Zompist, was this irony intentional?

[Raphael]

It seems to me that the closest thing Almea has to a counterpart to the Netherlands, Érenat, is filled with mountains. Was that an example of intentional irony?

[zompist]

No... I can't say I ever thought of Érenat as like the Netherlands. Though on reflection I think I can see why you did!

[Ares Land]

Xurno has the right climate and lots of waterworks though and I suppose the Salon of Paintings is at least the equal of the Flemish masters

[WeepingElf]

I never thought of Xurno as Almea's Netherlands, rather as a mix of India (Wêdêi = Dravidians, Ezičimi = Aryans, Mešaism = Vedic religion, Endajué = Buddhism, more or less) and Italy (a second rank power in military and economic terms, but highly sophisticated in the fine arts and proud of that). And a country ruled by an art academy is of course a unique concept for which I don't know any real-world precedent!

[Ares Land]

The large area, the general arrogance and failure to notice foreign countries, and of course the history of revolution feel sort of French too.
There's even something of the French intellectual about the artist-rulers.


That being said, while seeing parallels is fun and all, I'm pretty sure many resemblances are purely coincidental. (Though it's fun to catch possible inspirations. Aren't Cuzeian Houses a lot like Andean ayllus? -- Well, they're even more like a Nahua calpolli but Andean influence feels more likely somehow. )

[Raphael]

This discussion of Xurno makes me wonder if the early Royalist Xurno approach could have worked for real. That is, if someone had tried that basic strategy against the Mongols during our own Middle Ages. And that reminds me: how does modern Xurno see early Royalist Xurno today? Is it seen as part of a proud heritage, or is there still hostility towards it left over from the Revolution?

[zompist]

And that reminds me: how does modern Xurno see early Royalist Xurno today? Is it seen as part of a proud heritage, or is there still hostility towards it left over from the Revolution?

If you mean now = 3480, it's been 400 years since the revolution, and there is no royalist threat at all, so it's possible to take a historical interest in the empire, and have some patriotic pride in its rise against the nomads.

In the period of the Prose Wars (3230s), people were a lot more zealous about Revaudo and the feeling was still that royalists were villains.

[Mornche Geddick]

In the period of the Prose Wars (3230s), people were a lot more zealous about Revaudo and the feeling was still that royalists were villains.

Oh, and that reminds me - when can we expect to see JotPW?The Xurnese grammar whetted my appetite. For one thing I'd like to know how Deru and Itep get on (or not).

[zompist]

In the period of the Prose Wars (3230s), people were a lot more zealous about Revaudo and the feeling was still that royalists were villains.

Oh, and that reminds me - when can we expect to see JotPW?The Xurnese grammar whetted my appetite. For one thing I'd like to know how Deru and Itep get on (or not).

I would love to get back to the novel, but the novels really don't sell well, so it always gets put on the back burner.

What I need to work out is what Itep saw in Deru to start with. So far Deru is kind of a jerk.

[Mornche Geddick]

What I need to work out is what Itep saw in Deru to start with. So far Deru is kind of a jerk.

Simple ideas first: maybe he's just very handsome, with dark eyes and thick curly hair.

Off topic, but just out of curiosity: do Almeans get male pattern baldness?

[hwhatting]

What I need to work out is what Itep saw in Deru to start with. So far Deru is kind of a jerk.

Simple ideas first: maybe he's just very handsome, with dark eyes and thick curly hair.

That's one option. And then there's certainly women who fall for jerks - some see them as a challenge ("I can change him / get through to his inner golden core / he'll be different for me alone"), for others it may be a dependency pattern they fall into. (Disclaimers: both things can go together, and it can certainly happen with reversed roles, but in my experience it's more frequently women falling for jerk men - must have something to do with inculcated gender roles.)

[Mornche Geddick]

Something more subtle: have you thought about Deru's parents yet? Perhaps he is an only child, or an only son, and his parents spoiled him without meaning to - without either him or them being aware of it. Perhaps also, he was the star pupil of the small dame school he attended before coming to the Academy. He's spent a lot of time with adults who think he is brilliant. This would have given him a lot of confidence, and so when he first came to the Academy he was friendly, outgoing, and witty enough to be attractive to Itep.

