The Worlds of Katherine Kurtz

The Deryni Series => The Legends of Camber of Culdi => Topic started by: DesertRose on March 25, 2018, 02:41:31 PM

Title: Camber MacRorie
Post by: DesertRose on March 25, 2018, 02:41:31 PM
I'm splitting this off from the discussion of Donal Haldane under the Childe Morgan section, because I think it's worth discussing independently.

revanne said:  (The scene to which she is referring in the first sentence of the quote below is when Donal, with Jessamy MacAthan's assistance, plans to drug Alyce and rape her to try to conceive another half-Haldane Deryni protector for Donal's sons, after the death of Krispin MacAthan, who was Donal's illegitimate son by Jessamy.  I have formatted the part I thought was worth a separate discussion in bold text.)

Quote from: revanne on March 25, 2018, 01:27:59 AM
The scene is unspeakably monstrous but it does not make Donal into a monster. He is a man walking an impossible tightrope and he becomes obsessed. I also think it possible that he is so horrified by the manner of Krispin's death and his inability to mourn him as his son that he ceases to function rationally or morally. Yes of course there are other better options but not necessarily obvious to him. I think Alyce understands and pities him which is why she reacts as she does. And Donal both avenges Krispin and protects Alyce ( as far as he is able) at considerable cost to himself.

One of KK's great talents is that she portrays a believable world in which good intentioned people do monstrous things, which is the tragedy of our world.

(I know this is off-topic but rereading the Camber era books I think that Camber's treatment of Cinhil is equally monstrous and I wonder whether his future appearances are less evidence of his special sanctity than his penance).

In my opinion, Camber was definitely very high-handed, and I think some of his behavior leaned toward (or outright crossed the line into) "the ends justify the means," particularly his dealings with Cinhil Haldane and Camber's assumption of Alister Cullen's identity after the latter's death at the hands of Ariella.

It seems to me that Camber fell into a fairly common trap of thinking that because his goals were the betterment and safety of the kingdom and people of Gwynedd, that anything he did to try to achieve those goals was moral, or at least more moral than it might seem.

Certainly Imre and Ariella were making life very difficult for the human subjects of Gwynedd and would have continued to do so had Camber and his children/associates not engineered the Haldane Restoration, but it also seems that the backlash starting in subtle ways while Cinhil was still alive and becoming (much) more blatant after the king's death was nearly as bad. 

Gwynedd in the centuries following the Council of Ramos was absolutely worse for the Deryni, and honestly not great for humans, either, since indoctrinating people into thinking that other people who have a different in-born trait/set of traits are not really people is generally harmful--for example, Gilrae d'Eirial and his fairly innocent thinking that the Deryni are evil because the church in his lifetime taught that Deryni are evil, a teaching Gilrae doesn't really question fully (though he doesn't seem to accept it fully either) until Simonn heals the injury on Gilrae's arm.

So going back to revanne's parenthetical above, perhaps part of the deal between God and Camber (when Evaine, Joram, and Queron attempt to reverse the Forbidden Spell only to find that Camber can't be brought back to mortal life but he can be released to the service of God from a place on the border between mortal life and immortal reward) is that Camber is to help whenever he reasonably can, as both a penance for his behavior during his mortal life and as (sort of) a hand guided by God in the mortal world.  (I hope that makes sense.)

Thoughts?
Title: Re: Camber MacRorie
Post by: revanne on March 25, 2018, 03:47:39 PM
Thank you for this DR and for moving the topic. Your suggestion as to what happens to Camber post-mortem is what I had in mind. His final use of a forbidden spell seems to sum up his ability to convince himself all along that something is right just because he does it. I am hoping someday to finish my Joram fanfic though it will take far more time than I have at present, because Joram was clearly fairly unhappy about much of what his father, and to an extent Evaine, did and I would love to explore how much Joram may have seen the calamities which befell the Deryni, and Gwynedd in general as divine retribution.

The persecution, almost to the point of annihilation, of the Deryni post Ramos was catastrophic. Obviously some humans were better off, those who had had tyrannical Deryni masters and those who like the Regents and their cronies were able to profit during and after the reign of Cinhil's sons, but I suspect life for many was harder. For a start there would have been little or no medical care for the poor once the healers were gone (at the beginning of Camber of Culdi we see a moving picture of Rhys - a healer with noble connections at that - working amongst the poor) and the religious orders were obsessed with finding Deryni. And Gwynedd was condemned to a couple of hundred years of on/off war with Torenth.

