(no subject)

[the_rck]

Recently, I was rereading a book, Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Lost Prince (a childhood favorite). It had been years since I last looked at it. I'd been avoiding rereading it for a while because I expected to be disappointed by it. So much depends on the reader recognizing that Marco (the main character) must be royalty because he's good and brave and smart and too modest even to think that he might be more than a normal boy.

But instead of being bothered by that, I found my thoughts going in a completely different direction. I realized that the Rat, Marco's sidekick, reminded me a lot of Miles Vorkosigan (the hero of many of Bujold's novels). Both are brilliant. Both have a military bent. Both are physically deformed. The biggest difference between them is opportunity. The Rat's father is an alcoholic former schoolmaster who beats his son, and his mother is dead. What would Miles have been like if he'd been raised under similar circumstances?

Then I started to think about how he might actually have ended up growing up that way and came up with a couple of ideas. Then I tried to figure out who could be Miles' Marco. That didn't work as well. I think Ivan might be the only option. Of course, Ivan raised the way Marco was... I can't believe I'm trying to map Bujold onto Burnett. I must be crazy.

Comments

[jss]

I must be crazy.

I will not touch this line. I will not touch this line. I will not touch this line.

[the_rck]

:-p

And when you say that, you don't have to, do you? ::grins::

[jss]

Ding. :-)

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

I can see lots of ways for you get there.

Possibility 1. Bothari goes a little further over the edge during Vordarian's Pretendership. Aral and Cordelia fail to notice, and continue to trust him to look after their son when they're busy. And, well, they're busy an awful lot.

Possibility 2. Cordelia dies in Miles' infancy, leaving Aral depressed and resentful of the little mutant responsible for her death. He's vulnerable to being manipulated by people like Ges Vorrutyer, or like his father.

Possibility 3. Aral and Cordelia both die in the civil war when Miles is 5. By this time, Piotr is willing to raise him as his grandson, but he's really resentful (especially now that Aral is dead and this clumsy ignorant mutant little boy is all that's left of him.) Perfect setup for abuse.

Miles is likely to be smart and manic-depressive, no matter how he's raised. What he got from his upbringing was resourcefulness, leadership, and a deep sense of loyalty. He is loyal to his family, to his liege people, to Barrayar, to humanity...if he's abused enough, his ability to make or understand that kind of connection is likely to be limited.

[the_rck]

I suspect that the closest approximation to the Rat would come from Miles being raised in hiding in the slums by a Bothari who no longer has access to his medications. Several things would have to be explained. First, in any situation desperate enough that it might end up with Bothari alone with Miles, Cordelia'd likely have given instructions for Bothari to get Miles to his grandmother on Beta Colony. Personally, I think she'd have wanted that if she thought Miles might end up alone with her father-in-law because she wouldn't trust him to raise a child. Second, Miles is physically distinctive and would be hard to hide from a determined search. Third, Miles was physically very fragile in his childhood. Without access to excellent medical care, he'd probably end up dying young.

Part of Burnett's development of the Rat depends on her assumption that being the son of a gentleman will make one Quality even if one's raised in the slums by a raging alcoholic.

[dormouse-in-tea.livejournal.com]

. . . a Burnett book I've never read.

*sobs*

[the_rck]

The edition I own is a Puffin paperback. It's abridged (I've never seen a printed edition that wasn't). I'm not sure if it's currently in print, but your local library might be able to get it through ILL.

It looks like Project Gutenberg has it, too, and I suspect that that version might not be abridged.

http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/384