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copperhawks · 18 days ago

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The only reason WE know that Thayet moved into another wing of the palace over Jon saying no to Kalasin is because Pierce mentioned it in a Q&A. The only mention ever made about Kally's situation IN THE BOOKS is one singular throw-away line in either Page or Squire (I did re-read the series very recently, but it's one line and I've forgotten which book exactly it was in, but it's definitely one of those two). It's not even said BY Kel, it's told to her by someone else, one of the other pages/squires who's more connected to palace gossip. It is told to her as basically "The King said no to his daughter" and so it makes sense for her to blame Jon instead of Thayet for this, but there's no actual mention made of what Thayet thought of it or her reaction to it in the book itself and so there's no way for Kel to know just how badly Thayet DID react.

I think Kel tends to look at the situation on the assumption that Thayet has basically no power in comparison to Jon, that Jon has the ultimate power and Thayet is like... admirable in some of her charity work, but that Thayet doesn't really have anything to do with day-to-day legal decisions.

I think that Kel also has an incredibly naive view of what being a King tends to entail and how much power Jon has over other people, something that his big speech in Squire is meant to address to some degree. From Kel's perspective, since Jon technically has the ABILITY to do whatever he wants, he SHOULD just override anyone who tells him no so long as it's the right thing to do (ignoring that what Kel thinks is "the right thing to do" may not be what others think is "the right thing to do" or that there could be a domino effect from some of those decisions that negatively impact other people). So since the probation HAPPENED, Kel's perspective is that Jon simply chose not to use the power that he had to uphold a law that he had changed because he... didn't really believe in women being knights, or just simply didn't believe in HER personally for some reason. AT BEST, Kel just believes that, when faced with his nobles' bigotry, Jon was a spineless coward who didn't fight them the way he should have and could have. Kel cannot conceive of a situation in which Jon might be forced into a corner by his own nobles. She cannot conceive of how his nobles might have more power than he does by virtue of there being a lot of them who can stand together. She cannot conceive of how much of a threat that could create both to Jon personally and to the kingdom at large.

Kel doesn't even quite realize how WYLDON played into her own probation, how Wyldon was threatening to QUIT over her being allowed to train and how the probation was WYLDON'S IDEA IN THE FIRST PLACE. She doesn't ever discover that Alanna herself was willing to accept the probation because Alanna knew what the consequences would be if Wyldon quit and how bad it would be for everybody (she only gets angry enough to leave when Wyldon insists that Alanna can't interact with Kel).

So, yeah, Kel's understanding of politics is SO limited and SO childish and naive that she basically just assumes Jon can do whatever he wants whenever he wants however he wants and so if any decision is made that seems a little unfair, then it has to be entirely Jon's fault because there's no way he can ever be pressured into making decisions that compromise on his values. Which means yes, she never blames Thayet for anything. She barely even blames Wyldon for anything (she barely even blames Wyldon for his immediate treatment of her during her page years and often finds excuses for him in order to believe he's a better person than everyone thinks he is). ALL of her frustration and anger and pain is aimed at Jon. Wyldon can treat her like DIRT for four years and Kel considers him one of her primary role models, while Jon can treat her incredibly kindly during their first interaction and Kel basically thinks he's just being phony about it. Wyldon can straight up admit to having treated Kel unfairly for years and Kel refuses to even acknowledge the truth of that, while Jon can actually change an entire law because Kel insists upon it and Kel just finds it really uncomfortable to have been given what she wants with relatively little effort.

Kel is pretty simple minded. She sees the world in pretty black and white colors and more than anything else, she wants the rest of the world to BE simple. She wants the bad guys and the good guys to be easy to tell apart, and she wants to be able to just defeat all the bad guys without there being any ramifications. Unfortunately, the world's not actually as simple as Kel is, and that IS something Kel has to come to grips with later on in her life. That speech from Jon is one of the more defining moments for me in part because I do think that it's the first time this world view of hers is REALLY challenged like that. Kel says "So change the law" like it's something Jon can just snap his fingers and do overnight, and Jon's response is to point out just how many laws they HAVE changed and how much TIME it takes to change even one law and how delicate of a process it actually is and how many compromises it often requires.

This is the first time Kel even realizes it's POSSIBLE for regular people to have the power to rebel against the King if they wanted to, it's the first time she's realized that people like farmers and priests and nobles can actually CAUSE PROBLEMS if they're unhappy. THIS is how simple Kel's worldview is. THIS is why Kel places all of her rage on Jon and Jon alone, because as much as she is the "Protector of the Small," she's never considered before this moment that the "small" can have power of their own. And from Kel's perspective, for the most part, everyone's smaller than the King, even the Queen.

