tied him to a tree like saint sebastian

[lotesse]

two questions about the Vorkosigan Saga:

1. how does swearing someone work in terms of the armsmans' score/Vorloupulous' law? When Miles swears Arde and Baz in - when Mark swears Elena - do those count as additions to the number of Vorkosigan Armsmen? Because neither boy acts as though a slot needs to be open before a swearing can happen, on penalty of high treason. Is there a textual explanation, or is it a crack in the narrative?

2. Why, when Bujold so obviously understands why aspects of Miles' courtship of Ekaterin are really borderline in terms of acceptable behavior, does she choose to have the story go down that way? There are all of these words about how Ekaterin needs some time, some confidence, some space - Bujold clearly does get it, at some level. Does she just not care? Why was it necessary for her to write the story about Miles pushing Ekaterin's consent and disrespecting her boundaries and still getting her to marry him in the end?

It would have been really cool if it had gone the other way, actually been a healthy and functional romance all the time, instead of just some of the time.

Comments

[antisoppist]

Here via network. I agree ACC is homage to Sayers and one in which the woman gets to do the asking and save the hero instead of the other way round, and I get Ekaterin thinking "well I know how it's going to end, and I will give in eventually, so why not just do it now, when my giving in loudly and in public would actually be useful to him" but after that I'd like them to agree on a five year engagement at least before she has to become Countess Vorkosigan, in which she can go off and gain garden design qualifications, set up a small business, or whatever she needs to do By Herself in order to Be Herself. She needs to find out who she is without Tien before she gets swallowed up by Miles, who tends to swallow people.

I'd also like the version in which Tien doesn't handily die and they all have to work that one out.

[legionseagle]

Both of those. Especially the five year hiatus and the degree.

[staranise]

YESSSS.