Linking back to Donal Camber overrides Cinhil's free will every bit as much as Donal does Jessamy and attempts to do with Alyce, and it is hard not to see the stripping of his innocence and purity as akin to rape. Maybe there was no other way, and Camber is acting out of desperation but there is an arrogance and self-justification that I find hard to stomach.
Title: Re: Camber MacRorie
Post by: DesertRose on March 25, 2018, 04:20:33 PM
Yes, Joram seems particularly uncomfortable with a number of Camber's decisions (and increasingly so over the years post-Restoration).

When Evaine goes to Bishop Niallan for final confession and extreme unction, she outright tells the bishop that she knows the working with Camber's suspended body (though she doesn't get specific with Niallan) will be very dangerous and possibly fatal to her and that she doesn't want to tell Joram or Queron that she knows she may very well die during the ritual; I believe she even specifically says she doesn't want to tell either of them because she thinks (probably accurately) that one or both may try to dissuade her and/or refuse to perform the working at all if her life is a possible price.  So one might infer that Evaine and Joram have clashed (obviously not badly enough to strain their sibling relationship) over the ethics of Deryni abilities and specific applications thereof.

I think Evaine and Camber both are sometimes so excited over the prospect of being able to do some action that they don't stop to consider whether they should (both for their own safety and for general ethical concerns).

If Cinhil hadn't been a monk from his late adolescence, or even if Cinhil had married, fathered children, and been widowed before taking holy orders, I think that Camber, Rhys, Joram, Evaine, et al. would probably have looked to his children for the throne upon realizing the depth of Cinhil's devotion.  But of course he hadn't, and he evidently had no siblings or cousins in the "lost" Haldane line to be alternative candidates for the throne.

Camber's dismissal of Cinhil's actual vocation and his general lack of willingness to become a king really does hit that "the ends justify the means" problem I mentioned above; Cinhil's emotional/spiritual well-being seems to be an acceptable bit of collateral damage in Camber's calculus, and that really isn't remotely fair to the Cinhil as a person or indeed to the people of Gwynedd (particularly Deryni but also humans, both in the ways I mentioned in my first post and in the ways revanne mentioned, such as the loss of Healers and Healer training) in the ensuing couple of centuries.

To be entirely fair, Camber doesn't dismiss it out of hand or without consideration, but it does seem that Camber doesn't fully understand how important a vocation is until he himself is ordained, well after the ship of Cinhil's fate had sailed.
Title: Re: Camber MacRorie
Post by: Raksha the Demon on March 25, 2018, 08:07:26 PM
Great topic! 

Much as I admire Camber's commitment to returning the governance of Gwynnedd to the human dynasty that had ruled it for centuries before the Festillic conquest, I am not completely sure that his motives were totally unselfish.

Despite the obvious cruelty of Imre's regime and the suffering of humans, Camber doesn't shift into active conspiracy-to-unseat-Imre mode until Imre murders Camber's son and heir Cathan.  It's been awhile since I read Saint Camber, but I think that Camber's resolve to play Kingmaker is less about saving the suffering humans and more about safeguarding his own family and dependents - Imre's obviously an unstable murderer; if he could murder Cathan, who was his best friend, Imre could easily turn on the rest of the MacRories, especially with Ariella to urge him on. 

Camber definitely had huge and rather unwarranted faith that once Imre was killed and Cinhil enthroned, there would be human-Deryni harmony in the newly liberated kingdom, all would proceed as it should, and his cute little human ward Megan would be the blissful mother of future Haldane kings for human and Deryni...

We all know how that turned out. 

I wonder what might have happened if Camber had returned Cinhil to his monastery, and gathered a Deryni rebellion of fellow lords concerned about Imre's excesses, and installed himself as the new king after killing Imre?  I wonder if he would have forced Joram from the priesthood and made him marry the human Megan for symbolic reasons or eventually made little Tieg Thuryn his heir. 

Or, Camber could have anticipated, a year or two prior to Cathan's death, that Imre was a washout; arranged a marriage between Imre and Evaine, and had Imre quietly killed in a way that looked like illness as soon as Evaine managed to produce a couple of sons.  (Presumably Ariella would still have fled)  Maybe I've been watching too much Game of Thrones; but I think Camber could have pulled that off and lived long enough to steer a more gradual reconciliation between human and Deryni...

