Author's Notes and Commentary on "Seasons and Treasons, Moments and Minutes" Part 2
As promised, my notes and commentary on part 2 of SaTMaM! (lol Satmam; like Scatman John)
[OR, What Things Are in the Season of Heat]
Notice how the alternate title changes. See, isn't "What Things Are in the Season of Heat" a better second title than "The Whale"? Eat it, Moby Dick! Also, as opposed to last chapter, this one has "Are" in it, because this chapter is written solely in the present tense, as opposed to the past. Part 3 will be in the future tense (which sucks, but hey, I've got a theme to uphold here! And crime to fight!
*whoosh!*
Also, it might be helpful if I said I intended this part to be about the same length as Part I. Yeah, how'd that one work out for me? XDD
[The things we do for love, he thinks. There was someone else who cast aside his honor for love…]
The parallel between what Orson became and what Seth could become, all for love, is very scary. Orson's betrayal hits home for Seth because he knew him well. Orson was like a mentor to him, IIRC.
[The traitor Orson’s words sting Seth, stronger now that the war is over. Seth can still hear his dead, monotone laughter echoing through the austere stone halls of his liege’s castle.
Am I now forever resigned to be interred in a traitor’s tomb? Or not even that…]
What troubles Seth is that he basically left his post after the war without telling King Ephraim the reason, all so he could travel BACK to Grado in pursuit of this woman. From Grado, no less! This is a major concern of his, that Ephraim would chastise him for abandoning his duties temporarily, and perhaps even strip him of his knighthood. As it turns out, his fears are unfounded, but that's a story for another time (literally-- I still have to write it! :O)
[Orson’s words bite into Seth because they are true. The traitor had called the duties of a knight “unfulfilling,” and his dead voice follows Seth like a faithful squire wherever he goes. No one, not his family nor his friends nor the knights and lords know how Seth truly feels, and he doesn’t dare tell them. No one knows that once he had considered taking his beloved princess far, far away, to a place where they could safely turn a blind eye to the scars of the battlefield. No one knew that he sometimes wondered if it were all just a charade, this thing their tongue called “knighthood.”]
He's only human. Only human.
[Seth pulls from his pocket a keepsake his mother once gave him long ago: a small, slightly-tarnished brass pendant of the two connected wings of Latona Ascendant.]
Mothers and children is another theme of this fic. Including, but not limited to: Seth's mother, Latona, the "Holy Mother", Natasha's mother, and, eventually, Natasha herself. Oops, did I spoil it? <3
[Back then, pride and his duty supplied all the mirth he needed to sustain himself. He always had someone to admire, always something distant but tantalizingly close. Simply protecting the princess of Renais, the woman he was smitten with, and fighting in her honor gave him joy enough. That was the extent of the “romance of the court” as far as the mores of their time were concerned. Maybe once he had wished for a more intimate relationship with her; if he ever dreamt of Princess Eirika, he cannot remember. Seth reflects; the war had changed his life more than he’d realized. He had never known that happy endings could be so bittersweet.]
I think, ultimately, Seth wanted to have an intimate relationship with Princess Eirika, and ultimately, I think it was Seth who convinced himself that they couldn't. They probably could have. But he's practicing the same sort of asceticism that Natasha did, because he feels that shacking up with the princess is "not right". Always "not right", whatever "not right" is. It isn't proper. It might be arbitrary, but Seth has convinced himself what must be done and what must NOT be done, and he refuses to move a certain distance further from those beliefs. That's why he ends up putting his country before everything else, to the point of self-denial. To the point of ridiculousness, actually. If he didn't have the straight-laced personality he did (say, if Forde had switched places with him), he'd probably be kissing more than Eirika's hand at that moment.
[The fields around him are green and yellow and the air is filled with flower-dust, thick and insistent. He sneezes almost unceasingly until the noon-hour, when the ground dips into a valley and the air starts to clear.]
Seth's gots dem allergies ;_;
[By the evening, Seth reaches the border of Renais and Grado, and the soldiers of Renais stationed all along the watchtowers, with no other reason to get excited, bow their heads as he rides by. The wind begins to howl. The coming of the night has cooled the air pleasantly.]
Unsolicited Jimi Hendrix (okay, and Bob Dylan) reference, GO!
[What is this village’s name? It’s so close to the border, but it’s still in Grado…I suppose they naturally mistrust anyone from Renais.
There are only three houses before the southern fence, the last three houses in the village. The rain begins to fall harder, suddenly accumulating into a steady torrent, and Seth’s iron legs seem to weigh ten tons.
