{"id":1587,"date":"2012-05-23T09:07:08","date_gmt":"2012-05-23T15:07:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/?p=1587"},"modified":"2012-05-23T09:07:08","modified_gmt":"2012-05-23T15:07:08","slug":"spoilerish-gnomes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/?p=1587","title":{"rendered":"Spoilerish: Gnomes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since I already let this kitten roll out of the bag somewhere else, it’s loose here as well.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It’s spoiler-ish<\/em>, but not a true spoiler, and it’s insight into how my mind functions on “deep logic” issues.\u00a0 It’s slightly (but only slightly and not in essence) different from the version on the other venue.\u00a0\u00a0 However, if you fear even the faintest tinge of spoilerishness, maybe better skip this one.<\/p>\n

I’m dealing with a chapter that stopped me in my tracks and made me back up and think harder.\u00a0 I’ve been thinking harder for weeks about this chapter (while thinking in the forebrain about other things.)<\/p>\n

And lo…there are currents in gnomish culture I’d never really thought about.<\/p>\n

A friend of mine who’s traveled a lot has written about exiles and the cultural peculiarities that develop when people aggregate in their familiar communities but in new places, surrounded by other cultures.\u00a0 Ex-pats, exiles, whatever the cause, from actual exile to seriously at odds with the government where they used to be to “it’s cheaper to raise the kids here than there,” some shrug and join into their new homes and some…don’t.<\/p>\n

And when\/if visited by those from the old country, their reactions can be unexpected.\u00a0\u00a0 Some are eager to hear all the news (and their motivations for this eagerness can vary from “Tell me how old Uncle George is doing” to “Tell me if the government has changed.”)\u00a0\u00a0 Some are uncertain whether the visitor has come to chastise them for staying away, or ask them how they themselves can get political asylum.\u00a0\u00a0 Those who are fitting in may be eager to encourage their visitors to join them, or want to brag on their success.<\/p>\n

Gnomes have had a very stable, mostly secretive, society for a very long time…independent princedoms that communicate with one another (mostly about the Law, or warning of threats from outside) but do not have much close interaction.\u00a0 Now they have an anomaly.\u00a0 Arcolin, a human (and as a human, clearly outside the Law)\u00a0 saved some gnomes who’d been made kteknik–cast out of Law.\u00a0 Being human, he doesn’t realize all the implications of saving them and then saying “Yeah, sure, you can have those hills over there; we don’t use them anyway.”\u00a0 (Not word for word, but in essence.)\u00a0 He worries about what his human ruler will think, but not about what other gnomes will think–because he doesn’t realize the…um…stiffness…of the larger gnome culture yet.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 He is by nature a warm-hearted and friendly person (though well able to maintain the dignity a commander needs) and like most humans thinks the gnomes are “cold.”\u00a0\u00a0 He was embarrassed when they kissed his boots (and is again every time it happens.)<\/p>\n

When other gnomes find out about this…shock is a mild word for what they feel.\u00a0 Some of this comes out in\u00a0 Limits of Power<\/em>, but what I’m dealing with is an aftershock of the shock, in Book V.\u00a0\u00a0 There would inevitably be tension between the rescued gnomes and other gnomes still “properly” living in established princedoms, gnomes who had never been outside the Law.\u00a0 I had vaguely thought of joyful reunion with one’s own kind, but…not necessarily.<\/p>\n

Today’s scene is tricky to write, but very different from an earlier draft, the one that the book itself made me toss.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I needed to spend time thinking about the roots of gnomish culture–what they believe they were created for, how this would shape their reaction to having a human save gnomish lives (rather than gnomes saving gnomes, quietly and without fuss.)<\/p>\n

See?\u00a0 Not so spoilerish after all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since I already let this kitten roll out of the bag somewhere else, it’s loose here as well.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It’s spoiler-ish, but not a true spoiler, and it’s insight into how my mind functions on “deep logic” issues.\u00a0 It’s slightly (but only slightly and not in essence) different from the version on the other venue.\u00a0\u00a0 However, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,5],"tags":[108,62,107],"class_list":["post-1587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-background","category-the-writing-life","tag-background","tag-craft-of-writing","tag-the-writing-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1587"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1587"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1587\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1588,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1587\/revisions\/1588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}