Hostile Environment

[megafire7]

Title: Hostile Environment
Major Warnings: None
Summary: Going through the different powers in In Absentia 21.12 and taking a look at what the fight in it means in regards to larger political trends in the region.

A lot of good stuff has already been written about this chapter, both in the chapter comments and on the various Discords, which makes sense; it was an excellent chapter with a ton of meat to chew into. Now, I like to write about power dynamics, which generally involves two or more people with a certain kind of tension between them, without engaging in open hostilities. Today, however, I get to talk about power itself. The different expressions and conceptions of it, and how those clash directly.

(Be sure to read Sengachi’s No One Rules Alone first, because it’s really good, and I’ll be trying to build off of it some here.)

At the start of the chapter, the Kenneteers discuss how the power of the Judges works, that their usual backend work has had to become frontend work because everyone else is too interested in fucking around to actually establish any standards, and Charles has been taking advantage of this expansion in scope to do his nonsense.

Now, I think what’s missing from a lot of analysis surrounding this is that power isn’t always expressed in directly establishing rules. Often, it expresses itself in what one prioritises, where someone decides to put their focus. The same set of rules could create two entirely different societies, depending on which rules are prioritised in enforcement. We see this in 21.7, where the hint of a shift in focus of the new Alabaster is enough to send the Beorgmann scrambling and change his entire methodology.

Power, on a societal level, is about what kind of environment you create, which behaviours can flourish in that environment, and to which behaviours it is hostile, or toxic.

And that is what today’s chapter is about, so let’s take a look at what we’re dealing with.

Ann Wint

“Miss Wint, you don’t-”

“Mrs. Wint. I am married.”

Ann Wint, along with her second, Deb, represents, in many ways, the pinnacle of upper-middle-class power. The Thunder Bay council has often been compared to a HOA, and I think it’s an apt comparison. Within it, Ann has achieved a prominent position, essentially representing a non-verbal Lord in day-to-day matters, and here we also get a good view into how she achieved that level of power: by insisting she should have it.

Ann Wint is the type to show up at a meeting and simply insist that she should run it, and with nobody else having particularly strong feelings on the matter, she gets to have that position because, by god, do you want to hear her umming and complaining about someone else being in charge all the time? So, fuck it, she wants to call herself Acting Lord? Whatever, It’s not that really means anything (until it does).

To be entirely fair to Ann, she is fairly competent, and has maintained her position by being reasonably decent at it and never falling flat on her face, even if part of this is, as she told Avery in 18.8, the fact that she generally doesn’t apologise. She enforces her power in this realm largely through social disapproval. She sees that certain ways of behaving are proper and respectable, and that makes them good, and people who deviate from that will have an uphill battle to be heard in her little fiefdom. Morality isn’t something she cares to enforce, manners are, and this creates a little hierarchy with her technically on the second rung, but let’s face it, She Who Drowns In Moonlight doesn’t really talk, so she doesn’t really have a say, does she? This particular hierarchy allows Ann her little hypocrisies, but hey, that’s the benefit of having power!

Do note that her fiefdom is the Thunder Bay council, and not Thunder Bay itself. She creates an environment hostile to those she doesn’t consider respectable, but that just means those people stay away from the council and find their power elsewhere (like Thea), essentially subverting her.

So Ann Wint has her power, and she is intensely proud of it, jealously guarding it against any perceived threats, even if that means she ends up being a petty little asshole. The problem, of course, is that it has gone to her head, and she now thinks this makes her part of the big leagues. She has forgotten that she’s still only upper-middle-class, and she can’t compete with the true elite. Hell, she doesn’t even recognise the true elite, with how removed from it she is:

“And here I thought the Tedds were a respectable family. Are you from a sub-branch?”

She tries to enforce her little respectability politics, but, in doing so, falls flat on her face and proves her ignorance, to the point where even Grayson Hennigar, who has plenty of reasons to dislike the Tedds right now, scoffs at her and makes it clear she’s really no contender here.

