![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Aug. 21st, 2023 09:02 am
Appreciating Cliches
So for the first time, I'm actually inspired to use this journal for thoughts rather than as a placeholder to comment on various communities. But I can't really think of anywhere else to put this rambling. It's a bit too "book-related" for my tumblr, and as the story that inspired it is both relatively new and self-published, it's not really good fodder for i_read_what.
I suppose I could write a goodreads review, but that's not generally my habit. Maybe I will, if this post doesn't get it out of my system. (Apparently the story has a 3.7 rating on Goodreads, which goes to show that I will never understand the reviewers on that site...)
Anyway, I was reading a self-published gay romance novella with a fairly straightforward premise. Basically, the lead character is the prince of a country that's just been conquered. The story actually starts in the throne room of the kingdom, as the besieging army sends their general out to deliver terms of surrender. Among the terms of surrender: the prince has to go to the imperial capitol as a hostage.
One thing that stood out right away to me as I read the book was that the author had done a remarkable job of avoiding most of the usual cliches involved in this scenario. The children who are sent as hostages (the neighboring countries are forced to send their own children too) aren't actually mistreated or neglected. They're given fairly nice accommodations, and the points in the narrative where you might expect some hardship to surface (for example: they're not used to northern winters) are pretty quickly dealt with (the friendly prince recommends that they ask for warm blankets and clothes early, and there are no consequences when the lead character uses up all of his firewood during the night).
There is a bit of mild kink involved - as advertised by the cover really, involving the lead character chained up, having sex with an attractive young man. But the author does a good job in making sure it's as consensual as it can be. The young man is a younger prince, with no direct power over the hostages. The lead character is the one who does the seducing and makes it very clear that the chains are just there to basically spice things up. (While the manacles are there as part of discipline for having tried to escape, they're not really fastened to anything until needed.)
The captors are more petty than they are cruel. They look down on the hostages, but they still provide the hostages with clothes and have them attend balls. The intent might be to humiliate them (and at one point, the Queen does "forget" to tell them of a custom that everyone wears white to one particular event. The characters make a point of wearing dark blue and stand out amazingly.)
The whole reason the lead character is chained is because early on, he escapes. His mother was supposed to send letters that never reached him, he begins to fear that the situation is bad at home. He's caught right away, but because the missing letters turn out to be caused by an overzealous subordinate and make the king look bad, the consequences are very mild: manacles not chained to anything, locked in the room, but provided ample food and even allowed supervised company. (The liaisons are unsupervised, but permitted by servants in secret.) Eventually, after an apology, the lead character is released to his normal level of free movement.
We're told this is because the king fancies himself reasonable and so on. The fact is though, as conquerors go...he doesn't really seem that UNREASONABLE. The people back home are being taxed 40% of income, which we're told will all but ruin them. But that tends to come with being conquered. The royal families are left alive as tributary monarchs. When it comes out that his youngest son is having an affair with a hostage, he's disgusted but he does nothing to forbid it. (It's portrayed as the son and lead character having out-maneuvered him by presenting it openly - the country doesn't forbid homosexual relationships after all.)
Heck, even when the oldest son starts acting a bit obsessed with the lead character, nothing comes of it.
The level of cliche avoidance is really impressive. The problem though is that it starts to make the conclusion seem rather disproportionate.
So as it turns out, the letters between the lead character and his mother are coded. And it comes out that the families of the hostages are planning a revolt. They do this through secretive scheming and outright suborning the mercenaries left in their countries. This leads to the lead character providing his mother with a list of noble/governing figures who have to die in order to effectuate an overthrow that would free the conquered countries without massive amounts of bloodshed.
It's all very logical, of course. But it's very off-putting in a way. The younger prince, aghast, even points this out: the hostages were being treated well and the whole time, they're plotting the murder of their captors. The hostage in question, the princess Sylvia, points out correctly that even though they were treated well, they were still captives. And that's true. But there is something narratively off-putting about seeing these pampered child hostages smuggling out an assassination hit list.
One of the amazon reviews comments on how you really feel for the child hostages, and you can't wait to see the evil queen die. And...I don't know. Is the crime of being plump, snooty, and tricking some kids into wearing navy during an all-white event really worthy of getting executed in your bedroom by your own soldiers?
