In Miles' case he is also just confirming something that he already knew. He had been told that Lady Donna had just returned from Beta Colony. I do think that Bujold meant for this line to be Miles paraphrasing Holmes.

I think it's pushing it to call it a shout out. I admit that it might be—in fact, I recognized the echo when I first read it—but it's also just something you might expect the character to say in that circumstance. Without Word Of God to back it up, it seems too speculative. (It's also not a particularly well-known Holmes line, unlike, say, comments about dogs and nights.)

eta: at the very least, I disagree with the "not-so-subtle" part; I think it's so subtle that I can't be sure it's there! ;)

Xtifr hit the nail for why I keep deleting it. Sure, it might be a Shout Out, but it also might not be. "Genius and wonder" is at least a specific use of the same adjectives in the same form, very few things are described as such. Commenting that somebody has been somewhere, particularly when you've been told they've been somewhere, just seems like a thing that somebody says.

Frankly I find it much less subtle then the 'genius and wonder' line since 'You have been in Afghanistan I perceive is the the first thing Holmes ever says to Watson. However I will bow to the majority.

It may be less obscure (and indeed, I doubt I would have recognized the "genius and wonder" one if it hadn't been pointed out), but that doesn't necessarily make it less subtle.

eta: of course, if someone wanted to try to obtain Word Of God on the matter, that would definitely change things. Bujold is hardly a recluse, and she might well respond to a question.

How about putting in YMMV?

It's not a YMMV trope though, is it? I agree that it seems likely to be a Holmes Shout Out, but can see the reasons for leaving it off. Would be cool if someone would write Bujold to ask/confirm (I'm busy at present).

Shout-outs are borderline trivia in any case, and I see little point in obsessing over catching them all, but if we really wanted to, I bet that this book alone, dedicated "To Jane, Charlotte, Georgette, and Dorothy", has a whole bunch that we've missed. I've read most of Jane, and a fair amount of Georgette and Dorothy, but not recently enough to spot what shout-outs there may be; still, I'm confident they're there.

I've read all of Jane, Charlotte's most famous and some of Georgette's and can't say I've noticed shout outs to any of them. Who the heck is 'Dorothy'?

Dorothy L Sayers (Lord Peter Wimsey) is my assumption.

Okay I really haven't noticed any Peter Wimsey shout outs.

Miles relationship with Ekatrian (sorry, not sure how to spell her name) is pretty close to Lord Peter's relationship with Harriet Vane- same kind of idea of how the guy is kind of a savior and the woman isn't really comfortable with the idea of starting a relationship with someone they feel indebted to.

And I'd say generally that after settling down in Komarr and A Civil Campaign, Miles becomes a fair amount like Peter in personality (a "gentleman detective").

There is also Ekaterin's maiden name: Vorvayne

Wow, never knew/noticed that. That's a pretty obvious hint.

Roxana, I think you're confusing a character viewpoint with an author viewpoint. To my knowledge Bujold has never in real life said "Natural birth is disgusting and should be stamped out as soon as humanly possible," and she has never said "Beta is my ideal world and I wholeheartedly endorse all their social practices." There's many different societies in the universe, each of which have their own viewpoint on things like sex and reproduction, and to my knowledge Bujold hasn't pointed to any said that they are absolutely correct.

Also, live-birth is more dangerous than a uterine replicator given the dangers of the world. Life is dangerous. There are car accidents, food poisoning, even just accidentally falling down the stairs. A replicator keeps the baby safe and secure and away from all the natural hazards (Although it does bring up all sorts of new hazards, like what if the power goes out, or there's no staff to extract it at the end of the cycle, etc.).

And the serious squickiness of getting your ova extracted. Betans do seem to be detaching themselves from nature as much as possible. Perhaps an inevitable result of having to live in artificially created arcologies but Cordelia's Betan bigotry REALLY gets to me. I still want to know why it's the WOMEN who get their bodies messed with and men get off scott free.

Cultural baggage. There's criticism of women in real life for using birth control (Being on the pill can get you labelled "Slut") but I've never heard the same applied to a man who uses birth control (A condom). Beta is a relatively nice society, with a lot of equality, but nobody (Not even Cordelia within the series) thinks it's perfect.

