Afterword - Book 1 - Chapter 57 (Patreon)

Chapter 57: The Price of Life

(Original Chapter Title: Of Chaos and the Price of Life)

This'll be a long Afterword, but first:

She lives! Huzzah!

One thing I've always loved toying with in telling the story of Blind Chaos is using perception to establish intentional bias. When I wrote Hylla, I effectively wrote her as doing the exact same things Elaine did, for the same reasons—without her willful adjustments because she needed Julius and the other Rangers to accept her. This led to Hylla being called rude names, because we didn't get to see her justifying every action she took. But I also used it in the last chapter. Ranthia's desperate struggle against the flock was intensely idiotic on every level—quite possibly even more foolhardy than her battle with the kraken—and yet Ranthia's own reasoning was on display so no one called it out.

Until Green did. Her point of view can be contentious—I've seen people comment before saying as much. But Green prioritizes life and rightly frames Ranthia's actions as something out of a [Bard]'s poorly thought out tale. Green dismantles and tosses aside Ranthia's justifications with logic.

Of course, the flip side of this is that Green is, effectively, saying she values Ranthia's life over potentially several lives—if you set aside the minor point that Ranthia failing completely was far more likely than her success. This is a form of morality that is kind of an anathema to entire genres of stories. Green looks at the future lives Ranthia—and those like her—could save and weighs it against the current tragedy. And more often than not—though she did acknowledge there are vanishingly rare situations where the calculus could land the other way—she sees the 'hero' staying alive to continue to do good elsewhere to be preferable.

Back when Green and Ranthia were first interacting, I recommended to those that read these afterwords to bear Green's lesson in mind that Ranthia had spoken to her assumptions about the combat potential of her team when Green asked Ranthia what she thought of the team. This chapter is where that comes together. Ranthia had become hyper-focused on her duty and started to view all things through the lens of what good they could do for Remus. She assessed her team as assets, rather than as people. And it came to a head here. Ranthia, after mulling on the lessons Green had imparted, came to realize that she was devaluing herself—she had begun to see herself as a tool, rather than a person. And it colored everything.

The chapter concludes with her promising herself to do better. But, at the risk of a spoiler: that's not a lesson that someone learns once and is forever improved. There will be further echoes of the problem.

The 'saboteur' story is weirdly precious to me. Honestly, I couldn't even tell you why I value it so highly. It's a great display of the sort of chaos Ranthia can bring in an official capacity—and it's the first time we've seen her consciously acknowledge the metes and bounds of her [Covenant]—but it's also a very minor incident. It's not particularly action-packed, nor is the mystery very deep—I fully suspect most readers know the guard captain is lying about the situation before Ranthia's openly convinced of it. But I just enjoy the storyline a lot.

Maybe it's just how plucky the storyline is. Nona's mad at the man that impregnated the prostitute that gave birth to her, because he was supposed to keep the people safe and, instead, he gave in to corruption. She's no [Champion of Justice] or [Inspiration to the Masses]—she's an entertainer. So she protests as feels most natural to her: as a performance artist. They're not pranks, they're statements. And they're meant to belittle and embarrass the perpetrators that prey on their city. Yet, at the same time, she knows that they wouldn't be cleaning up after her, so she keeps her statements as noninvasive as possible to spare those who are tasked with cleaning up from suffering.

She was unlikely to bring about true change—but she provided a bit of light to those that suffered under the greed of the few. And yet she truly did bring about change. Her statements brought in the attention of Ranger Team 6—of people that were willing to listen. They couldn't act against wealthy citizens over debatably-legal acts of greed, but Green let Ranthia take point for a reason. Ranthia isn't a rules and procedures girl, Green could trust that Ranthia would get the city guard out of the situation. While Green just spread a few seeds (pun absolutely intended) and let rumors flow through the city until corrective measures could be taken by those who weren't involved.

In some ways it's an overly optimistic storyline. It required the presence of multiple citizens who gave a damn about their city and its people—and who had the iron to stand up against those that exploited the people. But I love it either way.

I am completely ruining my usual format for these, but as a final matter to touch on: Green is one of my favorite characters that I've written so far in Blind Chaos. She's a mentor for Ranthia, just as sure as Tatius, Pupius, Hunting, Fausteo, and Rigira have been. But Green's lessons aren't combat or culture focused—she tries to teach Ranthia the importance of being a person. Of life.

Not all lessons are immediately absorbed, but Ranthia can always carry them until she's ready to accept them.