Question about Cheradenine Zakalwe (Spoliers! Read Use of Weapons First!)

[Coolhand]

Right, so I mentioned this in another thread but the more I think about it the more it’s annoying me. At the end of Use Of Weapons, we find out that the dude we thought was Cheradenine Zakalwe is actually Elethomel the Chairmaker, the step brother of Cheradenine who’s hobbies include slaughtering members of his adopted family and fashioning their carcasses into bits of furniture. Kinda like Hannibal Lector meets IKEA.

Anyway, was anyone else utterly unconvinced by this plot twist? It seemed massively inconsistent with the previous behaviour “Cheradenine” had displayed. I actually went back through the book and re-read specifically to try and find something that would legitimise this twist and came up dry, though I did find quite a bit of behaviour which makes this twist even more inconsistent.

Which all in all left me feeling quite irritated that the twist (and the rather nasty event that it’s linked to) were just thrown in for shock value and added nothing to my understanding of the book or the character. (I do get that it’s supposed to be a riff on how “Cheradenine” can make anything into a weapon, but someone that unhinged should really show a few more signs of it than he does. And be a tad less ethically minded than he’s shown to be.)

Anyone else find that or am I totally alone in this?

[Tillane]

Didn't seem like to big a twist to me, I have to admit. There's a good deal of foreshadowing and hinting at the truth of Zakalwe/Elethiomel's identity in the reverse chapters (those marked XIII to I), most notably in his own dreams and nightmares.

As for Elethiomel's behaviour being contradictory, I think for the most part it makes sense. Elethiomel is a man tortured by his past and his actions, and is attempting to get himself as far from them as possible, assisting Sma in her efforts in part so that he can do some "good" (though its always a little debatable how much good the Culture actually do) and also, I suspect, because he's looking for a vaguely noble death to make up for his far from noble past. The only real link to his past that he keeps up - apart from Zakalwe's name, which (I think) he has taken in an attempt to identify himself with or as a better man - is to Livueta, from whom he's looking for forgiveness...which he knows will never come.

That's my take on it. I should probably point out that Use Of Weapons is my favourite of Banks's Culture novels. So I'm a little biased.

[clovis-man]

Originally Posted by Coolhand

Anyway, was anyone else utterly unconvinced by this plot twist? It seemed massively inconsistent with the previous behaviour “Cheradenine” had displayed.

I took it to signify the tortured nature of the character's soul. So bad that a grisly secret could be submerged that successfully. I always find that Banks' characters are consistent with the intent of the story and I wasn't disappointed here.

Regards,

Jim

[Coolhand]

Hey guys, thanks for your feedback, it’s giving me some nice new angles to approach the book with. I’ve mulled hard over your comments but I’m still not convinced by the nature of the change. I’ll try to elaborate, and I’ll start with the point both Tillane and Clovis Man made about the tortured nature of “Cheradenine” and his nightmares.

I agree that he does display all the signs of a tortured soul. But from my reading of it (admittedly not the most definitive or enlightened opinion in the world) the flashbacks and nightmares seem much more consistent with the experiences of the real Cheradenine i.e. the victim of the trauma than with those of Elethomel i.e. the instigator of the trauma. I should have been able to look back at all those flashbacks nightmares and think “oh I see. Yes it does fit Elethomel better.”
But they don’t seem to at all.

I mean yes, the real world and the world of fiction are chock full of tortured souls who have buried terrible deeds in their past, but the problem here is that in the flashbacks Elethomel appears to be something of a Seriously Sick Bastard.

See, at the climax of the book, Elethomel murders a woman he grew up with and apparently had an intimate relationship with (though the book does hint that this sexual relationship was done just to hurt the real Cheradenine, and is actually further proof the Elethomel is a pretty cruel swine and is largely unaffected by the suffering of others), then denudes her bones, fashions them into a chair, makes her skin into a cushion and sends the result to his stepbrother and sister. I mean yes, in pure logical terms it a genius plan that removes the top general from the enemy army, but dude you’d have to be a Seriously Sick Bastard to actually go through with it. Which Elethomel obviously is. But “Cheradenine” is not a Seriously Sick Bastard. At least, there’s nothing in the description of him that makes me think that he is, and we do spend quite a lot of time with him.

So the basic problem is that I can’t see how he got from point A to point B, and in fact point A seems to almost make point B impossible. I think basically to have carried out that last terrible act, Elethomel would have needed to be a sociopathic personality, someone who by definition would not have been affected by his actions to the degree the book shows him to have been. I just cannot see how the man described in the flashbacks as Elethomel could have become the man we meet later as Cheradenine, because the Elethomel persona just simply wouldn’t have cared enough about what he’d done to become the Cheradenine persona.