Even then, I think I could get past that, if not for the response of the youngest prince. The youngest prince is generally looked down on and ignored, except for when his mother very nearly makes a bad political marriage to him. (He squirms his way out of it with the help of a general who wants to woo the woman in question instead.) But he's not abused or excluded. I'd hesitate to even call his treatment emotionally abusive. He's just a spare's spare, with inconveniently un-macho interest.
So, the children and the lead character end up escaping just before their parents' siege comes about (planned of course, to avoid retaliation), and the prince chases them to find out why. This conveniently means he's not in the castle during the siege (though he is also on the list of people to spare, it's still a relief admittedly.) When he finds out that his parents and brothers are about to be assassinated/executed, he's understandably horrified. He is taken prisoner then, though he ends up giving his word to escort his now ex-lover to his homeland...you know, instead of trying to escape and warn his family or anything.
He's released once the siege is over. His parents and brothers are, indeed, dead. Murdered by their soldiers in their bedroom, led by the aforementioned general - who is now the king. We're told the country is very pragmatic and willing to accept any rulership as long as their lives don't really change. And we're told the general does some good things like lower unnecessary taxes.
The prince ends up in one of the other conquered places - learning that under the new king, things are better. The former conscripts from that place (who'd been enslaved as mine workers) are now getting good wages and benefits, and are willing to keep working! He's told that as an Imperial, he must be happy too - no more marriage tax. Apparently many of the citizens of the conquerors would escape into nearby countries to get married though they'd still have to slowly earn the money to pay the real taxes so their kids would inherit instead of the property going to the crown.
The prince realizing that the people are much happier now, goes back to his ex-lover, and finally approaching "as an equal" (which was something the main character said once: if the prince came to him finally as an equal rather than captor/hostage, they could be together in love, forever, what-not). Happy ending.
And it's like...yeah, but his family is still murdered!
This is where the lack of cliche really actually hurts the story. Because if the prince wasn't abused or rejected, then the fact that he's willing to write off the murders of his entire family due to a MARRIAGE TAX seems more than a little callous! His family are money-grubbing and greedy, sure, but they're not complete monsters. How can he possibly have a happy ending with the person who masterminded their executions?! What kind of person can DO that?!
Cliches exist for a reason. Were the children hostages, and was their treatment unjust, yes. Are the taxes on the peasant folk onerous and awful, yes. Is this justification for an overthrow? Probably. But is it justification to murder the royal family in their bedrooms?! Ehhh....
The problem is, the murders feel very personal. And we lack the personal stakes that make that satisfying. When the Emperor stares at his treacherous general and starts ranting about how he should have just murdered the southern royals and put in his own governors instead, it's supposed to be an indicator of his true colors. Instead, I'm sitting here going "pretty much, dude!"
Maybe if the story started with some dead members of the lead character's family. Maybe if he were mistreated, or even just horribly neglected. Maybe if he were attacked by the oldest prince or if he or the younger prince were imprisoned for their relationship. Something like that might make the ending feel more justified. If the prince were abused or mistreated, then maybe his reaction would make sense. But as it is, the ONLY on-page violence is when the villains are murdered, unarmed, in their bedroom.
In a way, it reminds me of Dragondrums: when we had our heroes torturing a dying man to force him to name an heir. Was the man kind of awful? Yep. But did he really have the list of crimes that would make torturing him feel remotely deserved? Not really! He was an inconvenience and a bad lord! Just let him die and lie about it later!
The cliches have a purpose. As silly and overdramatic as they can be, they often provide important context and scale. They give us the emotional root to appreciate the consequences.
Am I supposed to see the lead character as a completely calculating manipulator? Am I supposed to see the prince as a callous sociopath who can write off the deaths of his entire family because he's getting laid?
I don't mind a story about monsters, but I didn't get the sense that I was supposed to see them that way. I'm supposed to feel for them and feel satisfied by the ending. I'm supposed to read the prince having cheerfully consensual bondage sex with the man who plotted his family's murder, then discuss the prospect of going back to his now overthrown homeland as ambassadors and go, yep, this is a happy ending.
