Guest Post On Orbit—“The Evolution of Character: Malian of Night and the Heroic Tradition”—Plus Giveaway!
Giveaway Result:
You’ll recall that I had two x signed copies of the new UK mass market Heir to give away with this post—and the names the Sorting Hat has given me are:
Craig; and
Jessica
Congratulations Craig & Jessica—and a big thank you to everyone who commented!
Regarding mailing the copies: Craig, I already have your address so will get your copy in the post. Jessica, if you email me on contact[at]gmail[dot]com with a postal address your copy will be on its way to you ‘interfrastically!’ 🙂
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I have a guest post on the Orbit blog today, titled “The Evolution of Character: Malian of Night and the Heroic Tradition”, which begins:
“Recently I was asked, ‘what makes Malian, your main character in The Heir of Night, unique in epic fantasy? And what makes a hero, anyway?’ My initial response was ‘aargh, the pressure’—not just of an example, but of encapsulating what is often the slow delicate process of character evolution. And Malian of Night’s character did evolve over many years, from long before I first put pen to paper: sometimes in small increments, occasionally in giant leaps. I have spoken elsewhere of the similar emergence of the Wall of Night world: from around the age of 10 I had a vision of a rugged, shadowy, wind-blasted environment, and the concept of a youthful female protagonist within that world developed at much the same time.
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To read the full post, click here.
And please do feel free to comment—we “like” comments.:) (I’ll keep my eye on the comments board and make sure I reply if you do.)
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But there is more.
Amongst other matters, the post reflects on Malian’s character qualities, which include a sense of justice and empathy for others—and I query how/where she might have acquired them, given the nature of the Derai society in which she has been raised.
As I have said in other posts, Derai society is not only rigid and narrow in its world view—the word xenophobic might also be used—but it’s divided within itself by prejudice, suspicion and fear. So here’s the thing that drives my reflection on Malian’s character—although we may be born with an innately good natured or less well-disposed personality, I believe that the majority of our values are learned. We are taught that honesty and integrity matter, or that they don’t; and questions such as whether we decide to view the world in an elitist or egalitarian way are also influenced by those around us. We may rebel—but first we have to acquire the value set that teaches us to question the validity of our status quo.
So my premise in relation to Malian’s character is that if she lives in a fundamentally narrow, prejudiced and intolerant society, then it would be unlikely for her to develop a strong sense of justice and empathy for others as a matter of course. Somehow or other those values have been modelled for her and she has chosen to internalise them. As the author, I believe I know who and what those models are, although—a hint—I’m not sure all of them are necessarily obvious. But the great thing about readers is that each one brings their own ideas and perspective to the story (which is why I always say that reading is an interactive process) and so may see the interplay between the characters entirely differently.
Obviously you’ll have to read the book to decide what you think and make up your own mind—you may even feel that Malian doesn’t display much of a sense of justice or empathy for others. But some of you who have already read the book may want to chip in with your thoughts and I’d be very interested to hear them!
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And To Celebrate the UK Mass Market Release of Heir …
To celebrate the mass market release of The Heir of Night in the UK there is to be a series of 3 guest posts on the Orbit blog. I’ll be doing a companion post here to mark each one and giving away 2 copies of the new mass market edition (signed of course!) for each of the 3 posts—to be drawn from commenters who either post here or on the Orbit blog. (If you comment in both places then your name goes in the draw twice.:) ) And with The Gathering of the Lost coming out at the end of March what better time to be reading or re-reading The Heir of Night! 🙂
The eligibility period for comments for the first two giveaway books will be to 12 midnight, Sunday 15 January, NZ time.
What makes us who we are is always going to be an interesting question.
We are all exposed to a range of different points of view, and patterns of behaviour.
How do we chose which ones we make our own?
In the case of Malian I always got the sense that there was an innate goodness there, as well as a diet of duty and hero tales.
I suppose it is a nature vs nurture argument, and I don’t think you can disregard the former, there are enough real life examples of folk who turm to the dark side despite a perfectly ok upbringing and great role models. But I guess I wonder if the converse can be true: ie that no matter how ‘good’ your innate nature, if all the examples around you affirm bad values and bad behaviour, won’t you believe that is ‘normal’ and act according yourself? I am also thinking about the use of child soldiers in civil conflict situations, where when exposed to war/violence they have been found to more violent/cruel/extreme than adults, simply because their values and boundaries are less well formed and more malleable–and that any innate goodness is quickly eroded through peer pressure and the examples being set all around them. Not surprisingly, a big part of their rehabilitation is teaching them alternate values and boundaries again.
I think nurture shapes us, and the things we’re exposed to can change us, but only in both cases if we choose to let them, and I think our nature makes that choice.
What I mean is, a room full of children could sit down to watch the same movie and all take different messages from it. I think the type of person we are is our choice. I find it very hard to swallow when people blame their problems on their childhood.
