#sdc june 2022 saturdays

[ykoriana-imperatrix]

SDC Month - June 2022 - Saturday #4

(Cut for length and spoilers, mainly for The Masters and The Chosen.)

The Twins Laugh When the Ruling Lord Imago Makes Plans

Once more, we return to the early books in the series for the third and last theory for this SDC month. More specifically, this theory is going to be focusing on (some members of) House Imago. I trust everyone will remember Jaspar's little speech in The Chosen, in which he dwells a little on his motives for patricide:

"Terrible." Jaspar's hand went to a chain at his throat, drew out from his robe a Ruling Ring and dangled it. "But there are compensations for such loss. Long have I coveted this… to wield its power…" He sighed in a kind of ecstasy. "I cannot count how many times I have wished him dead."

Now, this does not tell us much regarding what the late Ruling Lord Imago and Jaspar's relationship was actually like, particularly on the former's side. Several possibilities could be at play, of course — it's far from implausible the senior Imago was an abusive father to his son, for one. I could, however, see them as just never having been close (or perhaps, their relationship having degraded over the years), which would still be consistent with Jaspar becoming increasingly more focused on becoming Ruling Lord Imago, and too impatient to wait for his father's natural death. (Which could perhaps be supported by the fact Jaspar never actually says he hated his father, only that he wished for his death. A distant kind of relationship could certainly still result in contempt, leading to Jaspar not feeling strong animosity for Lord Imago exactly, but being completely uncaring of his well-being or lack thereof, and the elder Imago essentially being just an obstacle in Jaspar's way to power.)

Thinking about the Imago family dynamics led me to consider that, as mentioned above, we know nothing regarding how Lord Imago felt about his elder son. An intriguing possibility emerged: it is not only entirely possible his feelings were quite similar to Jaspar's towards him, but that he was actually aware of his son's patricidal intentions. (In spite of the fact Jaspar had to be extremely careful to avoid any concrete evidence of his crime coming to light, the fact that he was responsible was still very obviously an open secret, so I would be incredibly surprised if cases of patricide (or at the very least, unrealised patricidal urges) were particularly rare among Chosen.)

This becomes interesting when considered alongside the fact that Ykoriana's attempt to have the group of faction representatives returning to Osrakum assassinated was also quite unsurprising in-universe. The Ruling Lord Imago, leader of his own important faction and no doubt a man with decades of political experience, would also have been aware of this. And yet, he still sent his own son and clear heir (as said in the books, there seemed to be no doubt Jaspar would be elected as his father's successor) on what was a considerably risky mission. (Not to mention assassination would be far from the only danger the group would be facing: there would also be all the potential accidental perilous situations to account for, such as a storm causing the baran to sink.) While yes, the choice was based on sending one representative for each faction, and this could instead be read as meaning Imago trusted his son far more than anyone else he might have sent in his place, I would say the lack of information about his motivations does not favour either of the possibilities more than the other. We can't be absolutely sure that there was not anyone else (his younger son, a cousin or a lord from another House he happened to trust to some degree, etc.) he trusted enough to send in this mission, which in my view creates just enough doubt to give this theory some plausibility.

So let's consider that Lord Imago did have his suspicions about Jaspar's plans, and was also well-aware of the risks posed by the journey. I propose that it was not just a matter of him being unconcerned about the danger to his son, but that he was actively hoping for his death. Even taking information gaps into account, Imago could have much to gain from Jaspar's death. First of all (and more importantly in the short term), it would remove the danger to his own life. He would know Jaspar was likely just waiting for a good opportunity to present itself to enact his plans, and so would have acted pre-emptively. Since he had two sons, he would not be left without a clear heir (and we have no reasons to believe he might have seen his younger son as a threat, or at least not as a great a threat as Jaspar). It would also be a course of action that would leave no incriminating evidence pointing to him, since he would be taking advantage of another's assassination plot (and I think that would be his desired outcome; while an accident would serve the same purpose, he couldn't, of course, count on a random occurrence).