As time went on, however, he found himself a small fish in a big pond, and started to feel that he was being neglected and ignored. What's more, he was running up against the limits of his own talents for the first time - everyone else was a better painter than him. These things are grating on his self-conceit and starting to make him petulant and jealous. This is a slow process, but it has been going on for a while, and it's got to the point where he's alienating Itep.

Itep herself doesn't really strike me as being the sort to fall for a jerk. Far from being dependent, she is as bumptious as he is and she doesn't sound like someone prone to imagine hidden hearts of gold, either.

[zompist]

Something more subtle: have you thought about Deru's parents yet? Perhaps he is an only child, or an only son, and his parents spoiled him without meaning to - without either him or them being aware of it. Perhaps also, he was the star pupil of the small dame school he attended before coming to the Academy. He's spent a lot of time with adults who think he is brilliant. This would have given him a lot of confidence, and so when he first came to the Academy he was friendly, outgoing, and witty enough to be attractive to Itep.

As time went on, however, he found himself a small fish in a big pond, and started to feel that he was being neglected and ignored. What's more, he was running up against the limits of his own talents for the first time - everyone else was a better painter than him. These things are grating on his self-conceit and starting to make him petulant and jealous.

That's close to my own picture of him. I just checked, and I do talk about his parents: his father is a merchant, and Deru is the first in the family to aspire to the Academy. He wouldn't have the opportunity if he didn't have talent; but yes, being better than anyone else back home is no preparation for actual study with your peers in Inex. He's probably not as bad or as atypical as he thinks, but he ends up making some very poor choices (partly to set up some major plot points for another character).

Itep herself doesn't really strike me as being the sort to fall for a jerk. Far from being dependent, she is as bumptious as he is and she doesn't sound like someone prone to imagine hidden hearts of gold, either.

In my notes, she is provoking Deru to see if he's as much of a loser as she's coming to believe, to work herself up to leave him.

To answer my own question, I think she met him as they both arrived in Inex and started studying-- they were both new to the city and hopeful and a little daunted. There was a honeymoon period while their studies ramped up. When things got stressful, well, Itep more or less thrives on stress, and Deru is the opposite.

[Raphael]

Where is all this fascinating Itep/Deru stuff?

[Rounin Ryuuji]

They do sound like entertaining characters.

[Ares Land]

They show up in the Xurnese grammar sample sentences.

[zompist]

They show up in the Xurnese grammar sample sentences.

In particular, see the Narrative section under Pragmatics, and the 2nd sample text.

[Raphael]

Thank you. I had known about the sample text, but not about the rest.

Hm, come to think of it, if Deru was an unusually smart and talented kid at his home school, perhaps spoiled because he was an only child, who ran straight into a wall when he got to a higher educational institution where everyone was smart and talented, and he suddenly had to learn and practice things at a much higher level than he was used to - um, in that case, there are some disconcerting parallels between Deru and, well, me. OK, for pretty much all my life, I've tried to avoid being a jerk, but Heaven knows I haven't always succeeded.

[Mornche Geddick]

He's probably not as bad or as atypical as he thinks

That could well be true. Perhaps the others in the class have had extra drawing tuition, so their better skill just means they have had several more months of practice with the pencil in their lives. Deru's parents either didn't know they ought to provide him with this, or they couldn't afford it.

Alos, since Deru's family are described as "poor merchants", they've probably made financial sacrifices to send him to the Academy (perhaps at the expense of their other children - more conflict right there). Soon he's going to start worrying that he may fail, blow his big chance, and let them all down. Yet another source of stress.

Is Itep in a similar position, or do her family already have Academy graduates?

[zompist]

Is Itep in a similar position, or do her family already have Academy graduates?

I'm pretty sure Itep is new to the Academy, but she's not a moper. She isn't even sure she likes the Academy— she's a radical and hates authoritarians. Her big flaw is that if she sees someone's weakness or venality, she wants to sit there and see how deep it goes, instead of running away.