I'd mind less if they'd just admit that the chief advantage of uterine replicators is convenience because there is no question that pregnancy does cramp a woman's style. It's the relentless demonization of 'body birth' as primitive and dangerous that raised my hackles. One cannot but notice that Beta's 'unisex' society depends on eliminating female biology as much as possible to bring them closer to the 'male' norm.

And nobody seems to be addressing - or even considering - the elist nature of the 'benefits' of uterine replicators which are CLEARLY limited to the more affluent middle classes and above.

On Beta I'm pretty sure they're universal, everybody has access to uterine replicator's if they want to use one as part of their basic healthcare (Just like nobody does not have a com console in the home).

I was thinking about Barrayar. Clearly cost IS an issue there.

Oh, quite true, but Barrayar is still a caste-based society, they've got social issues coming out the wazoo.

So does Beta, or at least civil liberties issues. Freewheeling sexual mores are a good way to distract people from the freedoms they DON'T have. Not to mention a president that nobody seems to have voted for. Hmmmm.

Replicator use isn't universal on Beta. Bujold says that it's about 3:1 vitro:vivo, in Barrayar. Cordelia's brother was vivo, and her sister-in-law chose in-vivo births for her children.

Cordelia's own dislike for them comes from bitter experience, both with Miles' poisoning, and the birth of Ivan. She herself wasn't opposed to them, in principle, at the beginning of Barrayar.

And that's another thing; granted Miles was poisoned because she was but if he'd been in her womb she wouldn't have had to sneak into enemy territory to rescue him. IMO her personal experience pretty much exposes the flaws of BOTH systems.

Guys, the discussion page is supposed to be about the article, not the subject. Unless this debate is aimed at figuring out which tropes go here, it should probably be moved to the forum thread, here.

The stories endorse sexual tolerance, non-traditional gender roles and reassignment surgery, and a benevolent representative government. Barrayar might still be a backward society, but the "message" (If there was a message to take away from this) is that this is a problem.

Again, they are "socially liberal" by Barryaran standards. The author comes from a country where one of the foremost socially conservative speakers is a woman who brags about how many moose she can shoot, and where being against the infanticide of cripples is closer to being a socially conservative cause than to a socially liberal cause. And no known socially liberal or socially conservative wants to be ruled by an emperor. Cordelia is the only character that could count as socially liberal by the reader's standards as opposed to in-verse standards.

The article talked of the characters as well as the message. The characters were not socially liberal by modern standards; Aral is very much like a typical nineteenth century monarchist, and would be recognized by Winston Churchill, Gustav Mannerheim, or Captain von Trapp. Simon is a strategic technician. And Ivan is just a courtier. Both are pretty much apolitical, but insofar as they have political opinions they are more or less happy with their society. And all the Armsmen are satisfied to be Battle Butler s. Miles seems fairly mild in his political opinions; he is certainly perfectly satisfied to be an aristocrat.

Um, pretty much everyone who's not from Barrayar itself would seem to qualify—not just Cordelia. Betans in particular, but Cordelia's not even the only Betan among the main characters—there's also Bel Thorne. Jackson's Whole may have a thoroughly messed-up political system, but Jacksonians are pretty liberal overall, as evidenced by Lord Mark. Cetegandans have their highly stratified society, but as far as matters that don't cross class lines, they seem to be extremely liberal. Even Komarrans, despite being notionally members of the Barrayaran Empire, are fairly liberal. Nobody in the Dendarii fleet seems to mind working with a hermaphrodite, and Eli Quinn is only briefly fazed to meet a man from a single-sex planet.

Funny how in your attempt to disprove it, you limited yourself to discussing only Barrayaran characters—the only ones who wouldn't qualify. (Although Miles himself seems to try, no doubt because of his mother's influence, plus all the time he spent with the fleet, pretending to be full-Betan.)

I think I might have added that at some point, based on my understanding that most military science fiction authors can't go five pages without talking about how terrible liberals are. That being said, it's funny that on a re-read of The Warrior's Apprentice, I noticed how Beta seemed to be presented (at least through the POV of Miles and other Barryarans) as a case of Political Correctness Gone Mad.