And that's why I find it so interesting to look at some of the choices she makes when SHE'S finally in a position of leadership in Lady Knight and all of the sudden, she's making compromises of her own. Ones that infringe on her own values, no less. Kel is faced with leading a bunch of criminals, some of whom had literally tried to kill her and her friends just a few years ago, and recognizing that they're still people who deserve to be treated fairly. But she also is faced with a situation where her power over others is EXTREMELY limited due to her youth and inexperience and her gender. She cannot simply do whatever she wants whenever she wants however she wants. She cannot simply give an order and expect it to be obeyed without question. She has to EARN the respect of most of the people she's supposed to be leading, and that takes both time and COMPROMISE.

Her primary role models are Wyldon, and Raoul. Neither of these people are people we see compromising on their values all that much. Wyldon obviously famously does compromise ONCE, but he only does so when Jon starts throwing around his weight as the King in order to force Wyldon's compliance. But Wyldon isn't all that compromising with people LESS powerful than he is, it tends to be his way or the highway. Raoul is generally portrayed as already well-liked and respected enough that he doesn't have to make compromises to get people to obey his orders, even if they don't like the orders he's giving. And he doesn't really compromise with Jon during the times they're at odds, Raoul just refuses to obey for as long as he reasonably can. Both Wyldon and Raoul are so much more established in their roles that their power goes basically unquestioned by the people underneath them. Kel does not have that kind of luxury in her situation, so she cannot really emulate EITHER of their styles and expect it to work for her (not yet, at least).

Which forces Kel to act in a way that, ironically, ends up feeling a lot more similar to the way Jon talks about having to act. I don't think this is in any way intentional on Kel's part, she certainly never says that it is, but it's undeniably THERE. There's even a moment with Daine where Daine says something to the effect of "I don't know why I'm even asking you this, you never question orders you're given" and Kel's first thought is, "I do, I just only do it in my head." And I find that a REALLY interesting moment because it shows us for the first time what someone from the outside might think of Kel without there being any sexist bias.

Daine has no idea how frustrated Kel has been towards the orders she's been given, she has no idea about all of the little rebellions Kel HAS done over the last eight years or so, and there's no way for her TO know those things and it doesn't make Daine a terrible person for having an opinion on Kel that is formed from what she DOES know, but it does mean that her opinion isn't necessarily going to be all that accurate.

Similarly, Kel has no idea how frustrated Jon has likely been with the compromises he's had to make over the years, she has no idea about all of the times he HAS fought for change, she has no idea how hard he fought FOR HER when Wyldon threw his temper tantrum and how close Jon got to just ordering Wyldon to do it, and there's no way for her TO know those things and it doesn't make Kel a terrible person for having that opinion of Jon that's based on what she DOES know, but much like Daine, it does mean that her opinion isn't going to be all that accurate.

Is it unfair to force Kel to do a probation year? Yeah, of course. It was ALSO unfair for Kel to allow her criminal soldiers to be a little mistreated by their sergeants. But she does it anyway because she knows she doesn't have enough real respect or authority or power to insist on stopping all of it without losing what respect she DOES have with her officers, and losing the ability to command them at all could have some pretty serious long-term consequences (she's specifically recognizing that the officers might commit BIGGER infractions later that she wants to be able to address, so she's actually doing this FOR the criminals' well-being). I imagine that that logic doesn't really mean anything to those criminals dealing with the day-to-day mistreatment they're getting and I imagine that, to them, it probably looks like Kel doesn't really care all that much about how they're being mistreated. Their feelings about her being kind-of complicated or even negative would be entirely understandable, even if they're completely wrong about how she feels and why she's making the choices she's making. But does that make Kel WRONG for making that choice? Not necessarily. She makes the best choice she can with the resources she has available to her. It sucks, it's unfair, it's also still the best possible choice for her to make.

This is not the kind of decision that Wyldon or Raoul ever have to make. At least, not that we see within POTS. But it IS the kind of choice that Jon has to make, all the time, over and over again. And Thayet makes those choices with him, but both with the probation year and with Kally's knighthood, Jon is intentionally alone when making those decisions. Thayet gets to keep her hands clean, while Jon gets branded as a "good king who can't always be a good man" because of those decisions.

