Entry tags:
The Daniel Blackland books - love and accountability
Thinking more about the Daniel Blackland series ...
I already inflicted the first of these thoughts on![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sovay in email, but now that I'm thinking more about it, I just keep coming up with freshly painful angles on the way that one quote from California Bones echoes through Dragon Coast in a number of the Gabriel and Max scenes.
One of the things Sovay and I were talking about in email is how Max and Gabriel's later developments are foreshadowed or at least thematically echoed in some of what happens to them early on, and I feel like this is a good example of that.
Spoilers from California Bones through the end of Dragon Coast.
I was rereading the Max and Gabriel scenes in California Bones and ran across this exchange about the coffee bar barista that Gabriel left his package of escape papers with:
"You trust this barista?"
"I used to go out with her. I think she likes me."
"Oh, love. Well. I suppose you've never been betrayed by someone who loves you."
Gabriel swallowed the sour taste in his mouth. He didn't look at Max. "I never said 'love.'"
Okay, so the immediately obvious point where this turns into a heart-stab is, of course, Gabriel's reaction two and a half books later to Max's (apparent) betrayal in Dragon Coast. Has he been betrayed by someone who loves him? Well, not yet.
But also, this is a snapshot of Max's generally understandable attitude, at this early time in the books, on how far love gets you in the world (not very far) - as opposed to ten years later, when he'll be getting out of the bed he almost died in and walking for miles on a recently broken leg because Gabriel needs his help.
And, in the above scene, Gabriel turning away, ashamed of his own - naivety, innocence, something like that, compared to Max's pragmatic realism ...
There's actually something I found fascinating about rereading their early scenes, which is that it reminded me of just how much of a cynical realist Max is. One of the things Sovay and I have been talking about is the way that Gabriel, ten years later, has come to not only rely on Max as a sort of moral compass check, but also idealizes Max as having an innate, basic decency that Gabriel himself feels he lacks. Gabriel thinks of himself as a monster, and some of his actions at the climax of Dragon Coast are basically driven by that - it comes down to Gabriel feeling like there's nothing worthwhile in him to save. Repeatedly, throughout Dragon Coast, he has to make difficult moral decisions in which he deliberately tries to choose the ethical over the practical, utilitarian choice (letting Sam live, choosing not to wipe out the unknown people ahead of him in the tunnel) - and frequently, it ends in disaster. People die and are left homeless under dragon fire because Gabriel let the dragon live. Max almost dies because Gabriel let the people in the tunnels live. By the end of Dragon Coast he no longer feels that it makes sense to listen to his own conscience; he'll turn to the ruthless, utilitarian decision instead, and accept the sacrifice of his own ethics as the cost of the greater good. ("I want to be a good man," he told Max at the start of the book. "But sometimes I have to be an awful man.")
And he sees Max as the opposite of that, as someone whose inherent decency is incorruptible, unlike his own.
But what's fascinating about going back to California Bones is how evident it is - especially early on, but also later - that it's Gabriel who is the ethical idealist and Max who is the ruthless pragmatist. Gabriel is sufficiently horrified at innocent bystanders being attacked and killed in the police sweep for him that he's willing to turn himself in to be (probably) tortured to death. ("They'll kill you."/"Not right away.") Max is the one who stops him. ("Those people are beyond saving.") What Max is concerned about in that moment is making sure that Gabriel doesn't die. He doesn't really care all that much about the rest of it.
Max does give Gabriel a sort of ongoing series of reality checks in Dragon Coast, but it's also pretty clear that Max's own moral compass is extremely focused on protecting the people he's close to (which is basically just Gabriel) and what he cares about beyond that is ... not much, actually! He does have a sense of what's right and wrong in a given situation, he's clearly not going to go out of his way to cause harm if he doesn't have to, but what he's most concerned about is the effect of whatever is going down on Gabriel rather than any other aspect of the outcome. It's not that Max doesn't care at all if the Sam-dragon goes on a rampage and kills people, but he cares about it a lot less than he cares about what the morally corrosive effect of killing or dominating the dragon would do to Gabriel.