But (A) Camber has to force the serene priest Cinhil to become the very unhappy King Cinhil so that Kelson will be born into the situation we see in Deryni Rising, the result of two hundred years of persecution and oppression of Deryni under Haldane rule, (B) Camber may have little compunction at having Cinhil kidnapped, mind-probed, mentally coerced and emotionally manipulated into the kingship, but he would never dream of pushing his children into doing anything contrary to their vocations or desires.
Title: Re: Camber MacRorie
Post by: Raksha the Demon on March 25, 2018, 08:31:30 PM
Quote from: DesertRose on March 25, 2018, 04:20:33 PM


I think Evaine and Camber both are sometimes so excited over the prospect of being able to do some action that they don't stop to consider whether they should (both for their own safety and for general ethical concerns).




They're certainly not the only Deryni to become so enraptured by the performing an unanticipated or new bit of magic/deryni enchantment that they don't really consider the ramifications of what they're doing.  Think about Tiercel de Claron, Boy Genius and Enfant Terrible of the Camberian Council:  Wow and gee whiz, he can give the Haldane power to a Haldane heir while the king lives!  He thinks that his fellow Camberian Councillors are a bunch of hidebound old fogies for telling him he can't do it; but hah-hah; he's already well along his teaching of Haldane Power 101 to the delighted Conall.  Unfortunately, Tiercel doesn't stop to think, even after getting to know Conall pretty well, that he's giving the keys to the Haldane kingship to a kid who has even less impulse control than he has...

A bit of irony - the person who considers the consequences of her exercise of Deryni powers the most carefully is Jehana, because she is terrified of being Deryni and using those powers.  It's interesting that she goes ahead anyway, for the best reasons - to save Nigel's life, to use handfire to light her way, to strike out at the sorceress threatening to kill her son (though that act was totally instinctive, Jehana did not hesitate). 

Title: Re: Camber MacRorie
Post by: DesertRose on March 25, 2018, 08:32:49 PM
Good points!

I mean, Camber obviously had enough reservations about Imre to retire upon Imre's accession to the throne, but he wasn't spurred to do anything until Imre killed Cathan.

Now, it could be that Camber was kidding himself about how bad a ruler Imre was shaping up to be, and the murder of Cathan shocked him out of his delusion, but even so, it wasn't until his family was directly affected by Imre's and Ariella's excesses that he took action.

Had Camber left Cinhil in the monastery (or returned him there) and mounted a rebellion with other like-minded Deryni lords, he would have had an option other than forcing Joram to marry or leaving the throne to the children of Rhys and Evaine; Cathan left two young sons, Davin and Ansel, so if Camber had taken the throne himself, Davin would have been the logical heir since Cathan had already been killed.

But he would have had even less justification to mount a rebellion without a Haldane than he did even with one, and, even though Camber could definitely be high-handed and even arrogant at times, I'm not sure he'd have seized the throne for himself and his heirs.
Title: Re: Camber MacRorie
Post by: Raksha the Demon on March 25, 2018, 08:38:48 PM


Whoops; I forget about Cathan's sons.  But Camber might have wanted an heir, i.e. Joram or Evaine in her own right or as regent, who was mature and strong enough, in terms of Deryni power and political savvy, to take over the rule of Gwynedd. 

Right; Camber is too self-righteous to take the throne for himself and his heirs; but I think it might have better for the kingdom (for humans and Deryni) if he had.  I feel terribly sorry for Cinhil, though he ultimately screwed up, it wasn't deliberate, I think he did the best he knew how in a role that was alien and repugnant to him.  Of course, if Camber & Co. had patted scared-priest Cinhil on the head and returned him to the monastery with Deryni-induced forgetfulness, then we wouldn't have had Brion, Nigel, Kelson and (possibly) Alaric, and their friends and enemies and their glorious stories.

Does anyone know if Rhys and Evaine married before the wedding of Cinhil and Megan?  If I were Camber, I'd have separated Rhys and Evaine and made sure that Evaine married Cinhil (he liked her, too); therefore binding the fragile Haldane kingship to his own powerful Deryni family.
Title: Re: Camber MacRorie
Post by: DesertRose on March 25, 2018, 09:24:35 PM
Okay, thank goodness for (searchable) Kindle editions!

