The Exile's Punishment - fandom meta

[blueinkedfrost]

Regis is a ruler, a powerful spellcaster, or both of the above. Wallis is a wrongdoer, who was once Regis’ lover, relative, or best friend. When Wallis does something utterly evil, Regis can’t bear to execute someone they still care about - so Wallis is exiled instead.

And, because fiction is never about plans going right, the exiled Wallis prepares for revenge and comes back worse than ever.

Examples of this trope include My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic; Baldur’s Gate; and the truly execrable novel ‘The Fifth Sorceress’ by Robert Newcomb.

So, the question is: what’s the ruler’s ethics here? The exile’s attempt at revenge inevitably puts many more people’s lives at risk. Maybe the ruler’s the worst villain here, for endangering people twice over.

First, mercy above justice. In the course of justice, none of us should see salvation; we pray for mercy, and that same prayer doth teach us all to render the deeds of mercy. If the ruler shows mercy to a wrongdoer, that’s a good sign.

But second, let’s demand fairness. If some people get away with light punishments for serious crimes because of whom they’re related to, or whom they befriended, or whom they used to date - that’s nepotism. We don’t enjoy that.

I’d like part of the answer of this to be that the ruler shows mercy when they can, as a habit, not just to the few people they’re close to. And the ruler’s mercy becomes them better than any crown, sceptre, or sword. The ruler’s mercy is one of the things that separate them from the wrongdoer, one of the qualities that their country values most in them. Their mercy is not a weakness.

Another part of the answer should be, I think, is that the exile punishment sometimes works, or could have worked. Maybe some wrongdoers make new lives for themselves in another country and accomplish something terribly important to someone, by walking along the right road at the right time or by using their skills to help instead of harm or by retiring to grow vegetable marrows and solve murder cases. Maybe the story of that one exile who came back with deadly vengeance isn’t the only ending. Maybe the ruler choosing the exile punishment was a risk, a risk on the side of mercy, and it failed in that one case - but it was a better kind of failure than some ruthless successes.

Above all, I don’t want the answer to the story to be, 'You know what would’ve solved this exile problem? Capital punishment. Lots of capital punishment. Summarily execute the wrongdoer instead of bothering with exile, and that would totally save the day.’ That’s not a solution that works in real life, and I find it fundamentally unsatisfying in fiction.

The ruler isn’t going to be perfect (work toward democracy already!). The wrongdoer could have a complicated personality, an admixture of light and dark as they make the choice whether to use their exile to strive for change or repeat their cruelty. The ruler faces a difficult choice, balancing mercy and justice, duty and passion, sentencing a loved one for a terrible crime, mediating punishment and payment and protection of the land, and hoping to the last hope that people can choose to change.

Mostly, I’d like stories of this type to let mercy be a good quality.

Full credit to Shakespeare and Portia.

Comments

[heliopausa.livejournal.com]

Thanks for this - much to chew over.
Nepotism (like any kind of corruption) destroys people's faith in the system they live under, and so tends towards destruction of the system itself (including democracy - one reason I'm so angry at corrupt politicians is that they're sawing off the branch we all are sitting on).

The quality of mercy is pretty strained in The Tempest - which is the punishment exile notion turned inside out.
It occurs to me that The Tempest is also about exile and revenge and pardon (but not free pardon).

[blueinkedpalm.livejournal.com]

Thanks for mentioning The Tempest! That does reverse this exile trope, where the exile is the good (imperfect) protagonist driven away by wicked (not unforgivable) villains. The protagonist survives the exile - of course - and prepares revenge - of course - and ultimately decides to scale back his scheme several notches, let his enemies live, and return to his own country with a resolve to mend some of his own flaws. So again mercy wins the day, and Prospero gives up his magic studies to, one hopes, actually pay attention to his job this time.

[heliopausa.livejournal.com]

Thank you, for the post! Prospero is one exile, but Sycorax was also exiled, to the same island, and not executed in consideration of her pregnancy. (Because the kill a pregnant prisoner is to kill the unborn child - which hints (maybe?) that we can extend the exiles theme to both Caliban and Miranda.)

It's a comedy, so wrong doesn't triumph, but Caliban burns with murderous resentment all through. There's also the line somewhere in the play that "death pays all debts".

(Yes, what a cheek, to be angry because his brother, actually doing all the work of Duke, would like the title, too! c.f. Lear, who also skives off, though not as learnedly.)

[blueinkedpalm.livejournal.com]

Sycorax' exile is an example of the punishment going as intended. Instead of killing Sycorax and her unborn child, the people of Algiers successfully exile her to where she doesn't harm anyone else except spirits like Ariel (which they can be given a pass for not foreseeing), where she apparently dies of natural causes, and where Caliban gets to live.

And Caliban belongs on the island; his happy ending is that he's now alone on the island, free, and isn't going to hurt anyone because no one else is there. If Caliban was raised out of exile in Algiers or Milan, then his tendencies toward violence and rape would probably manifest themselves in a setting where he'd face much harsher penalties. Exile gave Caliban the best possible outcome, at least in the Tempest's universe.

(Of course Caliban is not a comfortable character to consider; he is powerless compared to Prospero and tormented by him, not to mention his resonance with post-Shakespearan anti-colonialist narratives, and these matters evoke audience sympathy. I think in the Tempest's universe, Caliban was doomed from birth to have a violent nature, no amount of kindness from Prospero or a different upbringing could have changed that, and as a result he's best on an island of his own. In the real world, Antisocial Personality Disorder is a complicated psychological issue, witches and devils aren't real, and isolation will mess up any human being.)

