'My dear' - a small continuation in numbers and pictures.
As I mentioned in my first post on temeraire statistics, Laurence pet name for Temeraire is consistently 'my dear', (with one exception of 'dear heart' in ToJ). And now, that my temeraire statistics tool(TM) is at a point where I am reasonably satisfied, I wanted to take a short look back across all books to paint a more complete picture over the usage of this pet name across all books.
Since this got a bit longer again, let's start with the overall numbers.
HMD: 22
ToJ: 9 (+ 1)
BPW: 11
EoI: 12
VoE: 3
ToS: 31
CoG: 10
BoT: 5
LoD: 16
or as a picture:
A more detailed write-up (and some more pictures) is under the cut
Let's start from the bottom of the high score.
The book where Laurence least uses the sobriquet is 'Victory of Eagles' with just 3 mentions and all of them heartbreaking.
The very first declaration of 'my dear' takes place when Laurence finally reunites with Temeraire after the other has believed him dead and the second follows soon after, two chapters later.
And then Laurence despairs over his role in Napoleons invasion of Britain and he mostly ceases to use non-formal modes of address altogether. Only after having overcome most of his immediate guilt at the very end of the book, when he reads to Temeraire out of the Principia Mathematica on their transport to australia, does he use the pet name again.
The usage curve over all books makes it look like this (some very sad peaks):
The second least mentions are in 'Blood of Tyrants' with 5 mentions overall. All of them appear only after Laurence gets his memories back at the end of chapter 14.
Unfortunately the book denies us a scene with Laurence and Temeraire reuniting after this event (where I would expect at least one my dear to have been uttered), but we see Laurence using the pet name again starting when Temeraire takes his leave from Mei and they travel on to russia.
On the other end of the scale we have 'His Majestys' Dragon' with 22 my dears and 'Tongues of Serpents' with a whooping 31! scenes where Laurence calls Temeraire by his pet name.
I already wrote in more detail on pet names in HMD, so I was initially very surprised by this result, as I had expected HMD to win overall. Why? Well, His Majestys Dragon is the book which introduces and defines Laurence and Temeraires' relationship, and while their bond is being tested in the other books as well, I would argue that most challenges are already played out in smaller but similar scenarios in HMD: Dayes' attempt at the captaincy vs Yong Shins 'seduction' of Temeraire in Throne of Jade; Temeraire coming to grasps with Choiseuls' execution vs Laurence death sentence in Victory of Eagles; Laurence coming to love Temeraire across the book vs Laurence coming to love Temeraire over the course of his amnesia in Blood of Tyrants.
Given this, it would have made sense that the first book also featured the most explixit verbal assurances of their bond through dialogue.
But on second look Tongues of Serpents is the book where the pair get fully taken out of the war for the first time.
Laurence has time to reflect on what retirement and a life outside of the corps looks like and, maybe most importantly, considers that Temeraire is part of the retirement deal as well. I would argue that Laurence adjusts his outlook accordingly well and finds a peace in this situation that is much a better mirror for what we see of their life at the end of League of Dragons than the mere acceptance of giving up his ideas of marriage and life with Edith in HMD. The pavilion and Australia is also specifically mentioned in their last scene in League of Dragons as well and is reoccurring reference when Laurence thinks about life after the war. So in conclusion, maybe Tongues of Serpents is the most domestic of the books?
Here's how the two books compare across chapters:
Looks pretty equal to me over all actually. *Tongues of Serpents * gets a few higher counts overall and also shows 6 counts in Chapter 7 alone, the chapter where the hunt for the stolen egg begins and the search groups starts their descend into the australian outback.
On a side note, we also see one other characteristic statistics thing here in the chart that you get with per book comparisions: books generally do not have an equal number of chapters. If we wanted to be more accurate we might want to account for the chapter amount , or even over all word lenght, factor of each book. I am not adding it here, because this is non-serious fun only statistics - and I haven't implemented that nice feature in the tool yet and am too tired to do it manually for all 9 books.
Overall Laurence calls Temeraire 'my dear' a grand total of 119 times over all books. If the two are not separated in the course of action - such as kidnapped, stranded, fighting for their lives against mobs or assassins, dealing with amnesia, clandestinely duelling for their honour or garnering the approval and ire of their fellow dragon or human- then Laurence does not sway from calling Temeraire 'my dear' alongside 'Temeraire'.
He starts using the sobriquet in the third chapter of His Majesty's Dragon, right after Temeraire rejects Dayes as substitute captain, and keeps using it until the very last mention in the very last dialog at the end of the final book, if that isn't devotion in bookends.
Finally, I'll leave you with this overview over all datapoints across all books:
The way that the least instances are in VoE, where Laurence reaches rock bottom, while in ToS, where he starts to come to peace with his actions and live again, we have the most examples of endearments...
