So, as the story goes, Conan the Barbarian wins. OK. Cool.
Now what?
A common structural motif in Fantasy is the orphan-defeats-enemies-and-conquers kingdom (marriage to princess optional). But where can he go from there?
Now, for MilSFF, the hero often ascends in life via a conventional military career path. Ends up a general, or maybe conquers the alien invaders. Maybe he acquires a title of nobility.
(There are plenty of other plots, of course, but just consider these sorts of common SFF structures where the hero moves from obscurity to become a senior power in his world, joining or taking over the existing power structures and their associated status.)
I’m going to talk about a different sort of plot where the hero becomes what I’m calling “the man in the middle” — the hero who would rather earn his freedom to act (from the middle) through changing society as necessary by his successes than through seeking titles or political status (at the top) from society as it is.
I’m some distance in series entries into my not-yet-released new series (The Affinities of Magic). The setting is a sort of Regency-based fantasy world, with the addition of Wizard guilds to the power holders. The hero begins more or less as the traditional (wizard) apprentice and faces a number of obstacles but he doesn’t, say, take over some existing portion of his society, such as the wizard guilds.
No, instead he basically initiates (inadvertently) an Industrial Revolution of Magic and creates a new sort of entrepreneurial route to success that integrates ever more aspects of his society (from the middle). What he does within the Wizard guilds (directly & indirectly) opens up a new type of manufacturing at the microbiome level, which creates demand for additional industries (packaging, lighting systems, ice) and interest groups (scientific societies, advanced studies, experiments) which offer new industries (in consumer goods, transportation, medicine) and allow rebuilding opportunities in derelict city districts to accommodate urban development, education, hospitals, etc., etc., etc. Our hero takes pieces of the action as he goes along either as primary or as investor, and installs sub-managers and representatives. The wealth he generates in the process is more useful as investment to keep the engine going for virtuous growth then as a tool for his explicit social advancement (e.g., seeking a title of nobility).
So, this is the story of a sort of middle-man in all senses of the word. Success for him is measured by the freedom to work on or fund whatever he wants to, using the direct monetary power of his success so far. This is rather a modern sense of “the good life”, rather than the status/power of politically achieved or inherited resources (but then, this isn’t an historical Regency novel). As in the real world, it presupposes a functioning set of laws that limit (but does not eliminate) capricious predation by political (and commercial) enemies (not to mention direct crime, like assassination). But then, nothing’s incapable of corruption. At least financial success insulates one from some of the potential obstacles.
The man in the middle creates his success by making his own career out of expanding the world around him, instead of accommodating the world as he finds it and choosing conquest or a traditional career path.
Other stories that do this? I think of Nathan Lowell’s Solar Clipper series, after Captain Israel Wang starts going into business for himself (before that, he has a sort of MilSFF career, which sows the seeds for his later growth).
Can you think of additional examples?
Mad Genius Club 
25 responses to “The Man in the Middle”
My SFF reading has been limited, so I haven’t heard of many similar ideas – but I find this plot fascinating. I think it also would be a more fruitful approach for ongoing series entries than the “claws his way to the top” sort of story, because in that case the risk for plot repetition is much higher as the character has to keep fighting to stay where he is.
The closest thing I can think of is the Paladin of Shadows series by John Ringo, where he finds an isolated area in Central Europe and builds a small empire there.
I can’t think of any stories that do this but in a certain sense this is the story of the United States in early years. No nobility, so no way to rise as a nobleman. The US was based on buying and selling and scorned for this by some Europeans. An early result of this was the destruction of the Barbary pirates who were hurting American trade. The English and French who had the power to destroy them wouldn’t do it because they, themselves, could outfight the pirates and the h** with those who couldn’t. So the US took them out instead.
Dorothy Canfield Fisher wrote quite a few grownup stories at the end of the 1800’s whose premise is a struggle between a sort of ‘upper’ class ideal of music, literature, and not hard work, versus … well, hard work.
Right. I often feel like this is the classic response of an American reader to conventional Georgian/Regency period cultural settings, where success is measured by how well the characters play the cultural games of their time. The baffled modern American (with an entrepreneurial background like me) thinks, “well, why doesn’t everyone who can go and become a successful businessman?” with the background of the real Industrial Revolution guiding their judgment.
The biggest prize (to my mind) isn’t marrying the Duke (as it were), but making it unnecessary to envy the Duke.
Dorothy Canfield Fisher: Any recommended starter titles? (She’s new to me… thanks!)
A Civil Contract is not one of my high rotation Heyers; but the heroine and her father are an interesting take on wealthy middle class people who largely don’t get the cultural games but have enough money to compete effectively with the upper class, and a key moment in the hero’s arc is where he combines what he’s learned from his Cit father-in-law with his own military expertise to bet against the financial markets and win.
