#jonathan of conte

[minuiko]

In the Hand of the Goddess-era SOTL crew

[copperhawks]

The funniest thing to me about Kel, and maybe one of the most interesting because of how understated it is, is that Kel becomes a good commander in the end, not by emulating Wyldon who was cold and implacable and insensitive, or by emulating Raoul who mostly only disobeys orders out of principle or because he has an issue with what the order says about his personal relationship with Jon, but by emulating JON.

Kel doesn't even LIKE Jon, she BARELY respects him as a person. He's a good enough ruler that she's willing to fight for him and swear loyalty to him and to at least mostly believe that he wouldn't work with Blayce to make his own killing monsters, but that's as far as it goes for Kel. If he's kind to her, she finds it uncomfortable and almost untrustworthy because she assumes he doesn't care about her and so his kindness and respect towards her must be fake.

But from the outside, as readers, we know just how much Jon fought for Kel. We know how much he does respect her right to be a knight. Jon is the sole reason that Kel DID get the opportunity to prove herself, if he'd capitulated to Wyldon completely, she just wouldn't have ever been allowed to join. Kel doesn't KNOW THAT, obviously, but we do. We know that Jon did everything he could to find a way to convince Wyldon to let Kel become a page. While Wyldon claims later that the reason he chose to let her stay at the end of the probation year was because his better judgment convinced him she'd earned it, I'd be willing to bet that part of that better judgment also included knowing if he couldn't prove to JON that she needed to go, then he'd be in trouble. Kel was training and working in front of plenty of other trainers and teachers who could easily contradict Wyldon's lies if he'd tried it, many of whom are closer to Jon than they are to Wyldon.

Kel's experiences and feelings about that experience are entirely valid, and she doesn't have the knowledge we do about how hard Jon fought for her, so it's not shocking that she's upset with him for a good portion of her series. She never even discovers this truth by the end of her series, even though she does get a lesson from Jon and Thayet (and Raoul to some degree) about how politics and compromises work in order to make changes happen. So her opinion of him by the end is boiled down to the quote from Squire: "good kings weren't always good men." It makes sense for her to think this, but because Kel's knowledge base is so limited (and her worldview so black and white for much of her series), it makes her an EXTREMELY unreliable narrator about this particular issue.

Kel believes that while Jon generally does his duty and keeps the peace, he doesn't actually care all that much about his people as individuals. But in their only meaningful conversation in Squire, Jon is able to point out that he (and Thayet, who is actually equal to Jon in power, something Kel either doesn't know which would be a failure in her education or just tends to ignore so she can focus her ire on Jon) has to make a LOT of compromises in order to get ANYTHING useful done at all. Sometimes, often, it means making deals with people he doesn't like or people he just fundamentally disagrees with, because it's the first step in a multi-step plan to help more people in the long run. He also points out that just throwing his weight and authority around in order to be able to change everything he wants to change immediately regardless of what anyone else thinks about it is a great way to get himself and his family killed. Because even if he had good intentions, that would be tyranny. It does make Kel think a little, but she doesn't tend to like him much still afterwards, her resentment from her page years will always color her opinion of him a little.

However, then she gets to Haven and she's suddenly tossed into a position of leadership over a lot of other people, many of whom disagree with each other or disagree with her or both. And all of the sudden, Kel has to make compromises. She doesn't LIKE the way the sergeants often treat their men, especially the sergeants whose men are convicts, but there's very very little she can do about it without really pissing off those same sergeants and that's not something she can afford to do. There's a moment when Neal starts getting frustrated about the treatment of the convicts and she takes him out to vent to her so he doesn't vent to the sergeants, something that the sergeants would then take out on their men. Kel's reasoning as she does this is that she "preferred to avoid battles with them now so she would have authority with them later if she needed to use it." Later, Kel is talking to Daine and she says "That's all this job is... Trying to please everyone and pleasing no one. And it will only get worse, not better."

