# Curses, Foila'd again! *The Urth list — 1 messages, 1 voices, 11 Nov 1999* > Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright > in each message remains with the person who wrote it. > Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original > archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than > retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact. --- ### Charles Dye *11 Nov 1999, 20:40* Michael Andre-Driussi writes: > Hey there, raster. Salutations.... > Raster write: >> Is the fight rigged? Foila's story obviously reflects her situation and >> tells us a great deal about her character. But I think it's noteworthy >> that the maid in Foila's tale does not "choose to keep herself for herself." > Right. I didn't mean to suggest that she was going to chose this option. > My money is on bachelor number three. Whoops. I completely misunderstood your comment, that you felt she had *won* the contest by telling the best story. Quit confusing me with sports metaphors! > Putting these odd pieces together, it almost seems as if Foila is blaming > her first two suitors/fellow soldiers for her own real wounding--not > necessarily "friendly fire," but just their own ineptness as soldiers! > After all, one is a seal hunter, the other is a farmer boy--whereas she! > She is an armigette (she is at least a cavalry officer)! This sounds reasonable, if we assume that Foila knew Hallvard and Melito before she was injured. I have the sense that she didn't, that she was in some different formation from the PBI types until they all washed up together in the Pelerines' MASH unit; but either way is possible. Or are you suggesting that she blames the inept infantry in general -- they may be volunteers, but they're not professionals? > My sense: Foila is not some ditzy "Private Benjamin" type of female who > just fell into the cavalry by accident and now has to chose between two > really swell footsoldiers; she is a warrior princess. She gets what she > wants, and she wants a war trophy/trophy husband/war bridegroom! > > In part, no doubt, because such an object defines her class (armiger or > armiger-wannabe) and profession (hussar); it proves her virility, her > martial puissance, etc. Of course, hopeless romantics, we continue to hope > that she is genuinely =fond= of the object . . . This is a reasonable and well-thought out possibility. I don't think it's the only possibility, perhaps because I liked Loyal's tale the least. But it does make sense. raster at highfiber.com (Foila's virility?) :-/ ---