Flight of the Heron read-along: Part III chapters 3-4

[regshoe]

Keith is back! :D And so is Ewen, and so we get to the really good bit.

Next week we'll only read the one chapter—partly because chapter 5 is the last in Book III and I think sticking to the Book boundaries makes things neater, partly because it's a fairly pivotal chapter and I want us to have time to appreciate it properly...

Comments

[sanguinity]

I feel like Broster very much wants to convince us that Keith's hands are clean, emphasizing the disgust he feels for other men's actions. But Keith is also very obviously going along to get along, so there's an argument to be made that he's at least complicit.

Of course, he only goes along right until we recognizes Ewen. It is lovely how there's no conscious thought in his blind panic to throw himself in front of the firing squad: I rather think he's gotten feelings all over his debt of honour.

And the sheer amount of crap he eats from Major War Crimes' hands! He wouldn't take that from the Duke of Cumberland, but if it's Ewen's life at stake... (Again, Keith: you've gotten feelings all over your debt of honour!) I'll admit, when he all but offered to duel Major War Crimes, I was rooting for him to do it. Save everyone a bunch of trouble, Keith! Shoot Major War Crimes dead, then go back for Ewen and ride off into the mountains with him. Yes, sure, you'll have to keep Lachlan from slitting your throat when he catches up with you, but maybe if you talk VERY quickly and let him lead the horse...

Oh, and there's this interesting description: Keith, no Puritan himself, yet innately fastidious... Helpfully dropped there for any enterprising smut writers working out their characterizations, thank you Ms. Broster!

[hyarrowen]

I like that description of him too. Much characterisation in very few words.

[regshoe]

Yes, probably—but it's not an easy, simple way of showing him to be innocent, especially when he himself feels—somewhat correctly in my opinion, and I don't think Broster means for it to come across as untrue—that he is complicit.

I rather think he's gotten feelings all over his debt of honour.

:D

Shoot Major War Crimes dead, then go back for Ewen and ride off into the mountains with him.

*cheers Keith on to do this, unwise and unlikely as it might be*

Oh, yes, that is a good and interesting bit of description. What this attitude might mean in relation to Keith's feelings for Ewen left for us fic writers to work out...!

[luzula]

I feel like Broster very much wants to convince us that Keith's hands are clean, emphasizing the disgust he feels for other men's actions. But Keith is also very obviously going along to get along, so there's an argument to be made that he's at least complicit.

Yeah. Broster kind of makes it easy for Keith here, by having him be a staff officer rather than a captain who's supposed to be leading his company around the countryside killing, raping and burning. There's a story from the time about a Navy ship in the Western Highlands where the captain orders the men to rape all the women in a village on the coast. But one of the sailors sneaks away and warns the village before it happens...