Oct-12-2010, 05:02 PM (UTC)
I second all of your insights and comments, redchild - bravo!
There is still so much to learn of Chalced (the land and its people; history, politics and motivations etc), and it's through this gradual process of increased understanding (ours, as the readers, as well as the characters') that options not previously seen/sought may still yet be found.
While it is said that "there is always war with Chalced", we have all of these other, more diplomatic alternative pathways to peace and the subsequent changes that have been wrought within the realm shows firm evidence of their effectiveness.
The eventual toppling of Chalced may be started with something as simple as causing a break in the slave 'elfbark cycle', and then other resulting factors may come into play. Truly, the resolutions we have seen so far have all come about with only relatively small changes or shifts in perspective.
Of course, we can't rule out the issue of Changer's continued existance (sorry, I couldn't leave him out altogether
!), though only time will tell if he will even have a role in these future events. An upheaval is imminent and change is certainly coming though...of that we can have no doubt.
What I don't see working is an all-out war with no diplomacy involved. Diplomacy and reason will have to be a part of the fix for the fix to be permanent. War alone, even though successful, would just postpone the cycle and time would continue in its current course, trundling on to the next phase of war, such as what happened between the Out Islanders and the Six Duchies. Certainly the SD won in the time of King Wisdom but to what end? Eventually the Out Islanders returned for their revenge and then it began again. It was only when diplomacy was also applied, along with the 'winning' of the Red Ships War, that permanent change could ensue.
War will almost always fester revenge (revenge that almost always then has to be outplayed later) but diplomacy, with or without war, allows for a greater opportunity to forgive, mend and renew.
There is still so much to learn of Chalced (the land and its people; history, politics and motivations etc), and it's through this gradual process of increased understanding (ours, as the readers, as well as the characters') that options not previously seen/sought may still yet be found.
While it is said that "there is always war with Chalced", we have all of these other, more diplomatic alternative pathways to peace and the subsequent changes that have been wrought within the realm shows firm evidence of their effectiveness.
The eventual toppling of Chalced may be started with something as simple as causing a break in the slave 'elfbark cycle', and then other resulting factors may come into play. Truly, the resolutions we have seen so far have all come about with only relatively small changes or shifts in perspective.
Of course, we can't rule out the issue of Changer's continued existance (sorry, I couldn't leave him out altogether
!), though only time will tell if he will even have a role in these future events. An upheaval is imminent and change is certainly coming though...of that we can have no doubt. What I don't see working is an all-out war with no diplomacy involved. Diplomacy and reason will have to be a part of the fix for the fix to be permanent. War alone, even though successful, would just postpone the cycle and time would continue in its current course, trundling on to the next phase of war, such as what happened between the Out Islanders and the Six Duchies. Certainly the SD won in the time of King Wisdom but to what end? Eventually the Out Islanders returned for their revenge and then it began again. It was only when diplomacy was also applied, along with the 'winning' of the Red Ships War, that permanent change could ensue.
War will almost always fester revenge (revenge that almost always then has to be outplayed later) but diplomacy, with or without war, allows for a greater opportunity to forgive, mend and renew.
"I am the Catalyst, and I came to change all things. Prophets become warriors, dragons hunt as wolves."
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