Flight of the Heron read-along: Part V chapter 5 and Epilogue

[regshoe]

Better loved ye cannae be...

The final chapter.

I'm planning to do a sort of wrap-up post in a couple of days' time for any last thoughts, and to recommend some Flight of the Heron fic and some other books that may be of interest. I will say goodbye and thank you properly then!

Comments

My Thoughts on the Ending

[regshoe]

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?

Re: My Thoughts on the Ending

[sanguinity]

I agree that it's something of a cop-out, to spare Keith having to make that choice, and to likewise spare him having to live with its consequences. But I also think that narratively, it would have opened a whole bag of worms: the aftermath would have rattled on for ages, and would have opened the question of whether they would ever meet again after all the dust had settled, etc. These are obviously questions of great interest, to myself and others (*gestures at all the fix-it fic*), but it wouldn't have been in keeping with the prophecy trope she was writing, and it wouldn't have had the resonant finality of the ending she chose.

I feel very much the same way about Znvgynaq'f raq va Gur Qnex Zvyr -- to let him live out his confession and redemption would have been long and messy, very nearly another story unto itself. Instead, she chose to give it a decisive, tragic ending. Which is definitely a tool that exists if you want to make someone feel the full weight of their choices/dilemma, without the messiness of them actually having to live with said choices or dilemma.

Re: My Thoughts on the Ending

[regshoe]

You're absolutely right, of course—having Keith experience the consequences of his choice would completely alter the shape of the plot, and the shape it's already in is a very elegant and fitting one and perfectly structured around the prophecy and all its narrative fatefulness and finality. Yes, and that's a good point about her other use of the same tool as well.

(...still, couldn't he have chosen to warn Ewen, done it definitely, and then got stabbed? That would give us part of it...)

Re: My Thoughts on the Ending

[osprey_archer]

V sryg gung Znvgynaq'f qrngu va Gur Qnex Zvyr jnf n pbc-bhg, ohg V qvqa'g srry gung jvgu Xrvgu'f qrngu, nygubhtu V'z abg fher jul V sryg fb qvssreragyl nobhg gurz. Creuncf cneg bs vg vf fvzcyl gur cebcurpl? Gurer'f n funqbj bs qrngu unatvat bire gur jubyr obbx, fb gung ol gur gvzr Xrvgu qvrf, gur gentrql srryf varivgnoyr. Znvgynaq'f qrngu, va pbagenfg, whfg frrzf pbairavrag.

Vg znl nyfb or orpnhfr Xrvgu'f qrngu VF gentvp, juvyr Znvgynaq'f qrngu vf... zvyqyl fnq znlor... ohg nyfb n eryvrs gb Rjra naq Vna, jub xabj uvf frperg. Vg'f pbairavrag va-fgbel nf jryy nf pbairavrag sbe gur nhgube.

Re: My Thoughts on the Ending

[regshoe]

Lrf, V nterr gung gur hfr bs gur cebcurpl gb tvir rzbgvbany fgehpgher naq frafr gb gur cybg vf n pragenyyl vzcbegnag cneg bs jung znxrf Syvtug bs gur Ureba fb tbbq naq fbzrguvat Oebfgre'f bgure obbxf qba'g qb arneyl fb jryy, naq gung'f bar ernfba jul gung ovg va Gur Qnex Zvyr qbrfa'g ernyyl jbex.

Re: My Thoughts on the Ending

[osprey_archer]

I think the difficulty with having Keith make that decision in Ewen's favor is that Keith and Ewen are both so invested in the ethos of "I could not love thee, dear, so well, loved I not honor more." If Keith chose Ewen over honor/duty, Ewen would likely think less of him: duty and honor are supposed to come before family, love, romance, everything. And Keith too I think would have a hard time justifying such an action to himself.

Re: My Thoughts on the Ending

[hyarrowen]

If Keith chose Ewen over honor/duty, Ewen would likely think less of him

I think you've nailed it there.

The prophecy in any case argues against that as an option. Which begs the question: do they have free will in this universe? Or does Angus merely see what their free-will choices lead them to?

Re: My Thoughts on the Ending

[regshoe]

Yes, I think you're right. (Also, heh, that poem has occurred to me as one that'd make a perfect epigraph for this book/Broster's work in general).

I think if you really wanted to make something like that work, in fix-it fic or otherwise, you'd have to get really into the details of why Keith sees capturing Ewen as his duty and whether that's inevitable and all the messy political details of his allegiance and his status as a soldier, etc. etc., which could be terribly interesting but is not at all what's happening here.

—except, there are those hints which tgarnsl pointed out last week, that Keith's identity and particularly the part of Keith that has learnt to care about Ewen can be disassociated from military duty, and perhaps that would be a truer and better thing, and perhaps that could be done convincingly and satisfyingly... and so the idea keeps picking at me, as I said. It's good fun...! :D

Re: My Thoughts on the Ending

[luzula]

Another way to slice it is that for an 18th century gentleman, personal honour was paramount, and more important than military duty. If Keith's honour would be better served by saving Ewen, which it might be, since Ewen let him go in Edinburgh, then he might let Ewen go...of course, Keith would suspect this line of thinking as probably being influenced by his emotions.

Then again, I can't pretend that I understand their sense of honour; it's really very alien to me. I keep coming back to this Duffy quote, which expresses both aspects: Having encountered so much that was bizarre or selfish about the cult of honour, it is impossible for us to withhold our admiration for the importance that the 18th century attached to the primacy of the individual conscience [in potentially refusing to follow orders].

Re: My Thoughts on the Ending

[regshoe]

If Keith's honour would be better served by saving Ewen, which it might be, since Ewen let him go in Edinburgh, then he might let Ewen go...of course, Keith would suspect this line of thinking as probably being influenced by his emotions.

Heh, very true!

Yes, the 'cult of honour' as Duffy puts it is a fascinating cultural Thing—one that certainly makes for good stories and emotional dynamics, but I don't really understand it either.