Hennigar and Musser

“Well, I’ll say now, I don’t want to forget, I think we need a point system, based on our contributions to the greater system, and our ability to fight. Say, a hundred points of voting power to the most powerful, ninety-nine to the next most powerful and so on. If we can’t agree on total power, we can take it to the dueling arena.”

“A system that naturally rewards you?” Ann asked. “I assume by ‘powerful’, you’re talking about family size, money?”

“And other resources. Contacts, influence on the local, regional, and global scales. Something I know you don’t have, Wint.”

Hennigar and Musser are the practitioner aristocracy, during the height of feudalism, and they aren’t just the Barons of this aristocracy, either. They’re the Dukes, if not actually the King themselves. They were the establishment in the region until just a short while ago, and they are still very much the establishment just outside the region.

Where Ann’s power is soft, this power is hard. Hard force, hard cash, and other traditional ways of gaining influence. It is starkly hierarchical, and so well established that even the position in this hierarchy can be ‘scientifically’ determined:

“There are rituals the Hennigars and Mussers use to measure an individual’s worth. A distant cousin comes from a trip around the world, we weigh the scales. Incarnations such as Affluence, Riches, and Influence give their keen insights, and give us a numerical value. Lay that into the stage,” Grayson said.

This is, of course, extremely beneficial to those on top, because it leaves those immediately below them, who, if they banded together might actually be able to challenge them, obsessed with their position within that hierarchy, as we saw in Easton’s interlude 17.x:

Vaughn chimed into the conversation. “Where do you think you started and where do you think you’re ending up, the way things stand?”

“You first.”

“Out of ten? Stared at a five… moving to a six, I guess?”

As a hierarchy, this is cleverly designed, because they want to compete within it, to strive to overtake those just above them, while keeping away from those below them, all the while giving everyone a degree of security, of certainty in where they stand.

And every time they compare notes like that, they are buying into and providing power to the system, the hierarchy, and, thereby, the people at the top of it. Even with Musser having lost the fight for Kennet so thoroughly, Abraham Sr. is still here, and still at the top of this hierarchy, with the likes of the Songetays still very much worshipping them for what they provide.

As a result, this system is hostile to upstarts, who don’t have access to any of the resources needed to rock the boat without fitting themselves within that system to get them, the weak, who simply can’t compete on their own and end up serving more than anything else, the peasants, who don’t matter at all and can be pushed around as needed (or just for the hell of it), and Others, who are forcibly locked out of the system.

These are not four distinct categories.

Their power is established, and, as such, it can assert itself in a far broader sense than Ann’s. It’s going to be significantly harder to find power outside of this system, and if someone does, well, you can just fit them into it:

“Tempting,” Grayson said. “Give me something, Ellingson, I’ll consider backing down. Or back down, yourself. Seems like you’d place highly enough in my rating system. My impression is you three girls inherited a great deal of power when you decided to whore out your services for the Others of this nothing town.”

Of course, Grayson doesn’t respect other ways of getting that power. You’re supposed to get it through generations of exploiting both the lesser members of your own family and whoever else you can get your hands on, and then climb the ranks until you’re powerful enough to challenge the top (which will never happen).

Despite this, it’s, perhaps surprisingly, non-ideological in its aims. This kind of power doesn’t have things it wants, besides existing, maintaining and growing itself. Why would it? It’s the establishment. All else exists in relation to it. It’s designed to have everyone (that counts) neatly in its place and acting in their self-interest within that system, running their little rat race.

This is engrained into the system so much that even those at the top have trouble understanding that some people have genuine motives, beliefs, a drive.

Charles and the Carmine

“I’m aware of where I stand, I don’t need to take your concession or your offer to work together with the glee of a sugar-starved child being offered a chocolate bar. You get that from the Songetays and their sort. Reasonable? I think you’ve forgotten who you’re talking to.”

