[LMB] About Gregor

[Francis Turner]

On Wed, Apr 16, 2008 at 5:30 PM, James Nicoll <jdnicoll at panix.com> wrote:
> Is he going to be Barryar's Mutsuhito (who got to known after the Meiji
>  period he reigned over) or its Alexander II of Russia, who had great
>  intentions [1] and whose example was so glorious that the next two Czars
>  embraced extremely reactionary policies whose net effect was to destroy
>  their dynasty?
>
>  Mind you, Mutshutio's heir's reign had periods that developed not
>  necessarily to Japan's advantage, so even a successful emperor may have a
>  mixed legacy.
>
>  1: Except for the Poles and Lithuanians. I guess Komarr could stand in for
>  Poland.
>  --
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>  Lois-Bujold at lists.herald.co.uk
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>

I can't comment on Russia, but I think comparisons between Barrayar
and Japan are not really very good. True both had "the time of
isolation" but Japan was not then subsequently invaded by other
nations. If you want a better example consider Korea which was indeed
invaded - Russia and Japan primarily but with assists from the US, the
French and others. One difference though is that Korea never managed
to throw off its invaders by itself which Barrayar did.

If you do want to compare a Barrayaran Emperor to Meiji then I think
you'd do better to look at Esar as it was Esar that began the
modernization process and who maintained the Vor in the same sort of
way as Meiji did with the Samurai. That makes Price Serg the
equivalent of the Taisho emperor who was also nuts - but in the
Japanese case the Taisho emperor got to rule for 12 years and didn't
do anything - arguably similar to the regency period in Barrayar with
Gregor then being equivalent to Hirohito/Showa.

But that's where the comparison falls to the ground. In Japan in the
early/mid 20th century the key movers and shakers that surrounded the
emperor were of far lower quality than Aral Vorkosigan who would
probably most closely resemble Admiral Togo (who was indeed in charge
of the education of Hirohito). However Togo, unlike Aral V, was not a
politician and thus Japans government was left to less pleasant and
politically smart people.

Hirohito seems to have learned Togo's inability to handle devious
politicians properly. Gregor it seems to me learned from Aral and has
far less of a problem with his surrounding ministers so although
Gregor == Hirohito is a good match up (and Aral == Togo) because Aral
is a far better man that Togo (perhaps Togo should have married an
uppity American woman instead of the effacing Japanese one he did?)

ps http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Togo_Heihachiro is interesting and
accurate AFAICT

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