1.2.6-Robertawickham

1.2.6: Les Deux Plateaux de la Balance
The human’s victory over force in the previous chapter was costly, maybe even pyrrhic. The ship is still in danger. SYMBOLISM.

As soon as Boisberthelot brought the man who had neglected the cannon and then restrained it to the old faux-peasant’s attention, I knew that he’d be in for trouble. My initial guess was that they’d simply shoot him, but when the soldiers began cheering for him and he got the cross of Saint Louis, I feared that a Stannis Baratheon* situation was at work. And I was right, except it was worse than Stannis, who was fairly humane to Davos, all things considered. The faux-peasant has the man killed. And it is just, strictly speaking, but it also undoes the man’s victory over the cannon. The faux-peasant has the sailor killed because that’s what victory in a violent world requires: no negligence before the enemy. In other words, the faux-peasant accepts the reality of violence and doesn’t try to resist it. This impresses Boisberthelot, who thinks the faux-peasant is fit for the Vendée.

* Stannis from George R.R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” chopped off a man’s fingers for smuggling and then knighted him for good service, because the good deed does not wipe out the bad, or vice versa.