Schueler, Chihiro, and the Post-War Development (SPOILERS)

blackjack217 wrote:How has the primacy of the various great orders changed in the Church of Charis? I realize that they probably play a much nicer game, but I imagine that there is still some competition and clashing happening entirely naturally, especially given that the Schuelerites have mostly quit.

That's getting further into the weeds than I really want to go just now, I'm afraid.

Potato wrote:Could you not quote an entire post like that if you are not going to talk about any of the points raised within? The forum layout is so inefficient (all that wasted space to the sides, *sigh*) that I really do not want to scroll forever just to get through a pointless quote block.

I Agree. Thank you

RFC wrote: I said the Schuelerites are schoolmasters, not the bulk of the faculty. Think of it this way. The Chihirites provide the majority of the teachers at the lower levels (equivalent of grammar school and high school), but the Schuelerites provide the principles and the heads of the local school boards.

<snip>

Hope this clarifies somewhate.

Yes it does, thanks very much.

Most of my difficulties seem to be due to different cultural and terminological expectations. In British English ‘Schoolmaster’, where still used, would refer to any (male) teacher, not just the boss and wouldn’t apply to any educational bureaucrat. When I hear ‘lower levels’ in connection with education I would tend to think of Primary Schools, (say grade 1-6 US, roughly) and ‘higher levels’ would be post-school education (above grade 12 US). High Schools tends to make me think of our Secondary Schools, which is not quite right since those cover grade 7-12. That and distinguishing between primary=low grade and primary =main, e.g. as in Primary teachers compared to primary teachers overtaxes the little grey cells sometimes.

Maybe the description of the Order of Chihiro could usefully be amended since it doesn't mention the teaching role which must take up a fair chunk of the order of the Quill's manpower.

There has much speculation on the nature of Schluer & Chihiro, What about Jwo Jeng? The proscriptions of Jwo Jeng as much as the terror of the inquisition were the primary forces that kept the people of Safehold backward and in thrall to the Church.

Was Jwo Jeng also a dead Archangel whose name was put on a book he detested or did he fully agree with the proscriptions? If, Chihiro was indeed the last or one of the last Archangels and head of the Church he must have approved of the proscriptions and the Inquisition. Unless, of course by that time, later in Chihiro's life, Chihiro was merely a figurehead, like the current Grand Vicar, and had no control of the Frankenstein monster of a Church that had been created.

Sharp Claw wrote:There has much speculation on the nature of Schluer & Chihiro, What about Jwo Jeng? The proscriptions of Jwo Jeng as much as the terror of the inquisition were the primary forces that kept the people of Safehold backward and in thrall to the Church.

Was Jwo Jeng also a dead Archangel whose name was put on a book he detested or did he fully agree with the proscriptions? If, Chihiro was indeed the last or one of the last Archangels and head of the Church he must have approved of the proscriptions and the Inquisition. Unless, of course by that time, later in Chihiro's life, Chihiro was merely a figurehead, like the current Grand Vicar, and had no control of the Frankenstein monster of a Church that had been created.

My impression was that Jwo-jeng was one of the original Archangels that died in Kau-yung's grand exit. Based on current information, I think Chihiro and Schueler were the only two Archangel-level figures that survived Kau-yung *and the post-infighting airbrushing of history that Chihiro did.* (Maybe Andropov as well; he's only been mentioned in the Appendices so far, but I wouldn't be surprised if he shows up in the text shortly in connection with Saint Kohdy.)

Jwo-jeng's Proscriptions would have been part of the Writ from the beginning, though, long before the Alexandria strike or Kau-yung's nuclear response. The Proscriptions were the core of the Writ, absolutely essential to Langhorne's anti-tech plan for humanity.

CSB wrote:My impression was that Jwo-jeng was one of the original Archangels that died in Kau-yung's grand exit. Based on current information, I think Chihiro and Schueler were the only two Archangel-level figures that survived Kau-yung *and the post-infighting airbrushing of history that Chihiro did.* (Maybe Andropov as well; he's only been mentioned in the Appendices so far, but I wouldn't be surprised if he shows up in the text shortly in connection with Saint Kohdy.)

Jwo-jeng's Proscriptions would have been part of the Writ from the beginning, though, long before the Alexandria strike or Kau-yung's nuclear response. The Proscriptions were the core of the Writ, absolutely essential to Langhorne's anti-tech plan for humanity.

Since the War of the Fallen was primarily a war between competing factions of Archangels struggling for power after Langhorne's death, it is quite clear that more than just Chihiro and Scheuler survived the pocket nuke. I don't understand why people seem to think that those two were the only or the primary survivors.

It's an assumption based on Merlin's thoughts that they seem to have been in charge after the Archangels' War.

You're very likely correct that many Archangels/Angels were present when Kau-yung gave his surprise gift to Langhorne.

SWM wrote:

CSB wrote:My impression was that Jwo-jeng was one of the original Archangels that died in Kau-yung's grand exit. Based on current information, I think Chihiro and Schueler were the only two Archangel-level figures that survived Kau-yung *and the post-infighting airbrushing of history that Chihiro did.* (Maybe Andropov as well; he's only been mentioned in the Appendices so far, but I wouldn't be surprised if he shows up in the text shortly in connection with Saint Kohdy.)