Anyway, this was an incredibly long response to a few tags, but basically, the reason Kel never even THINKS to blame Thayet for anything isn't because she's privvy to certain information about Thayet and Jon's personal life, but because she's so simplistic in her worldview and so uninterested in how politics and history work that it never occurs to her that Jon isn't some all-power near-deity as a King. She'll never blame anyone but Jon for the probation, she'll never see nuance in Kalasin's situation, because that would fuck pretty hard with how she wants to believe the world works. Jon is her enemy and Thayet is not because that's a lot easier to understand and believe than the idea that people in leadership positions often have to make hard decisions that compromise on their values in order to make the best decision for the most people, and it doesn't make those leaders bad people. Kel doesn't NEED to know that Thayet moved to another wing of the castle over Jon's decision about Kally in order to give Thayet the benefit of the doubt that she never bothers to give Jon.

The funniest thing to me about Kel, and maybe one of the most interesting because of how understated it is, is that Kel becomes a good commander in the end, not by emulating Wyldon who was cold and implacable and insensitive, or by emulating Raoul who mostly only disobeys orders out of principle or because he has an issue with what the order says about his personal relationship with Jon, but by emulating JON.

Kel doesn't even LIKE Jon, she BARELY respects him as a person. He's a good enough ruler that she's willing to fight for him and swear loyalty to him and to at least mostly believe that he wouldn't work with Blayce to make his own killing monsters, but that's as far as it goes for Kel. If he's kind to her, she finds it uncomfortable and almost untrustworthy because she assumes he doesn't care about her and so his kindness and respect towards her must be fake.

But from the outside, as readers, we know just how much Jon fought for Kel. We know how much he does respect her right to be a knight. Jon is the sole reason that Kel DID get the opportunity to prove herself, if he'd capitulated to Wyldon completely, she just wouldn't have ever been allowed to join. Kel doesn't KNOW THAT, obviously, but we do. We know that Jon did everything he could to find a way to convince Wyldon to let Kel become a page. While Wyldon claims later that the reason he chose to let her stay at the end of the probation year was because his better judgment convinced him she'd earned it, I'd be willing to bet that part of that better judgment also included knowing if he couldn't prove to JON that she needed to go, then he'd be in trouble. Kel was training and working in front of plenty of other trainers and teachers who could easily contradict Wyldon's lies if he'd tried it, many of whom are closer to Jon than they are to Wyldon.

Kel's experiences and feelings about that experience are entirely valid, and she doesn't have the knowledge we do about how hard Jon fought for her, so it's not shocking that she's upset with him for a good portion of her series. She never even discovers this truth by the end of her series, even though she does get a lesson from Jon and Thayet (and Raoul to some degree) about how politics and compromises work in order to make changes happen. So her opinion of him by the end is boiled down to the quote from Squire: "good kings weren't always good men." It makes sense for her to think this, but because Kel's knowledge base is so limited (and her worldview so black and white for much of her series), it makes her an EXTREMELY unreliable narrator about this particular issue.

Kel believes that while Jon generally does his duty and keeps the peace, he doesn't actually care all that much about his people as individuals. But in their only meaningful conversation in Squire, Jon is able to point out that he (and Thayet, who is actually equal to Jon in power, something Kel either doesn't know which would be a failure in her education or just tends to ignore so she can focus her ire on Jon) has to make a LOT of compromises in order to get ANYTHING useful done at all. Sometimes, often, it means making deals with people he doesn't like or people he just fundamentally disagrees with, because it's the first step in a multi-step plan to help more people in the long run. He also points out that just throwing his weight and authority around in order to be able to change everything he wants to change immediately regardless of what anyone else thinks about it is a great way to get himself and his family killed. Because even if he had good intentions, that would be tyranny. It does make Kel think a little, but she doesn't tend to like him much still afterwards, her resentment from her page years will always color her opinion of him a little.

However, then she gets to Haven and she's suddenly tossed into a position of leadership over a lot of other people, many of whom disagree with each other or disagree with her or both. And all of the sudden, Kel has to make compromises. She doesn't LIKE the way the sergeants often treat their men, especially the sergeants whose men are convicts, but there's very very little she can do about it without really pissing off those same sergeants and that's not something she can afford to do. There's a moment when Neal starts getting frustrated about the treatment of the convicts and she takes him out to vent to her so he doesn't vent to the sergeants, something that the sergeants would then take out on their men. Kel's reasoning as she does this is that she "preferred to avoid battles with them now so she would have authority with them later if she needed to use it." Later, Kel is talking to Daine and she says "That's all this job is... Trying to please everyone and pleasing no one. And it will only get worse, not better."

