Pale: Justice

[megafire7]

Title: Pale: Justice
Major Warnings: None
Summary: Taking a look at the various forces in play at the time of Cutting Class 6.z, through the lens of what the story has to say about justice as a theme.

Hi, I’m Megafire. You may know me from posts such as Verona’s dad is a literal manchild and Lucy is Verona’s only good parental figure (and that’s kind of sad).

Today, however, I won’t be digging into a particular relationship dynamic. No, I will be doing something entirely different. I will be trying my hand at thematic analysis. I think. I’ve never really done literary analysis, and I don’t think I have a structural framework for doing it.

But I’ve never let that stop me before!

So, Pale, as a story, deals a lot with Justice as a concept. Institutionally, interpersonally, several other -onally’s. This is a natural extension of the murder mystery, of course, but this is not a story about bringing the killer of the Carmine Beast to justice. It’s a story about what justice means. The fact that the deceased is, in the grand scheme of things, one of the four fundamental Judges of the area only further underscores this, but if you want the quick rundown:

We have a murdered supreme court judge, an ex-con, a federal prosecutor, a pro-bono defence attorney, an activist for social change, and our investigators at the centre of it all.

So let’s set our scene. Start at the beginning, our introduction to this world, the inciting incident.

The big question mark.

The Carmine Beast

The Carmine Beast is one of the four judges on what they themselves call ‘a court of appeals’, alongside the Alabaster Doe, the Sable Prince and the Aurum Coil. She represents violence and savagery, compared to mercy, death and civilisation for the other three, but we… don’t really know much about her, do we? She’s, by all accounts, just a force. Even through the stories the Kennet Others have told about her are very impersonal.

We don’t know who this judge was, and we’re a good ways into this story, so I’m almost forced to conclude that it doesn’t really matter who she was. It’s not why she was killed. She was killed because she was a judge, to spark this crisis of succession.

Which begs the question, why her, and not one of the other three?

Why kill the overseer of violence and savagery, and not death, not mercy, not civilisation?

To replace her, is the answer, but what change do you want on this court of appeals with a new representative of violence and savagery?

What is it the killer is hoping for?

Charles Abrahams

My friends Elliot and Reuben of Pale Reflections had Charles pegged as an ex-con long before the story actually said that yes, he’s an ex-con. The way the universe treats him for being forsworn dovetails nicely with the way society treats ex-cons, after all, but I think the recent forswearing of Seth recontextualises what ‘being forsworn’ means.

It doesn’t make you an ex-con. It means you’re convicted to a life-long sentence. Unable to participate in society, forced to do whatever work you can get your hands on just to keep your head afloat. You’ve lost your voice, your vote, your say in what happens.

Now, it could be argued that this is what being an ex-con means in society, but I think there’s one important difference here:

Charles is trying to appeal from inside the prison. He tried to appeal his forswearing with the court of appeals, as it exists, and was rejected because, by being forsworn, he doesn’t have the resources to make that appeal.

And what preceded his forswearing was an argument about prison reform with a self-described prosecutor.

Alexander Belanger

Alexander Belanger is an asshole a very successful man. He’s an augur who specialises in spreading strife, forcing people to make mistakes and then capitalising off of those mistakes. He is deeply enmeshed in Pale’s justice system, and, indeed, cites it as the very source of his power:

“Forswearing is the source of our strength,”

(Cutting Class 6.z)

He’s a prosecutor not for justice’s sake. He’s not in this because he wants to Right Wrongs, and stop bad actors from hurting society by participating in it, he’s a prosecutor for personal gain. It makes him strong, it means he’s rising in standing in the universe and might one day make it to Vice President, a universe that rewards him, even though:

”And the universe is a more forgiving prosecutor than I am.”

(Cutting Class 6.z)

The universe will reward him for being harsher than the universe itself demands, but that doesn’t mean everyone is in agreement with his decisions.

After all, a criminal court case usually has two sides.

Nicolette Belanger

Trained by the prosecutor himself, before realising that what’s going on is pretty fucked up, our pro-bono defence attorney sure is putting her neck out there by defying her former mentor (and joining an opposing group of lawyers augurs), to defend someone who is, by all accounts, an absolute jackass. Why? Because even the biggest jackasses have the right to representation in court:

“Do you need help, Seth?” Nicolette asked.

