#sotur

There are some parts of Powers, especially towards the end, that are flat-out bad. They feel forced and lazy and I just dropped out of the story whenever I came to them.

One of the worst of those scenes took place in an inn on the way to Urdile. Gav’s talking to some strangers and they start talking about the Barnavites and then that leads to talk about loyal/runaway slaves.

Lo and behold, Gavir’s become infamous. The story that the guy told was way to specific to be taken seriously (even if he heard the story straight from Hoby’s mouth it the details– no matter how wrong– would have been fuzzier).

Now, as I first read that paragraph, I couldn’t get much beyond how awkward it felt. I still feel that it’s awkward. BUT, when reread it, one of the little “facts” of the story struck me. According to the gossip, Gav ‘defiled one of the family’s daughters.’

This is laughable because A. He’s like math club loser straight from a 90′s movie surrounded by jocks. B. This is Gavir. The kid who wasn’t even aware that he could disobey that Family. The kid who was horrified by his own sexual awakening. Anyone who knew him would probably cackle until they choked if someone told them that that scrawny little nerd was secretly seducing the family ladies into his library of iniquity (he’d have Trudec’s Moralities out and open to a passage on restraint and chastity at the table). And others would know that Gavir wouldn’t have been so suicidally stupid as to start an affair with an Arca girl.

It could just be a mistake on the part of the stranger. The story and Sallo’s death in particular would morph as it was told and retold, or Hoby was lying through his teeth. Then I remembered how he felt about Sotur.

I can’t imagine Sotur would have been quiet about her friend’s murder. Nope, my girl would hiss and snap and sneer every time Torm so much looked her way. Start telling anybody and everybody what a treacherous, rabid animal Torm is. She’d be laying out all the family’s dirty laundry, generally raising hell, and validating and encouraging the slaves’ discontent. Torm’s lucky that women are relegated to the home in Etran society because if she had her hand on a sword it doesn’t matter how many fancy classes that asshole took his intestines would be at his ankles.

Obviously, this behavior wouldn’t really ingratiate her to her uncle and cousin, who support her, and I can think of this playing out in two ways:

In the first one, her loud fury and pain, along with her close friendship with Sallo and Gav, arouse suspicions that she was more intimate with them, Gavir specifically, than was previously believed. Choosing to continue her studies and all that time that she spent in the library with Gav come under new scrutiny. And maybe some of his bad poetry to about her is found. And maybe his crush on her was more obvious than he had realized.

Rumors like this wouldn’t exactly be good for the family in the eyes of Etran society, but they could be an opportunity for redemption for Torm and Hoby. If Gavir was actually a snake in the grass who betrayed his house, then his sister Sallo, who knew everything about him, was his accomplice. Then maybe they could frame her murder as a just punishment for their crimes against the Arcas and discredit Sotur. 

The second theory is that Sotur is the one who claims to have had an affair with Gavir.

Altan and even her brothers would be pretty eager to dump her, and it probably wouldn’t take long to scrounge up some social climber to taker our little rabble-rouser off their hands.

BUT Sotur is a clever girl, and I’ll bet you that she knew about Gav’s crush. It’s a decisive out, but it’ll cost her. She loses her reputation and her family (for all they’re worth). The scandal will hit them hard, socially. She’ll be losing her fortune and her support system, but it’s better than some louse slobbering after Altan’s favor.

Another downside is that she’ll be dragging Gavir’s name through the mud, and muddying the tragedy of Sallo’s and possibly Gavir’s deaths. Also, I don’t think Sotur would realize this at first, this could lead to bad consequences for the other slaves at Arca. Everra’s class would be the first to go. It encourages intimacy among the family’s children and the slaves, and gives them both the notion that they deserve to be treated as anything more than property. There will be suspicion cast on all the slaves, but the men in particular. The very idea of educating slaves might come under scrutiny. And the house and the household would definitely be segregated as much as possible, and it would strain the relations between the two even further.

To end on a positive note, though, can’t you imagine her defiantly walking into the dining room or whatever where the all the family is gathered like, ‘Oh hello there, it seems that I have ruined everything, and I’d like to thank the sack of shit who made this all possible: Torm’?

Soturovaso was such a great character, and I know I’m probably overly-romanticizing her, but she took on the title as the defender of everything right and stepped up even when her entire family was against her. She always saw her family’s and her class’s BS, and subverted it whenever she could. She was more fleshed out than Sallo (which was deeply unfair to Sallo).