avechonneur-blog

[avechonneur-blog]

I am steel trap crowned with a magpie’s glint: not a girl to be saved but a girl to be saved from.

Natalie Wee, from ‘The Theory of Magic’, Our Bodies & Other Fine Machines (via natalieweepoetry)

[avechonneur-blog]

there’s this great story about gaspard as recounted in WoT2. basically, right after celene took the throne, the nevarrans had violated their border with orlais and invaded and occupied the orlesian city of larécolte and surrounding region, in the fields of ghislain. as head of the orlesian army, gaspard was tasked with regaining the city and ousting the nevarrans – but celene dictated that if he was to lose more than one thousand orlesian lives in the attempt, he was to abandon the campaign and, basically, relinquish larécolte to the invaders.

at the time, opinion was divided – some saw this as celene trying to rein back gaspard’s martial impulses and keep him from dragging orlais into all-out war with nevarra. others thought it was an impossible enough task that she was getting her rival for the throne out of val royeaux and setting him up for a spectacular failure at the same time.

however, such was his brilliance that despite leading his men into several skirmishes in the fields of ghislain, he won each with minimal losses on his side. so finally the nevarrans holed up in larécolte itself, fortifying it and basically leaving gaspard no choice but a frontal assault and long siege, which would almost certainly have taken more than the allotted one thousand lives.

but gaspard rode up alone to the city gates and asked to speak with the nevarran commander, a knight of renown himself. gaspard praised the skill of the nevarrans while mocking their honor, eventually incensing the nevarran commander enough that he insulted gaspard in return – whereupon gaspard, ever the chevalier, challenged the nevarran to single combat over it, with the city of larécolte going to the winner. he even threw down his shield and swore to the nevarran he wouldn’t fight with it, if the nevarran was too fearful to face him.

and he didn’t. he showed up for the duel with a two-handed weapon instead, a massive maul. in under a minute, he’d broken the nevarran’s arm and left him defeated on the ground, and the city was his – without a single life lost.

and honestly, this is just more evidence of just how bloody smart gaspard is. throughout TME we see him masterfully manipulating people, finding their weak points and inserting little wedges into the cracks to force them wide open. he can read people and he can shape their reactions masterfully. there are so many examples of it in just that one novel, and this is another. not only was he a brilliant battlefield strategist, but this culmination…

because, you see, the nevarran commander in larécolte? a knight, and a nevarran one – so comments by an orlesian chevalier (known throughout thedas as the greatest knights going) which disparaged his honor were enough to provoke him… giving gaspard legitimate grounds to issue the formal challenge. and the nevarran knight, while skilled, was known primarily as a tourney fighter, with less experience in war itself, so gaspard knew he’d have no good defense against the maul – not a tourney weapon, not one the nevarran would have trained with or against. 

so all of that, every step of it including throwing down his shield to shame the man into accepting, was perfectly planned, absolutely to a nicety; and he brought off seamlessly what had seemed impossible, all by the skillful manipulation of a single man.

[avechonneur-blog]

hate it when you try to kill someone and they dont die like how rude do you have to be

[avechonneur-blog]

there’s this great story about gaspard as recounted in WoT2. basically, right after celene took the throne, the nevarrans had violated their border with orlais and invaded and occupied the orlesian city of larécolte and surrounding region, in the fields of ghislain. as head of the orlesian army, gaspard was tasked with regaining the city and ousting the nevarrans -- but celene dictated that if he was to lose more than one thousand orlesian lives in the attempt, he was to abandon the campaign and, basically, relinquish larécolte to the invaders.

at the time, opinion was divided -- some saw this as celene trying to rein back gaspard’s martial impulses and keep him from dragging orlais into all-out war with nevarra. others thought it was an impossible enough task that she was getting her rival for the throne out of val royeaux and setting him up for a spectacular failure at the same time.

however, such was his brilliance that despite leading his men into several skirmishes in the fields of ghislain, he won each with minimal losses on his side. so finally the nevarrans holed up in larécolte itself, fortifying it and basically leaving gaspard no choice but a frontal assault and long siege, which would almost certainly have taken more than the allotted one thousand lives.