Charles is, quite obviously, the revolutionary. He has looked at the system Musser and Hennigar represent from all angles, as someone on the periphery, as someone vaguely in the inner circle, as someone on the very bottom of it, and now, as someone rivalling their power outside of that system, and he absolutely despises them, to the point where he’s perfectly willing to let deals that seemingly would be in his own self-interest drop simply because they would also be in the interest of people like Musser or Hennigar.

Which is, admittedly, an improvement, because he absolutely was willing to cut those deals to get this power. Charles is no longer willing to compromise with this system of power.

But that’s because he now has his own:

“The Carmine represents another principle. It’s a bit of a counter-principle to the Alabaster. It’s also complimentary. The way they’re balanced against one another, they play off each other like that. The Carmine represents, as I see it, the idea that you can always be threatened, there’s always something with more teeth, to eat the vulnerable and complacent. Something to need sanctuary from.”

Charles has found the power of the mob. The militant. The terrorist. He has found the power of fear. As Lucy says, he has found the mandate to flip the table on arrogant scumbags who’ve grown so comfortable in their own kind of power that they forgot the concept of risk, of their actions coming with a cost.

In short, it’s the power Samaniego talked about:

“Respect and fear,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want people to respect and fear me. I want to make sure that respect and fear remain factors in the first place. Respect for humans and the state of the world. Fear, that there can be consequences, every time a car pulls into their driveway, or a gunshot is heard in the distance.”

It isn’t the kind of power that lends itself to building anything. It’s not the kind of power that lends itself to alliances, or growth, or friendships. Fear corrodes all of those things, is actively hostile to it, but those drawn to the Carmine Exile seem to be okay with that, with the idea that they might be little more than guided missiles designed to hurt the people that hurt them.

That certainly makes the Exile a better, more committed Carmine than the Beast was, and it explains a lot of his success in hurting those he hates.

But it’s the kind of success, the kind of power, that will give you nothing to rule but ash.

Kennet

“Is this your game, then?” Grayson asked Lucy. “You brought these Others here to tip the scales?”

“They’re part of the majority you don’t want to upset. Even a king has to worry about the peasantry revolting, right? Why should you be even farther out of reach than a king?”

Kennet has never had a Lord. It had a leader in a first-among-equals kind of way. Kennet has never had a council that served only as an extension of someone’s ego. It had a system in place that prevented its council from being abused, even when the conspirators managed to worm their way into leadership. Kennet has never had a strict dominance hierarchy. It had a process to join its decision-making body that would allow anyone who played by the rules to get an equal say in Kennet’s design. Kennet has never ruled through fear and terror. It faced its enemies on moral grounds, with the backing of its community.

Kennet has grown a lot throughout this story. It has struggled a lot with new developments both in the world around it, and within the town itself, but it has always held to principles of democracy, of consent of the governed. The power the Kenneteers have wielded has only ever come because their community, the community that chose them to be their representatives to the world, to act on their behalf, has supported them every step of the way.

This is a kind of power that is hostile to many of the same things Charles’ is, but it similarly doesn’t lend itself to any guided missiles, because the community the Kenneteers draw their power from doesn’t particularly want to destroy itself, and generally signed on because Kennet promised them a better life.

For all the advantages this power has internally, it does still have to go up against a wider world that doesn’t particularly care for its way of doing things, and the degree to which this power can assert itself depends entirely on the strength of the community and how well it chose its representatives.

Because, unlike with the Alabaster, the kinds of power we’re talking about here revolve around violence, and it’s not enough to have many people supporting you; you also have to know what you’re doing, and so that’s what Lucy proposes:

“Let others in the region lend their support. Those here, mainly, but also anyone who couldn’t come. A share of their strength to whoever they back, in any of the duels. With a cap, a limit on what each participant can offer. Keeping to the ideas of the Carmine, if I’m more or less on target… Let the strong fear the majority, if they upset them enough.”

