Core Ideas of K.J. Parker's The Siege (Addenda)

A couple further quotes & themes, in light of this week

Two weeks ago I wrote a brief overview of K.J. Parker's The Siege trilogy, it's major themes, strengths and weaknesses. In the wake of certain... events... this week, Parker's establishment-questioning voice has been powerfully resonant for me and I wanted to follow up with a few more details about this series – particularly its finale, A Practical Guide to Conquering the World.

Mainly I want to share some quotes that I couldn't fit into my previous post – both to give context to my summaries and to let you experience Parker's lovely sardonic tone for yourself:

“Something you said,” she replied. “About us and the Echmen. The worms of the earth against the lions.” “It’s a quotation.” “Thought it must be. All the clever things you say turn out to have been said by someone else. What does it mean?” “Once upon a time,” I told her, “the lions declared war on the earthworms. Everyone was sure the lions would win, but the worms were clever. They dug deep holes in the ground so the lions couldn’t get at them. Then, at night when the lions were asleep, they came back up, crawled in through the lions’ ears and ate their brains. It’s an old Robur fable.” She nodded. “And that’s your idea, is it?” “Basically, yes. The worms won because they figured out a new way of fighting. Which is what we’ve done.” She thought for a moment. “In the story, the lions started it.” “The lions always start it,” I said. “By being lions.” (...) “A war to end all wars,” I suggested. “Reorganising the world so wars don’t happen any more. Wars and genocides and whole nations marched off into slavery—” “Like the Robur used to do.” “We called it spreading civilisation and core Robur liberal values, but yes.” She nodded again. “Why you?” I acknowledged the merit of the question with a nod of my head. “Because I suddenly realised I was in the right place at the right time with the right materials all within easy reach. Meaning you. The Hus. And the Echmen. And if not me, who else? The opportunity might not occur again, ever. It sort of came to me, in a flash.” “In a dream, maybe?” “I had a dream once. I think I saw the Queen of Heaven. Of course, back then I didn’t know it was her. But I was off my head through blood loss at the time. That wasn’t the flash, though. I was wide awake, in the library.” “You want to rule the world.” It was like a slap in the face. “I suppose so,” I said. “Like they say. If you want something done properly, do it yourself. And from what I’ve seen, nobody else is fit to be trusted with it.” “And you are.” “Me, no. You, maybe. But even I couldn’t make a bigger hash of it than everyone who’s tried so far.” “I see. What gives you the right?” “Self-defence.” She sighed. “So you picked on me to be your crowbar.” (...) “Yes, the lions are bad. It’s time something was done about them. I expect that if we win, in a hundred years we’ll be lions ourselves, but I won’t be here to see that, so fuck it.” She looked at me. “Is it possible the Queen of Heaven really did choose you, only she forgot to tell you? Or maybe she figured that if you knew, you’d screw everything up.” 

This passage has it all: the do-it-yourself attitude of all three protagonists, the utterly gray morality, the paradigm of 'us vs. them', the deep cynicism toward fixing the cycle of violence by repeating it. (Maybe it also helps to convey some of my points about the portrayal of women in this series?)

Lost/Destroyed History is a major theme in Parker's work (Generated with AI)

In a slightly funnier (and darker) vein:

All human life has value, even the lives of shitheads and arseholes, but then again, you can’t make omelettes, so on and so forth. On balance I’d rather see six dozen senior officers trampled into squashed bags of broken bone than the same number of other ranks. No real logic to that, of course, but there you go. I’d wanted the war, too, of course. But at least I had the sense to keep as far away from the action as I could possibly get without emigrating.

These books are about men whose cunning, resourcefulness and audacious courage change the course of history through warfare, but I appreciate that there is nothing glorifying here. In an odd twist, Engineer Colonel Orhan is actually the most affected of the three by his actions despite being part of the army – nearly breaking down upon seeing his ideas put into action and facing emotional turmoil when ordering the deaths of enemy engineers in order to defend the City.

Towards the end of the last post I mentioned the idea of Sashan Truth, and I'm still going to save that for another post (perhaps to come this Sunday). But this passage runs somewhat in parallel to those ideas while also exemplifying Parker's fascination with the relationship between truth and passage of time:

I drew a long breath so I could point out to her all the fallacies in her argument, but then I thought; why? Out of an overwhelming duty to the truth? Fuck, as I may have observed before, the truth. If it was here, would it go out of its way to defend me? Unlikely. The truth is utterly selfish and doesn’t give a damn about anyone else. Serving the truth is like serving the empire. Nobody thanks you for it and you die poor. Besides, what is the truth, anyway? In a court of law, it’s the testimony of credible witnesses corroborating each other (...) Alyattes was now the nephew of the old emperor and the rightful heir to the throne. He hadn’t been until quite recently, but pretty soon anyone who could testify against his claim would be dead or singing a very different tune, and what was once a lie would become the truth, official, carved on the lintels of triumphal arches; and if you can’t believe what you read on a government arch, what can you believe? All the books would tell it that way, and in a thousand years’ time it will be the truth, just as what was once the bottom of the sea is now a mountaintop. Ask the wise men at the university what truth is and they’ll tell you it’s the consensus of informed and qualified scholars, based on the best evidence available. Availability is governed by what gets burned in the meanwhile, but I see no real problem with that. All living things change or else they die, and why should the truth be any different?

All this being said, I don't think Parker is in the business of answering these issues he points out in the world. If anything, these passages might feel a little disheartening in light of the past week. But it is my truest belief, as I've ended a few posts by saying, that these stories are an opportunity to deal with and tackle real-world issues when they confront us like this; and to educate us so that we can (hopefully next time) guard against them.

Anyway, be kind out there and I'll be back Sunday~