Read the previous entry in the series here.
Read the next entry in the series soon.

Perhaps a content warning regarding bullying is in order, here.

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The eleventh chapter of Shaman’s Crossing, “Initiation,” begins on Nevare’s comments regarding common scheduling at the Academy; five days see classes, a sixth sees religious study and outside studies, and a seventh serves as a free day occupied by performing necessary tasks. Nevare addresses his comfort with the routines and the deepening bonds among him and his bunkmates, most especially with Spink and thus with Gord, who continues to confuse Nevare. Relationships among the cadets of Nevare’s cohort form and take shape, and Nevare finds himself considering his own place among his comrades. He also questions his own leadership abilities.

Comments about the titular initiation rituals follow, describing hazing that is commonly humorous but moves swiftly towards the injurious. Demands from upper-level students are described, and Nevare reports having some trouble sleeping. The latter, found and addressed by Sergeant Rufet, casuses some embarrassment for him, and Nevare looks forward to an end to the hazing as he remarks upon his cohort’s reactions to the same.

Nevare himself is subjected to particularly humiliating hazing, being obliged by two senior cadets to strip to his underwear and march circles while singing loudly. The hazing is interdicted by Cadet Lieutenant Tiber, who bids him dress and return to his dormitory in haste. Once there, Nevare confers with Rory about the event and learns more of the biases in place against the soldier-sons of such new lords as Nevare’s father. Nevare also learns some of Tiber’s reputation on campus, the young officer having something of a reputation as a proponent of social justice, with data to support the same. More of the social structures at work in the cavalla are rehearsed, and implications of those structures are noted, leaving Nevare uncertain of his future.

Following a strange dream, Nevare begins to take small revenges for the hazing inflicted upon him and his comrades. Some of them earn him rebuke; more of them are successful. Rory sees Nevare in action and begins to accompany him on his errands, adding to the mischief as it escalates toward the end of the prescribed initiation period. Said end is a general melee between first-year cadets of different dormitories, one into which Nevare and his comrades rush foolishly but to good effect. Higher-ranking cadets join the fight, but Nevare’s group remains ascendant until Academy faculty and staff break up the fight. Rebukes follow in earnest, and after, Nevare notes some pride in the achievement alongside concern for its consequences. Injured cadets are returned to their dormitories, and an uneasy night follows for Nevare, in which he again dreams strangely of deforestation and shame.

Nevare wakes the next morning and is hustled to the Academy parade grounds along with his cohort. Colonel Stiet addresses the cadets, lecturing them for their misdeeds and promising that those occasioning the violence would be punished. They find that Jared, Trent, and Lofert are all being expelled, the first culling of their Academy class.

To address the chapter-length issue: the present chapter, in the edition of the novel I’m rereading, runs 24 pages in length, approximately 4.16% of the novel. As with the first chapter and the second, the present chapter is roughly proportional to the novel as a whole, being one of 24 chapters and approximately one twenty-fourth the length of the novel as a whole. It is something of a return to normalcy, which is fitting enough to the chapter as a whole, as said chapter establishes a common routine (243) and asserts a dominant social pattern that, while decried, is acknolwedged as a status quo desired by no few of those in power. While not a happy association, it is an apt one; the combination of the two is a commonplace in Hobb’s writing.

Also, for indexing purposes, the following: Bringham House, Cadet Lieutenant Tiber, Caleb, Carneston House, Carsina Grenalter, Colonel Rebin, Colonel Stiet, Corporal Dent, Culling, Engineers’ Regiment, Gord, Jared, Jaris, Keft Burvelle, King’s Cavalla Academy, Kort Braxan, Laudanum, Lofert, Miles, Natred Verlaney, Nevare Burvelle, Old Thares, Ordo, Oron, Rory, Sergeant Duril, Sergeant Rufet, Sharpton Hall, Skeltzin Hall, Spinrek “Spink” Kester, Tobacco, Trist. Of note is that Miles might be either Jaris or Ordo; Miles is addressed by name (249), one of two haranguing Nevare whom Tiber upbraids–by surname (251). The text, so far as I can tell at this point, does not identify either of the surnames with the given name.