Travel one day’s north of here, and as if by magic, the villagers begin to dislike Grado instead. Even after the war, the common people stand on either side of an imaginary line and hate those on the other side. Where’s the sense in that?
Seth stands in front of a small stone house with a thatched roof and a large stone chimney bellowing smoke into the sky. The smell is rich, and reminds Seth of the bonfires he sat around as a child, eating and laughing and watching the smoke disappear into the starry sky with his friends. A pair of large silver wings, thoroughly weathered and tarnished, hangs on the wall above the doorframe. Still half absorbed in his memories, Seth knocks.
I used to think like that. That people from Grado were incapable of kindness.]
Seth mentions a similar sentiment at one point in game, that he had once thought everyone from Grado to be evil, heartless people. He knows better now, but it wasn't always that way. I think the fact that he, too, once had his prejudices humanizes him in a way that would not be possible if he were "perfect", if he were born with the remarkable ability to always be objective and trusting of everyone. It's no coincidence that goody-goody characters (I'm looking at Ramza Beoulve and Eliwood, in particular XDD) really annoy me.
[“Ah…are you in need of something, sir knight?” she says. The woman’s voice is warm and kind. She looks at Seth curiously, but her blue eyes are not suspicious or accusing, only full of concern. When Seth does not answer, she says, “The rain is starting to fall more heavily, so please, please, come take shelter.”]
You may be wondering why, when everyone else is so mistrustful of Seth and turns him away, this woman so openly welcomes him, a KNIGHT of RENAIS into her home, one of the enemy, when, for all she knows, he's come to rape and murder her. But it's the very fact that she lets him in, feeds him, and gives him a warm place to sleep that I wanted to emphasize. It is SUCH a tremendous, selfless act of kindness that Seth can't help but be touched by it, despite the fact that HE is probably more wary of HER than SHE is of HIM!
[“I am not a member of the clergy, sir knight. Only a faithful woman who believes in the Word of Latona. The Saint would not turn aside one in need, and neither shall I.” The kind woman clasps her hands together. “Please, take a seat. I’ll prepare the stew for us.”]
Was it too obvious who the blonde woman was? Well, I think I said it in my summary XD It wasn't supposed to be a huge secret anyway.
[I wasn’t at the border then, but I probably knew the soldier who killed her husband… Seth bites his knuckles.]
And now you know why war sucks. You know...if you didn't already ^_^;;;
[I think…I am sleeping with Natasha’s mother, Seth thinks, half amused, half utterly mortified. He pinches himself to confirm that he hasn’t fallen asleep yet. It’s almost too surreal to believe.]
XD.
[We could be more than just lovers. We could be…part of a family…together. A family. Someday. Someday we will. Natasha, beautiful…]
Is Seth this sentimental? I'm not sure. I'd like to think so.
[None of his dreams could compare to seeing her, his golden-haired surprise dressed all in white, shimmering in the sunlight.]
Ah! There's another song reference, this one to "Sister Golden Hair" by the band America. This is fitting in multiple ways. Hell, I might have called this fic "Sister Golden Hair" if I didn't want to have a title reflecting the theme of "seasons". Fuck, I still might make that the title. XD
[Near the end of the war-a time that seems long ago now-he had asked her to live with him suddenly, and she had returned to Grado without him. This time, he makes certain that he will follow her, no matter her choice.]
This is something I thought about for a while. In Seth and Natasha's A support, Natasha agrees to marry Seth, but she doesn't sound particularly convinced that it's the right thing to do. In this fic, I imagine her returning to Grado without Seth, needing more time to think about things, instead of immediately going to marry Seth right after the war ends.. That's why Seth has to go to Grado to track her down.
[Why do we men want the things that are forbidden to us?]
It's a good question. Why DO we men want the things that are forbidden to us, as Natasha is to Seth, in a way?
[The night insects have already begun to whirr and chirp in the early evening. The primal sounds of their call-and-answer inexorably remind Seth of Renaisian summer, to the point that when he closes his eyes he can imagine himself as a boy, running in the fields with his wooden sword, wondering just how far his ambition could take him.]
This isn't the first we see of Seth reflecting on the past, or reflecting on what could have been, and it won't be the last.
[There is only one other woman who speaks so elegantly, and she is many leagues away, preparing her gowns and jewels for life as her brother’s sister.
...
There is something in the way Natasha carries herself that reminds Seth so much of Princess Eirika. The cleric holds herself with an air of melancholy, a sort of subtle sadness evident in everything she does-from the way she walks to the way she speaks. The way Seth can best describe it is an awareness of the transience of things, the things experienced in life that must one day be let go. She is a melancholy person, but only because she cares. Natasha watches the orange sun fall slowly, slowly behind the horizon, without ever looking down.]