I've also noticed that Bujold seems to have a thing for gay (or at least bay-leaning bi) characters ending up marring people of the opposite sex, so not really sure of her actual social views...

I do think that overall, characters have pretty socially liberal views. Not so sure now of economic ones. I haven't read up to the present, but my impression was that Miles seems relatively sympathetic toward the idea of equality of outcome, albeit in a noblesse oblige kind of way, and while Mark is something of a Crazy Survivalist libertarian, his actions are also somewhat in that direction.

Seeings as how Cordelia and Cordelia's views are depicted as the ultimate in enlightenment and wisdom I'd definitely go for 'liberal' in terms of sexual morality, conservative in terms of value of human life, and undecided re: economic liberty.

Kibou-daini ("New Hope") has to be Sloth.

This page is for discussing changes to the article. Discussing the work itself belongs on the forum.

Where did you get that idea?

Actually I forget. It just seems amusing.

This page is for discussing changes to the article, not for talking about the work in general. We have the forums for that.

I'm trying to get somewhere in the vicinity of Hypocrite and/or Not So Different without pidgeonholing.

That's really a stretch. First off, Barrayar's government is not "enforcing prejudice against women and the disabled." Those are cultural attitudes that were already present that the current government is trying to correct for. Second, a lot of people _do_ see a difference between "state-sponsored violence" and "back-street violence." Those people would rather live in a society where there are a set of laws that apply to everyone, clearly spelling out what is allowed and what isn't, and what the punishments are for breaking those laws. Especially if along with those laws comes a set of rights. As opposed to "you can do whatever you want as long as you don't piss off someone stronger than you." Third, "X used to be like Y" is not a good "Not So Different" setup. The key being "used to be". "I've changed" is one of the classic rejoinders to the "We're not so different" accusation. If one of the Houses achieved total domination on Jackson's Whole and spent a century or two working out a relatively fair and consistent legal system _then_ they would be pretty much the same as Barrayar. Finally it's a fallacy to think that any form of government is perfect (or at least no counter-examples have been found so far.) Beta Colony provides a lot of benefits to its citizens, but not free of cost. Every form of government meets certain needs and fails to meet others, so how "good" it is depends on what you want out of your government. If you prefer back-street violence to the rule of law then Jackson's Whole _is_ your utopia, but the rest of us would prefer to live on Barrayar or Beta Colony.

Good points. Also, a couple other things. I think to some degree Miles is an Unreliable Narrator. I mean his ancestry is Barrayaran and Betan, so of course they come across pretty well, which is a bit odd given some of Barrayar's past history.

Also, I get the impression that Komarr and Escobar (and probably some other places) are quite libertarian/free market oriented, and they are presented positively, so I'm not sure Bujold is completely using Jackson's Whole to attack/strawman that kind of society- Jackson's Whole is a bad example of that type (by way of comparison, I think that to an extent, Cetaganda is the bad example of the authoritarian type).

Finally, I haven't read the most recent novel to see if this is continued, but I got the impression that Mark is presented as a good person who endorses some of the Jacksonian ethos (the non-evil parts).

Barrayar comes across as quite flawed. It simply comes across as a society with virtues as well as flaws. Miles admitted Barrayar's flaws quite plainly; he was a fairly conspicuous victim after all(even though being a prince kind of evened things out). Actually what I liked was that the viewpoint character was not from a United Space Of America and had the perspective of a viewpoint society that would be strange to the reader. It allows for a certain mental stretch.

The difference between state-sponsored violence and back-street violence is the difference between taxes and protection money - very little.

Barryarans clearly consider the system legitimate and consider themselves a part of it. Peasants take pride in once having been soldiers, and celebrate the Emperor's Birthday. No one celebrates the birthday of a crime lord.

A closer analogy to a protection racket would be Komarr but not Barryar itself as Komarr is ruled by authorities alien to it.

As for State-sponsored violence being the same as backstreet violence, that is clearly not the case; it takes different forms and has different goals. In any case the proper term is physical force, not violence; violence comes from the same root as violation and thus in itself implies illegitimacy. Now if you are an absolute pacifist presumably you think all physical force is illegitimate. But most people in fact are not.

