I just re-read The Goblin Emperor

[conuly]

and a question falls into my mind:

What happened to the staff at Endonomee? At the very least, all the exciting events of the first chapter probably mean they lost their jobs. You'd think Maia would consider that and make sure to at least keep them on the payroll until they found new ones again. It seems like the sort of thing he'd care about doing.

Somebody ought to remind him.

*****************

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Comments

[hamsterwoman]

What happened to the staff at Endonomee?

If you're interested in a fic answer to this, kaffy_r wrote a gorgeous take on this very question a couple of years ago: Song from the Western Marshes :)

[conuly]

Somehow I seem to have missed that before, thanks :)

[heron61]

I have a beef with “show, don’t tell,”

It was exceptionally informative (and vindicating, since I utterly loathe and have no respect for almost all post WWII US literary fiction) when I learned that the "rules" governing post WWII US literary fiction were specifically created by the CIA to reinforce the status quo and actively avoid issues and ideas that might lead to social change.

[conuly]

All the more reason to hate people who go "Ugh, stop overanalyzing, it's JUST a STORY".

You know, I encountered somebody saying that about the fable of the scorpion and the frog. I first came across that fable on ST:VOY, where Chakotay was talking about the Borg, but this reference was in the comments of Kevin and Kell.

The story runs approximately like this:

There was a forest fire or some other disaster on this side of the river, and all the animals were fleeing. As a frog was about to cross the river, a scorpion came up and begged the frog to carry her. The frog refused, saying "If I carry you, you'll only sting me", but the scorpion responded "If I sting you, we'll both drown, and if I stay here I'll die. I won't sting you, I promise", and so the frog agreed to carry her. Of course, right in the deepest part of the river she stung the frog and the frog, paralyzed and drowning said "Why would you do this? Now we'll both die" but the scorpion replied "I couldn't help it. It's my nature."

Somebody in the comments had mentioned that the story can be problematic and racist if the scorpion is not one particular person but a whole group of people, and this dude actually said that it's not because, after all, it's about animals and not people.

*headdesk*

[spikethemuffin]

WOW. Thank you!

[mme-n-b.livejournal.com]

Staff at Endonomee are fine. Gardener and caretaker stay with the property, cook and her daughters move on to the whichever nearest property is even remotely short of staff. The whole thing is handled by whoever is in charge of staffing for the province, and might not be handled fast, which would just mean that the cook and daughters get a paid holiday.