Merlin's Upcoming Conversation with Thirsk

Clyntahn's mental health may have been better during his rise to power.

Gandalf called Sauron a "wise fool", someone cunning but with a mortal blind spot. Maybe that applies to Clyntahn.

I think the best appeal to Thirsk is also the least possible. His family is safe so the appeal with the most emotional resonance is "This is how you can get your honor back". He will not believe that's possible.

Expert snuggler wrote:Clyntahn's mental health may have been better during his rise to power.

Gandalf called Sauron a "wise fool", someone cunning but with a mortal blind spot. Maybe that applies to Clyntahn.

Yeah, both points are well-taken. One thing that helped Clyntahn rise to power is that no one really recognized the monster they were promoting: they figured he was "only" one of the genially corrupt Church players, maybe with a rougher edge. What they got was something vastly worse, but the occasion to recognize that didn't arise til OAR.

I think the best appeal to Thirsk is also the least possible. His family is safe so the appeal with the most emotional resonance is "This is how you can get your honor back". He will not believe that's possible.

It's a problem with thinking of honor, or virtue, as something you either have intact or have lost entirely forever. He's got a chance to act more honorably. He's got chances to do the right things without having someone pull the rug out from under him or make his grandkids die horribly and slowly as a result. If he cannot get his moral virginity back, he can at least have consensual relationships again.

From both your and Don's perspective, the nuances I wish to emphasize do nor correspond to your image of him.

Both of you wish to depict him with just enough disbelief that God COULD NOT disagree with him and belief that the Writ is correct in defining orthodoxy. I find that belief difficult to accept. Not asserting that it is impossible by any stretch.

ANY combination of those views will move he/she that holds such a view to move either towards a belief that God does not disagree with me AT ALL or the Writ is correct in all cases even when it conflicts with my views. A mixed belief will move towards either pole as the world reinforces the holder of that belief. In Clyntahn's case a God never disagrees with me mindset will really help his rise within the Inquisition.

THAT mindset makes adopting innovation irresistibly attractive. If the continued acceptance and use of innovations require the continued approval of the Inquisition, Clyntahn has anyone relying on innovations by the short a curlies. If he withdraws his exemption either from specific users or ALL users, they can be mortally screwed. He need never approve any innovation completely. He simply needs to continually offer temporary exemptions pending the obedience of the holder of the exemption.

That sort of power would be right up his alley.

JeffEngel wrote:

PeterZ wrote:You miss my point. He can have it all; fear, obedience and power. He can have power by controlling innovation though the office of the Inquisition. He can both threaten to deny the use or ability to produce with approved innovations to compel obedience. He also has the ability to financially and economically destroy not just individuals but entire countries in addition to killing and torturing individuals.

Because he can't see these possibilities that means he is either not that intelligent or is a true believer. That he couldn't see it at first is excusable. After Father Paityr and Charis gave him the roadmap with their office of patents? Not so much. If he were smart AND did not really believe in orthodoxy, he would have adopted that source of power to augment the power he already had quick as a wink.

I don't think he would quite agree that he'd really have the terror value in hand if he turned the Inquisition into a licensing agency. I think he's aware that, if people are allowed to use innovations based on a Church license, they're going to be very difficult to rein in by withholding that license to "break" them. I think he sees that they would likely shrug and either evade the fees - like tithes that lose a lot of value from Harchongese corruption, to take even his favorite country - or break from the Church, or at least recognition of Inquisitional authority, in that case.

He's not seeing Paityr Wylsynn as the power behind the Charisian throne, the man with the ability to break them if they get out of line. He's looking at Wylsynn, fairly accurately, as a rubber-stamp clerk. He doesn't aspire to being a rubber-stamp clerk - not even an obscenely wealthy one - and he doesn't take it as part of God's plan that the Inquisition becomes an organization of such.

As it stands, he's grudgingly permitting these innovations, purely in the service of his jihad, so there's a kind of recognition of the Inquisition's power, but he's looking forward to the end of the jihad and the resumption of the role of the Inquisition in limiting innovation, the way the Writ intends. That's in fair measure the point of the exercise, but it means that he's got to keep the innovators afraid and he's got to be ready to prune them back afterward for victory to mean enough.

Do you want to say that that makes him less than a true believer in orthodoxy maybe?

Also, what Don said.

JeffEngel wrote:
I'd had that as my first thoughts too, but then it occurred to me that Merlin gave Hahrahld the com in OAR when he really, really had to and with reluctance but still inside the "seijin Merlin has visions" approximate layer of the Safehold onion. It's a good bit more than he'd like to introduce Thirsk to, I'm sure, but there may be enough need here too for him to suck that up.

Pretty risky. There is a vast difference between Haarahld and Thirsk. Haarahld had a very clear idea of what honor and duty was calling him to do. He was the ruler of a realm he was determined to defend at all costs. There was no difference between honor and duty for Haarahld so he could focus on the task at hand. Further, Merlin and Haarahld were on the same side, committed to the same thing.

Thirsk, on the other hand, has been in turmoil over the conflict between honor and duty. He is an honorable man. But at the moment, as unhappy as he undoubtedly is with the situation, he still perceives his duty as being to Mother Church and the crown. That means he is still in the service of Charis' enemies as a warrior in the Jihad. Until that changes, Merlin won't be able to share such things as coms with him. The inquisition has already declared Merlin as Cayleb's demon familiar. No point in offering Thirsk the proof of that.

As for the letter, I understand the concern about that. One possible solution might be for Merlin to show Thirsk the letter, but to keep it for security reasons. But actually, I think that once Thirsk sobers up, he can be trusted to keep the letter safe and I doubt that house servants are privileged to read the master's mail even if they did happen across it. It seems to me to be a bit safer than a com, anyway.

