Oh, and I have a pretty good hunch that Thorne already knows, and is deliberately cooperating.
Memory was just as good, agreed, but in a very different way. Not saying anything due to spoilers, but I think it’s fair to describe as Mile’s past actions and style finally catching up with him in the most painful yet predictable way.
In her timeline, Bujold summarizes Memory as “Miles hits thirty. Thirty hits back.”
Mirror Dance was her 3rd Hugo. Vor Game and Barrayar both won Hugos
I’m not at all sure that Miles would have achieved anywhere near as much as he did if he hadn’t been poisoned in utero.
You think he would have turned into another Ivan? You may be right. I hadn’t considered that.
Probably not exactly another Ivan. But I don’t think that frantic degree of drive would have been there. Or, possibly, that degree of defense for the underdog.
Yeah, that was my thought, when I thought that that was what his clone was: Without his deformities, Miles probably wouldn’t have had his extreme drive to prove himself. But on the other hand, it’s very easy to see someone like the Cetagandans, in their quest for perfection, not realizing that.
And from what we see, drive is actually the main difference between Miles and Ivan. Ivan isn’t actually as dumb as he seems. He’s actually fairly smart. He just applies his intelligence exclusively in the pursuit of laziness.
Miles and Ivan are both trying to survive: to avoid being seen as a useless mutant, Miles has to dazzle; to avoid being recruited into the deadly politics of Imperial succession (that resulted directly in his father’s murder) Ivan needs to fade into the background
The most recent book in the series, “Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance” goes deep into Ivan’s situation from his point of view. Without giving any spoilers, it definitely supports your take on Ivan. I really enjoyed it.
So, multiple times now, I’ve gotten to a point in this book where I’ve said to myself “Well, that looks like it about wraps things up”, and then looked again to the volume of pages in my right hand and realized that I’m only like a quarter of the way through. And in no case has the actual lack of resolution been disappointing. Because, of course, in each case what’s been (apparently) resolved is only the action, not the character development that’s really what’s important.
As an aside about Ivan: It occurs to me that he’s basically the same character as Max, in Jim Butcher’s Codex Alera series. The hotshot noble friend who already has it made, strong and competent, and who always gets all of the ladies (unless there happens to be one specific one whom he actually wants). It wouldn’t surprise me if Butcher actually used Ivan as a model.
Butcher is on record as admiring Bujold and “wanting to have her babies”.
(Bujold response, in Goodreads, was that everything may be possible with uterine replicators)
She often anwers questions on GoodReads - maybe post it there.
Bujold was once asked if Ivan had hidden depths, to which she replied he has hidden SHALLOWS.
A Civil Campaign gives that the lie (the above quote was from before that, I think) where, while Ivan doesn’t necessarily shine, at the last minute he pulls off a major save. And in CVA, he’s shown as very, very competent with some skills that will serve him very well in a future career.
SQUEE - I didn’t know about this either. I did get the prior 2 from Google Play Books and still need to take steps to get them onto my kindle.
Accurate or not, I’m going to have to find places to use that line.
This. And other dangers as well that he considers in various books. And, well, he’s already objectively well off and knows it.
You’ve heard the phrase about privilege that “he was born on third base and thinks he hit a home run”? Ivan knows he was born on third base and has no interest in dodging sniper fire (and possibly not metaphorically) to reach home base. He’s fine where he is.
It’s long been my character interpretation that Miles underestimated Ivan’s intelligence a long time (he noticeably goes from “Ivan is stupid” to “Ivan is bright but lazy” over the series) because not being intensely ambitious and unconcerned about personal safety are so foreign to Mile’s worldview that he just had trouble putting himself in the viewpoint of someone like Ivan. The various third party views we see of Miles throughout the series from the outside make it pretty clear just how skewed his view of the world is compared to most people.
Yeah. You can go back as far as Warrior’s Apprentice and see his tendency to metaphorically juggle live grenades and wonder how long he can keep it up before he fumbles something. It’s the pattern of his early life that partly by circumstances and partly by inclination he keeps piling one high-risk gambit onto another trying to stay ahead of disaster until he wins.
Very entertaining for the reader, but as you say it was always predictable that sooner or later his “actions and style” would catch up to him, unless the author gave him unlimited plot shields.
It’s funny, when I named my kid after him, I had no idea my kid would have a disability (although, genetically speaking, it was not unlikely.) But I did it because I figured hey, he’s going to struggle eventually in some kind of way, and I want him to see an example of the best thing you can do in response to struggle. Miles Vorkosigan is the epitome of doing the best with what you’ve got.
The irony is not lost on me that Miles Vorkosigan is a social genius and Miles V. Weasel is… not. But he is, like Miles, very smart, and if he can learn how to get out of his own way, he’ll be alright.
I just have this vision of him eventually asking how he got his name and me dumping 19 books on his bed. “Get reading, kid!”
The best inheritance.
It’s not even so much that Ivan is lazy (though that is a part of it) - Ivan has life-goals that Miles doesn’t recognize as being goals at all.
On the other hand Ivan was noticeably not very bright as a toddler, IIRC Aral says something like “If he was trying to fool everybody at that age he was the most machiavellic 4 year old in history”