I'm curious to see how the physical affection translates indeed. I lost count of how many times Temeraire nuzzles Laurence or Laurence touches Temeraire's nose or cheek, but I'm betting there are a lot of them.
I - actually did a count up of this back when I researched the vocal affection... like it's a bit trickier, since there's so many possible signifiers for physical affection and all with their own variations - for example, let's look at "nuzzling", that's a match on 'nuzzled, nuzzles, nuzzling' and then the object being nuzzled).
I think, if I can find my keyword list, there's like at least 10 different common physical affection actions on it. Like they love to be physically affectionate in these books, and not just Laurence and Tem either.
Like there's stroking and nuzzling, and laying hands on various extremities, also a few instances of sniffing... I could make another post on this if you're interested?
While re-reading TOJ, I found a part where Temeraire climbs up the Allegiance and the book mentions he was so embarrased of his clumsiness that as soon he was up, he hid his hindlegs under his body.
And what does that mean? Dragons, at least celestials, can loaf. This is an important discovery for all man kind I swear—
Love this part of His Majesty's Dragon where this is basically what happens :
Laurence : in my opinion Temeraire is the prettiest and smartest dragon of the covert, he's elegant, graceful, agile, well proportioned, a true wonder in flight, not to mention a genius whose conversation would delight anyone with good taste...but of course I'm aware I'm biased in my opinion and I don't want to seem like I'm bragging about my dragon
Temeraire : Laurence, the other dragons say I don't look like them, am I ugly :'( ?
Laurence :
Laurence : first of all, who do I need to punch
Laurence: don't worry if it's a dragon, I'm angry enough to even the field
Laurence : second of all, you, my dear, are the most beautiful creature to ever grace this covert with his presence and you shouldn't let anyone tell you otherwise
Laurence : Rankin, my good friend whom I will certainly never want to murder in a fit of righteous fury due to the mistreatment of a dragon, Temeraire is sad, how can I fix this ?
Rankin : idk just give him some cheap shiny trinket, works for mine
Laurence : oh, what a wonderful idea
Laurence : *immediatly spends half of his retirement funds into commissioning a magnificent dragon collar worth an estate*
spent one of my finite number of evenings on earth making this (tharkay and laurence are in the front seat, the backseat is granby, hammond, and ferris. also ferris in the last frame is my favourite in the entire video)
I initially intended to share them here - and then went to the discord for help instead. So Hi :wave:, sorry if you already saw this today and thought it was something new.
Anyway, here's the results from the latest surveys from the reporters on the street in the 'The dragonette', getting the real dirt on what dragons really think about things.
(Sorry for the picture quality, tumblr eating its' young once again. They should be big enough to read when clicked on.)
If you’re ever having a shit day, remember that William Laurence once made a failed marriage proposal, got sued for £10,000 and committed an unrelated capital crime all within 24 hours
Sure, Temeraire made Laurence see the way his morals clashed with his orders and it was thanks to him that Laurence became a better person (also a traitor to his nation, amazing). But also, whenever we get Temeraire's POV, it's so evident how he keeps checking himself with "no this is selfish/uncharitable/unkind, Laurence would not approve" and suchlike. It works both ways
#it does!! this is 100% a 'raised your kid so right that treason is a family activity now' situation #temeraire's natural tendency is toward arrogance and vanity#and a deep desire to be liked and admired #in this he is like. uh. most people ever especially when they're kids #laurence showers him with unconditional love and endless admiration and he absolutely blossoms under that #but laurence also has an incredibly strict code of honor that he aspires to #and although he is generous enough not to hold everyone around him to quite the same standard #he does still hold them to a pretty high basic standard #and of course temeraire wants laurence to think he's the best and most wonderful person in all the world #so he learns that code of honor and strives to follow it too #but the thing is. temeraire is a dragon. and dragons grow up very quickly #in less than a year he can expound eloquently on diverse topics and enjoys advanced mathematical treatises for fun #which means he develops a very strong intellectual grasp of this code of honor well before encountering any serious strains on that code #this is the opposite of how human children grow up – how laurence himself grew up – where we learn How The World Is first #and develop nuanced moral stances about it afterward #and it's exactly like that quote about 'what does the child have to teach? the child naively believes the world should be fair.' #'and the child is right.' #temeraire forces laurence to confront and explain out loud all the inconsistencies and insufficiencies of his society #insufficiencies he's long since grown used to and either ignores or is entirely unaware of #temeraire's a good influence on laurence because he inspires him to be his best self #but they're operating on the same moral code! #it was laurence who set the standard for them both #it was temeraire who made them both believe they could actually truly reach it (via aethersea)