The wedding of Cinhil and Megan took place on Christmas Day; Rhys and Evaine were married on Twelfth Night (less than a fortnight later).

Come to think, re: Camber taking the throne himself, it seems like I remember Camber, Joram, Rhys, and Evaine having a discussion about that, that Camber had the necessary education and many of the traits to make a fairly decent king, but Camber said that he was too old and that since Cathan was already dead, the throne could quite easily end up on Davin's head while Davin was still a child, and he didn't want the throne for himself nor did he want that burden to fall to his grandson.

It might have been interesting to see a Queen Evaine, but I don't think that would have necessarily ended any better than Cinhil's marriage to Megan.  Evaine and Rhys had been betrothed for years, they'd effectively known each other their entire lives, and it's fairly apparent that theirs was a marriage of true minds and love.  I'm not sure Evaine would have thanked Camber for breaking her betrothal to Rhys, for a marriage to man who proved unable to allow himself to settle into being a husband and king very well, even if there were the crown in the bargain.  The crown would have proved to be cold comfort, I should think, to a woman who had been looking forward to a loving marriage to a man she'd known since childhood.

Edited to correct a typo, or else I'm more Cockney than I think (I had "ave" for "have" in that last sentence!  ;D )
Title: Re: Camber MacRorie
Post by: Raksha the Demon on March 25, 2018, 09:31:44 PM
Evaine definitely wouldn't have been too happy about marrying Cinhil for the good of the realm.  I think she would have been happier than Megan, though, because she was more mature and would not have been as unhappy if he neglected her; since she had interests of her own apart from having babies.  And Evaine might have held on until Cinhil died and she still could have married Rhys, if he'd waited. 

It doesn't surprise me that Camber, on reflection, decides that he was too old to be a king and he didn't want to inflict the burden of kingship to fall on his young grandson; but it was fine and dandy to shove that burden onto the shoulders of a man untrained in kingship or authority and possessing a strong priestly vocation who definitely didn't want to be king.  Sigh.
Title: Re: Camber MacRorie
Post by: DesertRose on March 25, 2018, 09:40:09 PM
Well, to be fair to Camber (regarding deciding not to attempt to take the throne himself), it doesn't tend to bode well for a kingdom (particularly one wherein the dust is still settling from a coup d'etat/Restoration) to have a little kid on the throne, which consideration I do think entered into Camber's mind.  Not only would it not have been good for Davin to have the crown fall to him while he was still a child, it wouldn't have been good for Gwynedd, and here again we have Camber's Achilles heel.  He does what he does (mostly) out of concern for the best interests of Gwynedd as he sees them, and for good or ill, he seems to think that if his motivations are moral, so are his actions.  Ain't necessarily so, to quote a Gershwin opera.
Title: Re: Camber MacRorie
Post by: Raksha the Demon on March 25, 2018, 09:46:46 PM
Perhaps Camber just had a blind spot about Cinhil's longterm stability and potential effects on the Deryni population of Gwynnedd; he just doesn't seem to anticipate (and Camber is clever enough to anticipate a lot) that Cinhil is not going to rule in everlasting gratitude to all MacRories and Deryni and maybe not resent both for (A)tearing him away from his priesthood (B)the murder of his firstborn child (accomplished by an innocent man who was magically brainwashed via Deryni spells by Imre - if I'm remembering right). 

I don't think Cinhil anticipated or wanted the horrible persecution of all Deryni that followed his death; and he certainly did not anticipate the way his human regents would exploit, threaten and kill his children.  But Cinhil's heart was hardly ever in his kingship, and that, I think, was a major problem. 
Title: Re: Camber MacRorie
Post by: drakensis on March 26, 2018, 04:36:29 AM
IIRC Camber had served in the government of Festil III and would have been on hand, if in a junior position, when Festil's older son died and it became necessary for the next living son, Blaine, to become the heir around 867. Blaine was an ordained priest - in fact he was Archbishop of Rhemuth - but he renounced those vows and actually became quite an effective support to his father and eventually quite a decent king.

And Camber himself almost became a priest but inherited Culdi before taking his vows.

So Camber had personal experience and reason to believe someone could set aside their vows and function as a king. Of course, how much of a vocation Blaine had is hard to say, but the shared clerical experience may have been one reason Blaine brought Camber into positions of authority.