Seth is still thinking about Eirika, and here is where things get a little interesting. As I mentioned before, I'm sure Natasha reminds Seth of Eirika in a lot of ways. Now, the question has to be asked: Is Seth's affection for the princess going to go away? And is Natasha just a surrogate for Eirika, the woman he cannot have? Does Seth love Natasha? Yes, hell yes. But his feelings for her aren't that simple, these feelings aren't going to resolve themselves neatly, and Eirika isn't going to be a background character in this fic. You'll see more of what I mean in Autumn and Winter.
"Awareness of the transience of things" is a loose translation/approximation of the Japanese phrase mono no aware, which is sort of how I see Natasha's reflections on the world and her lot in life at that moment. She seems mellow because she is afraid and concerned for the state of her country and her world, which, at that point, is not very well off. Plus, in agreeing to go with Seth, she's leaving behind the only life and the only country she's known her entire life. In other words, I think she has a pretty good reason to be melancholy or at least wary of what will become of her.
[“I-I’ve no ring to give you, but…” Seth reaches into his pocket and pulls out the tarnished brass pendant with the two wings of Latona. “It isn’t much, but it belonged to my mother, and it means a lot to me. Your mother did something indescribably kind for me…this is all I can do in return.”]
I don't often laugh or get emotional at anything I write myself, but I find this scene to be particularly touching. Readers, did I write this scene well enough? Did it come off as sweet or did I just make it sound trite and corny (oh god I hope not XD)?
[A tarnished gift… Seth scolds himself. She deserves something far more valuable than that…what was I thinking?]
Some people think "The more valuable the gift, the more you love the person to whom you're giving the gift." Well, I think that's horse doohickey and cow deedledums. But Seth apparently is afraid that Natasha didn't like his gift.
[Autumn can’t come soon enough.]
Part 3, Autumn, will be a transitional chapter, with Seth and Natasha tying up loose ends and going to live together, and how their relationship unfolds after they've been married. I'm trying to figure out how to write this chapter without boring myself (and my audience) to fucking tears. I don't know a damn thing about married life. And medieval married life, with a knight and a nun! "Honey, do the dishes." "'kay."
I'm screwed. XD;;
Part 4, Winter, will be the chapter where the mood gets whipped. Big time. Be ready for it. This "general winter" is a melancholy one.
[OR, What Things Are in the Season of Heat]
Notice how the alternate title changes. See, isn't "What Things Are in the Season of Heat" a better second title than "The Whale"? Eat it, Moby Dick! Also, as opposed to last chapter, this one has "Are" in it, because this chapter is written solely in the present tense, as opposed to the past. Part 3 will be in the future tense (which sucks, but hey, I've got a theme to uphold here! And crime to fight!
*whoosh!*
Also, it might be helpful if I said I intended this part to be about the same length as Part I. Yeah, how'd that one work out for me? XDD
[The things we do for love, he thinks. There was someone else who cast aside his honor for love…]
The parallel between what Orson became and what Seth could become, all for love, is very scary. Orson's betrayal hits home for Seth because he knew him well. Orson was like a mentor to him, IIRC.
[The traitor Orson’s words sting Seth, stronger now that the war is over. Seth can still hear his dead, monotone laughter echoing through the austere stone halls of his liege’s castle.
Am I now forever resigned to be interred in a traitor’s tomb? Or not even that…]
What troubles Seth is that he basically left his post after the war without telling King Ephraim the reason, all so he could travel BACK to Grado in pursuit of this woman. From Grado, no less! This is a major concern of his, that Ephraim would chastise him for abandoning his duties temporarily, and perhaps even strip him of his knighthood. As it turns out, his fears are unfounded, but that's a story for another time (literally-- I still have to write it! :O)
[Orson’s words bite into Seth because they are true. The traitor had called the duties of a knight “unfulfilling,” and his dead voice follows Seth like a faithful squire wherever he goes. No one, not his family nor his friends nor the knights and lords know how Seth truly feels, and he doesn’t dare tell them. No one knows that once he had considered taking his beloved princess far, far away, to a place where they could safely turn a blind eye to the scars of the battlefield. No one knew that he sometimes wondered if it were all just a charade, this thing their tongue called “knighthood.”]
He's only human. Only human.
[Seth pulls from his pocket a keepsake his mother once gave him long ago: a small, slightly-tarnished brass pendant of the two connected wings of Latona Ascendant.]
