Dissertation of a fangirl nature

Why is it, when it comes to works of fiction, I always go after the
characters who would eat me for breakfast? Or, more appropriately in
this case, who would let his dogs eat me for breakfast.

I'm going to dissert on a minor character in the Amber series now. Feel free to ignore this ^_^

I
like Julian. The first time you see him described (ingeniously, by the
way... the characters in this series are all drawn on the Trumps of a
set of tarot cards, and the main character has no memory at the
beginning... so he goes through the cards when he first comes upon
them, and presto, you have a perfectly unique and awesome way to
catalogue each person's looks and general personality. It's brilliant.
Wish I'd thought of it. The amnesia thing is absolutely genius in
itself to introduce the immensely complex storyline.)

Momentary
break in dissertation... I never knew I liked Hostess cupcakes. I do.
Mm. *scrapes frosting out of middle and eats chocolate cake*

Anyway.
Julian. Yeah, the first thing you hear about him is that he's got long
black hair and blue eyes, one of the few nine brothers with long hair,
and he also has this really shibby armor (he would SO kill me for
calling his armor shibby... *laughs*) that looks like white porcelain,
lacquered, I think with scales... and the first thing Corwin (main
character) remembers about him is that (1) he HATES him, and (2) he
once beat him in his favorite game, causing Julian to throw a glass of
wine at him, "shattering a near legendary control." Paraphrasing, of
course. Yeah, that bought me right there.

And I like the name Julian. And near-legendary controls always get me. So. Julian.

He
also has dogs. Yell hounds. Which scare me. They're big and fearsome
and they can tear a car to itty bitty pieces... or the would have if
Random didn't keep shooting them. He also has a HUGE horse called
Morgenstern. Which is not a Shakespeare reference that I know of, but
it makes me think of one... so I like it. Julian guards and generally
inhabits the Forest of Arden, which IS a Shakespeare reference, but I'm
pretty sure he got it from somewhere, too. And Arden is... is... I
wanna live there. It's a forest. It's huge. It's pretty. It's got
Julian.

I'm very coherent tonight, aren't I?

I wanted
this to be coherent, too. Because Julian deserves that. He's very
complex. Damn, they're ALL complex. Because... okay. One of the
brothers is called Caine, and he isn't very nice either, but when
Corwin comes back after a long long long time and then some more time,
he finds out that Julian and Caine had been palling around together.
Which surprises him, since he didn't think Julian HAD friends. And I
think Julian was only friends with Caine to the extent that Julian can
BE friends with someone... which, luckily, was probably about the
extent which Caine could be friends with someone.

Then Caine
dies. Slit throat. And Corwin is framed. The only reason he can find to
justify why it's not Julian (his main guess... since they hate each
other) is that he was friends... "friends"... with Caine. And Corwin,
having spent hundreds of years on our Earth, has been softened up and
would like to think that no one is such a miserable sop as to feign
friendship with someone and then kill them. Which is what Fiona (one of
the sisters) proposes... of course, that's Fiona. Who has good reason
to be pointing fingers elsewhere *cough*

But the main point of
my dissertation was Julian's reaction to all this, to the meeting that
was called after Caine died and things were discussed and another
brother was brought back by means of the aforementioned Trumps, which
you can transport people through, and subsequently yerked by one of the
pullers-through. Once the group of them decided that it must be one of
their own who was behind everything, Julian said something to the
effect of wanting to be the interrogator if they found out who it was -
and wanting to, afterwards, be allowed to slit their throat.

They
proceed to argue about it for a while, and then they agree not to kill
whoever is behind everything if they turn themselves in, but to exile
them. Julian will only agree to this if whoever did it wasn't
personally responsible for Caine's death. They humor him.

My own
little take on this might be slightly in error. I lean towards the
opinion that this first comment, about the interrogating and
throat-slitting, was an outburst... and Julian doesn't like those.
Corwin mentions, quite often, that Julian dislikes showing strong
emotion. So, in order to make up for that - and, probably more
importantly, because he saw the opportunity to do something that would
make himself look better - he started the bit about having to add
conditions to the no-kill-only-exile agreement. The entire family is
very conniving, self-interested, totally mistrustful of one another.
Well, almost totally.

But that's Julian, in my head. And
there's going to be more speculation as I read these books this second
time. I like this character, and all of them, because they are
unashamed (at least, in the way they are written... neither they nor
the author make any excuses for them) of their bad qualities. Julian IS
a prick. It's very obvious. But he's not JUST a prick, and that's why I
like him... that's what makes these books so damn good.

Going to leave you with a couple quotes ^_^

First, a conversation between Corwin and Julian that made me laugh:

Corwin: "Your words are ill-considered."
Julian:
"Not so. I considered every one of them. We spend so much time lying to
one another that I decided it might be amusing to say what I really
felt. Just to see whether anyone noticed."

And... something that made me think of the way RC, Bethany, and I write... ^_^

Bill,
a human on Earth, to Corwin: "I've a peculiar feeling I may never see
you again. It is as if I were one of those minor characters in a
melodrama who gets shuffled offstage without ever learning how things
turn out."
Corwin: "I can appreciate the feeling. My own role sometimes makes me want to strangle the author."

Classic.