I doubt that either are going to be needed. If Merlin tells Thirsk his family is safe, Thirsk will believe him. He already regards Cayleb as honorable and he will extend that to Merlin.

Merlin can also offer to help Thirsk with anything that doesn't run counter to Charis interests. For example, if he were to decide to deal with controlling the inquisition and getting Dohlar out of the war, Seijin Merlin has this wonderful intel network that can help. No need to go into such things as "the seijin has visions." Merlin can also provide secure communications for people who are like minded and who will need to help Thirsk get organized. Best to leave the more arcane seijin stuff out of it.

Don

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PeterZ wrote:From both your and Don's perspective, the nuances I wish to emphasize do nor correspond to your image of him.

Both of you wish to depict him with just enough disbelief that God COULD NOT disagree with him and belief that the Writ is correct in defining orthodoxy. I find that belief difficult to accept. Not asserting that it is impossible by any stretch.

Clyntahn would not assert that God COULD NOT disagree with him. It is rather that he sees himself as having God and the Writ figured out to the point where God WON'T disagree with him. His confidence in his own rectitude is the primary driver for his point if view.

Big difference there, I think.

Don

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Ok. That leaves an emotional dislike for change. If innovations demonstrably lead to power and control and Clyntahn eschews using innovation for his own benefit, he must have an aversion to innovation. He is not averse to using innovations he happens across but will not systematically foster innovations. He has the authority to bring innovations forth and is confident God will support his rationale but finds the very idea personally distasteful.

n7axw wrote:

PeterZ wrote:From both your and Don's perspective, the nuances I wish to emphasize do nor correspond to your image of him.

Both of you wish to depict him with just enough disbelief that God COULD NOT disagree with him and belief that the Writ is correct in defining orthodoxy. I find that belief difficult to accept. Not asserting that it is impossible by any stretch.

Clyntahn would not assert that God COULD NOT disagree with him. It is rather that he sees himself as having God and the Writ figured out to the point where God WON'T disagree with him. His confidence in his own rectitude is the primary driver for his point if view.

Big difference there, I think.

Don

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PeterZ wrote:... He has the authority to bring innovations forth and is confident God will support his rationale but finds the very idea personally distasteful.

There are very strong hints that Clyntahn considers the exemptions he has granted for innovations out of military necessity as temporary aberrations to be recanted and rolled back as soon as possible.

He seems to have taken a page from Richard Nixon's playbook: "It is not illegal if the Grand Inquisitor does it (or orders it)."

PeterZ wrote:Ok. That leaves an emotional dislike for change. If innovations demonstrably lead to power and control and Clyntahn eschews using innovation for his own benefit, he must have an aversion to innovation. He is not averse to using innovations he happens across but will not systematically foster innovations. He has the authority to bring innovations forth and is confident God will support his rationale but finds the very idea personally distasteful.

Innovations aren't what God had in mind. But heresy really isn't what God has in mind, so if you've got to have one or the other, innovation wins - and you shut it down as soon and as hard as you can after you don't need it anymore. That's not going to be easy - change begets change - and people allowed to do so much by the Inquisition in time of holy war are going to be restive about being denied permission to do it in time of peace. Clyntahn's looking ahead to that.

"Personal aversion" is a bit mild of a way to put it: he's got a sincere religious belief that it's his duty to trim these back when he (that is, Langhorne's Church) can afford to, that they are dodgy expedients (but not actually demonic, in Church hands at least). And that sincere religious belief is tied up with what amounts to a sincere religious belief, given his twistiness of thought, that the power of the Inquisition, based on fear, must be maintained as the heart of the Church's ability to keep Safehold on God's path.

That twistiness of though will mean that we can't let rationality assumptions have free rein working out what he thinks. Sane people do not think they have a hot line to God and can fill in God's half of the conversation themselves. But that's what it's like inside Zhaspyr Clyntahn's head.

The answer to my original dichotomy appears to be Clyntahn is a true believer. He believes his understanding of the Writ is shared by God.

I will bet dollars to donuts this is the reason that moved Rayno to work with The Fist of God. I believe that Rayno's fundamental conservatism intensely dislikes the changes Clyntahn's actions are forcing on not just the Church but society as a whole.

Rayno helped Clyntahn win the election because Rayno saw that sincere belief in orthodoxy and thought it mirrored his own. He finds that recent events have isolated key differences that make Clyntahn a existential threat to all he holds dear.

PeterZ wrote:The answer to my original dichotomy appears to be Clyntahn is a true believer. He believes his understanding of the Writ is shared by God.

I will bet dollars to donuts this is the reason that moved Rayno to work with The Fist of God. I believe that Rayno's fundamental conservatism intensely dislikes the changes Clyntahn's actions are forcing on not just the Church but society as a whole.

Rayno helped Clyntahn win the election because Rayno saw that sincere belief in orthodoxy and thought it mirrored his own. He finds that recent events have isolated key differences that make Clyntahn a existential threat to all he holds dear.

That Rayno is working with the Fist of God is mightily speculative - putting it mildly; jaw-droppingly implausible would be my frank way of putting it. Stopping the Fist of God is Rayno's primary project these days. It's undermining the control of the Vicarate the Inquisition has, and certainly isn't going to be sympathetic with keeping the Harchongese serfs in line.

And Rayno isn't particularly a true believer - he's a pure power operator, the half of the Clyntahn/Rayno team that keeps it effectively engaged with reality. Orthodoxy, for Rayno, is a delightful tool for keeping the boot on serfs' necks and maintaining and advancing his own position.