Middle class upward mobility is in the background of some of Austen’s novels, like Mrs. Jennings and her family in Sense and Sensibility, or like the apothecaryand the gentleman farmer Robert Martin in the novel Emma. Austen sometimes also criticizes her heroines for snobbery; mostly Emma but somewhat more obliquely Fanny Price’s attitude towards her birth family (it’s more obvious if you read Mansfield Park in conjunction with the novel fragment The Watsons, which feels like it contains the seeds of both Mansfield Park and the Frank Churchill subplot from Emma). Persuasion and the unfinished Sanditon, written at the end of her life, feel harsher towards the upper class and more generous towards the upwardly mobile.
It seems like people who write about the Regency are often (present company excepted) more title-mad and snobbish than the people wrote *during* the Regency; my own reaction to a certain section of Jane Austen continuations is that I don’t flipping care about Anne De Bourg, Colonel Fitzwilliam, his older brother, his father the Earl etc, but apparently a lot of people do.
I had to go look them up on Project Gutenberg. The Bent Twig is one. Rough Hewn and The Brimming Cup are a kind of pair. I have to say that I found them pretty tough going but still fascinating as a glimpse into a different world. Dorothy Canfield also wrote about France during World War I, and of course, is probably best known these days because of her children’s book, Understood Betsy. Project Gutenberg has pictures for that one and it is a huge favorite of mine.
The Garrett, P.I. fantasy detective series by Glen Cook. Garrett refuses to be owned by anyone else after surviving his 5 years as a Marine, and ends up inadvertently changing the world around him, mostly for the better. He accomplishes this by being a good friend to a diverse cast of characters and utterly relentless in the application of his chosen trade. And all while refusing to wear a hat and having the magical aptitude of a turnip.
Those books are new to me — thanks!
I’m going the hane a different direction. Conan is now King. How does he actually run the country he’s conquered? What happens with the princess he’s married? What does he actually turn into in 10/20/30 years of being the king? Is he a good one? A bad one? And what does he do now that he cannot go riding out to the front lines?
Neverwinter Nights 2 had an interesting turn in the main quest line at me point. You’ve been an adventuring band for the first part of the game, and an absolute combat monster, and you get made into a noble, and given a castle to restore.
And my first guy reaction was “Um, isn’t there a cave full of monsters you could just throw me into instead? Doesn’t even have to be with gear. I’m good going in empty. Really? Please? What the heck am I going to do with a castle I need to manage?”
I gather one of the Dragon Age games did that as well: the later part of the game became more about managing your garrison, instead of being the local version of Omni Man.
I wonder if it could be an interesting subject on how a Strongman can or can’t transition into a good leader.
A few thoughts.
Conan was a general before he became King and a general is more of a leader/manager than a one-on-one fighter.
When Conan became King, it was with the support of many of the nobility of the Kingdom. IE They knew that the old King “had to go”.
Those nobility assisted Conan in managing the Kingdom.
Now some of the Howard stories about King Conan grumbling about much easier life was before he got stuck with the King job, but it was obvious that he had allies in running the kingdom. And yes, he did have to deal with “internal” enemies.
Interesting. I haven’t actually read the Conan stories, just the archetype. And I had no idea REH actually covered some of the post-king stuff.
I should go dig some up and actually read them.
The longest of all of Howard’s Conan stories, The Hour of the Dragon, is set after Conan’s rise to the throne of Aquilonia. A lot of the plot revolves around Conan re-meeting people he knew back in his more lawless days. Most of the rest involves the skullduggery going on in Aquilonia as the usurpers all pursue their own schemes while ignoring the sort-of-undead sorceror they brought back to take the throne.
But one of the reasons the usurpers felt they had a chance was that Conan hadn’t made a dynastic (or any other kind) marriage, and so had no heir for his nobles to rally around.
It helped mightily that King Numedides was barking mad, doing human sacrifices to achieve immortality and spending the treasury on golden statues of himself. That and killing anyone and everyone who might possibly incite a revolution.
It had reached the point where for Aquilonia’s nobles, it was a choice between killing Numedides or waiting to be killed by him.
All good things must end. Once you are king, the stories change or possibly turn into the daily grind.
Most of the stories Howard told about King Conan revolved around his dealing with attack by foreign enemies, seeking to place a puppet on the throne (‘The Scarlet Citadel’, ‘The Hour of the Dragon’) or just trying to usurp it themselves. (‘Phoenix on the Sword’).
One thing I really like about Howard’s writing of King Conan is how when Conan was the rebel seeking to win the throne, people were cheering him on and dancing in the streets. And when he won it was all ‘filthy greedy barbarian, he overthrew the rightful king!’ Conan himself grumbled about the people putting statues of Numedides up in the temples of Mitra and revering him like a saint, “The same ones whose sons he tortured and daughters he dragged off to his seraglio!” Howard wasn’t the best writer who ever lived, but he understood human nature better than many a literary author.
“people were cheering him on and dancing in the streets. And when he won it was all ‘filthy greedy barbarian, he overthrew the rightful king!’ “
Howard hit the same theme in his King Kull stories.