So Camber's plan for Cinhil is vested in his own experiences.
Title: Re: Camber MacRorie
Post by: revanne on March 26, 2018, 06:09:19 AM
I can see why Camber might have thought it would work but there is a world of difference between a Prince who was an Archbishop, an Earl's son who had been a deacon and a cloistered monk from adolescence which Cinhil was with no experience of the outside world let alone the world of power. And I don't think it excuses Camber's emotional and magical bullying of Cinhil.

Ironically the MacRorie who comes out of this best is Cathan, not just because he was murdered before any of this began but because the trigger for his murder ( helped along by his brother-in -law's machinations) is his refusal to accept the judicial murder of 50 human peasants, with no shred of evidence against them - in reprisal for the murder of a Deryni noble. The monk who shows Kelson and Dhugal the MacRorie tombs in QfSC says that local legend says that Cathan should have been the one to be made a Saint.
Title: Re: Camber MacRorie
Post by: Raksha the Demon on March 26, 2018, 09:27:04 PM
Cathan was definitely a strong and compassionate man.  He seemed to feel the injustice of the killings of the peasants more keenly than the other MacRories, which is odd, considering that they were people of Caerrorie and Camber's tenants.  It's also worth noting that Cathan's widow Elinor and friend Jamie, after they marry, name their son after Cathan (and he becomes a man very worthy of the name).
Title: Re: Camber MacRorie
Post by: whitelaughter on May 22, 2018, 06:20:40 AM
While Joram earns his keep as Camber's morality chain, there is another consideration; as Haldane heir, it is Cinhil's duty to be king. Camber has already been through Cinhil's situation, having to give up becoming a priest after his elder brother dies; it is unlikely that he saw any reason to consult Cinhil - after all Camber wasn't consulted!
And of course, Camber has had 2-3 decades to consider the implications of his fate; it may not have occurred to him that Cinhil would need some time to process the decisions that Camber now considered instinctive.
Title: Re: Camber MacRorie
Post by: Laurna on May 22, 2018, 01:20:52 PM
Interesting Perspective.
Title: Re: Camber MacRorie
Post by: DesertRose on May 22, 2018, 01:28:16 PM
Quote from: whitelaughter on May 22, 2018, 06:20:40 AM
While Joram earns his keep as Camber's morality chain, there is another consideration; as Haldane heir, it is Cinhil's duty to be king. Camber has already been through Cinhil's situation, having to give up becoming a priest after his elder brother dies; it is unlikely that he saw any reason to consult Cinhil - after all Camber wasn't consulted!
And of course, Camber has had 2-3 decades to consider the implications of his fate; it may not have occurred to him that Cinhil would need some time to process the decisions that Camber now considered instinctive.

I think also that Camber would have known in his younger years, even when he was in seminary, that there was a chance he might end up becoming the heir to Culdi.  With Cinhil, though, I'm not sure he even fully believed he was the last Haldane heir until Rhys and Camber sneaked him out of the abbey and pretty much force-fed him that information.  So while Seminarian!Camber would probably not have given much conscious thought to someday becoming Earl of Culdi, he would have known somewhere in the back of his head that there was a non-zero possibility of that event occurring, whereas Cinhil probably never once thought he'd be King of Gwynedd until it was about to happen in the ensuing few months.

So yeah, Cinhil got a decidedly truncated period of time in which to adjust to a huge change of status that he likely never expected to happen at all.
Title: Re: Camber MacRorie
Post by: whitelaughter on May 23, 2018, 08:57:53 AM
[nods]
Remind me, did Cinhil know that he was the Haldane heir before he was kidnapped?
Title: Re: Camber MacRorie
Post by: DesertRose on May 23, 2018, 09:22:22 AM
Quote from: whitelaughter on May 23, 2018, 08:57:53 AM
[nods]
Remind me, did Cinhil know that he was the Haldane heir before he was kidnapped?

I'm not sure.  He does say something fairly shortly after Rhys and Camber bring him out of St. Foillan's about his grandfather's story of having been the lone surviving Haldane of the Festillic coup, indicating he had heard the story but had not believed it.
Title: Re: Camber MacRorie
Post by: Cory on March 24, 2023, 10:19:25 PM
I always looked at the choice to force Cinhil to leave the priesthood and become king as rooted in a deeper logic: Camber (and the rest) were unwilling to be traitors, in the sense if they just tried to replace Imre with a MacRorie, they would be the same despots as the Festils.