Really, all I can think is that he should turn over and just knife the guy. If captivity justifies murder, then why the fuck not? The dude's already chained up anyway.
I suppose I could write a goodreads review, but that's not generally my habit. Maybe I will, if this post doesn't get it out of my system. (Apparently the story has a 3.7 rating on Goodreads, which goes to show that I will never understand the reviewers on that site...)
Anyway, I was reading a self-published gay romance novella with a fairly straightforward premise. Basically, the lead character is the prince of a country that's just been conquered. The story actually starts in the throne room of the kingdom, as the besieging army sends their general out to deliver terms of surrender. Among the terms of surrender: the prince has to go to the imperial capitol as a hostage.
One thing that stood out right away to me as I read the book was that the author had done a remarkable job of avoiding most of the usual cliches involved in this scenario. The children who are sent as hostages (the neighboring countries are forced to send their own children too) aren't actually mistreated or neglected. They're given fairly nice accommodations, and the points in the narrative where you might expect some hardship to surface (for example: they're not used to northern winters) are pretty quickly dealt with (the friendly prince recommends that they ask for warm blankets and clothes early, and there are no consequences when the lead character uses up all of his firewood during the night).
There is a bit of mild kink involved - as advertised by the cover really, involving the lead character chained up, having sex with an attractive young man. But the author does a good job in making sure it's as consensual as it can be. The young man is a younger prince, with no direct power over the hostages. The lead character is the one who does the seducing and makes it very clear that the chains are just there to basically spice things up. (While the manacles are there as part of discipline for having tried to escape, they're not really fastened to anything until needed.)
The captors are more petty than they are cruel. They look down on the hostages, but they still provide the hostages with clothes and have them attend balls. The intent might be to humiliate them (and at one point, the Queen does "forget" to tell them of a custom that everyone wears white to one particular event. The characters make a point of wearing dark blue and stand out amazingly.)
The whole reason the lead character is chained is because early on, he escapes. His mother was supposed to send letters that never reached him, he begins to fear that the situation is bad at home. He's caught right away, but because the missing letters turn out to be caused by an overzealous subordinate and make the king look bad, the consequences are very mild: manacles not chained to anything, locked in the room, but provided ample food and even allowed supervised company. (The liaisons are unsupervised, but permitted by servants in secret.) Eventually, after an apology, the lead character is released to his normal level of free movement.
We're told this is because the king fancies himself reasonable and so on. The fact is though, as conquerors go...he doesn't really seem that UNREASONABLE. The people back home are being taxed 40% of income, which we're told will all but ruin them. But that tends to come with being conquered. The royal families are left alive as tributary monarchs. When it comes out that his youngest son is having an affair with a hostage, he's disgusted but he does nothing to forbid it. (It's portrayed as the son and lead character having out-maneuvered him by presenting it openly - the country doesn't forbid homosexual relationships after all.)
Heck, even when the oldest son starts acting a bit obsessed with the lead character, nothing comes of it.
The level of cliche avoidance is really impressive. The problem though is that it starts to make the conclusion seem rather disproportionate.
So as it turns out, the letters between the lead character and his mother are coded. And it comes out that the families of the hostages are planning a revolt. They do this through secretive scheming and outright suborning the mercenaries left in their countries. This leads to the lead character providing his mother with a list of noble/governing figures who have to die in order to effectuate an overthrow that would free the conquered countries without massive amounts of bloodshed.
It's all very logical, of course. But it's very off-putting in a way. The younger prince, aghast, even points this out: the hostages were being treated well and the whole time, they're plotting the murder of their captors. The hostage in question, the princess Sylvia, points out correctly that even though they were treated well, they were still captives. And that's true. But there is something narratively off-putting about seeing these pampered child hostages smuggling out an assassination hit list.
One of the amazon reviews comments on how you really feel for the child hostages, and you can't wait to see the evil queen die. And...I don't know. Is the crime of being plump, snooty, and tricking some kids into wearing navy during an all-white event really worthy of getting executed in your bedroom by your own soldiers?
