Tranquility in Strength (Thara Celehar)

Wisdom from a sad gay elf for archvillain Elon Musk, ADHDers and everyone

"The fundamental weakness of western civilization is empathy." - Elon Musk

When I wrote a month ago that Empathy Can Still Save Us, I naively believed that no one would stoop so low as to actually demonize the concept in and of itself. But here we are, facing down some absolutely evil villains as they do their best to strip the US Government and sell it for parts.

Empathy needs to go both ways if it's going to get us anywhere, but Musk is making it clear that that won't happen anytime soon. I don't know what the answer is. As I wrote back in December, Luigi Mangione offered us all a look at one potential solution. That action mirrored the philosophy of Sniper, a fascinating character from Ada Palmer's Terra Ignota:

Assassins are always evil and despised (even when our effects are good, we’re still a bad means to a good end) until tyrants crop up. Then suddenly assassins are heroes, lifelines; suddenly we alone have the power to save the world without a revolution and the destruction revolutions bring. – Ada Palmer, Seven Surrenders

It's frankly difficult for me to see a middle road right now. Speculative fiction is littered with violent revolutions; the few exceptions I can think of rely heavily on empathy and appeals to shared 'humanity'. But I'm also growing to understand that my ADHD often leads me to dichotomous thinking, so I look forward to having my eyes opened!

This week I was re-listening to Katherine Addison's The Witness for the Dead and was struck by a poignant moment of reflection experienced by the book's protagonist. Is it a world-saving insight for us? Probably not, but I love this series and character and wanted to talk a bit about it. (The Tomb of Dragons comes out March 11, so now's the perfect time to get into the series!)

The Cemeteries of Amalo Series by Katherine Addison

Steadfast Devotion

I mentioned Thara Celehar very briefly in my recent look at the 'Cozy/Hope-Punk' genre; he was a side character in Addison's The Goblin Emperor before getting his own series. These books are an ingenious weaving of heartfelt, personal stories with worldbuilding to rival Tolkien – I'll do my best not to get lost in the linguistic tapestry Addison has crafted.

Celehar is an elven priest of Ulis: god of death, the moon, dreams, rebirth, and the wronged. He is a rare Witness for the Dead, having the gift to commune with the souls of the deceased and get a sense of their final moments. The books see him using this ability to help find justice for the less dead; victims otherwise overlooked by society. Of course, Addison established with some dark humour that Celehar is far more often called upon to locate and/or disambiguate the deceased's will, by family members eager for inheritance.

Thara Celehar, by Oakantony

Celehar's calling makes many people uneasy around him; he is quiet, thinks of himself as socially awkward and says he prefers talking to the dead over the living anyway. Witness for the Dead establishes that he is remarkably capable with every part of his role: withstanding and quieting the supernatural dead, acting as a therapist for the living and communing with hundreds of spirits in a day. He has witnessed utter horror (sometimes many times over) and remains steadfast.

Celehar is also gay in a society that looks harshly on homosexuality – especially among priests. His tragic backstory, in which he chose his faith over the life of his lover, hangs over him both internally and through the gossip that follows him.

Between his calling and his sexuality, Celehar is used to being a pariah and pushed around by priests of similar or higher rank. There are many who care for him too, and he is truly passionate for his calling, but the abuse still weighs heavily on him.

Thara Celehar, by Calastrophe

Subjected to a divine ordeal to prove his innocence before the public, Celehar reflects on the relationship between power and conduct:

I found I was saying an old Ulineise prayer under my breath, a prayer that asked for quiet—for peace and for silence—and itself twisted and turned around the line strength in tranquility and tranquility in strength. I’d always understood “strength in tranquility” and taken “tranquility in strength” to mean that if one was strong, one could make the tranquility one needed. But now, twisting and turning through the corn maze, I began to see it differently, that “tranquility in strength” meant having the strength to keep one’s tranquility of mind, no matter what the world brought. It meant being tranquil—peaceful—even when one was strong, not bullying or picking fights. It meant, I thought with a flash of asperity, not being irritated with one’s prelates for things they had not done and could not help. - Katherine Addison, The Witness for the Dead

I appreciate that Addison included Celehar's initial interpretation as context for the growth of understanding he's experiencing in this moment. That first impulse, the idea that with enough strength one can enforce peace, feels deeply relevant to the world around us. Every nation, corporation and leader wants to impose their will upon the world – but Musk really exemplifies them all, burning all around him to accrue as much money and as many offspring as possible.

Contrast that with Celehar's new understanding of tranquility in strength; being strong enough to show compassion and respect even – especially – when more powerful. Is that ultimately just another way of saying empathy? Maybe, but I think it also says something about how we conduct ourselves. Pick an adage and it fits: happiness comes from within, be the change you want to see in the world, love your neighbour, etc.

Thara Celehar feeding stray cats, by ace-artemis-fanartist

Assuaging Guilt

Of course, Celehar's internal realization about the nature of power can't change the ways of the people around him. But he can finally recognize their mistreatment for what it is, after spending so long guiltily questioning himself and his faith. He knows that he is doing his best helping the living and the dead alike; while the guilt from his traumatic past won't disappear, he can be more mindful about how he lets that affect the here and now.

That's certainly been a hard lesson for me to learn over the last couple years. Hyper-fixation makes it so easy to take on guilt for things I couldn't have known or controlled. But sometimes we just have to recognize that we can only truly help ourselves; to find our tranquility in strength.

Thanks for reading and until next time <3