[Jade-Green Pig-Hog Swine-Beast]

Right, I'm a little bit confused about the ending.

It's reavealed that Vatueil's 'true' name is Zakalwe, which is -- unless I'm completely mistaken -- the same Cheradenine Zakalwe as in Use of Weapons (I feel the possibility of a coincidence, especially given the context of the passage is too small). Now I haven't read Use of Weapons in a while but didn't Zakalwe die at the end of it? If he didn't, can someone remind me of what did happen to him.

Whether or not he did die though, being part of the Culture, I'm sure that there were a handful of ways to transfer his mind state into another body or whatever, thus making the point somewhat irrelevant. What doesn't quite make sense to me, though, are the seemingly massive differences between the two characters. If I recall correctly, Zakalwe was part of SC and therefore would be ideally anti-Hell, yet not getting involved in the War in Heaven confliction at all. Vatueil, however, wasn't even a Culture citizen, he'd been involved in the confliction seemingly since it started and while he changed his perspective, he was originally sent as a spy, essentially, for the pro-Hell side.

Thinking about it, I'm sure that in the time between the two books, there could have been plenty of events to lead Zakalwe to the position he found himself in as Vatueil, and I'm not necessarily disputing the 'facts'; I'd just like some clarification on my understanding of what I read.

Also, the Minds that Vatueil spoke to in that meeting didn't seem to be aware of who he was. He was accused of being a traitor but I assumed that was betraying the anti-Hell side by actually being a spy for the pro-Hell side (or, indeed, vice versa and betraying the pro-Hell side to support the anti-Hell side, though that would be a bit odd coming from a Culture Mind). Unless there was a deeper meaning to that, perhaps in reference to Zakalwe somehow betraying the Culture...?

Unless I've got totally the wrong end of the stick, of course...

EDIT: Zakalwe was never part of the Culture, was he? He was an outsider who did some work for them. That would make everything make more sense.

This post has been edited by Green Pig: 22 February 2011 - 01:26 PM

[Traveller]

I hope isn't a huge spoiler to know that before I read it..

[Jade-Green Pig-Hog Swine-Beast]

Um...obvioulsy I've mentioned minor spoilers that occur throughout both books. The thing about Vatueil being Zakalwe will only have significance if you've read Use of Weapons, and as I say, there are some minor (bordering on major) spoilers for that book but there aren't any massive plot twist spoiling spoilers.

Anyway, I'm fairly settled on the connection between the 'two' characters now, but still, a discussion might be nice.

[Chance]

Banks timeline hasn't exactly been easy to follow but it was my impression that Surface Detail is taking place sequentially last amongst the current books, which would I belive mean at least a century have passed since we saw him last.

Zakalwe was a freelancer the Culture used when it was convinient and Vatueils story is just the convulted plan I'd expect the minds got together and fixed up when it was decided to make a game of the hell-conflict, after all Zakalwe ain't the person to stop when it gets hard and things mostly solved themselves as the culture liked it.


All in all Surface Detail was in some part about how the greater "involved" species manipulated the lesser ones to do their dirty work.

/Chance

This post has been edited by Chance: 22 February 2011 - 03:19 PM

[Abyss]

at the end of USE OF WEAPONS Zak'

Spoiler

doesn't die

, btw

[Jade-Green Pig-Hog Swine-Beast]

Abyss, on 22 February 2011 - 03:21 PM, said:

at the end of USE OF WEAPONS Zak'

Spoiler

doesn't die

, btw

Aye, indeed, I couldn't remember.

Chance, on 22 February 2011 - 03:17 PM, said:

Banks timeline hasn't exactly been easy to follow but it was my impression that Surface Detail is taking place sequentially last amongst the current books, which would I belive mean at least a century have passed since we saw him last.

Zakalwe was a freelancer the Culture used when it was convinient and Vatueils story is just the convulted plan I'd expect the minds got together and fixed up when it was decided to make a game of the hell-conflict, after all Zakalwe ain't the person to stop when it gets hard and things mostly solved themselves as the culture liked it.


All in all Surface Detail was in some part about how the greater "involved" species manipulated the lesser ones to do their dirty work.

/Chance

After doing a bit of digging about, I think it's more like eight centuries, but yeah, I'm undecided on whether he was a freelancer working for for the pro-Hell side, who ended up being converted, or whether he was actually working for SC all the time and the whole confliction was being manipulated by the Culture, through Vatueil.

The fact that he was likely meeting with Diziet Sma (her being the person SC put in charge of Zakalwe) at the end of the book would make the latter more likely. That, or she was meeting him for a new assignment (or it wasn't her at all).

Starting TCG tonight. I'm thinking that I may go on a(nother) Banks binge after that though...

[stone monkey]

I think Zakalwe was actually waiting to meet with Shias Engin, his poet lover, in the epilogue. I suspect this places Surface Detail somewhere in the middle of the, rather convoluted, timeline of Use of Weapons

[Jade-Green Pig-Hog Swine-Beast]

I believe that Banks himself has stated that it's set 800 years after Look to Windward. Plus, there's a reference to events in Look to Windward so it can't have taken place before then.

Also going back to my original post where I said that the Minds Vatueil met with didn't know who he was, I take that back totally. The ship who's avatar was the blue bird knew exactly who Vatueil was:

Quote

"And do we trust the Space Marshall?" Zaive asked.
The bird made a snorting sound. "That errant, ramshackled ghost?" it said scornfully. "He's known of old; I doubt he even remembers who he used to be, let alone what he believes in or most recently promised."

That in itself would place events at least after Use of Weapons, as I don't think anyone in the Culture knew the truth about Zakalwe until it came out at the end of the book.

[Morgoth]

Use of Weapons happened 500 years after the Idrian war. I believe that same war is mentioned as being more than a 1000 years in the past in Excesion. Surface Detail takes place after Excesion (there was a mention somewhere of those events I believe) so it's quite some time after Use of Weapons for sure.

I certainly didn't see an inherent conflict in Zakalwe's choices. He's been on edge with the Culture several times, as shown in his project at the begining of Use of Weapons to use one example. Isn't it mentioned that he even chose the Hell side partially to be contrary? I doubt he worked for SC on this one, and I don't see any conflict in Zakalwe supporting the hell faction at all. Is there a reason to feel he should've supported the anti-hell side other than the need to have him be the hero?

[Jade-Green Pig-Hog Swine-Beast]

My assumption that he should have been supporting the anti-Hell side from the beginning of the of the confliction was based on me thinking he was an official SC agent. Then I remembered that he was actually a mercenary having been contracted by SC a few times, which would mean it makes sense for him to have a differeing opinion to the Culture as a whole, as he's not actually part of them.

To be fair, most of my original thoughts were based on misremembered facts from Use of Weapons. Having re-remembered them properly, I don't have an issue with it at all...not that i really did before; I was just a bit uncertain.

[Yellow]

Pretty sure SC placed him as a pro-Hellian, knowing full well that he would eventually decide to join the anti-Hellians through his own change of heart and therefore caring about it even more than he would have.