Both of these moments showcase Kel choosing to make compromises. She may not like the way the sergeants treat the convicts, but she needs to stay on the sergeants' good sides because she doesn't have enough resources to butt heads with them nor enough authority to just force the issue, and even if she DID, it could cause the sergeants to become troublesome or take out their frustration with her on the men in ways she can't see as well. But staying on the sergeants' good sides might mean letting some of their maltreatment slide if it's not physically harming the convicts. And even setting that aside, she's dealing with nearly 500 refugees eventually, all of which are from different towns in the area and have different needs, not all of which she can accommodate. This requires compromise. Sometimes she can please some of them and not others, but mostly she probably just ends up not pleasing anybody because that's often how compromises WORK.

She never makes the active connection to Jon and his lesson on leadership from Squire while she's in Haven, but that quote up there about how this job (aka being a commander) is all about trying to please everyone and pleasing no one? It sounds a HECK of a lot like "good kings weren't always good men." You can try your best to help others, but often doing the right thing can involve making everyone unhappy. You can't be everybody's friend if you're going to get anything done.

Some of this she might've learned from Raoul's style of command, but Raoul commands a fairly small amount of people (at least in comparison to a King), and so we see him able to be pretty friendly to the people he commands in a way that Jon is perhaps unable to do. And she might believe that she learned some of this from Wyldon, but Wyldon had a tendency to be very unfair and biased due to his raging bigotry and conservative values, as well as the fact that he doesn't actually even LIKE being a training master and that likely impacted the way he treated the pages (he's almost never that kind to the pages, whereas we see him capable of being quite kind with the refugees later, which is where Kel comes to the conclusion that he hadn't enjoyed being a training master).

But Jon makes an entire speech about how he (and Thayet) have been working THEIR ENTIRE REIGN to change laws that help people. He explains how they have to consider the needs of merchants, nobles, farmers, street people, priests/priestesses, and mages. They have to consider not only what these people might need or want, but also what they could do when they feel sufficiently offended and how that could impact not just the royal family or the nobility but the realm as a whole. Jon points out that they HAVE made changes, for the better, and that just because they don't always succeed at everything or because they have to compromise sometimes, doesn't mean they aren't working at making changes or that they don't care about helping people. Not everyone you have power over is going to be your friend, they might not even be someone you like. But if you're going to take on the job of leadership, that's something you have to be willing to accept and work with, which often means making compromises with people whose needs and values are contradictory to your own.

Jon probably knows when he makes the compromise with Wyldon that it will likely impact a lot of people's good opinion of him. Alanna is right there and clearly angry, and we know Thayet doesn't like the decision, either. And it's entirely possible that Jon knows in the moment that Kel herself will put the blame on him because he's the King. But he also knows that if he insists on Kel being allowed to be a page without trying to compromise with Wyldon, Wyldon will quit over it and he'll end up with ten DIFFERENT problems that could cause a lot bigger issues to far more people than just one girl. So he makes the compromise. He sacrifices Alanna and Thayet and even Kel's good opinion of him in order to ensure that Kel gets the opportunity to become a Knight without turning all of his nobles against him which could ultimately lead to a civil war. Is it fair? No, and he knows it. But it's the best option he has in order to get the outcome they all actually want which is just for Kel to have the chance to prove herself.

Kel has to make similar choices once she's finally in a position of leadership of her own. And whether she realizes it or not, without ever even spending more than a few minutes with Jon, she ends up emulating his leadership style more than anybody else's because it WORKS and it works WELL. She'll probably never admit it, she might never even realize it herself, but she's so much more like Jon than any of the other men she sees as role models. And I love that. I love the dramatic irony of that, that the one person Kel only barely respects because of a compromise he made on her behalf that she'll never even know about, is the person Kel ends up most resembling. Jon is the reason she has the opportunity to become the Protector of the Small in the first place, Jon is the person who created that environment that allowed her to nurture those values, and she'll probably never even really be able to acknowledge that, because sometimes that's what being a good leader means.

