Talk:Liane the Wayfarer

A few critical remarks

(1) Vance has remarked that his heros are generally decent people, with the exception of Cugel. Now Cugel is a rapist, a thief, and a grave robber, but he only kills out of necessity. Liane, who can be regarded as a precursor to Cugel, is much worse: he is all that Cugel is, and to boot a ruthless murderer.

(2) The name Lith recalls Lilith, consort of the devil.

(3) The magic of naming. Of course Liane could not avoid Chun the Unavoidable; being named thus, Chun is thus, in an absolute sense. In accordance with the rules of naming magic, he repeatedly proclaims what he is, making it so. It is this name magic that gives the story the flavour of an old legend or fairy tale.

(4) Liane's behaviour tells us that he callous, vain, overconfident, and arrogant. Yet he remains a cypher. He acts (in accordance with these traits) but he does not appear to have an inner life. Nowadays we would see that as a critical failing, but it is the age-old style of picaresque novels from The Golden Ass all the way to Ulenspiegel. Again, this adds to the sense that we are reading a very old tale (even if it is set in what is presumably a very remote future).

(5) Lith, by contrast, does have an inner life: she is full of longing and beholden to Chun who trades the magic tapestry back one (or two) strands at a time, and whom she obviously fears a great deal. At the same time, she is a not-quite-real magical creature. It is suggested that she is like the lure of an anglerfish (aside: how many writers have you read that could not resist laying it on: "hey, have you heard of the anglerfish, with its luminescent lure? this gal was just like that etc. etc."?). This would rob her of autonomy or agency, being merely an appendage of Chun. The most human (if remorseless) character in the story is artifice. This is a paradox that often occurs in Vance's work in association with improbably beautiful woman-shaped magical creatures. One such creature is pivotal in the Lyonesse cycle.

(6) Chun is a protean creature. He is a thing that goes bump in the night around Lith's hut, and yet he shows a measure of compassion in offering two strands for a pair of particularly fine eyes. He becomes a dog when the need is to run fast. He can summon magic that penetrates the realm of the ring. One surmises that he is also the old man who gets offed by Liane. He changes and adapts in order that he remains his one defining constant: the Unavoidable. Like Liane, he is devoid of an inner life, except that he covets (in his case, eye balls, the symbolic trophy of the serial killer); but it is the instinctive coveting of a predator.

2A01:CB0C:CD:D800:4995:DE92:22B4:C231 (talk) 13:44, 3 October 2022 (UTC)