[LMB] Some thoughts on Ivan

[Pat Mathews]

It came to me - I van, we all agree, is not stupid. He is lazy. That's not enough to make him appear stupid in the minds of those around him, and that he's doing it on purpose falls down because he was that way when he was a toddler. So - it came to me - 

First of all, Ivan's mind is not speculative. Theories, philosophy, complex strategizing - he can do all that, or he wouldn't have gotten out of the academy, but he's just not interested in this sort of thing. His mind is totally down to earth - as is his mother's. And I think, old Piotr's. However, he is surrounded by people who do speculate and theorize and that is enough for them to consider him, with his total lack of interest in intellectual fun, as stupid. I've seen that enough in my lifetime.

Second, his head is not in the future like those of the Vorkosigan progresive party. Nor is it in the past, like the Old Vor. Where is it? In the here and now. He's given ample evidence of that.

But - where does he excel? Action! Inprovised, on-the-spot, wing-it action! We saw that in the rescue of Dono. And, I think,in his much earlier rescue ofMiles from the treason charge. Miles, of course, excels in that, too, but Miles goes seeking it and Ivan doesn't. And in the peaceful postwar world of Aral's regency, Ivan has little or no chance for this talent to come out unless, like Miles and Byerly, he goes seeking it out; and Ivan is no caped crusader. In an earlier world he'd have ended up a hero in spite of himself, posibly even a medal of honor winner. I note a lot of those simply found themselves up to their ears in alligators, and improvised.

So - no, he's not stupid. It's just that the way his mind works and his main talent needs another milieu in which to flourish. Put him on a ranch on Escobar, or no, Sergyar ... put him in a miniwar as a grunt and without the shadow of his family ... he'd probably do very well indeed. 


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