1.2.5-Kingedmundsroyalmurder

Clubninetythree 1.2.5
So I was definitely going to write this up last night and I definitely didn’t because I definitely got distracted writing fake essays talking about Harry Potter  failing to do homework because of reasons. But I am back and I will do 1.2.5 now and 1.2.6 later tonight, I swear.

(Also, full disclosure: the actual reason I didn’t do this yesterday is because I have things to say about this chapter but I still can’t quite figure out what those things are or how to say them, so this will probably not be entirely coherent or cohesive or insightful or anything at all.)

Anyway, yes, okay, so the main thing to notice here is how very much agency the cannon is given. 1.2.4 was all about anthropomorphizing it, but this chapter gives it a will and a soul. Now it is no longer the sea and the wind which control the cannon, it is the cannon deciding for itself where it will go and how it will strike. It takes on the characteristics of the thing it is destroying — when it was just destroying the ship it was inexorable and dead; now that it is destroying a man it is agentic and filled with emotion. (Also, I would be remiss if I did not point out that the cannon is not just destroying the ship, it is executing it.)

Sidenote: so the description of how it is passing over the dead men again and again is horrifying and brutal and excellently written and the only thing I can think is, “god that will be such a mess to clean up.” But it’s still a chilling image, and made even more so when you consider that there is no way the gunner didn’t run into the pieces or step on them or even slip on the blood as he was locked in his terrible struggle. A+ creeping horror Hugo.

I am interested by the idea that the sea is now against them. It is exactly wrong for the situation, choppy enough for the cannon to do maximum damage and not agitated enough to tip the cannon over. Water and metal are working in tandem to make the destruction of the ship as complete as possible. They even seem to be speaking to each other, in a way, as the blows of the cannon against the inside of the ship are matched by the crash of the waves against the outside. The never alive is working against the living and the formerly living and winning. And, in keeping with the theme, the old man (who is, I believe, always ‘the old man’ in this chapter, never the fake peasant) has metaphorically turned to stone.

The gunner, meanwhile, is not inhuman. He is warm, he is fragile, he is nothing but emotion and movement. He humanizes the cannon, and it responds to his perceptions. In recognizing it, in calling to it, in loving it, he grants it agency, offers it a soul, gives it leave to come to him. Only the cannon has been chained for too long and it is angry and so the only thing it wants to do with its newfound soul is to kill the man who chained it in the first place.

Sidenote two: Hugo describes the cannon as a huge metal insect with the will of a demon and all I see are the His Dark Materials spy flies, which also attack their master the instant they are set loose.

I’m oddly reminded of a really awful bullfight. The cannon is never actually described as a bull (and honestly I’m actually kind of charmed by the idea of it being a giant grasshopper, for completely inexplicable reasons since a 10,000 pound grasshopper of death might actually be even scarier than a cannon) but the way the gunner coaxes it towards him and leaps out of the way at the last moment feels very bullfight-like. I think it’s the idea of force vs. intelligence.

The gunner, in avoiding his own death by dodging the cannon, is participating in the destruction of his ship. This cannot not be symbolic.

And suddenly we get a third player in the drama, namely the terrifying chain of terror. You couldn’t have told us about that earlier Hugo? That is horrifying okay? “That chain complicated the fight.” No, really? Understatement much? It makes everything so much less predictable and this was already a pretty darn unpredictable situation.

So the fight continues, but now both man and cannon are intelligent and determined and the tide turns in the way we always knew it would. The cannon closes in and all seems lost until suddenly stone comes to life and steps in to save the day. He’s still stone though — he may have moved at last, but the old man has yet to say a word, and the moment he accomplishes his goal he goes back to being still and distant, far less human than was the cannon he brought down.

But the battle is won and the cannon is chained once more. A brief moment of victory, but the damage has already been done and now they have neither weapons nor a seaworthy ship to carry out their mission.

Commentary
Shirley-keeldar Now it is no longer the sea and the wind which control the cannon, it is the cannon deciding for itself where it will go and how it will strike. It takes on the characteristics of the thing it is destroying — when it was just destroying the ship it was inexorable and dead; ''now that it is destroying a man it is agentic and filled with emotion.

Yesssssss. This is the bit, my noted overinvestment in the gunner aside, that really had my attention, I really like the idea that the change in the description comes from the change in the cannon’s target.

All of this is SO GOOD, your analysis is always SO SUPER QUALITY.

Swutol-sang-scopes The gunner, meanwhile, is not inhuman. He is warm, he is fragile, he is nothing but emotion and movement. He humanizes the cannon, and it responds to his perceptions. In recognizing it, in calling to it, in loving it, he grants it agency, offers it a soul, gives it leave to come to him. Only the cannon has been chained for too long and it is angry and so the only thing it wants to do with its newfound soul is to kill the man who chained it in the first place.

Sorry, but I just had to pull this paragraph out, because it is giving me strong feelings for reasons I can’t quite articulate. (Well, I can articulate one of them - I’m a sucker for a good tricolon - but that’s not really what I mean.)

But something about love being an offer of life and the forging of a bond… augh thoughts. Now someone please stop me before I turn this into an extended Myriel-Valjean parallel…