Both of these moments showcase Kel choosing to make compromises. She may not like the way the sergeants treat the convicts, but she needs to stay on the sergeants' good sides because she doesn't have enough resources to butt heads with them nor enough authority to just force the issue, and even if she DID, it could cause the sergeants to become troublesome or take out their frustration with her on the men in ways she can't see as well. But staying on the sergeants' good sides might mean letting some of their maltreatment slide if it's not physically harming the convicts. And even setting that aside, she's dealing with nearly 500 refugees eventually, all of which are from different towns in the area and have different needs, not all of which she can accommodate. This requires compromise. Sometimes she can please some of them and not others, but mostly she probably just ends up not pleasing anybody because that's often how compromises WORK.

She never makes the active connection to Jon and his lesson on leadership from Squire while she's in Haven, but that quote up there about how this job (aka being a commander) is all about trying to please everyone and pleasing no one? It sounds a HECK of a lot like "good kings weren't always good men." You can try your best to help others, but often doing the right thing can involve making everyone unhappy. You can't be everybody's friend if you're going to get anything done.

Some of this she might've learned from Raoul's style of command, but Raoul commands a fairly small amount of people (at least in comparison to a King), and so we see him able to be pretty friendly to the people he commands in a way that Jon is perhaps unable to do. And she might believe that she learned some of this from Wyldon, but Wyldon had a tendency to be very unfair and biased due to his raging bigotry and conservative values, as well as the fact that he doesn't actually even LIKE being a training master and that likely impacted the way he treated the pages (he's almost never that kind to the pages, whereas we see him capable of being quite kind with the refugees later, which is where Kel comes to the conclusion that he hadn't enjoyed being a training master).

But Jon makes an entire speech about how he (and Thayet) have been working THEIR ENTIRE REIGN to change laws that help people. He explains how they have to consider the needs of merchants, nobles, farmers, street people, priests/priestesses, and mages. They have to consider not only what these people might need or want, but also what they could do when they feel sufficiently offended and how that could impact not just the royal family or the nobility but the realm as a whole. Jon points out that they HAVE made changes, for the better, and that just because they don't always succeed at everything or because they have to compromise sometimes, doesn't mean they aren't working at making changes or that they don't care about helping people. Not everyone you have power over is going to be your friend, they might not even be someone you like. But if you're going to take on the job of leadership, that's something you have to be willing to accept and work with, which often means making compromises with people whose needs and values are contradictory to your own.

Jon probably knows when he makes the compromise with Wyldon that it will likely impact a lot of people's good opinion of him. Alanna is right there and clearly angry, and we know Thayet doesn't like the decision, either. And it's entirely possible that Jon knows in the moment that Kel herself will put the blame on him because he's the King. But he also knows that if he insists on Kel being allowed to be a page without trying to compromise with Wyldon, Wyldon will quit over it and he'll end up with ten DIFFERENT problems that could cause a lot bigger issues to far more people than just one girl. So he makes the compromise. He sacrifices Alanna and Thayet and even Kel's good opinion of him in order to ensure that Kel gets the opportunity to become a Knight without turning all of his nobles against him which could ultimately lead to a civil war. Is it fair? No, and he knows it. But it's the best option he has in order to get the outcome they all actually want which is just for Kel to have the chance to prove herself.

Kel has to make similar choices once she's finally in a position of leadership of her own. And whether she realizes it or not, without ever even spending more than a few minutes with Jon, she ends up emulating his leadership style more than anybody else's because it WORKS and it works WELL. She'll probably never admit it, she might never even realize it herself, but she's so much more like Jon than any of the other men she sees as role models. And I love that. I love the dramatic irony of that, that the one person Kel only barely respects because of a compromise he made on her behalf that she'll never even know about, is the person Kel ends up most resembling. Jon is the reason she has the opportunity to become the Protector of the Small in the first place, Jon is the person who created that environment that allowed her to nurture those values, and she'll probably never even really be able to acknowledge that, because sometimes that's what being a good leader means.