But if they restored the "rightful" king whose family had been slaughtered, they are not traitors, they're not violating sacred oaths of fealty, they're restoring what should have been.

Basically, if you force out one despot for another, you're setting yourself up for continual war between factions in Gwynedd as everyone decides, hey, *I* can be king. But if you restore the Haldanes, it's different.

However, it obviously did not go completely the way they'd hoped, especially with Cinhil's premature death. Yes, they unleashed the whirlwind of change and it ate them up as well, so to speak.
Title: Re: Camber MacRorie
Post by: Salic on March 25, 2023, 01:48:27 PM
Quote from: Cory on March 24, 2023, 10:19:25 PMI always looked at the choice to force Cinhil to leave the priesthood and become king as rooted in a deeper logic: Camber (and the rest) were unwilling to be traitors, in the sense if they just tried to replace Imre with a MacRorie, they would be the same despots as the Festils.

But if they restored the "rightful" king whose family had been slaughtered, they are not traitors, they're not violating sacred oaths of fealty, they're restoring what should have been.

Basically, if you force out one despot for another, you're setting yourself up for continual war between factions in Gwynedd as everyone decides, hey, *I* can be king. But if you restore the Haldanes, it's different.

However, it obviously did not go completely the way they'd hoped, especially with Cinhil's premature death. Yes, they unleashed the whirlwind of change and it ate them up as well, so to speak.

I would agree with this appraisal, Cory.  I'm fascinated by the ambiguity surrounding Camber of Culdi.  He seems to be a person always confronted by questionable choices and having the need to choose a bad choice among them.  He chooses a course of action and shows great wisdom in situations of terrifying danger.  He doesn't escape the consequences of the fate he's trying to avoid, both for himself and for the Deryni.  As the saying goes, "in life he plays a poor hand well".

Camber reminds me of Njal Thorgeirson (Njal's Saga) who was in a similar situation.  Camber, in the end, is doomed, much as Njal, the Norse chieftain, was in the Saga.  Politics and a malignant culture, destroyed them both.

Title: Re: Camber MacRorie
Post by: Shiral on March 25, 2023, 03:20:20 PM
Quote from: DesertRose on May 23, 2018, 09:22:22 AM
Quote from: whitelaughter on May 23, 2018, 08:57:53 AM[nods]
Remind me, did Cinhil know that he was the Haldane heir before he was kidnapped?

I'm not sure.  He does say something fairly shortly after Rhys and Camber bring him out of St. Foillan's about his grandfather's story of having been the lone surviving Haldane of the Festillic coup, indicating he had heard the story but had not believed it.

OR, Daniel Draper, feeling the onset of mortality, with his son having died of the plague, may have told Nicholas/Cinhil the story of who they really were, but neither of them felt a Haldane Restoration was a realistic prospect. They were living as ordinary commoners, and their greatest safety lay in keeping their true identity secret.  When you try for a restoration, you need MONEY, and you need to be able to back up your claims of being Haldanes.  And Nicholas/Cinhil decided following his very real vocation (an abbey being a great place for a Haldane heir to hide out of sight and mind of the Festils), was more important than trying to beat the  pretty high odds against successfully retaking the throne of Gwynedd. Daniel clearly accepted his decision, but couldn't quite let the dream go, hence his deathbed revelation to Rhys.

Title: Re: Camber MacRorie
Post by: Cory on March 25, 2023, 05:21:29 PM
It could be the backlash was coming from the moment Imre ordered the 50 innocent peasants murdered in retaliation for the murder of the Deryni lord. Instead of recognizing that murdered man had committed horrific crimes,

Imre came down on the side of "we always protect our Deryni." Well, that gives regular humans little choice, right? They're backed into a corner and the only answer would be to fight, eventually.

Camber & company restoring the Haldanes only delayed this a little bit. I think Camber hoped proving that there were good Deryni would change this backlash but it may have been inevitable no matter what they did.

