#i really need to start tagging my ballantrae posts but you already know my ass will forgor haha !

[the-casbah-way]

sorry for once again being autistic about the master of ballantrae but it's just. it's about mackellar spending the entire novel carefully crafting the illusion of himself as the perfect reliable narrator only for the fictional editor to dismantle his manuscript in front of him while all he can do is watch on helplessly. it's the master spending the entire novel creating the public image of a romantic jacobite hero only for stevenson to tear it down completely by stripping the master of his props and costume and leaving him naked and alone on the stage he built for himself. do you realise what a fantastic fucking satire of scottish romanticism this book is. do you realise how this man lured us in with the promise of walter scott-esque tartan heroes and a monarch-of-the-glen-style backdrop, only to turn round and go 'fuck you, well done for falling for the farce. there is no jacobean hero you stupid slut.' we can bend over backwards making up tales of noble scottish victors triumphing in the face of adversity but at the end of the day when the flag stops flying and the english go home all they will leave behind is emptiness and ruin and a country branded permanently by their conquerors' greed