Additionally, it could be something to be used to his own advantage, attempting to improve his public perception by playing the role of the grieving father who had oh-so-tragically and unexpectedly lost his elder son and heir. (While I tend to agree with the characters' belief that Ykoriana would never be actually publicly accused of the murders, Imago could certainly still capitalise on natural suspicion towards her, if that happened to serve his purposes.) Furthermore, as the deaths of Aurum and Sardian would be a heavy blow to Osidian's faction, Lord Imago could stand to benefit from that as well, as some (if not a significant number of) supporters of Osidian might switch sides and join him instead, seeing their cause all but lost. (This is not actually that relevant in the context of this theory, but it doesn't seem unlikely to me that Imago would ultimately side with Ykoriana and Molochite in this scenario; joining Osidian's diminished faction would carry more risks and fewer chances to gain anything from it. He would essentially reap the rewards Jaspar did in canon.)

To conclude, sending Jaspar on the mission to convince Sardian to return to Osrakum would have a non-insignificant chance of being advantageous to Ruling Lord Imago on both a personal and political level. It would, however, be a plan that would always be somewhat of a gamble, and unfortunately for Lord Imago, one that proved unsuccessful.

And so we reach the end of the Saturday theories project (though there might be a new one next December, if I do come up with new theories in the meantime). What did you think of this one — and where does it rank in terms of plausibility compared to the two previous ones for you?

[ykoriana-imperatrix]

SDC Month - June 2022 - Saturday #3

It's Theory Saturday again!

(Cut for length and any potential spoilers.)

The Oldest, and Yet the Last

(Sadly, this title is not entirely accurate — it just so happened I favoured an A Song of Ice and Fire reference over accuracy. What can I say? I was just too fond of the idea not to use it.)

Today's theory is also introduced through a passage from quite early in the series. Namely, a remark Sardian makes during the same conversation in which he explains Aurum's succession situation to Carnelian:

"Are the children of the Chosen so frail?" "A curse of our race is that so few come of age. Though mortal blood waters down the ichor of the Gods, our veins cannot contain its fire, and it softens our bones."

While we have no concrete information on Chosen child mortality rates, something in Sardian's words eventually started striking me as more oddly personal than an actual, accurate representation of said rates. True, deriving a conclusion like this from the four simple words "So few come of age" is more than a little speculative, but a theory is not a scientific article, after all. I thought that this instinctive feeling could make for a good potential theory, especially since, despite being told about this on the second chapter of the series, we do not learn about (m)any specific cases (that is not to say that no Chosen children die during the books, but those are hardly the more "natural" deaths that would be associated with child mortality).

So yes, I do believe Sardian is speaking from personal experience here. While as far as we know, he had no prior marriages before the one to Azurea, and so it seems unlikely he would have had other Chosen children at all, let alone any who died young, he would not necessarily be referring to his children here.

Taking a look at the Suth family tree, we can notice some potentially interesting facts. Sardian was born when his mother Urquentha was quite young (15 years old), and his sister was born 2 years later. Even though Urquentha is still living at Coomb Suth by the time of the series, for some reason, she does not appear to have had any more children by her husband following the birth of their daughter. And unlike with matches restricted to a fixed period of time or specifying the birth of a set number of children, the possibility would definitely have been there (especially since Urquentha would only be 34 at the time of her husband's death). Yet it is entirely possible the two did have more children, and those additional siblings did succumb to the all-too-present childhood mortality Sardian mentions. (I think it makes perfect sense for them not to be pictured in the Suth tree if this is the case, since even if they did exist, they are not relevant to the main story. After all, for instance, Sardian and Carnelian certainly must have marumaga half-siblings other than the ones we do know about, and they're never mentioned, relevant or pictured in the tree either.)

The fact that Urquentha gave birth to Sardian at an early age is also an important factor here, because it would mean Sardian would likely be the eldest Suth sibling overall, even accounting for these hypothetical additional ones. Meaning he would be in a position where he would probably remember the deaths of most of these brothers and sisters fairly clearly — lending an even more personal element to his words to Carnelian in The Masters.

