(no subject)
Laurence says something in uhh I think Victory of Eagles, all "Grief made her vunerable to a kindness pride would have ordinarily armoured her against" as an explanation for why Lien left China to go to France! This is, by my lights, about 98% untrue. I think Laurence is a very biased narrator here, because he loves his country, and buys into its propaganda. Lien has both good and bad reasons to hate Britain and want to destroy it utterly, to which France started off as completely incidental. Let's take a quick journey into LIEN POV LAND.
Point One: Britain treats its dragons horribly, in comparison to China. That gets it the kind of contempt you'd have for a country with legal slavery. Lien doesn't exactly see it as her responsibility to fix this, but she hates it anyway.
Point Two: The Temeraire series takes place only a couple decades before our history produced the Opium Wars. During this time period, the East India Company was doing its level best to address the China/England trade imbalance by getting China hooked on opium. Yongxing mentions this to Laurence in a fit of passion, and Lien thinks about it during the one short story from her POV, calling the British "poison-merchants," - clearly it was an issue very much on the pair's minds, especially when you consider how against all trade with the West Yongxing had decided to be. I doubt this was a decision come to entirely out of pride; Yongxing wasn't stupid and Lien was an incrediblely gifted scholar with the Imperial family's access to information, completely bent on helping him plan in any way she could. Their contempt for Britain's methods and wish to cut off ties to the West completely was not at all unjust or unwarranted, by their standards. And worst of all, with Yongxing barred from power by having Lien, the extremely corrupt power structures of the time were allowed to flourish, meaning policies with regards to Britain wouldn't change - there wasn't even anything effective Yongxing and Lien could legally do to help their country.
Point Three: What Yongxing COULD do was try to use Temeraire to overthrow the existing power structures so he could at least get into a position where he could correct the corruption and abuse and kick the damn drug dealers out of his country. However! The British were bitches about handing Temeraire over and they'd BRAINWASHED the poor thing so he'd prefer THEIR barbaric country and URGH. I mean, obviously we're reading the books from the BRITAIN IS AWESOME perspective, but think about it. OH GOD THAT POOR CHILD WAS RAISED BY WOLVES AND NOW HE WON'T LEAVE THE CAVE AND PUT SOME CLOTHES ON gosh how embarrassing
Point Four: British attitudes were responsible for Temeraire's recalcitrance, Britain in the form of Laurence kept trying to block Yongxing from replacing Laurence with Miankai so that Yongxing could make the vital power grab, and thus Britain was ultimately responsible for Yongxing dying.
Point Four(a): yongxing died
Point Four(a)1: this means that she can't help fix china, either and it will remain lame and increasingly drugged up
Point Four(a)2: Also they now want to banish her, hooray!
Point Four(b): yongxing died
Point Five: After being partly responsible for wrecking the single hope for China, Britain reclaimed Temeraire even though it was a horrible place full of lies and savagery, thus also managing to diminish the dignity of Celestials.
Point Five(a): His going back is also part of the reason she hates Temeraire. He'd return to these terrible people?
Point Six: Laurence being adopted is just another example of Britain forcing its horribleness on China.
***
So that's why Lien is willing to go to France to offer her services to Napoleon in the interest of destroying Britain. She got caught up in Napoleon's charisma and vision later to a degree, and De Guignes being nice HELPED, but the original plan (in her words) was to find a tool that could be used to destroy a small but fortified island nation.
Britain keeps on obligingly providing reasons it should be killed in the face.
***
Point Seven: Britain tried to kill thousands of dragons with the plague after she'd gone to hang out with Napoleon. This came as about zero surprise to her. They were already poison-mongers, so it made sense they'd be plague-mongers too! The only surprise was that Laurence or Temeraire objected, but that only made them about 1% better. They are as civilized as dogs as opposed to as civilized as rats! Those small, ratty-looking dogs, anyway.
Point Eight: And then after having proved in every way they possibly could that they deserved to be ground into dust for the good of the world, Britain goes and BEATS UP NAPOLEON WHO IS THE ONLY LEADER OF VISION IN THE ENTIRE WEST AND ALMOST CAPTURES HIM AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH
/Lien POV land!