“Who would help me?” Seth asked.

“I would. I might not like you in the slightest, but forswearing as a practice should be left well in the past.”

(Cutting Class 6.z)

And also because the punishment the prosecution is insisting on is barbaric and unjust, of course.

Nicolette’s by no means clean, of course, and, as has been pointed out by many, likely feels a degree of guilt towards Seth. I still think what her stance here is more motivated by principle, and a sincere belief that this is unjust, that Seth’s crimes do not deserve what is, if you recall, a life sentence.

She argues her case, and she loses it, because Seth has nothing.

And so the universe makes its decision, and whether we like it or not, the universe deigns this decision to be Just, and that’s that.

Except, of course, that it’s not.

Miss (and the Oni War)

See, the fundamental lie people in this universe tell themselves is that Karma is Just The Way Things Are, and that Karma’s existence means the moral laws are set, descriptive rather than prescriptive, solid.

Unchanging.

But that’s not how society works, that’s not how laws work. The universal system currently in place is an invention, a construct made by Solomon, but even then it’s been changed and interpreted and amended as language has evolved, and even as sentiment has changed.

The Oni War, in what little we’ve heard of it, seems to be Others going to war against the system itself, and that sentence itself only makes any sense at all if the system isn’t absolute and unchanging.

So changes can happen, but these changes have to go against long-lasting and well-defined patterns, and that’s not easy. An age-old legal tradition is not so easily overturned:

Kennet and the Carmine Beast would not be the straw that broke the camel’s back. But there had been no such straw with the way Solomon and his ilk had established their precedent. Kennet’s situation could one day be a parable and precedent both.

(Back Away 5.d)

But everything can be a precedent, and judicially speaking, these precedents are very important. Each one shifts the way the universe interprets its laws just a little more.

But that begs the question, does it not?

Who makes these laws?

Lucy, Avery, Verona

Way back during my liveread of Lost For Words 1.2 (which I did on the Doof Discord), I conceptualised the Kenneteers as different branches of the Trias Politica (Lucy as Executive, Avery as Legislative, and Verona as Judicial). The story moved on since then, and I don’t think it really fits the three of them, but the framework has stayed with me anyway, for reasons which I hope are pretty obvious by now.

So we have the Carmine Beast and the other three as the Judicial branch, and Alexander as an element of the Executive, but we’re left without a clear analogue for the Legislative branch. Someone who actually makes the laws that Alexander enforces, and the Judges… judge.

You could say it’s the spirits that underlie everything, deciding what is and isn’t fair, and I don’t think it’s the worst argument, but we know the spirits don’t really make decisions, and can easily be swayed by someone arguing well for it, so what is and isn’t fair is at least partially decided by the people arguing their case. Given that many of the more powerful people harken back to old ways to build on their own precedent and patterns, it’s no surprise that the spirits have a rather outdated idea of right and wrong.

But they don’t have to:

“Justice is a tricky thing,” Miss said, from her seat on the bridge’s support struts. “Keep in mind that the worlds of Others and spirits are old. The definitions of justice are older. By old ways, families could be condemned for the actions of an ancestor, hospitality is more important, and one’s place in society and greater structures is far more emphasized.”

“Was I wrong, to tell them I could come after them?” Lucy asked.

“I couldn’t say with any certainty,” Miss told them. “I think you’d be fine if your justice was strong and consistent. I would not hold up modern ideas of rights, wrongs, or the individual, then turn around and cite the old ways. That is liable to backfire.”

(Stolen Away 2.2)

If your idea of justice is strong enough, and consistent (and thereby predictable) enough, the spirits will allow you to set the rules, to influence the laws, to decide what is judged to be right and wrong and maybe...

Maybe you get a say in who replaces the judge...

Maybe you get to overturn an unfair and archaic lifelong sentence…

Maybe you get to stop an overzealous prosecutor from lining his own pockets…

Maybe you get to support a defence attorney in her next cases…

And maybe, just maybe, you get to help realise an activist’s hope for society.

Kennet’s situation could one day be a parable and precedent both. It mattered more than those girls could grasp.

She would put that ‘matter’ in their hands.

(Back Away 5.d)