Re: the strongholds in NWN 2 and DA:O — I think of those in terms of an archetypal journey that’s suitable to video games. Or at least, RPGs, and BioWare and Obsidian are both heavily reliant upon this one. The archetypal journey in question is the Demeter-Isis journey, where like either Demeter or Isis, a hero[ine]:
~ Makes a break with their original family, usually on account of a betrayal or an attack resulting in the loss of their home. Demeter’s daughter is kidnapped by Hades; Isis loses her husband when her brother-in-law kills him. In NWN2 the Shard Bearer’s village is attacked, her (or his) best friend is killed. The noble human in DA:O loses her parents when an old family friend betrays them, the city elf is kidnapped on her wedding day and she is forced to join the Grey Wardens to escape punishment for the vengeance she takes against the kidnappers..
~ Family / friends may offer aid, but no solution. Helios & Hecate tell Demeter what happened to Persephone, but they can’t help her get her back. Daeghun can give some aid to the Shard Bearer, but he can’t help against Ammon Jarro (mistakenly believed to be the King of Shadows).
~ Journeyer casts off the old identity, and assumes a new one: Demeter goes about as an itinerant crone. In these games, you have the Shard Bearer, the Warden, and so forth.
~The Journeyer is now isolated, and needs to create a new network of allies. In an RPG, these are the party characters. A protagonist with political power dispatches people to fulfill missions based on their skillsets. In the Mass Effect games (especially 2), Shepherd has to build a new network, learn more about her (or his) new teammates, and earn their loyalty.
Isolation is the fail-state of this journey; notice how in Mass Effect 2 Shepherd will die if she is the lone survivor of the final mission. Failure is the result of not bothering to about your team’s strengths and thus sending them on the wrong missions, which gets them killed.
~ The part that’s relevant here: becoming a civilizing force to those they meet. Demeter teaches agriculture to the family who takes her in, and Isis teaches mummification. In NWN2, DA:O, Pillars of Eternity, Baldur’s Gate 2, and in the Mass Effect games the PC uses their stronghold as a base to civilize and improve the world around them. In several of these games, the endings hinge on how well the PC improved the stronghold (by attracting merchants, improving the roads, clearing out bandits, etc).
In the Normandy, Shepherd is often getting non-plot-critical missions to fight crime or to better the lives around her, e.g., the recurring Rebekah-Michael plotline. That’s the one where the pregnant widow and her brother-in-law try and resolve dilemmas concerning the baby’s best interests, and to honor the deceased husband / brother.
I am also interested in fantasy & sci-fi that focuses on that last item, where the protagonist is a civilizing force, so I’m going to take note of recommendations. And as a fan of BioWare & Obsidian RPGs from back to their Black Isle Studios origins, I thought I’d point out that this particular journey is common in their games. It lends itself really well to RPGs.
Can I buy a thesaurus? I don’t recognize these abbreviations: NWN 2 and DA:O. Are all of these references to RPGs?
NWN = Never Winter Nights
DA:O = Dragon Age: Origins
Both are video games; NWN is connected to the Forgotten Realms AD&D tabletop RPG setting and numerous book / video games / RPG modules.
I think the classic man-in-the-middle character is Richard Sharpe in Bernard Cornwall’s Sharpe historical series set during the Wars of French Revolution and Napoleonic War era. Starts out as the bastard child of a prostitute, and eventually rises to commissioned rank by the first book written in the series.
Over the course of it he rises, but ends his military career as a Lt. Colonel (commanding a battalion) and walks away from Britain. There was a man destined never to become supreme commander or king no matter how long the series ran. He did have a successful military career.
Well, he did have a military career, but he had no particular impact on the society around him. So, rose to the (close enough) top of his career opportunity, but it’s entirely personal to him.
The Merrimac books by R. M. Meluch adhere to the original Star Trek formula – the Merrimac and its captain and crew may be the coolest, most effective and in some ways the most socially connected bunch in the not-Federation, but they don’t really aspire to be more than that. The Hobbit possibly also comes under the same heading described by this post, (the supporting character seeking to become King Under The Mountain dies, his title passes to a cousin the reader hasn’t seen much of, and meanwhile the hero goes back home rich and burdened with a Sinister Artifact, but doesn’t become King or politically powerful or anything like that.)
The subgenre of domestic fantasy consisting of Ilona Andrews Innkeeper books, Charlie Holmberg’s Whimbrel House books, and Nathan Lowell’s Wizard’s Butler standalone probably also should be considered. Maybe some of the more space trade oriented books from C. J. Cherryh and the Sharon Lee/Steve Miller team.
Yes, I also think of some of the Cherryh and Lee/Miller books, as well as other Nathan Lowells. I haven’t read the Whimbrel House series, but I guess that’s about to change… 🙂
John Ringo’s Troy Rising series starting with ‘Live Free Or Die’ features a main character who changes the solar system by working, building and thinking outside all the boxes. The advanced aliens can’t believe the results he gets with all the ‘wrong’ applications of their technology. Because for centuries they’ve been mostly copying their tech without really understanding it.
D. D. Harriman in Heinlein’s “The Man Who Sold The Moon”?