Mothers and children is another theme of this fic. Including, but not limited to: Seth's mother, Latona, the "Holy Mother", Natasha's mother, and, eventually, Natasha herself. Oops, did I spoil it? <3
[Back then, pride and his duty supplied all the mirth he needed to sustain himself. He always had someone to admire, always something distant but tantalizingly close. Simply protecting the princess of Renais, the woman he was smitten with, and fighting in her honor gave him joy enough. That was the extent of the “romance of the court” as far as the mores of their time were concerned. Maybe once he had wished for a more intimate relationship with her; if he ever dreamt of Princess Eirika, he cannot remember. Seth reflects; the war had changed his life more than he’d realized. He had never known that happy endings could be so bittersweet.]
I think, ultimately, Seth wanted to have an intimate relationship with Princess Eirika, and ultimately, I think it was Seth who convinced himself that they couldn't. They probably could have. But he's practicing the same sort of asceticism that Natasha did, because he feels that shacking up with the princess is "not right". Always "not right", whatever "not right" is. It isn't proper. It might be arbitrary, but Seth has convinced himself what must be done and what must NOT be done, and he refuses to move a certain distance further from those beliefs. That's why he ends up putting his country before everything else, to the point of self-denial. To the point of ridiculousness, actually. If he didn't have the straight-laced personality he did (say, if Forde had switched places with him), he'd probably be kissing more than Eirika's hand at that moment.
[The fields around him are green and yellow and the air is filled with flower-dust, thick and insistent. He sneezes almost unceasingly until the noon-hour, when the ground dips into a valley and the air starts to clear.]
Seth's gots dem allergies ;_;
[By the evening, Seth reaches the border of Renais and Grado, and the soldiers of Renais stationed all along the watchtowers, with no other reason to get excited, bow their heads as he rides by. The wind begins to howl. The coming of the night has cooled the air pleasantly.]
Unsolicited Jimi Hendrix (okay, and Bob Dylan) reference, GO!
[What is this village’s name? It’s so close to the border, but it’s still in Grado…I suppose they naturally mistrust anyone from Renais.
There are only three houses before the southern fence, the last three houses in the village. The rain begins to fall harder, suddenly accumulating into a steady torrent, and Seth’s iron legs seem to weigh ten tons.
Travel one day’s north of here, and as if by magic, the villagers begin to dislike Grado instead. Even after the war, the common people stand on either side of an imaginary line and hate those on the other side. Where’s the sense in that?
Seth stands in front of a small stone house with a thatched roof and a large stone chimney bellowing smoke into the sky. The smell is rich, and reminds Seth of the bonfires he sat around as a child, eating and laughing and watching the smoke disappear into the starry sky with his friends. A pair of large silver wings, thoroughly weathered and tarnished, hangs on the wall above the doorframe. Still half absorbed in his memories, Seth knocks.
I used to think like that. That people from Grado were incapable of kindness.]
Seth mentions a similar sentiment at one point in game, that he had once thought everyone from Grado to be evil, heartless people. He knows better now, but it wasn't always that way. I think the fact that he, too, once had his prejudices humanizes him in a way that would not be possible if he were "perfect", if he were born with the remarkable ability to always be objective and trusting of everyone. It's no coincidence that goody-goody characters (I'm looking at Ramza Beoulve and Eliwood, in particular XDD) really annoy me.
[“Ah…are you in need of something, sir knight?” she says. The woman’s voice is warm and kind. She looks at Seth curiously, but her blue eyes are not suspicious or accusing, only full of concern. When Seth does not answer, she says, “The rain is starting to fall more heavily, so please, please, come take shelter.”]
You may be wondering why, when everyone else is so mistrustful of Seth and turns him away, this woman so openly welcomes him, a KNIGHT of RENAIS into her home, one of the enemy, when, for all she knows, he's come to rape and murder her. But it's the very fact that she lets him in, feeds him, and gives him a warm place to sleep that I wanted to emphasize. It is SUCH a tremendous, selfless act of kindness that Seth can't help but be touched by it, despite the fact that HE is probably more wary of HER than SHE is of HIM!
[“I am not a member of the clergy, sir knight. Only a faithful woman who believes in the Word of Latona. The Saint would not turn aside one in need, and neither shall I.” The kind woman clasps her hands together. “Please, take a seat. I’ll prepare the stew for us.”]
Was it too obvious who the blonde woman was? Well, I think I said it in my summary XD It wasn't supposed to be a huge secret anyway.
[I wasn’t at the border then, but I probably knew the soldier who killed her husband… Seth bites his knuckles.]