[morphmaker]

Protector of the Small x Redwall

[sorrel-scribbles]

Considering Daine basically single-handedly overthrew Emperor Ozorne and Aly was instrumental in the overthrow of the Rittervon dynasty, both to be replaced with monarchs who are friendly to Tortall, I wouldn't be at all surprised if that eventually starts discourse in the Eastern Lands about Tortall meddling in the affairs of other nations and installing regimes that benefit them. Jonathan is only two generations removed King Jasson, who was an outright conqueror, and I think unfriendly nations like Scanra, Sarain, and the Carthaki renegades would be eager to accuse them of what is basically imperialism.

Obviousy we the audience know that these were both corrupt regimes, and Kaddar and Dove are independent actors who are allying with Tortall because it's right, but if I were an anti-Tortall politician, seeing a change of power in two of Tortall's biggest enemies, and what could look like an attempt in the third (Kel's venture into Scanra) as well as the opening of positive relations with the previously relatively isolationist Yamani Isles, all in the space of a little over a decade, I would be very suspicious at what kind of policy they're pursuing below board.

[theroguequeenaniki]

Everyone else calls her Sir Alanna...as they should...Jonathan calls her Lady Alanna. I don't think I noticed that the first time I read this

Edit: Ok, he's not the only one. But I'm pretty sure he's the only one of her friends who does. The other times are from servants or commoners.

[battleofthejohns]

Battle Of The Johns Round 1

Jonathan IV of Conté (Tortall)

Johnny Cash (Real life)

Voting ended onAug 1

(I genuinely could not find a single drawing or image of this guy so I just took my best guess at a book cover. Sorry if I picked the wrong one, I am really not familiar with this character and I'm trying my best.)

Propaganda:

Jonathan IV of Conté:

(none)

Johnny Cash:

“He's my OC's favorite music artist”

[aladygrieve]

One of the thing that always stands out to me about Jonathan of Conté is how different he and Roald are as pages. Jonathan leaned on his royal status constantly to exert authority over the other boys. You can even say he abused it. He also had one tight group of friends and basically ignored everyone else.

Roald, on the other hand, is super hesitant to do anything that might even be perceived as using royal power, to the point that the other pages remark on it. He also makes a point of sitting with all the different friend groups so nobody feels left out. Both of these set him apart from his fellow pages, not because he's royal, but because he has to be so careful not to offend anyone all the time that he doesn't really ever get to show his true personality.

You can just bet that Jonathan told him to do all those things. As a ruler he has his problems (notably his treatment of Kel), but overall he's a much better king than he was a prince. I think he's quite ashamed of some of the things he did when he was younger, as well he should be.

[outshinethestars]

Truth, Justice, and Politics (Tortall fic)

“So, Jon,” George said, appearing in Jon’s office, “About Kel’s convicts.”

“What convicts?”  Jon asked, his mind still more than half on the paperwork in front of him.

“Lady Knight Keladry of Mindelan’s merry band of bandits and rogues that helped her save over a hundred children and possibly all of Tortall,” George said.

Jon blinked.  

“What about them?”

“You ought to pardon ‘em.”

Jon put down his pen.

“George,” he said tiredly, “Those men have committed everything from horse thievery to murder, I can’t just pardon them all on a whim.”

George grinned, “It’s nothing you haven’t pardoned before.”

At Jon’s look, George sighed and pulled up a chair so he could sit facing him.

“Look,” George said, “When you gave in to Wyldon about the probationary year-“

“What’s this got to do with pardoning criminals?”

“Just hear me out, Sire,” George said, “When you gave in to Wyldon, what were some of the unexpected consequences?”  George didn’t argue just for the sake of arguing, just to rub salt in the wound, the way Alanna or even Raoul sometimes would, Jon knew there would be a point to this question, so he gave it his due consideration, albeit grudgingly.

Zahir, Jon thought, he’d nearly lost Zahir over Keladry’s probation.

Zahir had fallen in with Joren’s group before Keladry of Mindelan was even a page, and as a good Bazhir he would have disapproved of her regardless.  But when Jon as The Voice had spoken to Zahir about his hazing, about the proper conduct of an honorable knight and man of the tribes, Zahir had asked him, “If you approve so much of Keladry of Mindelan, why did you give her a year of probation?”  Politics, Jon had explained.  “Well,”  Zahir had said, “It is for the sake of politics that I am friends with Joren of Stone Mountain.”  And there had been something ugly and bitter twisting beneath his words.

