December meme: Changing Vorkosigan canon to fit my personal preferences
[December posting meme daily list, for which I am taking prompts]
Prompt from
schneefink: If you could change one (or two or three) things about Vorkosigan canon, what would it be?
OKAY SO, this has bugged me for a while, and it's a canon thing I mostly try to forget even exists because it BOTHERS ME so much. And it's something that just randomly happens in the middle of canon, entirely to make Miles look good, and doesn't fit with anything that came before it.
So, okay. Ekaterin can't leave Tien because loyalty and can't get Nikki medical attention on her own because a Vor mother isn't the guardian of her own child. (????) And this allows Miles to be all Wave The Emperor's Voice Around to get Nikki some medical attention. So this idea exists to keep Ekaterin in a marriage and explain why she doesn't just leave him, and also serves to make Miles look important. (The listing of the many ways Miles abuses the power of being Lord Auditor is long and aggravating, but at least this isn't the time he shows himself to be corrupt a couple chapters after saying Auditors can't look corrupt, so he's coming out ahead. He actually is so much less of an asshole in Komarr than in ACC.)
AND the reason Ekaterin doesn't have power over Nikki is that Nikki's a boy. But if it were a girl, that wouldn't be an issue, because when a marriage breaks up, girls go with the mothers, boys go with the fathers. Yes, even when you're a widow and not divorced.
BUT THIS MAKES NO GODDAMN SENSE.
AND IT SPECIFICALLY CONTRADICTS CANON.
FOR WHICH WE HAVE THREE (3) EXAMPLES OF DIFFERENT SEX PARENTS HAVING CUSTODY OF THEIR CHILDREN WITHOUT ANYONE SAYING BOO ABOUT IT.
Kareen has Gregor. Yes, you might say, Gregor has no other male-line relatives, that's one of the basic canon facts of Gregor's life. EXCEPT that Aral isn't named Gregor's guardian until AFTER Kareen dies. Indicating that Kareen having sole custody of Gregor is not an issue for anyone. (the fact that Kareen seems to have zero family herself, I recently vented on here)
Alys has Ivan. At no point in Barrayar is Alys concerned that if Padma dies, she loses Ivan. In WA, it's said that after Padma died, Alys looked to Aral to be a surrogate dad for Ivan. NOT A VORPATRIL. But Aral. Who is Padma's mother's sister's son.
Bothari has Elena. And no one even knows anything ABOUT her mother.
So you can't just say that if a marriage ends, that's just what Barrayar does.
I can sort of see how this maybe? might? be some kind of stupid rule of thumb in a DIVORCE proceeding, where they just go with simple sexism and split the family that way.
But no!
ACC Chapter 5:
Ekaterin said slowly, "In Barrayaran customary law, when Vor-caste families split because of death or other reasons, the girls are supposed to go to their mothers or mother's kin, and the boys to their fathers. Don't these girls belong to their mothers?"
DEATH OR OTHER REASONS. DEATH OR OTHER REASONS. DEATH OR OTHER REASONS. SPLIT BECAUSE OF DEATH.
God, fine, divorce, whatever, CVA made a mockery of divorce, I'm repressing that.
But when one parent DIES? For one, we don't generally call that a family splitting, but are you trying to tell me that if Aral's sister had survived, Piotr would have automatically lost custody and she goes to Xav, unless Piotr can convince Xav otherwise? WHY? ARE THEY A FAMILY OR AREN'T THEY? WHAT DOES FAMILY EVEN MEAN IF THIS HAPPENS WHEN A SPOUSE DIES?
Also, let's go this even further and say that since Ekaterin's mother is dead, she's not really a Vorvayne, she's part of the Vorthyses. Yes, this is ad absurdum but, really, where does this end?
After all, and this is where it gets really annoying, is that marriage joins families together. Except this "rule" is basically saying that male siblings and female siblings aren't really the same family. Which, sure, might be interesting, especially in a sedoretu verse. But this isn't that.
I might be willing to grant you that in patriarchal society, they might not allow a mother to consent for her son's medical treatment, I guess, sure, fine, even though that's not been established as Barrayar, and leads to questions about Alys and Ivan. But for her to go back to her birth family AND TAKE HER DAUGHTERS?
Like, do you join your husband's family or not? The women are taking their husband's names and joining their Houses and all that. But, oh, if the marriage ends for ANY REASON, their daughters aren't actually members of the House?
NO FUCKING SENSE.
And if it's ENTIRELY there to 1) justify any part of Ekaterin's continuing marriage, and 2) to make Miles look like a good provider. THERE ARE OTHER WAYS TO DO BOTH OF THOSE.
So, yes, I would happily change that bit of canon, and for the most part I put my fingers in my ears and go lalalalala and pretend it does not exist, because frankly, it only exists for Komarr and ACC.
LOL, because since Miles is supposed to die before Ekaterin, I guess the girls will be going back to the Vorvaynes with Ekaterin? Yeah, lol, nope. And/or she immediately automatically loses custody of her sons? To who? Mark? Yeah, lol, nope x2.
As far as My Problems With Ekaterin's Plotline, this is minimal, but it persists because of how it presents itself as a Rule For Canon, even though it contradicts established canon for no good reason, and it's fucking pointless.
And since the prompt was for what I'd CHANGE, I wouldn't honestly replace it with anything. I'd just get rid of it. Ekaterin's already staying with Tien because of too much ~~stand by your man~~. If there needs to be a problem with getting Nikki medical attention and so Miles gets to show off, just go with "you're not an urgent case, wait your damn turn" and then Miles gets to wave the shiny chain and jump the line. As far as the whole custody shenanigans in ACC, just go with straight up custody stuff if you really want to keep that whole plot segment (I happen to hate that plot segment, but c'est la vie), you don't need the added bit that Ekaterin only has custody because she got permission. Other relatives interfere and overreach all the time, just go with that.
Now don't get me started again on the "a woman alone has no basis raising a son" line and how Ivan, the POV character, does not react at all to that...
also, everyone hitting on Ekaterin, especially the dude who proposes marriage before Tien is even buried, is an authorial choice and one I highly disagree with. But, hey, that one's consistent, Vordarian's pushing Kareen, too (although I should point out that VORDARIAN IS THE VILLAIN). But the sheer number of people who disregard everything and hit on Ekaterin, to the point where Miles isn't even the worst one, is a problem, and it's sheer authorial choice, and it's one of the reasons why, when everyone talks about how much they like ACC in particular, I just can't stop thinking about how much I hate every single thing about Ekaterin's plotline. The endless boundary-violation was an authorial choice, especially to devote so much time to it, and then to have the boundary-violations "succeed" in Ekaterin agreeing to marry Miles. And to have every single person ignore what Ekaterin even wants, to the point where they convince her to get remarried before she wants to; the Winterfair scheduling was *Miles's* idea and not Ekaterin's. God, I hate everything about this. And it was completely unnecessary. It was the author's decision and I disagree wholeheartedly and passionately.
Oh and here's my general complaint yet again that Nikki never shows up after the twins are born. Unless he just did it in the novella, which I haven't read yet. But Nikki exists to be a plot problem for Ekaterin with his existence and his mutation, and then vanishes once Miles has bio-kids. So that's great.
This entry was originally posted at https://lannamichaels.dreamwidth.org/1019685.html.