"We had a saying, too, for the sort of men who pushed Styric women," Martel says, reflectively, "when I was young and overflowing with tiresome nobility. I believe it was 'break off a switch'."
He doesn't recount this story because he thinks it flatters him, sets him up as some sort of hero to the undertrodden - he is not, and even then, he was not, however warmly self-righteous he felt after doing it - but rather because it doesn't, particularly. He meant well, but he was a boy with a boy's simple idea of the world and it hadn't really helped, or even always been particularly about the deed.
It is always so tempting to simplify these things down to those moments - it is tempting to simplify them here. Occasionally, he misses the days when he solved most of his problems by hitting them until he felt they were sufficiently solved.
"Is it familiar?"
--the landscape, not his violent youth. The snow makes looking for tracks, per se, a bit pointless - but any sign of passage is worth a glance, so he takes it. He's found harder game than one lost horse.
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He doesn't recount this story because he thinks it flatters him, sets him up as some sort of hero to the undertrodden - he is not, and even then, he was not, however warmly self-righteous he felt after doing it - but rather because it doesn't, particularly. He meant well, but he was a boy with a boy's simple idea of the world and it hadn't really helped, or even always been particularly about the deed.
It is always so tempting to simplify these things down to those moments - it is tempting to simplify them here. Occasionally, he misses the days when he solved most of his problems by hitting them until he felt they were sufficiently solved.
"Is it familiar?"
--the landscape, not his violent youth. The snow makes looking for tracks, per se, a bit pointless - but any sign of passage is worth a glance, so he takes it. He's found harder game than one lost horse.