With this on the table, a central question arises: is this strong enough to go against the existing establishment, and assert itself in the face of the overwhelming force it can bring to bear?

The answer is obvious:

No it is not.

Not on its own.

Anthem Tedd

“We were friends,” Grayson said.

“Yeah, we were. But I’ve had time to think, and the way things have gone, there’s been too many tears, too much struggle. I think I mistook the feeling of triumph for feeling good.”

Anthem Tedd is an especially interesting addition to this dynamic, because he is of the establishment. He rates. He rates by any definition of power any of the people here are using. This gives his backing of Kennet weight. This is someone with establishment backing that has now turned to the side of Kennet (and he’s not the only one, since Raquel’s help is also instrumental here).

He doesn’t just add establishment weight to the Kennet position, however. The fact that he was friends with Grayson beforehand clearly gets to the man, even if their pre-battle cockfighting gets a little weird because of it.

Still, it’s a two v. two (and the possibility of Grayson and Abraham not accepting this doesn’t even seem to occur to them), and we’re fighting for which kind of power gets to determine things going forward.

The stage is set, time for a battle.

The Battle

I’m not going to go through the fight beat-by-beat, because this is already getting quite lengthy, and a lot of my commentary would consist of exclamations of excitement (like my liveread of the chapter on the Doof Discord was).

The Doof Discord also had some excellent discussion on the role Grayson Hennigar fell into, but that’s a little outside of what I want to discuss here.

See, there’s a reason I’ve been talking about hostile environments. This fight is very much structured around it, as the two sides struggle to turn not only this battlefield, but also the wider rules of the Sword Moot to their favour.

The seventh shot from the six-shot revolver was aimed at groin, but by that time, the older Musser’s smoke had reached Anthem. A narrow black hand reached out, blocking the bullet from making contact.

Lucy used her glamour. Her own smoke, of a sort, spreading out. Winter glamour to create her foxes.

Lucy and Abraham are both asserting their will across the battlefield in their own, with Anthem and Grayson there to disrupt their opponent’s efforts or poke holes into what’s already been done.

Of course, Abraham’s smoke is more explicitly and obviously toxic and hostile to Lucy and Anthem, while Lucy’s is more interested in making the area benign to herself:

She was grabbed well before he was due to reach her.

Black smoke condensed down to narrow black hands with narrow, long, pointed fingers. They grabbed at her, holding her, thrusting her back against the barrier as well.

With a kind of lazy ease, the old man did a two-handed swing to drive that massive syringe-studded hammer at her midsection.

She dashed away glamour with a movement of her hand. The ‘her’ that was held by the black hands wasn’t really her.

No cup game. She’d distributed the tags and things, and among them had been the one with the weapon ring, John’s tag, Yalda’s ring, and her house keys. The glamour around that fox was dashed away in the same moment her other body disintegrated into dust.

Only when they switch opponents does Lucy turn her environmental effects against Grayson:

Dog Tagged Foxes converged from all directions, seizing his legs and one arm with teeth.

But it’s not strong enough yet:

He punished her by smashing his face into hers. Knee into her chest. Elbow followed, then a kick. Casual, easy, and she knew what she was doing and saw what he was doing and she couldn’t easily stop it.

As much as she’s laying the groundwork here, she isn’t yet hampering her opponents. Their environment is still more toxic, hostile to her than her environment is to them.

But a few beats later, that changes:

She seized the small chance she had, gesturing. Foxes leaped onto Grayson, to weigh him down, to require a word from him, asking for strength, or speed, or something.