but gaspard rode up alone to the city gates and asked to speak with the nevarran commander, a knight of renown himself. gaspard praised the skill of the nevarrans while mocking their honor, eventually incensing the nevarran commander enough that he insulted gaspard in return -- whereupon gaspard, ever the chevalier, challenged the nevarran to single combat over it, with the city of larécolte going to the winner. he even threw down his shield and swore to the nevarran he wouldn’t fight with it, if the nevarran was too fearful to face him.

and he didn’t. he showed up for the duel with a two-handed weapon instead, a massive maul. in under a minute, he’d broken the nevarran’s arm and left him defeated on the ground, and the city was his -- without a single life lost.

and honestly, this is just more evidence of just how bloody smart gaspard is. throughout TME we see him masterfully manipulating people, finding their weak points and inserting little wedges into the cracks to force them wide open. he can read people and he can shape their reactions masterfully. there are so many examples of it in just that one novel, and this is another. not only was he a brilliant battlefield strategist, but this culmination...

because, you see, the nevarran commander in larécolte? a knight, and a nevarran one -- so comments by an orlesian chevalier (known throughout thedas as the greatest knights going) which disparaged his honor were enough to provoke him... giving gaspard legitimate grounds to issue the formal challenge. and the nevarran knight, while skilled, was known primarily as a tourney fighter, with less experience in war itself, so gaspard knew he’d have no good defense against the maul -- not a tourney weapon, not one the nevarran would have trained with or against. 

so all of that, every step of it including throwing down his shield to shame the man into accepting, was perfectly planned, absolutely to a nicety; and he brought off seamlessly what had seemed impossible, all by the skillful manipulation of a single man.

[avechonneur-blog]

i couldn’t for the life of me find my copy of asunder so i bought one in a used bookshop this morning which means later today i’ll find the original i’m sure

[avechonneur-blog]

.........i don’t know what to do with this information

[avechonneur-blog]

“are you an armored codpiece from the 16th century or are you just happy to see me?”

“why yes i am an armored codpiece from the 16th century and i am indeed happy to see you!”

[avechonneur-blog]

Designs for sword hilts by Pierre Woeiriot, a 16th century French engraver.

[avechonneur-blog]

'It is always useful to face an enemy who is prepared to die for his country,' he read. 'This means that both you and he have exactly the same aim in mind.'

Terry Pratchett, Jingo

[avechonneur-blog]

goldenhaircd:

@avechonneur

              “Your Imperial Majesty -  are your men holding up?” 

They had not expected that Corypheus still had so many forces at his sleeve - he must be desperate, to throw everything he had at them. This must be the moment of truth, the one decisive strike to bring him down for good, or so she hoped at least. 

      The Inquisitor approached the Emperor, blood still dripping from her blade. She might have known some of these people… Even if they had turned from the right path, she still could not help herself but to feel sorry for the loss of so many lives… and they all died so far away from home, the simple thought of it made her heart ache quietly. No one should die on foreign soil, slaughtered by an enemy they stood no chance against.

       “I hate to make this request, but we were alerted that the eastern flank is being hit heavy at the moment, and the dragon was sighted in that vicinity. We are trying to get through the western path, will Your Radiance and your soldiers be joining us?” 

Gaspard lowered his bloodied sword, nothing loathe to accept a chance to catch his breath during the battle when it was offered. Only a fool would think to press himself too hard and outlive his own strength; Gaspard was aging, Gaspard had taken wounds at the hands of Ser Michel which had limited his fighting abilities, but he was no fool.

He did not like fighting on ground like this; it was uneven, treacherous, the forest floor slick with mosses and wet humus and leaf-mould. Stones, wearing a camouflage of lichen and moss, lay in wait to turn the ankles of the unwary; great ropy tree roots were coiled like grasping snakes to clutch at their legs and trip them up. He also did not like being separated from his horse; but the same ground which made it dangerous for a man afoot would have broken a horse’s slender legs twenty times over by now. Not for nothing were chevaliers taught to fight afoot, of course, but a good horse was more than a conveyance; it was a weapon and a fellow warrior alike.

Couldn’t be helped. 

❛ Minor casualties only, your Worship, ❜ he assured her with bluff joviality. The chevaliers at his back were among the best men -- and one woman -- bearing the feather today. Their foes -- corrupted Templars, mind-controlled Wardens, and those strange elves -- had given them some trouble, certainly, but so far only enough to be interesting.

He lifted his blade to her in a gallant salute. ❛ If your Worship requires our aid, the chevaliers of Orlais stand ready. Lead on, Inquisitor. ❜

[avechonneur-blog]

so anyway i saw Princess Bride in the theatre today because it’s the 30th anniversary of the movie so there are special showings and i’m reminded all over again that i pretty much ship count rugen/prince humperdinck. i mean really....

[avechonneur-blog]

hey hey hey it’s a new theme even more minimal than the last one

[avechonneur-blog]

so i was reading codex entries, as one does, and something jumped out at me:

It is easy to see on any map how large the Dales are. More importantly, they stand between Orlais and the rest of the south and would likely have represented a significant obstacle to the empire’s expansion into Ferelden. Naturally, we stood to benefit from propagating the narrative of a hostile, unreasoning people attacking innocent missionaries and making blood sacrifices of good Andrastian babies. (X) (emphasis mine)

and honestly, i know people like to spin up a lot of anti-elf sentiment out of this one line of Gaspard’s from TME:

“Maker’s breath, how many times did I ask for leave to mount an expedition to drive out the Dalish only to get sent off to hunt for darkspawn instead?” *

but when you put it together with the sheer tactical importance of the Dales, it seems to me a lot less like the actions of a man who gets his jollies out of hunting elves and more like the actions of a general who sees a hostile force which is: a) occupying lands which the Orlesian Empire has claimed as their own for approximately 720 years;  b) attacking and raiding Orlesian villages and trading caravans (there are multiple references for Dalish banditry in the canon, including TME but also codices); and c) standing between Orlais and Ferelden.

it starts to feel a lot less personal when considered that way, considered in terms of military strategy and not only prejudice. remember, Gaspard didn’t say he’d asked permission to “hunt” the Dalish, but to “drive [them] out.”

* the answer was 3 – which seems like a lot until you consider that’s 3 times over the course of about 20 years. not that many, over such a span. not really a primary motivation of his.

[avechonneur-blog]

i went to bed at the most ridiculously early time last night because i had such a long day, training a new employee at work, and i was exhausted somehow. and i get to do more of that today too, yay. 

but uh. anyone want to send headcanon or meta asks my way, so i have something to be thinking about and maybe write on breaks? 

[avechonneur-blog]

koranatos:

Mehmet finished reading out the letter to his audience consisting of the king and the royal advisers with a raise of his eyebrows. Fingers started to fold the parchment back up, making no comment but the lack of one. Thus, silence was the only response for a moment, allowing the only sounds come from Mehmet that almost took on an echo within the king’s atrium. Sick, again. He was always sick. They now spent far more time within Markus’ estate rather than the throne room itself. 

“A charmer, isn’t he?” Vestalus was the first to speak, sparking a quiet laugh to come from Rodomonte and a smile from Mehmet. “There is no question he is presenting himself as he has always: a man of action. No sense in continuing this act of posturing further.”

“Should we really continue this? He certainly seems more taken with the idea of war with Nevarra than any kind of peace, or respect, if this letter has anything to say about it,” Mehmet commented, tossing the letter back onto the desk lightly which was feebly grabbed by the king to unfold and read it himself. The milky white of his once brown eyes spoke of his inability to do so, but a man of pride never lets that get in his way even when given an ornate spyglass by Rodomonte to better see the words. 

Vestalus spread his hands out, conceding the point but knowing they had no other way around it. Best to see this through and wonder if any good could come from such an accord. They were the first to extend the figurative olive branch after all; best not retract it due to one letter of a knowingly stubborn men. Were they not all as such? Surely it can be dealt with well enough.

                      to Emperor Gaspard de Chalons of the Orlesian Empire

A Renewed Greetings to you. 

As I am sure you are awfully busy putting right an Empire that was once rife with a civil war, the Kingdom of Nevarra can only thank you for your time in humoring an old man’s desire for some peace and stability in Thedas. We have all been through enough over these trying years, it is about time some good change is to occur no matter how small it is at the start. I find that peace talks are a habit many within our positions should start to become well acquainted with. Not everything can be sown together neatly with an assassination or a war, especially in our case.

War should be the last thought to any decision made, I do hope you will start to agree.

Thus, trust is a starting point, but I do know quite well that it is never quick to come into fruition. What I suggest is a meeting upon equal grounds in a neutral position betwixt both of our thrones. The area right in the middle of Perendale and Ghislain, upon the border that is guarded by your honorable Chevaliers, there is a town that is quaint in nature but serves a grand purpose. I purpose that the talks be had there in two weeks time. Should you hold any suggestions, you hold a willing listener in me. 

In time we might just see the rise of a new era not categorized by violence and upheaval, but find the return of yet another Glory Age.

Best Regards.

                      King Markus Pentaghast of the Kingdom of Nevarra

In the end, it was rather longer than two weeks. Such a thing as the moving, wholesale and entire, of a royal court was not something which could be effected easily, quickly, or without endless petty nobles’ complaints and inconveniences and disasters both minor and less so. 

Peace, after all, was not war. And a royal court was not an army. Had Gaspard marched into battle at the head of his well-disciplined and well-trained troops, the transit would have been much smoother, each piece of the army moving together with every other piece, as smoothly as the interlocking gears and oiled joints of fine dwarven clockworks. 

But peace talks required weapons rather different from siege engines and cavalry. In place of those, Gaspard had diplomats and clerks, amanuenses and scribes, historians and legal experts and a phalanx of royal advisors and councillors. He had the Council of Heralds itself, he had representatives of every high house of Orlesian nobility -- and many of the lower houses as well -- and he had fops, dandies, toadies, and bootlickers enough to load into the trébuchets he did not have and use in place of the stones, and still have some to spare.

Mobilizing such a motley patchwork of nearsighted scholars and hunch-necked paper-pushers, most of whom had never gone further from Val Royeaux than Val Chevin in their lives, was not like mobilizing an army, unless it was an army entirely composed of pampered and contrary housecats. To say that Gaspard was frustrated was to undersell the situation by several orders of magnitude. 

And even that mobilization could not occur, of course, until several more letters had been exchanged between Gaspard and Markus, or whichever of the King’s advisors was writing his letters these days, to hammer out details and logistics and to set conditions and make compromises and all the little petty business of diplomacy.

The village they had chosen, in the Fields of Ghislain, was more accustomed to hosting regiments than royals; it was a squalid, muddy little place on a frontier which had been long and bloodily contested. The inhabitants spoke Nevarran as easily as Orlesian, and their Common was oddly accented, somewhere between the two. There were no luxuries at all for the legions of nobles who had insisted upon accompanying Gaspard; he took some bittersweet comfort in the fact that no doubt, King Markus -- and his advisors -- were as plagued by the complaints of his courtiers as was Gaspard himself. 

An ancient Tevinter ruin some distance from the village proper had been chosen as the site for the talks. It was not a palace, nor yet a fortress; perhaps it had been a temple, or had housed some other manner of arcane heathenry in the days of the Imperium’s ascendency. But it had a roof only slightly holed through by time, and sturdy walls, and a faded grandeur, despite its age, which seemed suitable to the dignity of the proceedings. 

In and the village, the two armies -- of bureaucrats and scholars, though there were proper soldiers counted among both, Gaspard had not been slow to notice -- squatted on opposite sides of some invisible line which bisected the town, the national border writ small and made all but literal. He’d not be surprised, of course, if there were a number of brawls, minor and otherwise, between members of the opposing groups over the course of the next few days or weeks. He’d also not be surprised if there were a number of love affairs, brief or otherwise. Such things were to be expected.

But as he sat back in his chair in the canvas-scented dimness of the large tent serving as his headquarters -- he might be Emperor now and not only a general, he might be leading his court and not only his army, but Gaspard would not stand on luxury when his command tent was perfectly serviceable to needs, however much his nobles fussed and swooned -- and went over the last piles of reports and documentation his legions of advisors had prepared, one thing Gaspard could not anticipate was precisely what sort of situation he’d walk into on the morrow. Would Markus be there at all? If so, would he be little more than an animated skeleton? 

Gaspard’s spies had provided him what information they could about Markus’s advisors; but he was prepared, as a good general always was, to improvise at need.

[avechonneur-blog]

hartofglass:

There were, Fabien knew, many reasons why the new Emperor might want to talk with him privately, all of them legitimate, from a new commercial agreement to assessing just how much of his loyalty was truly given to him, since Serault, though too distant and busy with her own problems to be an active player, had once loosely supported Celene Valmont. And Fabien, on his side, had many things to bring to the table as well, some pleasant, some perhaps less so.

He thanked the Emperor with a small nod and approached the humidor, closely judging the admittedly wide collection of blends that were available for the guests’ pleasure. Had he been in the company of someone else, he might have chosen something more floral, he might even have chosen a blend that contained a small amount of dried blood lotus, but only the unwise would seek true intoxication when the stakes of what might well be called a friendly chat were in fact so high. In the end, Fabien picked up the very same type of kohl pipe that Gaspard had chosen for himself — a classical, safe choice.

Sitting down, he brought the cigarette to his lips, slowly, almost unattentively, leaning towards it with his face and then sinking back into the armchair, with shoulders and head both.

« Yes », Fabien confirmed, even if unnecessarily, carefully blowing a twirl of smoke out of his nose. « My sister Geneviève. »

The question was, by all accounts, an interesting one, hard to read as a simple way to open the conversation with how the Emperor’s own sister had turned out to be twice the traitor, both to Celene and to her own brother, and with how, though perhaps a wilder conjecture, Geneviève was unmarried, and Gaspard too.

« Receiving news from her was not simple, I must admit. » Holding the pipe between index and middle finger, he drew again from the cigarette and curled his lips in a slight smile. « But she’s as healthy and lively as she’s ever been. For now, she’ll stay in the capital. The state of things is much calmer now, and we all hope it will last, there’s no reason for her to interrupt her sojourn, as much as she’d like to. »

Gaspard slipped the end of his slim black kohl pipe between his lips and inhaled the sweetly spicy smoke; the paper crackled as it burned, and the lit end flared redder for a moment. He held the smoke in his lungs and then exhaled it through his mouth, no fancy tricks for him. He noted, because of course he did, that young Fabien had selected the same variety of smoke as he himself had; was it meant to be a compliment, some sort of toadying imitation? Or merely... playing it safe? There were more unusual, and more potent, herbal blends in that humidor, after all. 

Tucking the smoke into the corner of his mouth, he watched Fabien. A society of people who go masked by preference learn quite quickly to discern the appearance of others, beneath their masks. The glass-antlered mask which the Marquis wore was quite new to him, of course, having been returned very recently by the good offices of the departed Divine Justinia. It was, as most were, a half-mask; the young man’s sensuous mouth and pale golden mustache were left bare, showing quite clearly the smile with which Fabien mildly greeted Gaspard’s words.

It had been, of course, a deliberately ambiguous way by which to open their conversation. Socially and politically speaking alike, mention of the Marquis’s sister was... layered. Gaspard would not quite call it a test, except in the way in which all conversations among Orlais’s nobility were tests, but the poise of Fabien’s answer pleased him, all the same.

❛ I’m glad to hear it, ❜ he responded with jovial warmth. ❛ The capitol has been no safe place of late; and family is so important, of course, particularly in these unsettled times. ❜

Leaning back in his chair, entirely at his ease, he puffed for a few contemplative moments at his kohl pipe, allowing the quiet to stretch out between them. Was there a veiled threat hanging in his last words? An insinuation, a hint? Or was it only what it seemed on the surface.

❛ But your dear Lady Geneviève wishes to leave us, do you say? We simply cannot have that, certainly not before I’ve had the pleasure to meet her. ❜

[avechonneur-blog]

Then, finally, the pageantry ended with the laughter of Grand Duke Gaspard. It was a deep, booming bellow that had echoed across battlefields. It silenced the timid and the servants like a death knell, and pulled the other lords and ladies into chuckles with its weight.  [ a treat for @avechonneur! ]