The Balance - Tumblr Posts
Equality and the School Master Brothers
Remember how the Storian insists on the brothers being equal in all things? On a literal level? That’s so contrived. That’s how you treat small children, not respected, public figures you expect mature behavior from!
And if that element were removed—well actually, maybe it couldn’t be, as removing it would reduce the intensity of the Equal Treatment/Chances fairy-tale element, of the satisfying (to whom? Us? The Pen?) repetition and symmetry, reduce the mystique itself around the ways of their world. Yet still, that form of balance is wrong.
I mean, it’s like how they each were expected to each have their own Reader to return with, in order to leave Gavaldon, be permitted through the barrier. The artificially enforced equality in all endeavors kills the need to think, two and two, one and one, etc., and then, there’s: what if this balance issue were addressed in a non-literal, utterly equal sense? You can’t make two humans with separate identities 100% equal.
Why couldn’t the trade-off have simply been something like: have any means or inequalities you want along the way, to achieve a more figurative, abstract, big-picture form of equality after events have come to pass naturally? It'd still be equality in a sense. Like, the same number of Good endings and Evil endings to tales, for instance? That, instead of micromanaging things on such a small scale.
Besides, the brothers aren't the only control freaks. The Pen is just as much a control freak and Rule follower as Rise Rhian and Fall Rafal are, despite having set the Rules by itself. (But, does it only follow its own established Rules when it's convenient?)
The Pen has such a low threshold for minute things being off, for misalignment. (Probably because it's the details that make a story worth telling.) Like: oh, that brother cheated? Let’s wait—for the other one to cheat, too, before we let anything else change. No preventative measures. Nothing, nil.
Things are stagnant until both brothers comply with or rather, fall into, the equality trap. A trap which probably makes them less equal in some contradictory fashion!
Dealing with that high level of scrutiny, all to live under the tyranny of Pen? It must be suffocating. And they had different needs. So, they didn’t need the same treatment all the time. They could’ve benefited from inequality as long as they were both served according to who they were.
How flagrantly wrong everything in the duology went plot-wise is at the very least evidence for how not every quality can be saved by or reduced to numbers and systemized for the world's convenience. And, as a storyteller, the Storian probably should've known this, to let faces be faces, instead of more statistics piling up. Though, I'm sure its reasons for withholding "character" names were more to generate further drama and suspense or to implant ideas in people's heads, not weak writing.
Good versus Evil is a commonplace literary theme beyond the world of SGE, and could be likened to mirror-image symmetry, which is often seen in Soman’s juxtaposed images throughout the series. Yet, I was thinking: is there a literary equivalent for rotational symmetry and what would it look like? I think it would have to involve greater than two elements in play, each a few degrees removed from each other instead of a pair of direct opposites, but I don't have an example of this in practice.
In addition, one of the most prominent instances of juxtaposition in the series to me, by the way, is how the brothers treat their respective Deans, and how Rhian’s reaction is far more passive as he just lets Mayberry go:
And across the bay, there’s this laughable bit:
(I'm sure Rafal is not the only soul who finds it funny. Something about the timing and this being the last line to a section and the well-deserved comeuppance of the moment just read as funny.)
Men who are soft with you. Who treat you like you’re small and delicate. Who pay attention to what you like and want to make you happy. Who would put you in your place and break you in half.