#long post #thayet jian wilima #jonathan of conte #keladry of mindelan #pots

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where-our-stories-start · 4 years ago

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Tortall Fancast Series - Thayet jian Wilima

“Thayet is often described as one of the most beautiful women in existence. In 439 HE, she is described as having creamy ivory skin, jet black hair and hazel eyes[12]. Her face, and particularly her nose, is described as strong-boned, with even brows and a naturally red mouth. Her nose makes her face human as opposed to "inhumanly beautiful", and is courtesy of her father Adigun.” (x)

(on the K’mir) “Actually, they’re based partly on the Mongols in that they’re riders, partly on the Montagnard tribes of the central highlands of Vietnam, and a bit on the Maya at least in their facial bones. Their language is cobbled from the Montagnard. You may have some trouble tracking pictures of them down, but they come from similar aboriginal stock to the Laotian Hmong and Meo tribes and the Thai hill tribes. And their armor is a bit like the armor of the samurai, only it’s lacquer over bamboo in layers and cured to an iron-like consistency. Saren culture is a mix of Eastern lands culture and a dash of Vietnamese/Cambodian culture, but not too much, because those are jungle cultures (with dress for warmer climates and foods for same), and Saraine is close to the Roof of the World.” (x)

Thayet is roughly 20 when she meets Alanna (the wiki has some conflicting dates), and in her early 50s by the time Daine’s first child is born.

So I went back and forth a lot on how racially specific to be with this fancast. On the one hand, Tamora Pierce’s cultures are all based on (combinations of) real-world cultures, and I think it’s important that this be reflected in the fancasting. On the other, the K’mir and the Saren lowlanders are amalgamations of several real-world cultures depending on whether we’re talking about culture, climate, or physical description, so there’s a bit more flexibility to choose actors who fit the characters’ physical description but are not necessarily of the ideal race or ethnicity. There’s also the added component that Mongolian and Southeast Asian actors almost never appear in western medieval/renaissance period dramas, so the pickings were pretty slim.

Ultimately, I decided to go by physical description over race. My one limit is that since Thayet is explicitly written as mixed-race, I don’t feel comfortable fancasting white actors. I’ve included the race/ethnicity of each actor below, so anyone who wants to use this can make their own decisions about how racially specific they want to be.

Anyway, here we go:

MEDALION RAHIMI - PRINCESS ISABELLA (STILL STAR-CROSSED)

Medalion Rahimi is hands-down my favorite fancast for Thayet. She looks exactly like I imagine, right down to the take-no-shit look in her eyes. She was roughly 25 when filming Still Star-Crossed, so she makes a good fancast for early-reign Thayet. She is of Jewish and Middle-Eastern descent.

INDIRA VARMA - VARIETY OF ROLES

Indira Varma is also high on my list of Thayet fancasts, and she’s particularly useful because she’s been in several period dramas and fantasies throughout her career. She was in her early 30s while filming Rome, 39 during World Without End, and early 40s during Game of Thrones. She is mixed race Indian and white.

Q’ORIANKA KILCHER - PRINCESS KAIULANI (PRINCESS KAIULANI)

Q’orianka Kilcher is usually one of my favorite fancasts for Lalasa, but she works well for young Thayet as well, and the costumes in Princess Kaiulani are wonderfully elaborate and regal. (Also it’s just a really great movie, you should watch it.) She was roughly 18 during filming. She is of Peruvian and European descent.

JESSICA HENWICK - NYMERIA SAND (GAME OF THRONES)

Jessica Henwick is another great young Thayet. She was 22-24 while filming Game of Thrones. Her costumes are a bit more revealing than I imagine Thayet wears, but her armor is pretty fitting. She is Chinese, Singaporean, and Zambian.

GEMMA CHAN - BESS OF HARDWICK (MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS)

Gemma Chan was 35 when filming Mary Queen of Scots, and is pretty much the only Asian actor I can find in a European-set, Renaissance period drama. Her clothes are fairly close to how I imagine Tortallan fashion during Jonathan’s reign. The only drawback is she seems to consistently wear her hair in this weird updo. I picture Thayet with her hair usually tied up, but... not exactly like this. Gemma Chan is ethnically Chinese.

If you’ve got favorite fancasts for Thayet, feel free to add them! The full series can be found here. Thanks to whichever anon requested Thayet; she was a challenge, and I got to go down some good POC period drama rabbit holes, which will prove infinitely useful. If anyone has other requests, send them my way!

#tortall #tamora pierce #tortall fancast series #thayet jian wilima #thayet #fancasts #request #medalion rahimi #indira varma #q'orianka kilcher #jessica henwick #gemma chan

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