Now, I have two sorts of opinions about the ending.
Or, actually, three. My initial reaction to the ending, and a big part of the reaction I still have now, is that it's a brilliant, affecting, tugging-on-all-the-right-heartstrings piece of tragic writing, terribly emotional, terribly well-written and generally the sort of thing that demands fix-it fic but yet is better in itself for being exactly what it is—a tragic ending that could, narratively and by the fate of the story, never have gone any other way. Since re-reading the ending several times, I've developed two other strands of thought about it, but this one is still probably uppermost in my mind and heart.
First is the stubbornly and perhaps unfairly queer one—though I do seriously think it's somewhat justifiable. I think I've mentioned before how reading Broster's other books puts the ending of FotH into a wider context. Without spoilers, then, two of her previous books also feature highly significant m/m relationships alongside very conventionally happy m/f romances—one ends with the second male character in question quietly and inconclusively fading away from significance, the other with him making a wistful decision to renounce his own interests and happiness in order to let the main couple have the happy ending that he'd really have preferred to go another way. Whether or not the m/m relationships were intended to read as potentially romantic/sexual, they are undeniably of central emotional importance, and they are in some way in conflict or incompatible with the romances, which, narratively, have to happen—and until this point Broster has never managed to resolve this conflict satisfactorily. Well, now she has. 'Yet he must not sadden Alison on this, of all days. It was Keith who had given it to him.' Indeed.
...I don't really have a conclusion here, other than that all this makes me feel a lot of things, and think about The Longest Journey and feel very glad that I've just read an uncomplicatedly happy m/m historical romance novel. I don't know. There it is, anyway! Also, this is the real reason I don't like The Gleam in the North and The Dark Mile—it's not just that they don't give enough significance to Keith's memory as such, it's that they seem to be actively disclaiming the queer subtext of The Flight of the Heron and pushing the story back into a conventional shape that Keith's presence didn't quite let it stay in.
Second is the potentially more interesting character and plot angle. Here we go, then: Is Keith being 'saved... from a decision too cruel' by being killed at the moment of decision actually a satisfying way to end his character arc? Broster argues very eloquently in that passage that it is, but the more I think about it the more I'm really not sure. By this point, Keith has twice put his career in real peril for Ewen's sake, and twice been saved by convenient circumstances from experiencing the consequences he might have expected. We're in no doubt that he values Ewen and his feelings for Ewen over his career, no matter how ambitious he keeps being in this chapter. Would it not have been far more powerful to end with a decisive statement of that, by having him make a definite decision for Ewen, and then finally experience the consequences and see where he ended up afterwards?
Of course, that's not a fair presentation of the thing. The conflict here is not Ewen or career, it's Ewen or duty, a far more serious matter to Keith—on the two previous occasions Keith's superiors felt that he had acted against his duty, but he could credibly decide that his actions were consistent with duty and honour in his own heart. He can't do that now—and Ewen would agree with him that duty and honour are important above all, even if they go against the wishes of a friend, as the penknife incident in chapter 4.7 shows.
...But wouldn't it have been more compelling to have him make that decision in Ewen's favour—to end his emotional arc about learning to value love friendship and human connection above the military ambition which was introduced as the only thing he cares about by his making a final decisive statement that he will go against the duty that his military position demands of him in order to save Ewen? The more I think about it, the more the avoidance of that statement feels like, well, really a bit of a cop-out.
And I do really think he would have made it! I think the things he says in his final scene suggest so. His comment that 'I did not have to . . . fire' is intriguingly ambiguous—is he observing that he was saved from 'having to' make the decision to fire by Lachlan's attack, or stating a realisation that firing was not what he 'had to' do—that another decision was possible and was in fact what he would have done? Apart from that, he very happily tells Ewen to get away before the soldiers appear, and tells him about the hole in the boat—helping him escape, or at least trying to.
I don't know! I wrote a fic trying to deal with this a while ago, and I don't think I really succeeded, and it's picked at my brain ever since. What does everyone else think?