Zahir had turned right in the end, and Jon was proud to have been his knight master, but if he hadn’t… Jon didn’t want to think what might have happened had the Chamber rejected him.  So many Tortallans would have seen it as a clear sign that the gods disapproved of the Bazhir entering their society, that the Bazhir were inferior, no matter that Tortallan squires sometimes failed the ordeal too.   And it wasn’t just Zahir.

“The Bazhir,” Jon said,  “Many of them weren’t comfortable with it.  Most of them didn’t approve of my pronouncement to begin with, of course, but that was beside the point.  No one brought it up to me directly, but I felt what they were feeling, that that kind of tricky dealing, promising one thing and then adding conditions after the fact, was what they would expect from the King of Tortall, but not the Voice of the Tribes.  It didn’t break anyone’s trust in me, I don’t think, but it— it hurt us, just a little.   I didn’t even think about it in those terms.  I just meant it as a compromise, I have to compromise, all the time, and there’s nothing dishonorable in it I don’t think.  I was betting on Keladry to do as well as any boy, and on Wyldon to be too honorable to get rid of her despite it, and I was right.  But that doesn’t change the fact that it was exactly the same kind of underhanded, looked at from the right angle, as so many of the dealings Tortallan kings have had with the Bazhir.  My grandfather played exactly the same trick with the water rights in Persopolis, and I know why I did it, and I know why it was a wise choice, but I never wanted to be that sort of king, I owe it to the tribes to be better than my forefathers.”

“Exactly,” George said, “And it’s not just the Bazhir.  Common folk have learned to trust your word, that you’re not like other nobles who demand you follow their rules and their whims, all the time claiming they’re holding to their rights and the rule of law, drawing up contracts with fine print commoners can’t read.  That sort of trust is a powerful thing, and one instance of apparent rules-lawyering, of saying one thing and qualifying it later, won’t break it on its own, I imagine, but it does you no favors with ordinary people who don’t get to see the grand scope of your politicking and can’t have it explained to them.  I’m not saying this to claim you chose right or wrong, mind.  It’s not my job to play king of the realm and I’m glad of it.  But I just bring it up to point out you’ve this tendency to focus on the grand sweeping gestures, weighing things up logically like it’s a mathematics problem; x number of laws changed at the cost of y compromises, tryin’ to get your equations to balance in Tortall’s favor.  But you’ve got to remember that there’s more to society and change than just laws, or even who gets to be in the army or positions of power.  Things have a way of trickling upwards too, and individuals can sometimes matter a lot more than you expect.

So, returning to Kel’s convicts.  You’ve some good men there, I don’t know if they were good men or not before Kel got to them, but they are good men now, after following her to almost certain death to save the lives of children.  You’ve men now with considerable bravery and skill who are loyal to Kel, who’s loyal to the realm, which makes them all loyal to you, unless you screw up so badly the Lady Knight decides you’re a tyrant Tortall needs saving from.  I know what the law says, but those men are more use to you free than being worked to death in the quarries.”

“But pardoning them would look just as bad,” Jon said, “I can’t go back on my own laws whenever I choose.”

“I’m not saying to make an announcement of it.  They’re bound by your magic directly.  All you need to do is say the word and their free of it.”

”I can’t pardon them underhandedly.”

George laughed at that.

”Gods forbid you be underhanded Sire,” he said, “But it’s not as though I’m suggesting you do anythin’ dishonest or unjust.  You’ve the right to give pardon when you see just cause, and you do see it, don’t you?

”I do,” Jon confessed.

“Then pardon them.  There’s no law that says you need make a production of it.  But they’ll be free men, then, and you’ll know and they’ll know that you chose to free them.”

“As simple as that?” Jon asked.  But as he said it he realized that it was.  This was a kindness and a justice that he could perform, by opportunity and by right, and politics need not enter into it.