The difference between state-sponsored violence and back-street violence is the difference between taxes and protection money - very little.

A mafia racket seldom offers education, healthcare, minority protection, or any form of basic social safety net. Admittedly, Barrayar isn't very good at much of that either, but that's because the books very much present it as a former feudal kleptocracy that's trying to stop being one. As for Beta Colony mind control... you may have to remind me of that bit.

To me, as it seems to be described on the trope page, But Not Too Bi is not about the actions of the motivations of the character per se, it is about the use of bisexuality as a tool by the author. It applies when the author decides that the character trait of being bisexual would add something to a character (depth, drama, humor, whatever) but for whatever reason chooses to minimize that character's relation with one of the sexes. The trope page lists a number of ways in which that can be done, but the relevant one in Aral's case is example #1, "Time: Alice used to date or sleep with both sexes, but there is no indication that she does so now." Yes, there are reasons internal to the story why Aral doesn't get involved with males in the present, but the author chose to have it be that way. Bujold could have had Aral involved in a male relationship when he met Cordelia and dealt with the resulting drama, or she could drop hints that Aral was still attracted to other men, even if he never acted on it because he was faithful to Cordelia. But whatever her reasons Aral's bisexuality has never been relevant except as part of Aral's history, and has barely even been mentioned since "Barrayar."

I think I must have drastically misunderstood what you were trying to say when we were talking in private messages, because when I read it all together your point is quite cogent.

FWIW, his history/past relationship with Ges Vorrutyer forms a significant subplot in the first book.

Yes, but only the history, nothing actually happens in the present. In "Barrayar" someone tries to taunt Cordelia using that history. After that i believe it's brought up once more in the next ten books, and even then only as an aside. That's why it qualifies under case #1, he used to be actively bisexual, but doesn't demonstrate any such traits now. Bujold used his bisexuality to good effect in the first book or two, but after that for whatever reason she didn't want to deal with it anymore. This is definitely a case of Tropes Are Not Bad. Bujold has demonstrated elsewhere that she's not afraid of dealing with LGBT issues, she didn't just throw the bisexuality in there for the shock value and then drop it. It's possible that she felt that delving into it more might have turned off some readers, but it's at least as likely that it just wasn't a direction she wanted to take Aral in. But whatever the reason she did use the character trait in the way described by the trope.

*shrugs* I don't particularly care but he simply becomes less important as a character in the following books (as Miles becomes central) hence we have no idea what's happening in Aral's world or mind. Its not that his bisexuality gets sidelined...the whole character gets sidelined. Is that the same thing?

I think Aral fits the trope. He definitely fits #1 of the But Not Too Bi criteria, in that he used to have a boyfriend, but had already broken up with him by the time the series began. I also think he fits #3 because Vorrutyer was a Depraved Bisexual, which implies a value judgment on his relationships with men vs. women since the boyfriend was a homicidal psychopath and the girlfriend was the love of his life.

The only time I remember it coming up, was a silly gossip mentioning it at a party in Barrayar. But I haven't read the whole series yet.

Well... 1) If you're referring to the party near the beginning of Barrayar, it wasn't silly gossip. It was a deliberate attempt to destroy Aral's marriage by exploiting his wife's homo/biphobia, foiled by the fact that Cordelia (unlike the average Barrayaran) is not actually homo/biphobic. It's a plot point because it provides Cordelia with reason to suspect Vordarian of working against them. Aral's bisexuality is also a plot point in Shards of Honor, as the villain is his ex-boyfriend and, due to the failed relationship, hates both him and his new girlfriend.

2) I don't think the relative importance of the trope to the overall plot of the work makes a difference when including it on the work page. We can list a trope that's only mentioned in one sentence as easily as a trope that is explored in depth across the entire work. So even if it is just silly gossip, that doesn't disqualify it from being listed.

To my knowledge, no.

I think so.

I've also been thinking that we ought to start a characters page.

A Character Sheet was put up a week or two ago. There's even a link button on the main page, but I suppose I could insert another link toward the end of the main article text.