And now you know why war sucks. You know...if you didn't already ^_^;;;
[I think…I am sleeping with Natasha’s mother, Seth thinks, half amused, half utterly mortified. He pinches himself to confirm that he hasn’t fallen asleep yet. It’s almost too surreal to believe.]
XD.
[We could be more than just lovers. We could be…part of a family…together. A family. Someday. Someday we will. Natasha, beautiful…]
Is Seth this sentimental? I'm not sure. I'd like to think so.
[None of his dreams could compare to seeing her, his golden-haired surprise dressed all in white, shimmering in the sunlight.]
Ah! There's another song reference, this one to "Sister Golden Hair" by the band America. This is fitting in multiple ways. Hell, I might have called this fic "Sister Golden Hair" if I didn't want to have a title reflecting the theme of "seasons". Fuck, I still might make that the title. XD
[Near the end of the war-a time that seems long ago now-he had asked her to live with him suddenly, and she had returned to Grado without him. This time, he makes certain that he will follow her, no matter her choice.]
This is something I thought about for a while. In Seth and Natasha's A support, Natasha agrees to marry Seth, but she doesn't sound particularly convinced that it's the right thing to do. In this fic, I imagine her returning to Grado without Seth, needing more time to think about things, instead of immediately going to marry Seth right after the war ends.. That's why Seth has to go to Grado to track her down.
[Why do we men want the things that are forbidden to us?]
It's a good question. Why DO we men want the things that are forbidden to us, as Natasha is to Seth, in a way?
[The night insects have already begun to whirr and chirp in the early evening. The primal sounds of their call-and-answer inexorably remind Seth of Renaisian summer, to the point that when he closes his eyes he can imagine himself as a boy, running in the fields with his wooden sword, wondering just how far his ambition could take him.]
This isn't the first we see of Seth reflecting on the past, or reflecting on what could have been, and it won't be the last.
[There is only one other woman who speaks so elegantly, and she is many leagues away, preparing her gowns and jewels for life as her brother’s sister.
...
There is something in the way Natasha carries herself that reminds Seth so much of Princess Eirika. The cleric holds herself with an air of melancholy, a sort of subtle sadness evident in everything she does-from the way she walks to the way she speaks. The way Seth can best describe it is an awareness of the transience of things, the things experienced in life that must one day be let go. She is a melancholy person, but only because she cares. Natasha watches the orange sun fall slowly, slowly behind the horizon, without ever looking down.]
Seth is still thinking about Eirika, and here is where things get a little interesting. As I mentioned before, I'm sure Natasha reminds Seth of Eirika in a lot of ways. Now, the question has to be asked: Is Seth's affection for the princess going to go away? And is Natasha just a surrogate for Eirika, the woman he cannot have? Does Seth love Natasha? Yes, hell yes. But his feelings for her aren't that simple, these feelings aren't going to resolve themselves neatly, and Eirika isn't going to be a background character in this fic. You'll see more of what I mean in Autumn and Winter.
"Awareness of the transience of things" is a loose translation/approximation of the Japanese phrase mono no aware, which is sort of how I see Natasha's reflections on the world and her lot in life at that moment. She seems mellow because she is afraid and concerned for the state of her country and her world, which, at that point, is not very well off. Plus, in agreeing to go with Seth, she's leaving behind the only life and the only country she's known her entire life. In other words, I think she has a pretty good reason to be melancholy or at least wary of what will become of her.
[“I-I’ve no ring to give you, but…” Seth reaches into his pocket and pulls out the tarnished brass pendant with the two wings of Latona. “It isn’t much, but it belonged to my mother, and it means a lot to me. Your mother did something indescribably kind for me…this is all I can do in return.”]
I don't often laugh or get emotional at anything I write myself, but I find this scene to be particularly touching. Readers, did I write this scene well enough? Did it come off as sweet or did I just make it sound trite and corny (oh god I hope not XD)?
[A tarnished gift… Seth scolds himself. She deserves something far more valuable than that…what was I thinking?]
Some people think "The more valuable the gift, the more you love the person to whom you're giving the gift." Well, I think that's horse doohickey and cow deedledums. But Seth apparently is afraid that Natasha didn't like his gift.
[Autumn can’t come soon enough.]
Part 3, Autumn, will be a transitional chapter, with Seth and Natasha tying up loose ends and going to live together, and how their relationship unfolds after they've been married. I'm trying to figure out how to write this chapter without boring myself (and my audience) to fucking tears. I don't know a damn thing about married life. And medieval married life, with a knight and a nun! "Honey, do the dishes." "'kay."
I'm screwed. XD;;
Part 4, Winter, will be the chapter where the mood gets whipped. Big time. Be ready for it. This "general winter" is a melancholy one.