So as you can see, most of this actually makes sense, though a VERY BIASED sort of sense - but Laurence and Temeraire are biased too. To Lien-as-narrator, Britain is just as plausible a villian as Lien is to Team-Traitor-as-Narrator. History is complicated! Even dragon history!
And in short, the only thing Lien hates more than Temeraire is his country. 8Db
Point One: Britain treats its dragons horribly, in comparison to China. That gets it the kind of contempt you'd have for a country with legal slavery. Lien doesn't exactly see it as her responsibility to fix this, but she hates it anyway.
Point Two: The Temeraire series takes place only a couple decades before our history produced the Opium Wars. During this time period, the East India Company was doing its level best to address the China/England trade imbalance by getting China hooked on opium. Yongxing mentions this to Laurence in a fit of passion, and Lien thinks about it during the one short story from her POV, calling the British "poison-merchants," - clearly it was an issue very much on the pair's minds, especially when you consider how against all trade with the West Yongxing had decided to be. I doubt this was a decision come to entirely out of pride; Yongxing wasn't stupid and Lien was an incrediblely gifted scholar with the Imperial family's access to information, completely bent on helping him plan in any way she could. Their contempt for Britain's methods and wish to cut off ties to the West completely was not at all unjust or unwarranted, by their standards. And worst of all, with Yongxing barred from power by having Lien, the extremely corrupt power structures of the time were allowed to flourish, meaning policies with regards to Britain wouldn't change - there wasn't even anything effective Yongxing and Lien could legally do to help their country.
Point Three: What Yongxing COULD do was try to use Temeraire to overthrow the existing power structures so he could at least get into a position where he could correct the corruption and abuse and kick the damn drug dealers out of his country. However! The British were bitches about handing Temeraire over and they'd BRAINWASHED the poor thing so he'd prefer THEIR barbaric country and URGH. I mean, obviously we're reading the books from the BRITAIN IS AWESOME perspective, but think about it. OH GOD THAT POOR CHILD WAS RAISED BY WOLVES AND NOW HE WON'T LEAVE THE CAVE AND PUT SOME CLOTHES ON gosh how embarrassing
Point Four: British attitudes were responsible for Temeraire's recalcitrance, Britain in the form of Laurence kept trying to block Yongxing from replacing Laurence with Miankai so that Yongxing could make the vital power grab, and thus Britain was ultimately responsible for Yongxing dying.
Point Four(a): yongxing died
Point Four(a)1: this means that she can't help fix china, either and it will remain lame and increasingly drugged up
Point Four(a)2: Also they now want to banish her, hooray!
Point Four(b): yongxing died
Point Five: After being partly responsible for wrecking the single hope for China, Britain reclaimed Temeraire even though it was a horrible place full of lies and savagery, thus also managing to diminish the dignity of Celestials.
Point Five(a): His going back is also part of the reason she hates Temeraire. He'd return to these terrible people?
Point Six: Laurence being adopted is just another example of Britain forcing its horribleness on China.
***
So that's why Lien is willing to go to France to offer her services to Napoleon in the interest of destroying Britain. She got caught up in Napoleon's charisma and vision later to a degree, and De Guignes being nice HELPED, but the original plan (in her words) was to find a tool that could be used to destroy a small but fortified island nation.
Britain keeps on obligingly providing reasons it should be killed in the face.
***
Point Seven: Britain tried to kill thousands of dragons with the plague after she'd gone to hang out with Napoleon. This came as about zero surprise to her. They were already poison-mongers, so it made sense they'd be plague-mongers too! The only surprise was that Laurence or Temeraire objected, but that only made them about 1% better. They are as civilized as dogs as opposed to as civilized as rats! Those small, ratty-looking dogs, anyway.
Point Eight: And then after having proved in every way they possibly could that they deserved to be ground into dust for the good of the world, Britain goes and BEATS UP NAPOLEON WHO IS THE ONLY LEADER OF VISION IN THE ENTIRE WEST AND ALMOST CAPTURES HIM AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH
/Lien POV land!
So as you can see, most of this actually makes sense, though a VERY BIASED sort of sense - but Laurence and Temeraire are biased too. To Lien-as-narrator, Britain is just as plausible a villian as Lien is to Team-Traitor-as-Narrator. History is complicated! Even dragon history!
And in short, the only thing Lien hates more than Temeraire is his country. 8Db