In short, while it's evident throughout Dragon Coast that Gabriel has put Max on a pedestal as someone who he thinks of as far more morally pure than himself ... I'm pretty sure Max is doing the same with Gabriel. We just don't get inside Max's head to get it firsthand; it has to be inferred from his actions. But Gabriel is, after all, the person who pulled him out of the kennels, treated him like a person, and gave him a life and a future. I don't think Max introspects about himself all that much - he doesn't beat himself up the way Gabriel does; he would probably never have survived the kennels if he wasn't able to let things go - but it's also very clear that he's made Gabriel the center of his world and this includes not only protecting Gabriel physically, but making sure that Gabriel stays true to himself. If Gabriel has evidently decided that Max is someone pure and incorruptible, it also seems like Max has decided the same thing about Gabriel - but with a harder, more practical edge. Gabriel just thinks that Max is inherently good. Max thinks Gabriel is also inherently good but has a more realistic awareness of what can happen to good people faced with power and temptation - so he's going to make sure that doesn't happen to Gabriel.
At gunpoint, if necessary.
If it means letting the world burn, he doesn't care about that as much as he cares about making sure that Gabriel is still Gabriel at the end of it all.
And if Max has changed, over the course of the books, from someone who scoffs at the idea of love as a positive force capable in any way of helping them, to someone who is apparently driven by love above all other concerns, it's Gabriel - and Gabriel's faith in him, and fierce dedication to treating him with kindness and decency - that is responsible for it.
I already inflicted the first of these thoughts on
sovay in email, but now that I'm thinking more about it, I just keep coming up with freshly painful angles on the way that one quote from California Bones echoes through Dragon Coast in a number of the Gabriel and Max scenes.One of the things Sovay and I were talking about in email is how Max and Gabriel's later developments are foreshadowed or at least thematically echoed in some of what happens to them early on, and I feel like this is a good example of that.
Spoilers from California Bones through the end of Dragon Coast.
I was rereading the Max and Gabriel scenes in California Bones and ran across this exchange about the coffee bar barista that Gabriel left his package of escape papers with:
"You trust this barista?"
"I used to go out with her. I think she likes me."
"Oh, love. Well. I suppose you've never been betrayed by someone who loves you."
Gabriel swallowed the sour taste in his mouth. He didn't look at Max. "I never said 'love.'"
Okay, so the immediately obvious point where this turns into a heart-stab is, of course, Gabriel's reaction two and a half books later to Max's (apparent) betrayal in Dragon Coast. Has he been betrayed by someone who loves him? Well, not yet.
But also, this is a snapshot of Max's generally understandable attitude, at this early time in the books, on how far love gets you in the world (not very far) - as opposed to ten years later, when he'll be getting out of the bed he almost died in and walking for miles on a recently broken leg because Gabriel needs his help.
And, in the above scene, Gabriel turning away, ashamed of his own - naivety, innocence, something like that, compared to Max's pragmatic realism ...
There's actually something I found fascinating about rereading their early scenes, which is that it reminded me of just how much of a cynical realist Max is. One of the things Sovay and I have been talking about is the way that Gabriel, ten years later, has come to not only rely on Max as a sort of moral compass check, but also idealizes Max as having an innate, basic decency that Gabriel himself feels he lacks. Gabriel thinks of himself as a monster, and some of his actions at the climax of Dragon Coast are basically driven by that - it comes down to Gabriel feeling like there's nothing worthwhile in him to save. Repeatedly, throughout Dragon Coast, he has to make difficult moral decisions in which he deliberately tries to choose the ethical over the practical, utilitarian choice (letting Sam live, choosing not to wipe out the unknown people ahead of him in the tunnel) - and frequently, it ends in disaster. People die and are left homeless under dragon fire because Gabriel let the dragon live. Max almost dies because Gabriel let the people in the tunnels live. By the end of Dragon Coast he no longer feels that it makes sense to listen to his own conscience; he'll turn to the ruthless, utilitarian decision instead, and accept the sacrifice of his own ethics as the cost of the greater good. ("I want to be a good man," he told Max at the start of the book. "But sometimes I have to be an awful man.")
