was named after a woman?)

Fledgling – Chapter 12

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Cultural Genetics Program
Bjornson-Bellevale College of Arts and Sciences
University of Delgado

In which Theo has dinner with her father.

So, like I was saying, after that brief moment of peace and domestic harmony, comes… more peace and domestic harmony? Whatever storm this is the calm before must be really awful.

With Kartor getting a surname this chapter, all of Four Team Three are now equipped with names both fore- and sur-.

The uncharacteristic clumsiness of Theo’s father is definitely suggestive to a reader familiar with the wider Liaden universe; we saw his old teacher pull the same trick back in Scout’s Progress.

It also brings on an observation which I’m sure is influenced by me remembering things that haven’t happened yet, but I’m going to pass it on anyway: Theo was able to catch both the objects Professor Kiladi dropped without any difficulty. Conversely, every incident of her supposed clumsiness we’ve seen has involved colliding or tangling with a person — a trend reinforced by her self-description in chapter nine. This doesn’t mean that Theo isn’t the problem, since she’s still the common thread among the incidents, but it does suggest that the problem isn’t so much a lack of control of her own movements as a flaw in her understanding of the movements of others. Put her in the middle of a crowd of people and trouble is bound to follow, but give her an inanimate object moving according to the basic laws of physics, and she’s fine.

Fledgling – Chapter 7

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Retrospection on an Introduction
Chancellor’s Welcome Reception for the Gallowglass Chair
Lenzen Ballroom, Administration Tower Three
University of Delgado

In which Kamele met Jen Sar.

The Chancellor’s reception is one of a small number of scenes that appear in more than one place in the series, from more than one perspective. Comparing Kamele’s version here with Jen Sar’s version in Mouse and Dragon is an interesting exercise, for the things they see differently, and especially the things which are unexplained in one and matter-of-factly explained in the other. (It also, unfortunately, shows that nobody warned the copy-editor of the latter book what was going on; not everybody makes the transition from one version to the other with spelling intact.)

Mouse and Dragon – Epilogue

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Chancellor’s Welcome Reception for the Gallowglass Chair
Lenzen Ballroom, Administration Tower Three
University of Delgado

In which Jen Sar Kiladi comes to Delgado.

Sharon Lee once mentioned on her blog that there are apparently readers who are under the misapprehension that when Daav left Liad to be Kiladi, he was taking the easy way out. I can see where they might have got that impression from Scout’s Progress, where Daav spends a lot of time chafing at Liad and thinking about taking off for elsewhere, but I think Mouse and Dragon does a good job of counteracting it. Over the course of the novel, Daav makes accommodations and settles into his place on Liad, and the last few chapters show very clearly that in leaving Liad he’s leaving his son and his brother and many other people and things he values; the discovery of Aelliana’s presence was a help, but it’s clearly still traumatic for him.

One thing I notice about this chapter is that it never names the point-of-view character. I mean, it’s obvious who it is, but is he Daav yos’Phelium or Jen Sar Kiladi? (Kiladi on the outside, but Daav on the inside where he can hear Aelliana? Though I notice that at those moments, Aelliana also goes unnamed; apparently Kiladi is aware of possessing an invisible companion – I suppose that would have been a necessary adaptation, since neither Daav nor Aelliana would have been happy if she’d had to pretend not to be there most of the time – but not of her identity. Likewise, her comment about his sister isn’t attached to a name, and it’s possible the sister he remembers is not the same as the one she does.) That was a long parenthetical comment; where was I? Ah, yes, the question of his identity. There are moments where he doesn’t seem too clear on that question himself.

This is where we leave Aelliana and her beloved friend (whoever he is) for now; it will be a couple of months for us (and a larger number of years for them) before we will get to see what becomes of the new situation on Delgado, and of the potential friendship with Scholar Waitley.

For now, there is a week or two of short stories, beginning with “Veil of the Dancer”, and then the novel Conflict of Honors.