Monday, June 03, 2024

the law less as strategic or rule-based and more as a muddled, dangerous beast

--- Vajra Chandraskera, The Saint of Bright Doors, p. 165 

Excerpt

[Caduv:] "Keep the boundaries of allowed speech vague, and you can claim that your enemies have crossed them whenever you need to suppress them. The Ministry of Information and Mass Media is nothing more than a blacklist-in-waiting."

Fetter nods tiredly. It's the same attitude Mother-of-Glory has to the law. Fetter himself thinks of the law less as strategic or rule-based and more as a muddled, dangerous beast. A rabid leopard, like Caduv's character in the play. None of the others understand that the law might do anything, at any time, to anyone, and justify itself any way it likes—it is feral, like the invisible laws and powers of the world of which it is a pale imitation. It's because none of them can see the devils, he thinks.