PeterZ wrote:Bother, you beat me to it.
One of the things that I find intriguing about Irys is her love of knowledge for its own sake. The elements she found most tempting about Charis prior to her epiphany was the Royal College. While her father might have envied the RC for the advantages it could provide, she appreciated the brighter and fuller picture of the world the College makes possible.
Prince Hektor suffered a certain narrowness of vision, maybe narrowness of spirit even. There was the Great Game and advance of the Daykyn dynasty and all else sort of faded into a background that didn't draw his attention. His relationship with his son was in terms of the dynasty, up until his dying moments. His relationship with the Church was all in terms of avoiding its ire and using it to advance his position. His relationship with Corisande was its use to advance his ambitions as his base; with Zebediah, as a conquest; with Chisholm, Charis, Emerald, all as tools or potential conquests.
One tremendous blessing of giving up sovereignty for the children of the House of Daykyn is that they are now only supporting players in the Game, so they're free to see the wonder of the world, to evaluate the Church in terms of truth and compassion, to improve the state of Corisande for the sake of
Corisande instead of for dynastic advance. Daivyn's young but I think he at least appreciates that dimly. Irys is going to grab it and run with it.
That approach/mindset might well be something core to Corsiandian society or might just be intrinsic to Irys. I doubt the latter. It seems that all the out islands had some core divergence from the CoGA orthodoxy. Emerald, Chisholm, Corisande and Zebediah all embraced the Reformists rather quickly compared to the mainland. That speaks to Clyntahn's fear that the out islands are indeed more independent of thought in various ways. I doubt Corisdande is the exception.
Me too. Zebediah's one of the briefest but clearest cases of it: a vicious aristocracy, a top tier of the priesthood in support of it - and a
working priesthood joined with the mass of the people who embrace a Reformed church that's all about providing what people need. As soon as the new Grand Duke fixed the top end, the whole thing becomes a zealously Reformist state.
Corisande's nobles aren't all that bad (some are!), and it's got the sour taste of coming into the Church and Empire of Charis after defeat to get past, but that line drawn between the Temple and its local weasels and the local, working Church isn't unfamiliar there, and Corisande knows which side of the line it's on. In a lot of ways, it's not hard to picture it as Charis but for the (former) leadership.
Emerald is even more that. The "Charisian Archipelago" has four major islands or near-islands: Charis, Margaret's Land, Emerald, and Silverlode. The Ahrmahk's gobbled up Charis, annexed Margaret's Land, and claimed Silverlode outright. Emerald was next, Nahrmahn knew it, and was just making an ambitious bid to retain independence. There's no reason to think that Charisian attitudes didn't "infect" Emerald long since; Nahrmahn and his senior advisers clearly had no powerful loyalty to the Temple. They had no problem with the Church that wasn't a problem with its (distant) leadership; Nahrmahn regretted the stupidity the Temple had in throwing away the moral leadership it could have commanded.
There's an argument that Tarot could be the fifth major island in the Charisian Archipelago. The old treaty at least felt on Gorjah's end like Ahrmahk imperialism, and with their history, it's hard to blame him.
Chisholm is a trickier case than the rest. It's got a lot more history of conflict between the nobility and the crown than the rest of them, and the traditionalist guilds may be more powerful there as another faction than elsewhere. Temple Loyalist nobles seem more common there than anywhere but Corisande, and they seem to be Temple Loyalist more as a matter of genuine conviction somewhat more often than their Corisandian peers. I don't think Reformism or innovation will suffer badly or lag grievously behind in Chisholm, but I do think it's going to line up with a longer and deeper class struggle there than in the other islands.
Charisian innovation had always struck me as an extension of Cayleb's personality. Perhaps better to say that Cayleb embraced the Charisian mind set that enabled innovation.
I'd say, rather, that he's a child of the same culture and time - and having spent just about none of his adult life looking to Zion for political or spiritual leadership does make him almost unique among the movers and shakers of Charis, so that he's got nothing holding him back that way.
That of Thomas Eddison, an experimenting engineer using trial and error to find a better way. The value of knowledge to this mindset is what that knowledge can make or do. Corisande might be more comfortable with knowledge as valuable because it allows for understanding. Whether that understanding is as Irys described before her epiphany in pursuit of understanding God's creation better or simply understanding to understand, it is different from the hectic Charisian desire to always use knowledge for something.
I'd hesitate to draw profiles of entire nations from two young adults. The Royal College faculty have mindsets that typically run more to Irys's that way, and I'm sure plenty of Corisandian smiths, plumbers, farmers and doctors are thrilled about knowledge for the sake of doing things better. Cayleb was, before Merlin, already someone who ran from tutors to armsmasters and since then uses an artificial intelligence to track baseball scores. He may not be oblivious to the wonder of nature, but purely on a personal level, it's not his strong suit.
There are plenty of ways that each of the Imperial nations to separate from the Charisian dominance. I suspect that Chisholm and Tarot will be the Imperial conservatives. That mindset demanding that any changes be tested prior to will he nil he embracing their adoption. Emerald will be the deal makers and real politicians. Their decades long experience balancing Charis and Corisande will come in handy. Eventually, like in any family, should an outsider pick on one, they will get a unified well thought out, well engineered and politically well placed traditional military fist in their national overly intrusive nose.
I wouldn't see national personalities playing out so neatly over entire nations in the Empire, but I can easily see dynamics like that in the Imperial Parliament. The Chisholmian noble and notables are likely to be representatives of Chisholm's conservative side, and Tarot's influence from the mainland may have a similar effect. (That's way out on a speculative limb though.) A kind of kingmaker, negotiating hub role would suit the position and personalities of the House of Baytz. And Corisande can carve out a political role making sure Charisian advances get spread around the empire consistently and that Chisholm's nobility keeps in line.