It could be there were doomed anyway. But I like the idea that the attempt was from a good heart, and, eventually, in Kelson's time, those actions were not in vain. King Javan would smile, in any case.
Title: Re: Camber MacRorie
Post by: drakensis on March 26, 2023, 03:24:38 AM
Quote from: Shiral on March 25, 2023, 03:20:20 PMOR, Daniel Draper, feeling the onset of mortality, with his son having died of the plague, may have told Nicholas/Cinhil the story of who they really were, but neither of them felt a Haldane Restoration was a realistic prospect. They were living as ordinary commoners, and their greatest safety lay in keeping their true identity secret.  When you try for a restoration, you need MONEY, and you need to be able to back up your claims of being Haldanes.  And Nicholas/Cinhil decided following his very real vocation (an abbey being a great place for a Haldane heir to hide out of sight and mind of the Festils), was more important than trying to beat the  pretty high odds against successfully retaking the throne of Gwynedd. Daniel clearly accepted his decision, but couldn't quite let the dream go, hence his deathbed revelation to Rhys.

It's also worth remembering that between Nicholas entering the Ordo Verbi Dei in 879 and his grandfather's death, there was a pro-Haldane uprising in Rhemuth - in the summer of 885, after the death of the Archbishop of Rhemuth (who'd been a Festil). Cathyr Baron Carrach, a great-grandson of one of Bearand Haldane's daughters, was put forward as successor. King Blaine returned from a visit to Beldour, marched an army south from Valoret and smashed the rebel army, then had Rhemuth Cathedral destroyed - the see was left vacant for twenty years, ironic since King Blaine had been Archbishop of Rhemuth until 868. (See Blaine's entry in the Deryni Codex)

Daniel Draper likely lived through this, I could see he and his family having considered getting involved in the uprising and then being very glad that they did not, since the entire matter lasted only two months and ended badly. I could see that as leaving Cinhil less than convinced that the Festils could be overthrown.
Title: Re: Camber MacRorie
Post by: Shiral on March 26, 2023, 03:41:12 PM
Excellent points all, Drakensis. I had forgotten about that uprising. But it does make the case that Daniel felt a Haldane Restoration was too risky to attempt with the resources he had in his own right. He would have  needed allies like Camber and also allies like the Michaelines with a lot of wealth and military might. And the cost of the Restoration was still pretty high for everyone involved. However the cost of NOT attempting it could have been even greater, as Imre and Ariella's corruption of their royal line was likely to keep going in the direction they had started, not at all to the good of Gwynedd or their subjects.

Title: Re: Camber MacRorie
Post by: DoctorM on March 26, 2023, 04:05:11 PM
Quote from: Cory on March 25, 2023, 05:21:29 PMIt could be the backlash was coming from the moment Imre ordered the 50 innocent peasants murdered in retaliation for the murder of the Deryni lord. Instead of recognizing that murdered man had committed horrific crimes,

Imre came down on the side of "we always protect our Deryni." Well, that gives regular humans little choice, right? They're backed into a corner and the only answer would be to fight, eventually.
 

I remember Camber and his daughter talking about the incident, and they do both agree that the law Imre invoked  may have been necessary in the days just after the Conquest, since their forebears were outsiders who'd seized power by killing the Haldanes-- ruthlessness was the only way to hold on to Gwynedd. The problem is always that almost a century on, the law (which doesn't seem to have been used in a long while) is no longer acceptable, and only reminds non-Deryni that they can be treated as a subject people.

I'd suspect that some kind of revolt was inevitable. The Conquest families weren't about to give up their place as a ruling class, and the non-Deryni population (at least the lower and middle classes) had reasons (including religious beliefs) to refuse to accept their position.
Title: Re: Camber MacRorie
Post by: ReikiDeryni on March 26, 2023, 07:15:53 PM
I think Camber, Evaine and the rest did what they thought was best, in many ways hoping for the best possible outcome. They pretty much had decided to move against Imre before Cathan's death, that just highlighted what Imre was capable of and hinted at much worse. To think that ANYBODY could have know ALL the possible consequences of their action is naiveté. They did the best with they had in a shitty situation from start to finish. Just like every mere mortal does too varying degrees.
Title: Re: Camber MacRorie
Post by: Laurna on April 03, 2023, 12:50:31 PM
The Elven Kingdoms is a culture where family bloodlines is Everything; Duty and Power are bestowed because of those bloodlines. When looking at the full history of Gwynedd, we see that the Haldanes had been very powerful men for more than 600 years. Halbert Haldane started the ruling family in the year 411. From that time on the Haldane counts/kings had been conquerors and rulers gradually gaining more lands and more power with every passing generation. Alongside them and often intertwining with the them were the Furstan family. There were obvious tension between the two families for as long as we have our history. There were also many intermarriages between them leading either side to lineages that could claim the thrones of one for the other.