Malian definitely seemed like a good and empathetic character to me, and not in a cliched way, which I liked 🙂
Wen, I agree with you 100% that there’s only so much you can blame on your childhood in the normal way of things: I once heard this great quote, ‘So your Mom made you guilt sandwiches—well you ate ’em!”
But I think circumstances that are beyond the norm probably have to have some kind of effect, don’t you, such as war and Post Traumatic Stress disorder? And I can’t help feeling that despite variations in personality, if no one teaches kids that stealing other kids’ stuff is wrong, then they will likley feel that it is ok to help themselves. And conversely, if a kid has a naturally generous or sympathetic nature, that can either be pressured out of them by adults and peer pressure, or at least kept well hidden.
And I’m very glad Malian came through as not cliched, as well as good and empathetic—my work (if not done, given Heir is the first in the series) is off to a good start. 😉
Great old chestnut to bring up, Helen, and one I suspect we’ll never fully crack… though it’s pretty clear what the devastating effects of a bad environment can be. (Surviving that sort of so-called nurture might itself be an act of heroism.)
Or maybe the true definition of heroism is that of a character not only surviving his or her environment, but transcending it? In other words: don’t let the bastards get you down.
I think Malian has an innate strength, whatever she chooses to do with it.
I suspect you are right, Mary, about it never quite being resolved, basically because there are not absolutes on either side of the argument. It is a continuum, even though I am arguing one aspect of it at present. But I think it takes a very special kind of person to transcend an extremely adverse environment–which is one reason I like Samiha’s Song so much, because through Samiha you explore that exact idea, one that we very occasionally see played out in real life as well. One such example would be Laurens van der Post and his experience as a prisoner of war of the Japanese in WWII where somehow he managed to attain that space where it wasn’t even a case of ‘don’t let the bastards grind you down’, but don’t see them as bastards at all … I think this may be the hardest thing in the world to do, or one of them at any rate.
Ah yes, true heroism. Not to see enemies as enemies. Pretty damn near impossible, though we do hear of these amazing real life examples… 😉
Certainly very difficult … a little like the zen apiration toward non-attachment, which perhaps comes back to the not buying into self and other, i.e. the qualities that we believe define ‘self’ and ‘other’ are simply another form of attachment …hmm, this may be shaping up as ‘philosophical Saturday.’ Perhaps I should abandon philosophy and go out into the real world somewhere.:)
Good philosophy is the real world! 😀
Well, it’s blazing hot here today with plenty of blustery wind—plains and big-sky-country style—but a friend and I took the spirit of getting out there literally and drove to Oxford for lunch and a walk around all the little arts’n’crafty style shops that have sprung up there of recent years. And of course I bought a book–High Fearnley-Whittingstall’s “River Cottage Veg Everyday” which has some great looking recipes that I am longing to try out.
More seriously, I think the hurly-burly of the real world is the test of philosophy as well as of strength of character—making a neat turn around to return to Malian of Night! 😉
I think we beat you on bluster. It’s been whip-your-tail-off windy here for several days, with bright sun combined. Nests blown off trees, poor sad little eggs in the grass. The cat, increasingly pregnant and contemptuous of philosophy, lies panting on the floor or yowls for food. (Did you know about the supposedly ‘spayed’, now very pregnant cat? Does anyone you know in Welly want a kitten?)
Only one kitten–you are an optimist, Mary.:) But I shall defer to Welly in the matter of wind—ours is more Canty bluster “Norwest Season” style.
LOL. We’ve pre-adopted 4 out already… so all going well, we should be able to find a home for 6-8. At worst they will be adopted back by the shelter that sold us the (supposedly spayed) one.
There could be a story in that … 🙂
I think there is an interesting contrast between Malian and the earl. The earl seems to have a strong sense of right and wrong but it is tempered in the framework of his sense of duty which in turn seems to have been imposed on him by his own father. Malian may have ended up a very similar character to her father if she underwent a similar upbringing.
I think you are right to point to Malian’s father in terms of that sense of justice—and to raise questions about his father, although my feeling as the Earl’s character and the story evolved was that a great deal of his rigid sense of justice was in reaction to his own father, and that rigidity now straitjackets his empathy, whereas Malian has more flexibility, particularly around duty. I think Andrew pointed to duty as well, but also Malian’s diet of hero tales and hero-worship of Yorindesarinen, which was insightful. But there are others in the mix who I feel may have counterbalanced that rigidity in the Earl, Asantir and Haimyr in particular—but once again it is the Earl who has introduced Haimyr into the Derai world, and who has elevated Asantir …
hi there, i have been recommend your books by a friends and am heading to the library tomorrow to have a look for some copies, thought i would pop in too say hello and have a look around 🙂
Thanks for dropping by, Jessica. I shall be posting the giveaway result here later today.