Honor

Roy C. Lackey · 23 Nov 2005, 08:04 · from 2005-November.txt.gz

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From: rclackey at stic.net (Roy C. Lackey)
Date: Wed, 23 Nov 2005 02:04:37 -0600
Subject: (urth) Honor
Message-ID: <000c01c5f004$927e18c0$453ec6d8 at rclackey.stic.net>

Rostrum quoted and wrote:
>On 10/27/05, Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net> wrote:
>> But he was the same knight who, even in middle age after his sojourn in
Skai
>> (carousing, drinking and fighting; no finer venue for honing knightly
ideals
>> of chivalry and honor), upbraided the stable hands in Utgard for not
taking
>> better care of the horses. It takes a lot of damn gall to ride into
Utgard
>> in the middle of the night on a flying unicorn, roust out the stable
hands
>> and threaten them with bodily harm for not performing their slave labors
to
>> his satisfaction. Those stable hands were human men who had been
captured,
>> enslaved and blinded by the giants. Those ungrateful, lazy bastards. But
>> Able put them in their place. He was able to do so because he was bigger
and
>> stronger and more Able than they. Might makes right.
>
>I disagree.  Able's might doesn't make him right or wrong.  It gives
>him the power to enforce what he thinks is right, but if he's wrong,
>then he's wrong no matter how strong he is.  And in this case, I think
>he is right, at least in his judgment, if not in the severity of his
>actions.

Ah, but that flies in the face of the very basis of the concept of "trial by
combat" in all its variations. From Lancelot's defense of Guinevere to all
those childish, petulant, indefensible defenses against all comers of that
mountain pass by Able in TWK, the underlying assumption is that might does,
in fact, make right.

>From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
"As it existed in the medi??val laws of western Europe, it was typically
explained as a judicium Dei, the judgment of God. In theory, the trial so
conducted would yield a just result because God would strengthen the arm of
the combatant who was in the right."

>It's sad that the stable hands are slaves and blind, but does that
>mean they are no longer moral agents, no longer capable of being right
>or wrong?  Were they not wrong to neglect the animals?

Look at the second paragraph of that Tolkien essay again. Like Wolfe, I grew
up in Texas in a time when the code of conduct espoused there was nothing
exceptional; it was the norm. It's part of the reason I detest Able.
Substitute stables and brown-eyed horses with lavatories and dirty toilet
bowls and the issue of moral accountability falls away. Sure, horses need
food and water to survive, but no one has a *right* to force another to do
it. Someone thought the pyramids of Egypt should be built, but the slaves
who did the work acquiesced only because they had no choice. I prefer a
clean toilet, too, but I don't have the *right* to force my wife to clean it
just because I'm bigger than she is. In fact, it is precisely *because* I am
bigger and stronger than she that I *may not* force her to do it. I suspect
that Wolfe would feel the same way, and I can't imagine Silk treating other
people, particularly those less able than he, the way that Able consistently
treated those whose social position ranked below a knight's.

It's difficult to reconcile Wolfe's statements about personal conduct in
that essay with his apparent endorsement of a stratified society in the same
essay. That Able is often portrayed as a lout in TWK is no accident. That he
is supposed to be a Hero, also, is no accident. It just doesn't work for me.

-Roy

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