Even then, I think I could get past that, if not for the response of the youngest prince. The youngest prince is generally looked down on and ignored, except for when his mother very nearly makes a bad political marriage to him. (He squirms his way out of it with the help of a general who wants to woo the woman in question instead.) But he's not abused or excluded. I'd hesitate to even call his treatment emotionally abusive. He's just a spare's spare, with inconveniently un-macho interest.
So, the children and the lead character end up escaping just before their parents' siege comes about (planned of course, to avoid retaliation), and the prince chases them to find out why. This conveniently means he's not in the castle during the siege (though he is also on the list of people to spare, it's still a relief admittedly.) When he finds out that his parents and brothers are about to be assassinated/executed, he's understandably horrified. He is taken prisoner then, though he ends up giving his word to escort his now ex-lover to his homeland...you know, instead of trying to escape and warn his family or anything.
He's released once the siege is over. His parents and brothers are, indeed, dead. Murdered by their soldiers in their bedroom, led by the aforementioned general - who is now the king. We're told the country is very pragmatic and willing to accept any rulership as long as their lives don't really change. And we're told the general does some good things like lower unnecessary taxes.
The prince ends up in one of the other conquered places - learning that under the new king, things are better. The former conscripts from that place (who'd been enslaved as mine workers) are now getting good wages and benefits, and are willing to keep working! He's told that as an Imperial, he must be happy too - no more marriage tax. Apparently many of the citizens of the conquerors would escape into nearby countries to get married though they'd still have to slowly earn the money to pay the real taxes so their kids would inherit instead of the property going to the crown.
The prince realizing that the people are much happier now, goes back to his ex-lover, and finally approaching "as an equal" (which was something the main character said once: if the prince came to him finally as an equal rather than captor/hostage, they could be together in love, forever, what-not). Happy ending.
And it's like...yeah, but his family is still murdered!
This is where the lack of cliche really actually hurts the story. Because if the prince wasn't abused or rejected, then the fact that he's willing to write off the murders of his entire family due to a MARRIAGE TAX seems more than a little callous! His family are money-grubbing and greedy, sure, but they're not complete monsters. How can he possibly have a happy ending with the person who masterminded their executions?! What kind of person can DO that?!
Cliches exist for a reason. Were the children hostages, and was their treatment unjust, yes. Are the taxes on the peasant folk onerous and awful, yes. Is this justification for an overthrow? Probably. But is it justification to murder the royal family in their bedrooms?! Ehhh....
The problem is, the murders feel very personal. And we lack the personal stakes that make that satisfying. When the Emperor stares at his treacherous general and starts ranting about how he should have just murdered the southern royals and put in his own governors instead, it's supposed to be an indicator of his true colors. Instead, I'm sitting here going "pretty much, dude!"
Maybe if the story started with some dead members of the lead character's family. Maybe if he were mistreated, or even just horribly neglected. Maybe if he were attacked by the oldest prince or if he or the younger prince were imprisoned for their relationship. Something like that might make the ending feel more justified. If the prince were abused or mistreated, then maybe his reaction would make sense. But as it is, the ONLY on-page violence is when the villains are murdered, unarmed, in their bedroom.
In a way, it reminds me of Dragondrums: when we had our heroes torturing a dying man to force him to name an heir. Was the man kind of awful? Yep. But did he really have the list of crimes that would make torturing him feel remotely deserved? Not really! He was an inconvenience and a bad lord! Just let him die and lie about it later!
The cliches have a purpose. As silly and overdramatic as they can be, they often provide important context and scale. They give us the emotional root to appreciate the consequences.
Am I supposed to see the lead character as a completely calculating manipulator? Am I supposed to see the prince as a callous sociopath who can write off the deaths of his entire family because he's getting laid?
I don't mind a story about monsters, but I didn't get the sense that I was supposed to see them that way. I'm supposed to feel for them and feel satisfied by the ending. I'm supposed to read the prince having cheerfully consensual bondage sex with the man who plotted his family's murder, then discuss the prospect of going back to his now overthrown homeland as ambassadors and go, yep, this is a happy ending.
Really, all I can think is that he should turn over and just knife the guy. If captivity justifies murder, then why the fuck not? The dude's already chained up anyway.
Tags:
