Yeah the Captive Prince trilogy has a million and one different tragedies in it, ranging from death of loved ones to explosive racial prejudices, but to me the biggest tragedy is that not everyone has read The Training of Erasmus because it wasn’t included in all printings of the first book.
Like so many readers only met Erasmus once he was already in Vere and subsequently considered him being sold to Torveld and going to Patras a happy ending for him. Like… the layers of symbolism and allegory to the idea that you can’t save everyone. It’s even more impactful considering Damens character arc has so much to do with learning about flaws in political systems and leadership and how it affects individuals like Erasmus.
Talk about a tragic story. Erasmus has this already doomed situation that screws with his view of himself and his life, yet has this tiny act of rebellion in his relationship with Kallias. And Kallias, who we only see from Erasmus’ POV, but who seems to at least somewhat understand how wrong their situation is and how much more they could’ve had in a different life. But then he shatters his relationship with Erasmus and any chance of ever seeing him again in order to protect Erasmus and give him a better life, knowing that Erasmus will probably never understand why he did it. Parallels to Damen and Laurent anyone?? Princes Gambit —> slaves gambit.
I could talk so much more about the those parallels between Damen/Laurent and Erasmus/Kallias, as well as Damens enslavement never being comparable to others because he never thought of himself as a slave if anyone is interested.
God there’s just so much tragedy and food for thought in the series, Pacat did such an incredible job on these books they will forever be some of my favorites.
I think Erasmus’ story hits a little harder because he never really gets that full circle arc like a main character would. We don’t really get to see him learning about himself as a person instead of an extension of someone else. Even if there’s that one scene where we see Torveld encourage him to care about his own well being/ not accept abuse done to him by people with more power than him. Being that Torveld is a prince and will always think of Erasmus as below him no matter how much he may or may not love/respect him, it definitely makes you appreciate Damens growth and understanding of his own position of power more.
I really wish Pacat could make an additional short story about Erasmus, maybe leaving Patras and seeing Kallias again at some point. I guess on some level that would take away from the impact of his story but I just really love his character and want to see more of him.
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There’s something I find quite curious about the Captive Prince trilogy.
The lack, or paucity, of any references to religion. Or mythology or folklore. I find that a really interesting creative choice, because I think most readers feel the shapes of the fairytales and myths and beliefs that lie, like bones or the foundation of a building, under the surface of the story.
So let's discuss.
Firstly, belief systems. We know Akielos, much like the Ancient Greece it’s modelled on, has philosophers, even if we never hear about them in any detail.
We know there are Veretian and Akielon rituals regarding death. Aleron and Auguste are entombed, and so is Damen's faked body with Theomedes.
Akielon rituals are told to us in more detail via Nikandros:
There is an Ancient Greek death ritual called the ekphora, a “ritual procession of the deceased’s body from where it had been laid out to the place of burial”. The prefix ek meant ‘out’ and phora ‘to carry’ so it literally denotes the carrying out of the body to be buried. I couldn't find 'ekthanos' as a real extant word, but with the same logic ekthanos means out + thanos- a word that can mean immortal or death depending on how you might interpret the etymology of it.
It sounds like Nikandros completed a mourning ritual and lit something (a votive lamp?) symbolically (perhaps it symbolises the leaving of the spirit, as that which removes or leads out the immortal soul from the body, hence ekthanos?). I would assume it was a funeral pyre if it weren't for the fact that Damen's body was interred (could it have been ashes that were interred? That would be safer if you're going to fake someone's death, but that's honestly me very much extrapolating from nothing. Also damn, Nikandros loves Damen. My heart honestly feels so warm about him. If that happened, and he stepped up to light the pyre when Kastor didn't, than he really is his real brother).
But for all this, there is no sense of an afterlife nor praying to deities.
More after the jump:
Edit: Unless you count Jokaste’s note to Damen, which seems to point to Greek ideas of metempsychosis/reincarnation.
Regardless of that though there are no powerful institutions, no churches or temples, no religious figures to appease.
At first I thought there were no mentions of gods at all.
But there is.
Firstly in the very first description of Laurent in the baths:
And secondly, in the Akielon epic Erasmus sings:
There’s also an unusual mention of Nereus who has a collection of statues in his garden. At first, because Nereus was a Greek god and because it felt faintly familiar, I took it for a classical allusion then swiftly realised on googling that it wasn’t. Or at least I don’t think so? Someone enlighten me, and I'll edit if I'm wrong.
So I think we can safely assume Akielos once had gods, but the religion died out perhaps (thought not due to the rise of Christianity). And their pantheon may have been pretty much been the Greek one as the influence might linger in names like Nereus, literally a god of the sea (and Damianos from Damia, a minor goddess of fertility, and Nikandros which has a root in Nike, goddess of victory…).
Edit: having now read The Training of Erasmus, Nereus is a slave owner, and his gardens a place for young pre-pubescent slaves to have their initial training. Sigh. Reading that story really is just heartbreaking.
Keeping to the topic I suppose (even with the lingering sense of disgust that ran through me while reading it) did he collect statues that were relics of the times before and keeps them in this garden? You can see statuary fitting into this strange rarified space for the most beautiful youths. It could be some echoing of Roman pleasure gardens which generally had that sort of statuary? Or is it a mirroring of Renaissance Italy where they tried to recreate Roman gardens, taking classical statues from ruins to restore and place in them? Who knows!
Without being explicit, Pacat makes it clear that beautiful Laurent is classical-statue-beautiful. Greek god beautiful. A Ganymede, perhaps or an Adonis. And slave beautiful, too.
And, of course, Damianos has so many parallels to Achilles, from his unparalleled strength and prowess on the battlefield, to his ability to strategise as if Athena is guiding him, to how he can become blinded by rage. The warrior-hero.
Ultimately, I guess what’s interesting is Pacat’s choices. It’s really hard to avoid any religious references in writing, as these allusions are baked in so deep to language. Damen being made a slave is called a “living hell”. Laurent presents an “angelic countenance”. Damen "prays" the training arena is empty so he can escape. Orlant thinks that Akielos sounds like "paradise". Interestingly, all those quotes are from Captive Prince, and it seems as if, as Pacat went along, she steered away more and more from any kind of religious reference.
I mean, I get wanting to steer clear of religion. After polytheistic religions came the monotheistic- and then suddenly we have a whole heap of reasons why homosexuality is a sin. If we cut that off, and there is no spread of Christianity across Europe, it seems we get the bisexual culture of Vere and Akielos and Patras.
[Edit: But also sex as a sin in general does not exist. The policing of heterosexual premarital sex came into being to control reproduction, which in turn helps secure bloodlines in a patriarchal society. And so Pacat very neatly invents another social taboo as a substitute; the fear of bastardry, which means no heterosexual premarital sex EVER, and thus bisexuality becomes the norm (Damen is against this seeing it as potentially leading to situational sexual behaviour which doesn’t feel right to him).]
I also think it may have distracted from Pacat’s pared down yet evocative writing style. And added layers of unnecessary complication as the Veretian version of the Church would be another tricky, powerful and corrupt institution for him to battle and there really is no room for that in the narrative.
And just as a mini musing of a postcript, we know Laurent reads illuminated manuscripts:
We know these surely can't be prayerbooks, so I think we can assume that they are histories and works of poetry and stories.
Stories of courtly love perhaps? Fables, legends and folklore? Old Akielon myths? I would love to know what he read.
There are two French/European stories that do come to mind when I think of Laurent.
Beauty and the Beast, of course, with Laurent-the-beautiful and Damen-the-'giant-animal', and the trope of the kind-hearted lover who thaws the heart of the one who has grown cold and cruel.
And Reynard the fox, the trickster figure, whose "sly amorality" is "sympathetic as it is needed for his survival".
And whose main antagonist is, of course, his uncle.
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