semi-critical reflection

 I got bored so I started re-reading some of tlbd, not the whole thing from beginning to end but certain chapters. Anyway, partway through, I started thinking that as a writer and a critic, one of my favourite things is think about why someone would choose the specific words they do when they write, after all good writing doesn't rely on co-incidences but on conscious decision making.

Spoilers ahead 😶 

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Reading through, I was kind of struck by how many quotes still really resonated with me with as much relevance as when I had first written them (of course this isn't to toot my own horn; there are plenty of sentences that made me cringe hard). One of my favourite interactions comes late into part 2, the scene between Remani, the Blessed Doctor of Pritta and Caysa ( in 'Wisdoms' Knowledge, a Parable').

"Remani?' Caysa called to her. She half turned to face him. "What do you think the point of the gods are, then?"

"Have you ever seen a big dog, tied with rope? You might think, Why doesn't it just bite off the leash and go free? It can, it is big enough. But the dog never will because it never thinks to."  (p. 259)

To be honest, it's a line that treads into corny territory for me but I think it captures an interesting choice, one that simmers underneath Caysa's story without being the main point until well into part 3 (IYKYK). Remani as a character was sort of my attempt at an 'absurdist character', she wasn't really designed to make sense in the way that Master Uris is a fairly archetypal depiction of a religious mentor character. This is why the title of the chapter also seems bizarre and senseless. In comparison to Caysa (who grapples with Existentialism), Remani distances herself from common knowledge (religious doctrine of morality, ethincs, science etc.within the world, focalised largely by Caysa) and takes refuge in the heretical (sociological and psychological affectation) wherein the gods are rendered not as a literal beings in the material world but functional/instrumental beings in a socio-cultural world, her answer is sceptical of 'gods having a point.' This is unlike the religious musings of Caysa that we've had previous:

A good monk was what Caysa was supposed to be; he was supposed to be unselfish and un-cruel...Caysa stared up and wondered how many other boys' goodness was predicated on how much flesh they could cut from the bone and give to others. (pp. 154-156) 

 In this earlier example, Caysa's questioning of his situations places the onus upon himself for failing to live up his own expectations, the expectations that have come about by his religious upbringing. His inability to be a 'good monk' ties back into the struggles he is currently facing and with a lack of guidance being taken as a rejection of his choices but we also see envy and resentment that other boys 'goodness' does not seem to come from their ability to self-sacrifice for the sake of others. His social conception of the world is driven by this morality of self-sacrifice for some that is not necessitated by others whose morality derives from elsewhere which he is not permitted to access due his failure to uphold the religious expectations placed upon him by his social standing as an Imran devotee. 

This is what leads to the meaning of Remani's quote. In making this quote, I didn't want Remani to feel as is she was casting a kind of  moral judgement upon the dog for being 'unable' to think about it's freedom. Instead there is a purposeful withholding of details about the dog's quality of life, no details of abuse nor of any particular luxury. The dog's position is wholly as a neutral body, the statement that it could go free does not imply that it should, or that it will be escaping anything in particular if it does. In this example, the physical world is just as affected by the internal world as vice versa, the dog would have to imagine freedom to bite the rope off and the dog would have had to experienced freedom to know a world without the leash could exist, however there is also the fact that the dog simply need not imagine freedom to feel safe/fulfilled/ etc. it may of course be the case that there is simply no need to imagine freedom in that way. 

Caysa reads this quote initially as the leash being the role of the gods (expectations of behaviour, religious tenants etc.) rather then the mindset of the dog being the stronger retaining force, he is still in the spiral of equating his morality with what he is supposed to be rather than accessing what he wants to be without permission of the 'leash-holder'. Caysa is on the cusp of going from a moralistic character (the fool card, if you will) to an epistemic character (the world card, in other words) as part of a complete spiritual and philosophical journey, it's therefore important that just as she does not apply some kind of morality to the dogs' non-choice, Remani does not conclude some kind of morality to Caysa's ignorance. 

This is why, Caysa rejects Danrho's assertion that 'all of us are merely children, acting in accordance with out parents' (p.490) although he says that he understands her thought process, he says it is 'unbelievably cruel, to both Alessandro and I' (p.491). Caysa by the end of part three fundamentally rejects the means of being controlled by other's expectations, his perception of the world is now his rather than Danrho's, Imra's or Zavon's, Caysa has developed the imagination required to think of freedom and has begun rejecting that the leash is stronger then he is, not necessarily as a moral doctrine but as a philosophy of respect and a means of living. 

Don't take this as a Word Of God moment, rather I merely wanted to see the resonance between myself and the characters I have written, I think all moments in this book are open to one's own interpretation but this was merely me reflecting on my own deliberate process of crafting this journey and the interaction between characters which show and enrich the growth of characters like Caysa and Aron.

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Page numbers come from the Apple Books version of The Last Black Dragon.