And assuming "so few" is not just an exaggeration of sorts resulting of the impact this would have undoubtedly had on him, it seems probable Sardian's parents were indeed particularly unfortunate when it came to their children, with more of them dying young than living long enough to reach their majority. (While I did not consider a concrete number of deceased siblings when coming up with this theory, something like four or five dying in infancy/childhood does not seem unlikely — two survivors out of six/seven children total could, I think, realistically be referred to as a scenario where "so few" lived enough to come of age.)

In conclusion: a depressing situation to consider, to be sure, but still something that, at least to me, does not seem at all implausible for the setting. Plus, I feel like it is also interesting in terms of how it could shape interpretations of Sardian and Urquentha's worldview and motivations — just because child mortality is common and part of life for the Chosen characters, it doesn't mean it can't or won't be deeply impactful to the families of said children.

[ykoriana-imperatrix]

SDC Month - June 2022 - Saturday #2

Last Saturday was an exception to my actual planned Saturday programming, as mentioned then. Today, I can finally introduce the theme of Saturday installments: theories!

Disclaimer: This being, of course, just a theory (a SDC theory!), I am not claiming it to be gospel truth or anything of the sort. I know that much like fanon content, theories can be controversial, but this is just a post made for entertainment in the context of the SDC month event.

(Cut for length — trust me, this is going to be very necessary for these Saturday posts.)

The Curious Case of the Aurum Sisters

While they never make on-page appearances, it can be argued that the three daughters of Aurum and Sardian's sister are still characters of some relevance. Namely, their existence in the absence of any brothers is a significant factor in Aurum's motivations, as we learn very early in the series.

However, there are some facts regarding them that become intriguing when examined in more detail. When Sardian mentions his nieces to Carnelian, the latter wonders why Aurum did not set up marriage contracts for them to secure a new one for himself through a trade (something implied to be a common practice among the Chosen):

"Then he should get himself another wife." "Do you forget that pure-blood brides are the rarest commodity?" "He has daughters he can trade." "They are too young."

If you take a look at the available Aurum family tree and do the math, you will notice the daughters would be 22, 20 and 17 years old respectively by the time the series begins. Now, at first it could be thought that this doesn't fully add up, considering Urquentha thought it perfectly plausible for Carnelian to hypothetically have a match set up with a lady who was still a child, or that election negotiations involved ladies who hadn't even been born yet. But there is a scenario I considered that could explain everything without any birth date retcons (or implications that Sardian is just mistaken about the ages of his nieces). I feel like the true situation here is more complicated than anything involving the sisters' ages, and so Sardian uses the "too young" argument to put an end to this specific discussion, since he doesn't want to go into detail about the actual reasons at this moment.

Facts: Aurum and Sardian's sister are both pure-blooded individuals from high-ranked Houses; therefore, of course, so are their daughters. "Pure-blood brides are the rarest commodity", yet these three ladies don't even appear to have future matches in place, when you would expect they would be highly desirable brides from the perspective of practically any lord of the Great. What exactly could be in play to apparently make these other lords unwilling to consider them as potential wives for themselves or their heirs?

Further facts: while inbreeding among the Great is implied not to be as extreme as within the House of the Masks, it is still clear they are far from a genetically diverse population. We have no idea how closely related Aurum and the sister of Sardian might be, but it seems like a fair assumption that individuals on the low end of blood-rank two will not be particularly distant relatives. Now, what is a commonly-held belief about the health consequences for inbred children? Precisely, birth defects.

