#seeing all the structures in the Neath that interact to suppress resistance and uphold the supposed divine right of kings

[peliginspeaks]

It's been more than two entire years since I finished BaL and now I'm using mobile data at work to be angry about Veils. Okay so. Here's the thing.

When it hunts, Veils paints itself as a beast. It tells you it's only natural for it to kill, that its appetite must be sated, that its confinement down here is to blame for its actions. This creature, who controls the silk industry in Victorian London, claims instinct is its only motivator and to accuse it of strategy or power-hunger is absurd. But when you want to kill it? Then of course it's an incredibly complex being, so much higher on the chain than you, with plans and strategies beyond your feeble human mind. The whole point of the narrative Veils paints around itself is to both excuse itself of accountability and lift itself above the very idea of being fallible, by manipulating its image to fit either mastermind or animal as it sees fit. And people fall for it. I'm not going to yuck anybody's interpretation of the story (very genuinely I love and value differences in that across players) but I see very very few people acknowledge Veils as a political threat or essentially member of government, and many more focus on the monstrousness of it and the role of instinct in its reasoning.

Bag a Legend is in many ways a story about "violence begets violence", about cycles and corruption, but it's also (as many many stories in Flondon are) a commentary on authority. Veils is, at its core, an authority figure who extended its role from political violence to at-will physical violence against its own charges. Its base role, even if it hadn't become the Vake, is violent. It is heavily involved in the Great Game as well as controlling a vast chunk of London industry, and was actively negotiating the purchase of the Sixth City when the PC killed it - a political action in the interests of the Bazaar that would have killed a vast swathe of people it has no reason to care about beyond as a resource. Even if it had never sunk claws into a person, it would still be violent and extremely dangerous. April knows it, the nuns know it, but it seems a part of Veil's strategy is to get any prospective hunters to forget about that part of its role only when it's convenient and remember it only when it's intimidating.

Incompetent when questioned and all-powerful when threatened. The parallel to real-life corrupt authority is just. Infuriatingly familiar. Excellent job, Failbetter.