Jwo-jeng's Proscriptions would have been part of the Writ from the beginning, though, long before the Alexandria strike or Kau-yung's nuclear response. The Proscriptions were the core of the Writ, absolutely essential to Langhorne's anti-tech plan for humanity.

Since the War of the Fallen was primarily a war between competing factions of Archangels struggling for power after Langhorne's death, it is quite clear that more than just Chihiro and Scheuler survived the pocket nuke. I don't understand why people seem to think that those two were the only or the primary survivors.

DrakBibliophile wrote:It's an assumption based on Merlin's thoughts that they seem to have been in charge after the Archangels' War.

You're very likely correct that many Archangels/Angels were present when Kau-yung gave his surprise gift to Langhorne.

SWM wrote:Since the War of the Fallen was primarily a war between competing factions of Archangels struggling for power after Langhorne's death, it is quite clear that more than just Chihiro and Scheuler survived the pocket nuke. I don't understand why people seem to think that those two were the only or the primary survivors.

I'll have to reread that part--I don't recall it off the top of my head. But that doesn't explain why some people seem to think that Chihiro and Schueler were the only Archangels to survive the nuke, when it is pretty clear that some other Archangels had to have been involved in the War after the nuke.

SWM wrote:I'll have to reread that part--I don't recall it off the top of my head. But that doesn't explain why some people seem to think that Chihiro and Schueler were the only Archangels to survive the nuke, when it is pretty clear that some other Archangels had to have been involved in the War after the nuke.

I think there's some conflation between the War Against the Fallen and the infighting among the Langhorne-loyalist command crew. They might overlap--we can't be sure yet--but they weren't the same thing.

The central problem is that Merlin's reliable information (and therefore the reader's) cuts off just before Kau-yung's nuke and doesn't resume until Nimue wakes up in the cave. His knowledge of the intervening several centuries of history are derived from the CoGA's official version, and while he might expect some airbrushing, Merlin has no way to know *how* inaccurate the official version is.

The reader now has more information, due to all the stuff we've talked about up-thread. We now know that at some point in the post-nuke world, Chihiro got the upper hand in terms of "chief airbrusher of history" and *kept* that position until all of his potential rivals were dead.

The Writ and the Appendices have a list of all of the "official" Archangels, both those loyal to Langhorne's plan and the Fallen. (Most of the command staff were regular "angels", and not named.) It's a short list on both sides.

An obvious inference about the "loyalist" Archangels is that these were the people that Chihiro chose to represent the good guys. Generally speaking, this should be a list of the Langhorne-loyalists that either died in Kau-yung's nuke *or* survived and were publicly seen to be on Chihiro's team during and after the infighting.

The list of Fallen Archangels is more interesting, since we don't know how many of them were command staff loyal to Shan-wei (my guess is most or all), and how many were initially on Langhorne's side but *not* on Chihiro's during the infighting.

Following Kau-yung's nuke, there was a period of six years called the War Against the Fallen. The end of that War was declared to be Year 0 by CoGA reckoning. Some and perhaps all of that conflict was between the surviving Langhorne-loyalists and the surviving Shan-wei-loyalists. Shan-wei's side lost.

At some point, there was *also* infighting within the Langhorne-loyalist side in order to determine what variant on Langhorne's plan for Safehold would prevail. Chihiro's side ultimately won, but it's not clear yet whether this infighting happened mostly before or after CoGA Year 0.

(I also think that Andropov survived the nuke, and was at least enough on Chihiro's side that he wasn't airbrushed out of history. There's no point in including him in the Appendices otherwise, since his Order has been completely unmentioned in the plot of the series to date. The *remarkable* personality similarities between Andropov and Saint Kohdy can't be a coincidence either.)

So, if Chihiro was the main Archangel and set the course of the early church then he was most likely the most devoted follower of Langhorne that survived Kau-Yungs nuke. The structure of the church was very close to Langhornes model from what we know of it. Schuler, otoh, seems to be a more complex character as we have contradictory evidence, the gruesome and very rigid "Book" of Schuler and the almost kindly hologram of the key of Schuler, concerned with the reform of the Church and protecting the church from corruption.

Did the inquisition start out as a totalitarian police force suspicious of all safehold citizens or was it intended as simply a church internal affairs division to oversee the members of the clergy and protect the church from corruption? Perhaps that was the point of disagreement between Chihiro and Schuler as the Inquisition became more powerful and intrusive and that led to Chihiro killing Schuler, maybe making it look like an accident or illness, and re-writing Schulers views to agree with Chihiro. Making Schuler the bad guy and contrasting Chihiro as a more moderate chuch ruler. When Schuler saw the way things were going politically and fearing for his life, He passed on the key of Schuler and charged the Wylsynn family with the care of the Church's soul, such as it was and what there was of it. This is all wild speculation of course and is only one possible theory to explain the contradiction between the Schuler of the key and the Book of Schuler.

The truth will likely be revealed in the next book, now that we have the Journal of Saint Kohdy, a text free from the taint of church revisionism. Very Eagerly awaiting the next book.