I have just re-read this book, I meant to only read the section where Miles and Ekaterin talk about honour and breaking vows you intended to keep, but started at the first page and just kept going.
Bujold's character's frequently contend with their life not going in the direction they planned and intended.
On page 427 of my copy (Baen 2000 paperback, with a horrible cover of people I can't identify from the book) Ekaterin says
I am not sure why this an important point in the book for me; perhaps because it relates back to Ekaterin's concerns about her choices in Komarr, and the consequences of two bad choices of Miles in Memory. And in general I prefer characters and people who keep their promises. But it isn't always possible, and people don't always make the best possible choice. And then we all have to go on from that point, that not so good choice we have made. Some people can accept that they are a different person than they thought they were. Some twist the story so it makes it sound as thought they were always that person, or that the choice was forced on them - I listened to a friend do this once a week or two after her choice, a very educational experience - and no, I didn't point it out.
Bujold's character's frequently contend with their life not going in the direction they planned and intended.
On page 427 of my copy (Baen 2000 paperback, with a horrible cover of people I can't identify from the book) Ekaterin says
"I went from being the kind of person who made, and kept, a life-oath, to one who broke it in two and walked away."..." I am not who I was. I can't go back. I don't quite like who I have become. Yet I still - stand. But I hardly know how to go from here. No-one gave me a map for this road." ...
"In my experience," [Miles] said, "the trouble with oaths of the form, death before dishonour, is that eventually, given enough time and abrasion, they separate the world into just two sorts of people: the dead, and the forsworn. It's a survivors problem, this one."
I am not sure why this an important point in the book for me; perhaps because it relates back to Ekaterin's concerns about her choices in Komarr, and the consequences of two bad choices of Miles in Memory. And in general I prefer characters and people who keep their promises. But it isn't always possible, and people don't always make the best possible choice. And then we all have to go on from that point, that not so good choice we have made. Some people can accept that they are a different person than they thought they were. Some twist the story so it makes it sound as thought they were always that person, or that the choice was forced on them - I listened to a friend do this once a week or two after her choice, a very educational experience - and no, I didn't point it out.
A Civil Campaign first published in 1999
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