The fact that Daniel Drapper actually let his grandson join the monastery and not himself have children and pass on this immensely powerful bloodline is of amazement to me. Did he never consider that his descendants could become powerful men again? And if he had so given up on that notion, then why tell Rhys his families secret on his deathbed. What did he think Rhys should have done with that info other than what Rhys did do? Daniel Drapper is as much to blame for Cinhil's conditions as the MacRhorie family.  He should have insisted that Cinhil have a family and live quietly, or he should have never told his secret.

I don't think there was ever a moment where Camber would have made himself the king. He was always the councilor to the prior kings and his son had become the councilor to the current king. So manipulating Cinhil to regain his family heritage would have just seemed the correct and duty-bound thing to do."Haldanes were the family bloodline that was suppose to be in power". Personally, I never understood why Cinhil could not have remained a priest and a king, retaining both secular and religious titles. He could have started a new church (like our modern culture) where marriage is allowed in priesthood.  The Haldanes were such a powerful family that I don't think anyone would have question them in this new branch of the church, He did have the Michealine Order backing him. They should have allowed it. The move would have given them even more power among the other religious orders. It is these kinds of events that make for huge change,(like Henry VIII breaking from the roman church).

I think there were a lot of missteps from all sides that led to the Harrowing. Cinhil is not completely innocent in this and Camber is not completely guilty. Though I do like Revanne's assertion that Camber's essence remains in the world of men to try and right the unintended consequences that followed his actions.
Title: Re: Camber MacRorie
Post by: DerynifanK on April 04, 2023, 10:50:29 AM
Great summary but I do not think that Cinhil could have been both king and priest. I believe there would be conflicts of interest and that would have been too much power concentrated in one person. Even the best of men would have found it very difficult if not impossible to serve two masters(religious and secular). In fact. I think that having secular and religious power separate should provide checks and balances on both. Even the divine right of kings gives them the right to rule but not absolute, unchecked power. We have to remember that Daniel was a small child when the Festils overthrew the Haldanes (I think he was 2) and we don't know what he knew about his bloodline. After what happened to his  family, I could see him deciding that it was best to remain under the radar so to speak. I haven't read these in a long time but, in fact we don't really know what Cinhil thought about the rule of the Festils and whether they should be themselves be deposed. After all he lived in the protected life of a monastery, probably much less affected by the actions of the rulers. He did not seem  to see this as his responsibility despite his Haldane heritage. And Daniel must have had at least one child or more or he could not have a grandson. I may need to reread the Camber trilogy.
Title: Re: Camber MacRorie
Post by: Cory on April 04, 2023, 12:25:00 PM
Quote from: Laurna on April 03, 2023, 12:50:31 PMThe fact that Daniel Drapper actually let his grandson join the monastery and not himself have children and pass on this immensely powerful bloodline is of amazement to me. Did he never consider that his descendants could become powerful men again? And if he had so given up on that notion, then why tell Rhys his families secret on his deathbed. What did he think Rhys should have done with that info other than what Rhys did do? Daniel Drapper is as much to blame for Cinhil's conditions as the MacRhorie family.  He should have insisted that Cinhil have a family and live quietly, or he should have never told his secret.

Daniel was 4? when he was saved. He saw his entire family slaughtered. I suspect once he created a new family, he was unwilling to risk them. Then he lost his son as well. (Though there is that unknown daughter about....)
He may well have wanted to let his grandson be happy. Or, Cinhil being Cinhill, his grandson may have just been mullish and did what he wanted no matter what his grandfather said.

So perhaps there was disagreement between grandfather and grandson. I suspect Daniel confessed on his deathbed because, like everyone, he could see Imre's reign was going to be bad. Before then, well, Blaine had been a decent king with good advisors.
Title: Re: Camber MacRorie
Post by: Cory on April 04, 2023, 12:27:43 PM
I definitely believe Cinhil is not without fault.

Yes, he had a true vocation. But he only seemed convinced of Imre's evil when it touched him in the form of his infant son's murder. This after the peasant massacre that so distressed Cathan, not to mention other events as Imre became more desperate with Camber & his allies in hiding.

He was the king Gwynedd had to have but he wasn't the king the country needed. That is very much on him.