The more I considered this possibility, the more it seemed to fit. We know how highly Chosen value not only blood purity but perceived physical perfection. Think on how syblings are treated, for instance, of the revulsion and contempt others feel for them. If all three of Aurum's daughters had some sort of physically disfiguring condition (not going to make specific guesses as to what this could be, at least not for the time being, let's just say some recessive genetic disorder all three happened to inherit) and this was known, or at least heavily suspected, outside House Aurum itself… Well, I think it would explain why Aurum securing a new match via one of theirs seems to be considered a non-option. And while it could be argued the lords of the Great would not care about their wives' physical appearance, with potential pure-blooded children being all that mattered… I feel that while the setting does not have medical knowledge comparable to that of our modern world, there would be enough of an understanding of inheritable conditions for at least be suspected that the Aurum sisters could very well pass on theirs to any eventual children. That, I think, would be the true insidious horror of this scenario from the lords' perspective; a match with any of the Aurum ladies would be a risky endeavour, with the chance of any resulting children turning out "defective" always present. I believe that under these circumstances, many lords would rather wait for a better match to come along, even if that involved a long wait: the blood purity gained would just not be enough to compensate for the worst case scenario.

More, I think that Aurum himself would be negatively affected by his daughters' condition, and not just regarding the impact on his ability to find a third wife. I am convinced that any Chosen lord (let alone a high-ranked, influential one like Aurum) would feel deeply ashamed at the realisation he had produced "imperfect", "flawed" children (after all, unlike for the syblings, there would be no outside force causing this issue, it would very obviously be the parents' "fault" from a general perspective), likely resulting in somewhat repressed, intense feelings of inferiority/insecurity. With this scenario at play, Aurum's obsessive need to sire marumaga children during his exile could be read as not just stemming from a need to prove himself healthy and virile despite his age, but also to reassure himself that there was no underlying corruption in his blood, that he could still sire physically perfect children.

There is one more point I would like to address in the context of this theory — the fact that Aurum did end up arranging matches for his daughters during the pre-election negotiations. I think that fact does not necessarily invalidate the theory. We learn very little information about these matches and the specific circumstances/details, but I feel it is important to keep in mind they are basically being used as a last resort on Aurum's part to gain more support for their faction. It seems plausible enough to me that the desperation of the situation caused Aurum to consider having his daughters marry lords far lower-ranked than he would ever have otherwise (under normal circumstances, he would surely have seen these as beneath his daughters/House, regardless of their physical appearance). Additionally, these lower-ranked lords would likely have fewer misgivings about these matches than those who had so far considered the risks outweighed the benefits. A match with a lady this pure-blooded would be an unique opportunity to them, something not easily, if ever, achievable outside of a situation such as this one.

With this, today's theory is concluded. Expanding it from the initial idle thought was definitely entertaining, and no matter what, I'm still very pleased to finally have shared an actual SDC theory in this blog (something I had considered several times in the past but never materialised). Hopefully, some of you at least will find it interesting even if you don't see it as particularly plausible — that is, after all, just part of the appeal of fan theories, they are subjective by nature.

[ykoriana-imperatrix]

SDC Month - June 2022 - Saturday #1

Regular Saturday programming for SDC month starts next Saturday, the 11th — today, I just wanted to acknowledge Ykoriana's birthday! She is, of course, my favourite SDC character, so how could I have her birthday being even slightly overshadowed by another project? It just wouldn't be right.

And by the way, this would indeed be a fanon birth date: Ykoriana's canonical birthday (and those of characters from her generation in general) is never mentioned in either the books or supplementary material. A brief lesson in fandom and fanon history: the specific date of the 4th of Sural/June was originally picked by me and @suth-sardian back in late 2018 or thereabouts. It resulted from the 5th of Mandara/October being chosen as Sardian's fanon birthday, and the thematically interesting idea of making Kumatuya's almost equidistant from both Sardian's and Ykoriana's, but one day closer to the former's. So Kumatuya ended up with the 5th of Gua/August as his birthday and Ykoriana with the 4th of June as hers (which ends up being fitting in multiple ways, since 4 is also her very iconic number).

In any case, a happy birthday to Ykoriana Four-Blood, once and future Empress, who was, is, and will undoubtedly continue to be awesomeness personified. She might not be quite as much love and life (though she is definitely also that at times) as fear and death, blood and iron, roses and rubies, but quite frankly, all that just contributes to make her all the more amazing. Who can truly best Ykoriana in presence and epic imagery, after all?