[heliopausa.livejournal.com]

:) It's more or less a fairy tale, so I won't think it ought to be a model justice system - but I think Sycorax's exile gave/would have given Caliban a rotten life, even if Prospero hadn't arrived.

[blueinkedpalm.livejournal.com]

I think Sycorax's exile gave/would have given Caliban a rotten life, even if Prospero hadn't arrived.

At least according to Caliban's nostalgia, Sycorax raised him to adapt to the island's environment and he was happy alone until Prospero turned up. Caliban claims that he had plenty of survival skills and taught Prospero how to find fresh water and places where edible plants grow, while what Prospero gave him was 'water with berries in it' (wine I guess) and language.

This island's mine, by Sycorax my mother,
Which thou takest from me. When thou camest first,
Thou strokedst me and madest much of me, wouldst give me
Water with berries in't, and teach me how
To name the bigger light, and how the less,
That burn by day and night: and then I loved thee
And show'd thee all the qualities o' the isle,
The fresh springs, brine-pits, barren place and fertile:
Cursed be I that did so! All the charms
Of Sycorax, toads, beetles, bats, light on you!
For I am all the subjects that you have,
Which first was mine own king: and here you sty me
In this hard rock, whiles you do keep from me
The rest o' the island.

I don't think Caliban would have been happier to be born and raised in an Algiers prison, or in whatever street address that Shakesperean witches normally lived in. He fits into the island environment, due to a combination of his nature and nurture (which is to say his fairytale-style nature and nurture). At the end of the story, he's the only character who can have a happy ending by staying there.

[heliopausa.livejournal.com]

It's a most marvellous speech (so is the one - which may be the same one? - about language). I saw a production of Tempest years ago,when I was young and impressionable, which blew me away with its poignancy, and the utter loveliness of Miranda's words and mine, with my heart in it. (a notion which I stole for a fanfic a couple of years ago.)

No, agreed - if we took Caliban out of the fairy-tale, I can't see that there could have been a happy future for him back in algiers. I think his life on the island alone was too brutish to be called happy, but at least not malicious or resentful, so in that (and also in not being forced to labour) happier than when Prospero arrived. Whether he can be happy in the play's future is unclear - there's no going back to unthinking, and he doesn't (that I can recall) get to the grace of being able to forgive.

If I had to guess, I'd think that he spent time post-Prospero resentfully waiting for (decoying?) another wreck, and then being much more cunning with the survivors. Which is an idea I like the thought of, very much - I mean that as the start of a story, thinking how one would get from that to a happy ending. Someone's written a book called Caliban (stopping to check,now). No, all I can see in a hasty look is a SF book about asimov-style robots. But there must be more.

[blueinkedpalm.livejournal.com]

I would definitely read that Caliban fanfic/book you outline! Caliban, grown intelligent and able to trick people. And then I imagine that would be a springboard into the next stage in Caliban's development, that just because he can outsmart mainland people will not make him any more content than revenge did Prospero.

I'll be wise hereafter
And seek for grace. What a thrice-double ass
Was I, to take this drunkard for a god
And worship this dull fool!

I wonder what, or whom, Caliban is intending to seek grace from? Setebos? Prospero's god? The island itself? What meaning does he see in seeking grace, which is a fairly abstract and complicated theological topic? Is he only asking forgiveness for the past things he's done, such as attacking Miranda and planning to kill Prospero Jael-and-Sisera-style? Can he remake the island into a paradise, now he's older and wiser and the sole king of it?

Here is some poetry (http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poems/caliban-upon-setebos). I'm not going to pretend to have any taste whatsoever, but I like this bit about Caliban developing his own personal mythology:

'Thinketh He made it, with the sun to match,
But not the stars; the stars came otherwise;
Only made clouds, winds, meteors, such as that:
Also this isle, what lives and grows thereon,
And snaky sea which rounds and ends the same.

My personal favourite is Prospero's speech, which to me will always be the Magician's Archetype:

I have bedimm'd
The noontide sun, call'd forth the mutinous winds,
And 'twixt the green sea and the azured vault
Set roaring war: to the dread rattling thunder
Have I given fire and rifted Jove's stout oak
With his own bolt; the strong-based promontory
Have I made shake and by the spurs pluck'd up
The pine and cedar: graves at my command
Have waked their sleepers, oped, and let 'em forth
By my so potent art.

[heliopausa.livejournal.com]

I've been slow to get to this! That's because for me to understand Browning's (usual) wildly complex sentences requires reading it calmly, focussedly and out loud! :)
and optimum conditions for that won't arrive till the weekend. But I'll get there!

[heliopausa.livejournal.com]

Well... I'm slow, but I'm back. Yes, about Prospero's speech as the archetypal Magician - the terribly dangerous arrogance, in such powerful words.

I don't think that Shakeseare's Caliban meant anything more than mercy - another chance. I myself want him to mean more, or to be given more -but that's what I think it means in the play. :(

Nor does Browning's Caliban seem to come any closer. (Yes, I did get to Browning eventually!) That depiction of Caliban is very sad - how damaged he is (by the exile? as dispossessed, he's in a sense an exile, too). He's in process of being consumed by fear and spite; there is no hint of grace from Setebos ("the many-handed") in there. ('grace' referring back to the Shakespeare quote). Nor from the Quiet - and Prospero's God (if he has one? I can't remember) doesn't get a look in.

I think the redemption/remaking story does need to be written! The remaking of the island, as you say, and of Caliban, both. (But surely someone has? I'll keep looking.) Thanks for prodding me to look atallthis!