(Untitled)

[3scoremiles_10]

Well, the whole point of this journal was for me to keep all my scribblings in one place. So this can go here as well. It's just me, mucking around.

Title: A Worthy Foe
Rating: G. Perfectly work safe.
Summary: Darius wonders who his enemy is.
Feedback: Yep.

Comments

[florachan]

Very nice portraial of Darius, here.

Here you are again with the "never bi-dimensional characters!" thing!^^

I absolutely agree with your portrait of Darius. I don't think he was the incompetent coward that is often described by history books.
He may as well has been a competent man entrapted in a surrounding so much bigger than him, a surrounding in which he could hardly carry out his ultimate saying - as you say: "The Great King did not carry out his own will. He simply let his will be known, and others ran to carry it out for him. Pragmatism didn't fit the Great Kings of Persia.

It wasn't like it was for that young lion from Macedon, who could think and act at the same time, swift and lethal as a lightning. Being the Great King of Persia, could be a little cumbersome, sometimes, if one thinks of it.^_-
It wasn't like being the king of these foreign tribesmen - born and feed to make war - which just had to stand up and say "let's win us a world." It' wasn't that simple for him.

Well, of course it wasn't *that* simple for Alexander too, but surely a less elaborate process than it was for Darius who - just to say the first thing that pops up in my mind - had to got to war with the bloody royal household. Think about the nightmare!

I also liked the way you put in Memnon of Rodhes, and the clear, honest voice you gave him. A sensible man you have here, practical and pragmatic the way Darius could have never been.
It was a very nice just juxtaposition, which added substance to the story.
I liked it a lot.

[3scoremiles_10]

Two very different styles of kingship, when we look at Alexandros vs Darius. To be a king in Macedon does not make one less of a man, or more of one ... Alexandros at the end of the day is just another trooper, it's just that he gets to call the shots. While there are certain duties and constraints of kingship that apply, he is largely just "one of the boys", and Macedon is a kingdom geared for war. Darius on the other hand, has to fulfil a role of celestial, divinely sponsered kingship. In his role as Great King, he lays off being only a man and becomes something far more institutional and ceremonial than Alexandros ever has to worry about. So yes, I do think that to a degree Darius was hampered by protocal and expectation - and I think that, to start with at least, he underestimated his opponent. I don't think we can judge him too harshly for that - underestimating Alexandros must have been easy. No one could have expected anyone like him.

I rate Memnon pretty well, and I think if Darius had any sense he'd have used the man's knowledge and experience where he could. I'm pleased you enjoyed his presence, and his voice. He's a useful man.