And he sees Max as the opposite of that, as someone whose inherent decency is incorruptible, unlike his own.
But what's fascinating about going back to California Bones is how evident it is - especially early on, but also later - that it's Gabriel who is the ethical idealist and Max who is the ruthless pragmatist. Gabriel is sufficiently horrified at innocent bystanders being attacked and killed in the police sweep for him that he's willing to turn himself in to be (probably) tortured to death. ("They'll kill you."/"Not right away.") Max is the one who stops him. ("Those people are beyond saving.") What Max is concerned about in that moment is making sure that Gabriel doesn't die. He doesn't really care all that much about the rest of it.
Max does give Gabriel a sort of ongoing series of reality checks in Dragon Coast, but it's also pretty clear that Max's own moral compass is extremely focused on protecting the people he's close to (which is basically just Gabriel) and what he cares about beyond that is ... not much, actually! He does have a sense of what's right and wrong in a given situation, he's clearly not going to go out of his way to cause harm if he doesn't have to, but what he's most concerned about is the effect of whatever is going down on Gabriel rather than any other aspect of the outcome. It's not that Max doesn't care at all if the Sam-dragon goes on a rampage and kills people, but he cares about it a lot less than he cares about what the morally corrosive effect of killing or dominating the dragon would do to Gabriel.
In short, while it's evident throughout Dragon Coast that Gabriel has put Max on a pedestal as someone who he thinks of as far more morally pure than himself ... I'm pretty sure Max is doing the same with Gabriel. We just don't get inside Max's head to get it firsthand; it has to be inferred from his actions. But Gabriel is, after all, the person who pulled him out of the kennels, treated him like a person, and gave him a life and a future. I don't think Max introspects about himself all that much - he doesn't beat himself up the way Gabriel does; he would probably never have survived the kennels if he wasn't able to let things go - but it's also very clear that he's made Gabriel the center of his world and this includes not only protecting Gabriel physically, but making sure that Gabriel stays true to himself. If Gabriel has evidently decided that Max is someone pure and incorruptible, it also seems like Max has decided the same thing about Gabriel - but with a harder, more practical edge. Gabriel just thinks that Max is inherently good. Max thinks Gabriel is also inherently good but has a more realistic awareness of what can happen to good people faced with power and temptation - so he's going to make sure that doesn't happen to Gabriel.
At gunpoint, if necessary.
If it means letting the world burn, he doesn't care about that as much as he cares about making sure that Gabriel is still Gabriel at the end of it all.
And if Max has changed, over the course of the books, from someone who scoffs at the idea of love as a positive force capable in any way of helping them, to someone who is apparently driven by love above all other concerns, it's Gabriel - and Gabriel's faith in him, and fierce dedication to treating him with kindness and decency - that is responsible for it.
no subject
no subject
no subject
"With a rubber bullet!"
If it means letting the world burn, he doesn't care about that as much as he cares about making sure that Gabriel is still Gabriel at the end of it all.
I think you're right, which is delightful in its own right and nicely more complex than Gabriel's faith in Max's unwavering moral compass—pointing due Gabriel—and really reinforces how they work as a dyad: Gabriel watching over the water, Max watching over Gabriel. Someone has to care for the people who care for the world, even if that means occasionally shooting them.
(It is entirely in keeping with Max's pragmatism that he brings a gun to what is technically about to turn into a mage-fight and wins.)
And if Max has changed, over the course of the books, from someone who scoffs at the idea of love as a positive force capable in any way of helping them, to someone who is apparently driven by love above all other concerns, it's Gabriel - and Gabriel's faith in him, and fierce dedication to treating him with kindness and decency - that is responsible for it.
That's beautifully said. And it's the complement to the trajectory we were talking about with Gabriel, how his first small act of decency toward Max opens up the possibility for all the rest—it ripples through Max, too.
(Of course Gabriel is an idealist. In all apparent seriousness, he has been proposing to establish a republic in L.A. At that point phrases like "lunatic optimist" may start to be bandied about.)