gah, I have work to do
...but ranting about Legacy is more fun. I will pay for this later.
Okay, Beguilement made me think of Fawn and Ekaterin; Legacy made me think about Dag and Miles (and Gregor and Cordelia). I really felt like, with the ending of Legacy, LMB was rying to undermine everything her books stand for to me.
Okay, so, unless I'm missing something important, at the end of Beguilment Dag basically goes against all of his society restrictions and rules, etc., to rob the farmer cradle with a nubile teenage girl. (And if you don't think that's squicky, I don't know what you're thinking.) In Legacy, various characters attempt to call him on this, my favorite being the exchange where someone, I forget who, points out that other people have had to give up their farmer paramours before. His response is the pretty weak "But Fawn is different!" to which the someone correctly points out that everyone thinks his case is different.
At the end of Legacy, then, Fawn (in a lovely scene that made me way more reconciled to Fawn) has accepted that patrolling is Dag's life: that responsibility for his people and his duty is bone-bred into him, and that he may have to give up Fawn to satistfy that responsibility.
So what does Dag do? He chickens out of the whole thing and runs away from all his commitments, duties, and responsibilities. He leaves patrolling, which he is really good at, where he's really needed (for, you know, life-or-death situations), and where he knows what to do, ostensibly for some boneheaded plan To Harmonize Lakewalkers And Farmers, which from his vague description of he thought up about five minutes ago, and which to me has about as much chance of success as any (long-term, needing preparation) plan you think up in about five minutes. Furthermore, NOTHING in the previous books has made me at all convinced that he would be in any way good at this sort of diplomacy. (His last farmer interaction, for example, led to a large group of farmer young men wanting to kill him.) But hey, at least Dag and Fawn can Be Together!
One of the great strengths of the Vorkosigan books, to me, was that it never shirked from presenting responsibility and duties in a stark light. Miles and Quinn (and although I love Ekaterin to bits and pieces, I feel that the Miles/Quinn romance was really better played than Miles/Ekaterin) had to give their love up, because that love flew in the face of who they were and their duties. Speaking of love, Miles' whole conflict in a large part of Memory is deciding between the Dendarii (which is where most of his heart is) and his oaths and his word and his duties/responsibilities as Vor. All his relatives, even, think he's going to go with his heart. But he doesn't. And that is so clearly the right choice that I can't even believe I have to defend it.
But I do, because Dag makes the opposite choice. I don't care what the third book may or may not say, Dag is turning tail on all the oaths and promises he has made as a patroller by running away (and he IS running away). It's as if Miles tried to justify leaving for the Dendarii by saying, "well, the Dendarii are protecting Barrayar... so, by going to the Dendarii, I'm actually fufilling my oaths to serve Barrayar." It's cheating and not really true, and Miles would know it, and we know it. And that's exactly the sort of decision I think Dag is making.
And unless in the third book Dag has to face consequences (e.g., if a malice comes and kills his family, which wouldn't've happened if he'd been patrolling like he was supposed to), I'm going to be exceedingly unhappy with this turn of events.
(I guess one could argue that Cordelia runs away for love, sort of, from Beta Colony... except that she doesn't run away from any commitments (and doesn't allow Aral to, later on). She's basically been freed from all duties, and that allows her to run. No, the parallel to Legacy would be if she and Aral ran away from Barrayar's awful political scene and from Aral's awful dad and went and had a bunch o' babies in the Dendarii mountains. I mean, REALLY.)
Okay, Beguilement made me think of Fawn and Ekaterin; Legacy made me think about Dag and Miles (and Gregor and Cordelia). I really felt like, with the ending of Legacy, LMB was rying to undermine everything her books stand for to me.
Okay, so, unless I'm missing something important, at the end of Beguilment Dag basically goes against all of his society restrictions and rules, etc., to rob the farmer cradle with a nubile teenage girl. (And if you don't think that's squicky, I don't know what you're thinking.) In Legacy, various characters attempt to call him on this, my favorite being the exchange where someone, I forget who, points out that other people have had to give up their farmer paramours before. His response is the pretty weak "But Fawn is different!" to which the someone correctly points out that everyone thinks his case is different.
At the end of Legacy, then, Fawn (in a lovely scene that made me way more reconciled to Fawn) has accepted that patrolling is Dag's life: that responsibility for his people and his duty is bone-bred into him, and that he may have to give up Fawn to satistfy that responsibility.
So what does Dag do? He chickens out of the whole thing and runs away from all his commitments, duties, and responsibilities. He leaves patrolling, which he is really good at, where he's really needed (for, you know, life-or-death situations), and where he knows what to do, ostensibly for some boneheaded plan To Harmonize Lakewalkers And Farmers, which from his vague description of he thought up about five minutes ago, and which to me has about as much chance of success as any (long-term, needing preparation) plan you think up in about five minutes. Furthermore, NOTHING in the previous books has made me at all convinced that he would be in any way good at this sort of diplomacy. (His last farmer interaction, for example, led to a large group of farmer young men wanting to kill him.) But hey, at least Dag and Fawn can Be Together!
One of the great strengths of the Vorkosigan books, to me, was that it never shirked from presenting responsibility and duties in a stark light. Miles and Quinn (and although I love Ekaterin to bits and pieces, I feel that the Miles/Quinn romance was really better played than Miles/Ekaterin) had to give their love up, because that love flew in the face of who they were and their duties. Speaking of love, Miles' whole conflict in a large part of Memory is deciding between the Dendarii (which is where most of his heart is) and his oaths and his word and his duties/responsibilities as Vor. All his relatives, even, think he's going to go with his heart. But he doesn't. And that is so clearly the right choice that I can't even believe I have to defend it.
But I do, because Dag makes the opposite choice. I don't care what the third book may or may not say, Dag is turning tail on all the oaths and promises he has made as a patroller by running away (and he IS running away). It's as if Miles tried to justify leaving for the Dendarii by saying, "well, the Dendarii are protecting Barrayar... so, by going to the Dendarii, I'm actually fufilling my oaths to serve Barrayar." It's cheating and not really true, and Miles would know it, and we know it. And that's exactly the sort of decision I think Dag is making.
And unless in the third book Dag has to face consequences (e.g., if a malice comes and kills his family, which wouldn't've happened if he'd been patrolling like he was supposed to), I'm going to be exceedingly unhappy with this turn of events.
(I guess one could argue that Cordelia runs away for love, sort of, from Beta Colony... except that she doesn't run away from any commitments (and doesn't allow Aral to, later on). She's basically been freed from all duties, and that allows her to run. No, the parallel to Legacy would be if she and Aral ran away from Barrayar's awful political scene and from Aral's awful dad and went and had a bunch o' babies in the Dendarii mountains. I mean, REALLY.)