(I debated a long time over whether I wanted to start a new thread or hijack this one, decided to do both, and will probably just end up dumping everything here instead)
Oh god, spoilers. It's so hard to judge in retrospect; I get all paranoid and think EVERYTHING is a spoiler. But it's the kind of series where characters show up repeatedly anyway, so I'm hoping it's safe to say that you'll see Bel again. I really like Bel, too.
The "it" pronoun was a little weird but not too bad back when I first read the series a decade ago, but certainly pings me pretty hard now. The terminology in general (including "hermaphrodite") is a product of its times, and it seems stuck with that now =\
But speaking of when I first read the series, I also read Young Miles first and Cordelia second, so I also had the kind of strange experience with Bothari. But weirdly, I grew really attached to him in Warrior's Apprentice alone, and then I read Cordelia and found that he was EVEN MORE INTERESTING. So it worked out all right for me, but I always read Cordelia first in all my rereads.
But yeah... Bothari is really complicated. I agree with Sev -- I keep wanting to think of him as essentially a good guy, but it's not so straightforward. I spent quite a while right here trying to articulate some views about his morality but it got seriously muddled... trying to decide if he has any inherent sense of good and bad at all, or if he just cribs off others. I can at least say that he's a very interesting depiction of a sociopath, and I loved all the parts in the books where he got a little more space to function, like when he and Cordelia were alone in hiding with little Gregor, or going after Miles in Vorbarr Sultana. It was interesting watching him expand in those times -- seemed very much in keeping with Aral's observations about him, a kind of meta-showing of how he changes to fill roles.
Anyway. Bothari. One of my favourite characters in the VK books, somehow.
As for how thought-out the backstory was -- actually, this is something I've seen others remark upon with the VK books: Bujold seems to have a really neat trick of expanding her universe in an organic and internally consistent way even though it was written in the most random order. Seriously, he publication order is ALL OVER THE PLACE. But I've almost never seen her really slip up in this way (in fact I have only caught one instance across ALL the books taken together) -- stuff that's thrown out offhand or only vaguely mentioned in one book will suddenly grow into its own fully articulated world in another book. Someone put it like this: it doesn't feel like those other worlds and details aren't THERE yet, but just that Bujold has not turned our attention to them; they feel like they're there, extant, waiting around the corner.
For the title, I do have some theories, but I think I want to keep them under my hat at least until you've read the short story/novella that comes next.
no subject
Oh god, spoilers. It's so hard to judge in retrospect; I get all paranoid and think EVERYTHING is a spoiler. But it's the kind of series where characters show up repeatedly anyway, so I'm hoping it's safe to say that you'll see Bel again. I really like Bel, too.
The "it" pronoun was a little weird but not too bad back when I first read the series a decade ago, but certainly pings me pretty hard now. The terminology in general (including "hermaphrodite") is a product of its times, and it seems stuck with that now =\
But speaking of when I first read the series, I also read Young Miles first and Cordelia second, so I also had the kind of strange experience with Bothari. But weirdly, I grew really attached to him in Warrior's Apprentice alone, and then I read Cordelia and found that he was EVEN MORE INTERESTING. So it worked out all right for me, but I always read Cordelia first in all my rereads.
But yeah... Bothari is really complicated. I agree with Sev -- I keep wanting to think of him as essentially a good guy, but it's not so straightforward. I spent quite a while right here trying to articulate some views about his morality but it got seriously muddled... trying to decide if he has any inherent sense of good and bad at all, or if he just cribs off others. I can at least say that he's a very interesting depiction of a sociopath, and I loved all the parts in the books where he got a little more space to function, like when he and Cordelia were alone in hiding with little Gregor, or going after Miles in Vorbarr Sultana. It was interesting watching him expand in those times -- seemed very much in keeping with Aral's observations about him, a kind of meta-showing of how he changes to fill roles.
Anyway. Bothari. One of my favourite characters in the VK books, somehow.
As for how thought-out the backstory was -- actually, this is something I've seen others remark upon with the VK books: Bujold seems to have a really neat trick of expanding her universe in an organic and internally consistent way even though it was written in the most random order. Seriously, he publication order is ALL OVER THE PLACE. But I've almost never seen her really slip up in this way (in fact I have only caught one instance across ALL the books taken together) -- stuff that's thrown out offhand or only vaguely mentioned in one book will suddenly grow into its own fully articulated world in another book. Someone put it like this: it doesn't feel like those other worlds and details aren't THERE yet, but just that Bujold has not turned our attention to them; they feel like they're there, extant, waiting around the corner.
For the title, I do have some theories, but I think I want to keep them under my hat at least until you've read the short story/novella that comes next.