Shards of Honor - readthrough!

[flourish]

To kick off our Vorkosiverse reread: Shards of Honor! I've just got some quick thoughts, and look forward to hearing all of yours too:

• Cordelia discusses herself as being somewhat socially awkward or incapable when she talks about the bad relationship she was in pre-Aral, but she doesn't actually end up being that way in the series later. Is this just self-doubt? Or could it be that Cordelia is "out of step" with Beta colony and for some reason has assumptions about the way people interact that's more suited to life on Barrayar (or, even, not on Barrayar either, but at least on Barrayar she knows her assumptions are likely to be wrong)?
• I've recently seen some people complaining about the question of "blood guilt" that gets brought up with the fetuses in replicators, suggesting that Bujold has some kind of anti-abortion axe to grind. Rereading it this time, I wonder if it isn't perfectly reasonable: on Beta colony there are not typically any unwanted pregnancies, nor would I imagine are they very common on Escobar. The idea that Betan culture - how does Cordelia put it? "has a respect for life"? - has a very different tenor than it does in the United States today, then, or on Barrayar for that matter. I don't have any opinion on the topic that I care to share, but it was interesting to me to meditate on how it affects our understanding of Cordelia...
• It's also interesting that Cordelia explicitly positions herself as a theist. I like that Bujold does not just allow the assumption that everyone is a theist, or everyone is an atheist, or whatever.
• It just occurred to me: Konstantine Bothari - he's Greek! And so is Elena, then. Somehow it did not occur to me that 'Konstantine' established him as part of the Greek minority on Barrayar.
• Rereading Shards of Honor reminded me of Xav Vorbarra's Betan wife. To refresh: Xav is the younger son of Dorca the Just, half-brother to Mad Emperor Yuri. He ended up living through the end of the Time of Isolation (or at least Dorca's reign overlapped the Time of Isolation's end, so I assume Xav lived through it) and ended up bringing home a Betan wife from his ambassadorship to Beta colony. I don't know if we know her name, but his daughter Olivia married Piotr and therefore was Aral's mother; another daughter was Padma Vorpatril's mother. Can we say wonderful fanfiction topic? I would love to dig my teeth into writing about the experience of a Betan going to just-post-Time of Isolation Barrayar! Holy jeez, talk about culture shock.

What are you all thinking about?

Remember: the next book in our readthrough is Barrayar, and we'll be discussing it on June 1!

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

To respond to your first point, I see the socially inept Cordelia of the past that Cordelia describes to Aral on Sergyar as one end of a long arc of personal development that culminates in the end of Barrayar to produce the centered Cordellia we see in all the books published after Barrayar was written.

This tale is one of repeatedly learning A) not to let others define you and B) to assert herself -- Cordellia first realizes the mistake she made in stepping aside to let her then-lover become Betan Survey Ship Captain and seizes her chance to become Captain on the next time around.

Cordellia is able to function well reasonably well as Captain (in Shards), although her crew clearly is willing to ignore her authority (although this may say more about them than about Cordellia! ;-). Later, Cordellia is still somewhat socially awkward in not being able to assert herself when she returns as "hero" to Beta Colony. Nor is she able to assert herself versus her mother when the Beta psychologists try to "treat" her -- her mother and her are clearly unable to communicate with each other (at that point in Cordellia's life). Her flight to Barrayar is Cordellia's next step in learning to assert herself (and not define herself as a "good, obedient Betan citizen").

Cordellia then tentatively starts to explore what her role may be in Barrayar's society when events intervene. Ultimately, this results in her defying Aral and asserting the primacy of her own needs and duties as mother in rescuing Miles-to-be. From that point onward, Cordellia is consistently portrayed as being completely centered in who she is.

Mark, at one point in A Civil Campaign, muses about Cordellia as a model for Kareen and thinks about the fact that Cordellia doesn't brook any nonsense from anyone but "had to walk barefoot through fire" in order to obtain this quality. I always have taken as a reference to the events in the book Barrayar.

Woman who must learn to travel this "arc of assertion" is a recurring theme for LMB. It crops up with Elena, who eventually grows beyond Barrayar's definition that "real people" are soliders, and then decides to quit the military and have a child. It shows up with Ekaterin, who in A Civil Campaign self-describes herself as having difficulty in even asking strangers for directions (and is completely clueless as to how one might engage in a love affair) but, ultimately, by the end of Diplomatic Immunity is, as Lady Vorkosigan, treating with the Cetegandan Empire. That's a considerable arc of developing self-assertion (and, unfortunately for us readers, it mostly happens off-stage).