Perhaps if we’d had more time spent on the actual morphing of personas, or if the pivotal event in the book had been less extreme, or “Cheradenine” a little more evil, I could have bought it. Or maybe some extra plot aspect, such as if we found out that the Culture, unaware of his terrible deeds, had performed surgery on his psychology when they recruited him to correct the “empathy defects” and as a result they accidentally “broke” their operative coz suddenly he couldn’t live with what he’d done.

But as it stands, I just don’t buy it. Though I suspect I’m in a minority of one here, which admittedly is a sign that I’m just too dumb to get the nuances of the book. It wouldn’t be the first time.

[Rane Longfox]

I think what you could be missing here is the basic premise of split-personality disorder. The way I saw it, Elethomel did convince himself, at least to a certain extent, that he was Cheradenine.

[Coolhand]

Aaah, NOW I see.

So instead of just taking his step brother's name in an attempt to escape the infamy and shame of his previous life (which was the understanding I'd taken away from the text), he's actually supposed to have a full-blown mental illness and has re-imagined himself as his dead step brother.

(Coolhand feels a little sheepish that he didn't realise that before)

I must admit, that does make a lot more sense. I'm still not 100% convinced it's flawlessly integrated into the plot, but it does clear much of the fog. I suspect I'll have to get the book out of the library again and re-read a third time with that new understanding to see if things hang together a bit better now.

Many thanks all. The denizens of the Chron come to the rescue of a befuddled reader once again.

[Rane Longfox]

Well, it might not be right, but he made chairs out of the bones of someone he loved, then murdered. Clearly a couple of sandwiches short of a picnic in my book...

[RottenZombie]

Has anybody here read the books by Andy Remic? I heard Remic is a big fan of Banks, and wondered if the books were similar?

[Coolhand]

Yeah, I've read his Spiral trilogy. It's not really that similar to Banks to be honest, though both writers do have lots of tech and science ideas flitting back and forth across thier pages. Remic's work is more a kind of near future Rambo tale with lots of gunfights and gory deaths, which is great for a laugh and the books were good popcorn fun, but he's not as deep or as skilled a writer as Banks. He tends to slightly overdescribe the "gross-out" parts of his books as well, to the point where sometimes it's like reading splatter fiction, whereas Banks is much more subtle and therefore manages to be quite a bit more disturbing IMHO.

Try em. You might like em.

Sorry Mods, I know this was off-topic. I shall offer up an Orc as pennance...

[HiEx]

Originally Posted by Rane Longfox

I think what you could be missing here is the basic premise of split-personality disorder. The way I saw it, Elethomel did convince himself, at least to a certain extent, that he was Cheradenine.

Yup- that's my read of it too.
When he's pretending to be Cheradenine, he can then 'forget' about the monster he really is by performing heroic deeds.

PS- I harboured a theroy for a long time that The Bodyguard in INversions was, in fact, Cheradenine on one of his missions (the one mentioned in UoW briefly as 'the failure at the palace' or something).
So, I eventually got a chance to meet Iain, and presented him with my theory- he regarded me silently for a few seconds and said, 'No.'

[Rich_SP]

HiEX, nice theory shame it was disproven lol
When i read this book, i never saw the plot twist coming, and it really sickened me (in the best possible way, this is possibly my favourite Iain M Banks theory.) at the time i was too shocked to really think, does this fit the character we've seen so far.
however looking back i agree with the above point. I think Elethomel has convinced himself in parts that he is Cheradenine but as his death apporaches he wants to redeem himslef, and so goes to see Lu to try and gain forgiveness.

[gsv]

Thread resurrection...

Well I just finished the book and I don't really see the problem. He wins the war and flees the system with a 100-year one-way ticket. Enlists in another army, where he is himself betrayed, then as he's dying takes his chance for what he sees as redemption.

All along he both suppresses his memories and engages with them - calling himself CZ, Starebinde etc - and has a morbid horror of small furniture. Which seems entirely consistent (at least in fiction) with someone who is profoundly horrified and tramatised by what he himself has done.

No?

GS(v)

[amerelium]

I don't think he's really mental. As he kind of says in the end, he just used every weapon at his diposal to win the war. He did what he did to make the real Zakalwe kill himself. And afterwards he has spent 100 years trying to attone for his actions...

[williamjm]

Originally Posted by HiEx

PS- I harboured a theroy for a long time that The Bodyguard in INversions was, in fact, Cheradenine on one of his missions (the one mentioned in UoW briefly as 'the failure at the palace' or something).
So, I eventually got a chance to meet Iain, and presented him with my theory- he regarded me silently for a few seconds and said, 'No.'

On a similar note, I did wonder if the Culture Ambassador (who is also a Special Circumstances agent) who appears a couple of times in The Player of Games could be Zakalwe under a pseudonym. There did seem to be some similarity in their characters and their names both began with a Z. Probably they're not intended to be the same character, but I think it is plausible that they could be (on the other hand, I think the Bodyguard in Inversions is a very different character to Zakalwe).