#gethen

@ruolair you bro

ooooh thanks for this ask! I'll admit it, I haven't thought of changing the Neverseen as much as the Council and, especially, the Black Swan. For the simple reasons that the Neverseen aren't supposed to be good and are a group of marginalised people ganging together, not a very ancient organisation that had centuries of planning and thousands of ressources that they're not using effectively...

There are still a couple of things that, if I wrote Keeper, would have done differently for the Neverseen (especially in a context where Keeper would naturally turn towards YA with its audience as the story progresses).

I'd change the overall framing of the story that there are some methods to bring change that are inferior to others.

I was always averse to the idea that the Neverseen are inferior to the Black Swan (and the Council, because now we're supposed to think they're the good guys) because they are more violent... Besides the fact that the Black Swan is arguably just as violent as the Neverseen (keeps prisoners, mistreats prisoners, mass killings if it means clearing their way, etc...), the lesson is weak because the narrative fails to show why the Neverseen being violent doesn't work.

The Neverseen managed to get, in a matter of months, the Council's attention to the issues that the Black Swan has been "fighting" for centuries. The Neverseen HELPED the Black Swan's plans by being violent.

I'm not going to advocate for violent solutions to tear off oppressive systems, but historically, let's not pretend they never work. The bloodbath of the French Revolution, the American Revolution, the Bolshevik Revolution, the Troubles, the 2011 Chéran Rebellion... Violence can work.

Violence can get your message noticed. Violence can show your devotion to your cause. Violence can force people to listen to you.

If we want to have a story that argues why violence fails to change anything, then let's frame the narrative a certain way. Let's make the Neverseen the most violent suffragettes, who nearly sabotaged their movement by giving their peers and what they stood for a terrible name (female hysteria). Let's make the Neverseen the IRA, who gave a hard time for the peaceful independence movements in Ireland to be listened to. Let's look at violent groups todays that aggravated things rather than making them better, and let's make the Neverseen those people.

If the Black Swan and the Neverseen stood for exactly the same things, but the Neverseen's violence was making the Council and the Lost Cities extremely antagonistic towards the changes that both groups are trying to advocate and the people they're trying to defend, then that would make for much more interesting motives. It would force the Black Swan to fight people that believe the same ideas as them, and in return the Neverseen would retaliate because they would see the Black Swan as traitors or not as dedicated to the cause as they are.

It might seem like a subtle change - since it's not really a change to the Neverseen, but more how the story presents them - but I'd do that.

I'd give the Neverseen a laissez-faire style of leadership.

Literally meaning “let them do,” laissez-faire leadership is when leaders hand off decision-making to group members, with leaders providing tools and resources as needed. It keeps the messiness and disorganised feel of the og Neverseen, but it also makes the Neverseen infinitely more dangerous and unpredictable.

It's the only type of leadership that would suit the Neverseen, the only type of leadership left in a war with authoritarian leadership (Council) and diplomatic leadership (Black Swan).

Laissez-faire has the strongest members on an individual scale, the biggest field of action (as members can attack relentlessly and strike multiple things at a time) and also means that killing or capturing the leader (Fintan) is not going to stop or even slow the Neverseen. If anyone's a Hunter x Hunter fan, one could say that the Spiders have a laissez-faire leadership. Even without their head, the body will still continue to run and attack.

Imagine Gethen, Umber, Ruy, Brant, Vespera, Trix and the nameless Technopath if they could use their abilities whenever they wished, however they wished, on whoever or whatever they wished. If they could run free and do what they thought would benefit the cause. If their brain and individual resourcefullness was harnessed to its max by Fintan. They would be terrifying.

Gethen's big plan in Lumenaria would be an improvised idea of his own, that he has managed to communicate to Fintan for Fintan to give him the resources he needs at the right moment (a shield: Ruy, and a distraction: Fintan crashing the Peace Summit).

The middle of the books would also become way more exciting because there's no big plan or conspiracy to uncover before the climax, but a succession of powerful attacks that could hit anything or anyone at anytime.

I'd make them way less secretive and mysterious and delete their uniform.

Enough with codenames and cloaks. Unless the member is a spy (eg. Alvar, Gisela, maybe Trix), then their identities are made loud and clear, their faces are shown and their stories known.

This is a change that needs to happen with the two previous changes in mind. If you want your message to be heard, you need people to know who you are and why you're how you are. The Neverseen need to be obnoxiously loud about their identities and motives, especially when they advocate for so many different things at the same time.

This is why Fintan was the best of them all. He showed himself. We knew exactly what he was fighting for. Gethen? We have no clues. Gisela? No fucking idea.

It's also the only way for the Council to profile and become even more antagonistic towards the groups they represent. For example, Ruy's actions could be in the name of Waywards and Exilium, and the Council would become way harsher to Waywards. Or Umber's actions could be in the name of Shades, and the Lost Cities would become even more distrustful of Shades.

It's something that happens in the real-world, and I'm sure I don't need to give examples. Associations and stereotyping are a consequence of violent rebellions, and it's an important point that the story would have to make to show how violence is doing more harm than good for the cause. People of the groups that are being stereotyped would feel like they constantly have to justify themselves, and "prove" themselves to not be like the Neverseen. They would be scrutinised and suspected by the Lost Cities, cast even more blatantly as outsiders.

The Neverseen may see it as a necessary sacrifice, or could use this as fuel to recruit more people of these groups.

+ it just doesn't make sense to me that the Neverseen who don't lead a double-life such as Ruy, Gethen, Umber, Trix (?), Glimmer, Fintan, would have to hide themselves under cloaks or codenames. It's not like they are registered, or have people they care about, or have a known adress. They live in safe hideouts, unlike most Black Swan members. If anything, the Black Swan needs to be way more secretive.

+ not that the Black Swan ever thought of doing it, but if every member of the Neverseen show their faces, it's way harder for their enemies to sever relations with their allies. For example, the Black Swan could not easily pretend to be Neverseen members by wearing a cloak and hiding their faces. They could not easily make actions in the name of the Neverseen to pit the Neverseen's allies (ogres, trolls) against them.

@kotlcsecretsanta @song-tam thank you for hosting!! secret santa is always so fun every year :)

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am i guilty?

Word Count: 1.7k

Summary: The dagger sits heavy in its sheath, its weight a constant reminder. He could’ve done it. He was so close to doing it. Gethen’s voice lingers in his mind, the memory of his words repeating over and over. Perhaps I’m trying to see if we recruited the wrong Vacker. He shakes his head, trying to clear his thoughts. It’s not— it can’t be. There’s no way he’d join the Neverseen, right? He’s not like Alvar. He’s not like his brother.

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Or: Fitz kills Alvar.

read on ao3 or below the cut!

It's a short story that takes place in Gethen (yay!). It's about king Argaven XVII so it takes place a few generations after TLHOD (since king Argaven XV was the ruler of Karhide in that novel). In this time the Ekumen has already settled in Gethen, and the planet is about to experience many political changes. Basically Argaven is kidnapped and her memories are altered, so now she'll have a journey trying to get them back and rule her country without any external influences, leaving her (at the time) baby daughter behind.

This story is particularly interesting because Gethen's people are reffered to with femenine pronouns instead of the generic masculine used in TLHOD.

You can find this story in The wind's twelve quarters, a collection of short stories by Le Guin, most of them being part of the Hainish cycle (which apparently is the universe where most of her sci-fi stories/books take place, and it's all about the ekumen and that stuff, it looks so interesting!).

Oh, and as a fun fact I also just discovered that there's another short story that takes place in Gethen called Coming of age in Karhide, which sounds so interesting!!! I swear, this woman's books are going to take my whole soul.