He started to speak and she interrupted it with a spell card. He blocked it, but the card exploded into smoke, choking him. He made a growling sound through it, ignoring the worst of it, but growling wasn’t saying a key word that made him strong enough to cut her in half. She manages to actually get one over on Grayson, and that has Abraham change his focus on negating Lucy’s efforts to turn the area to her advantage:

Musser senior figured Anthem was occupied enough by two of the summoned heroic figures that he could focus on cornering Lucy. His mask vented black smoke, and the smoke creeped along the arena’s edges, reaching up to find the smoke her spell card had made. It converted it to something black, with reaching hands inside.

(Because of course the Musser would take space by taking the efforts of his opponents and making them his own.)

Lucy responds by summoning her allies in the Dog Tags (and this can hardly be considered subverting the duel, given what Abraham summoned before), and the Dog Tags don’t need to be told what to do, because, again, Kennet has allies, not subordinates.

Things haven’t quite turned around yet, and we see the theme of this fight hammered home:

There was no space in this arena. Less with the smoke. Less with Grayson being essentially invulnerable, unstoppable, and insanely strong or fast or whatever else if he was free to say a word.

Claustrophobic.

That was their strategy, and it was hitting her on both a strategic and emotional level. That the smoke pressed out and made it so the barrier at the edges was like an unfriendly crowd in a schoolyard fight. Getting pushed up against the ropes, you’d get clawed at, jabbed, pulled down, torn at.

The environment isn’t hers. She doesn’t have the room to do the things she wants, needs to do. She has her allies with her, now, which gives her some strength, and some ability to even make these observations as the seconds tick away, but this is the struggle, isn’t it? It’s what Kennet has been struggling with and against throughout this story.

How to create the space you need to exist and thrive?

Well, sometimes, you need that little help:

She knew this tool. He’d offered to loan it to her with so many caveats and penalties if she broke or lost it that she didn’t want to take it on.

He’d used it against her. A giant blade sprung out of the ground, forming a flat barrier between her and Grayson.

Grayson stepped around it, and another came out from the side.

And just that little bit of help can finally give you the chance to do something important:

Twenty or so spell cards came out and scattered, and touched ground, and fifteen spell cards erupted into fire, with a few more feeding that fire with air runes to draw air in. The ground around them had more coup. Probably, with the dramatic effect of the slow motion, everything she did had just a bit more.

Giving her, just for a few moments, this arena. Painting things in her colors.

Turning this into her environment. An environment that is hostile not just to Grayson and Abraham specifically, but everything they represent. Hurting not just their fight here, but also their standing out there.

Because what Lucy creates here is an arena where her allies, the allies she’s earned through her support for them, support her in turn and strengthen her efforts:

Ribs got her cue, and instead of focusing on Abraham Senior, who was fending off the worst of it by turning the smoke of the flamethrower into a barrier that could ward off it’s flames, he lit up a good share of the arena with liquid flame, adding those flames to hers.

There is, however, a little snarl here.

Because, as we discussed up above, Abraham and Grayson aren’t the only ones representing the establishment, and what let Anthem help against the establishment onslaught before, as the tide turns against that:

She’d had oxygen supply worked into her mask for a long time, as a result of her using smoke as often as she did, so she had the oxygen. So now everyone else was suffering. Musser senior had drawn an air rune, Grayson was making an increasingly strangled scream, and Anthem was gasping, while avoiding the fire. The Homunculi were losing momentum fast, and the Dog Tags, at least, were doing okay.

But Anthem has also changed sides, and that doesn’t mean nothing:

She had her arena. She had her rule. A share of power from everyone who supported what she was after, here.

Which meant that the arena was more hers, which meant she could shift her feet, and tilt the disposition of this field, so the heat was biased toward the one end. So that fire didn’t reach Anthem, but oxygen did.

Being Kennet’s ally does pay, after all.

And with that victory secured, things tick a little further into the Kennet view of power, and that means a lot.

But this is not the only power conflict at play here, and there are still other battles to be fought.

Comments

[sunlit_skycat]

I remember thinking this analysis was really cool when it was first posted. The analysis of what is happening with Lucy's smoke specifically is an interesting bit of symbolism.