My Thoughts on the Ending
Or, actually, three. My initial reaction to the ending, and a big part of the reaction I still have now, is that it's a brilliant, affecting, tugging-on-all-the-right-heartstrings piece of tragic writing, terribly emotional, terribly well-written and generally the sort of thing that demands fix-it fic but yet is better in itself for being exactly what it is—a tragic ending that could, narratively and by the fate of the story, never have gone any other way. Since re-reading the ending several times, I've developed two other strands of thought about it, but this one is still probably uppermost in my mind and heart.
First is the stubbornly and perhaps unfairly queer one—though I do seriously think it's somewhat justifiable. I think I've mentioned before how reading Broster's other books puts the ending of FotH into a wider context. Without spoilers, then, two of her previous books also feature highly significant m/m relationships alongside very conventionally happy m/f romances—one ends with the second male character in question quietly and inconclusively fading away from significance, the other with him making a wistful decision to renounce his own interests and happiness in order to let the main couple have the happy ending that he'd really have preferred to go another way. Whether or not the m/m relationships were intended to read as potentially romantic/sexual, they are undeniably of central emotional importance, and they are in some way in conflict or incompatible with the romances, which, narratively, have to happen—and until this point Broster has never managed to resolve this conflict satisfactorily. Well, now she has. 'Yet he must not sadden Alison on this, of all days. It was Keith who had given it to him.' Indeed.
...I don't really have a conclusion here, other than that all this makes me feel a lot of things, and think about The Longest Journey and feel very glad that I've just read an uncomplicatedly happy m/m historical romance novel. I don't know. There it is, anyway! Also, this is the real reason I don't like The Gleam in the North and The Dark Mile—it's not just that they don't give enough significance to Keith's memory as such, it's that they seem to be actively disclaiming the queer subtext of The Flight of the Heron and pushing the story back into a conventional shape that Keith's presence didn't quite let it stay in.
Second is the potentially more interesting character and plot angle. Here we go, then: Is Keith being 'saved... from a decision too cruel' by being killed at the moment of decision actually a satisfying way to end his character arc? Broster argues very eloquently in that passage that it is, but the more I think about it the more I'm really not sure. By this point, Keith has twice put his career in real peril for Ewen's sake, and twice been saved by convenient circumstances from experiencing the consequences he might have expected. We're in no doubt that he values Ewen and his feelings for Ewen over his career, no matter how ambitious he keeps being in this chapter. Would it not have been far more powerful to end with a decisive statement of that, by having him make a definite decision for Ewen, and then finally experience the consequences and see where he ended up afterwards?
Of course, that's not a fair presentation of the thing. The conflict here is not Ewen or career, it's Ewen or duty, a far more serious matter to Keith—on the two previous occasions Keith's superiors felt that he had acted against his duty, but he could credibly decide that his actions were consistent with duty and honour in his own heart. He can't do that now—and Ewen would agree with him that duty and honour are important above all, even if they go against the wishes of a friend, as the penknife incident in chapter 4.7 shows.
...But wouldn't it have been more compelling to have him make that decision in Ewen's favour—to end his emotional arc about learning to value
lovefriendship and human connection above the military ambition which was introduced as the only thing he cares about by his making a final decisive statement that he will go against the duty that his military position demands of him in order to save Ewen? The more I think about it, the more the avoidance of that statement feels like, well, really a bit of a cop-out.And I do really think he would have made it! I think the things he says in his final scene suggest so. His comment that 'I did not have to . . . fire' is intriguingly ambiguous—is he observing that he was saved from 'having to' make the decision to fire by Lachlan's attack, or stating a realisation that firing was not what he 'had to' do—that another decision was possible and was in fact what he would have done? Apart from that, he very happily tells Ewen to get away before the soldiers appear, and tells him about the hole in the boat—helping him escape, or at least trying to.
I don't know! I wrote a fic trying to deal with this a while ago, and I don't think I really succeeded, and it's picked at my brain ever since. What does everyone else think?