The opening passage of the chapter, noting the common schedule of the Academy, is of some interest. A seven-day week appears to be in place in Gernia, one with a day dedicated to religious observance–not at all unlike the nineteenth-century United States I maintain Gernia evokes. There is the variance that the religious observations are on the sixth day, not the seventh, although the seventh is distinctly recognized; it has its own name, Sevday, and one that moves away from the kind of pagan identification found in common modern English day-names (and day-names in several other languages, I’ll add, although there are only a few I read and so only those few about which I can reliably comment*). I’ve not done the reading I perhaps ought to regarding religiosity in the nineteenth-century United States to be able to confirm it, but I have the sneaking suspicion that the Great Awakenings are being referenced somehow in the setup.

I’ll note, too, that there is some accommodation of something I point out as being a misalignment in the previous chapter. In my comments thereupon, I remark that Hobb describes the Academy as a four-year institution at one point in the text while portraying it as a three-year institution in the main. The character of Cadet Lieutenant Tiber** offers something of a bridge across that divide. Something like a graduate student, Tiber is noted to have “already graduated from the Academy and achieved a lieutenant’s rank” as one of a select few invited to continue studies after the regular program (250). While it may be taken as something of a retcon (and not the first I’ve perceived in Hobb’s writing, as witness this, this, and to some extent this older piece), I think it reads more as the result of having worked backward, retcons usually being between works rather than witihin them. But I’ll admit to being biased in favor of Hobb’s writing, and that might be at work in my thoughts at present.

Of further note is the hzaing at work in the present chapter. While such activities are, at the time of Hobb’s writing and mine, officially abjured, they continue–and they were rampant in prior decades. I am told that, where I went to graduate school, it was once common practice to oblige first-year students to swim the pond out back of the student union–where the institution maintains a small population of small alligators. (The alligators are usually taken to the wild when they reach five or six feet in length.) Where I attended undergrad, there was less of that kind of thing, but that was as much the nature of the school as it was then as anything else. My high school had an abundance of it, and I’m somewhat uncomfortable to admit my own involvement in it, both being hazed and doing the hazing. There is some appropriateness to rites of passage involving trials, and those who have been in uniform can doubtlessly attest to the prevalence of do-the-stupid-thing-because-I-say-so-and-you-have-to-do-what-I-say in every branch of service; I’ve heard enough about such things. And, frankly, boys in their late teens tend toward the foolhardy, which I know because I was one and was not ahead of the trends. All this is to say that, despite the distaste such practices might now elicit, they fit well within the milieu Hobb stakes out in the novel.

To once again indulge my propensity towards affective reading: I find that I again feel for Nevare. The concern that he may not be fit for command, when he had been trained all his life to be placed into a position of command (if with some caveats and concerns) is one familiar in form to me, if not in specifics. I’ve had to leave off things I had thought I would do, careers toward which I had bent my being, more than once; it wasn’t easier the last time than the first. So I feel for the fictional young man, foolish as it may be for me to do so. For me, there have been fallbacks and support; while the job I’m in now isn’t one I’d’ve thought to take at any point much before I took it, it has its benefits, and I find myself perhaps over-identifying with it (although its prospects are and remain better than most of what I’d thought to do before, and the pay’s no worse and often better). It is good, I think, to be reminded of such things as I am in my affective reading; even if things have been otherwise than I’d intended, they are yet good. I can hope for as much for many people.

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*Spanish comes to mind for me, given where I live. Martes, miércoles, jueves, and viernes all call to mind the Roman pantheon, while sabado is a direct rendering of Sabbath–although domingo, Sunday or Lord’s Day is usually the one on which observances are made. This is not out of line, to be certain; much of the nineteenth century in the United States attended to conflict with and takeover of Spanish-speaking regions, the legacies of which continue to bring about some good and much ill.

**Given the presence of Cadet Captain Jaffers, who appears to be the ranking “regular” cadet, Tiber’s title seems an oddity; a Cadet Lieutenant would, at first blush, be subordinate to a Cadet Captain. Admittedly, Cadet Zeroth-Class would be an awkward construction, and other titles that suggest themselves to my mind (Lieutenant-Specialist, perhaps) are no less so. That’s not without sense, however; being a graduate student is a liminal thing and exceedingly awkward, as I say who have more experience being one (and straight out of undergrad!) than many.

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