Dumb rambling ahead but I was thinking about the cooldown and the comparison between what the schemers are doing and what Thjazi was doing. And how there are aspects of similarity to both, but I do agree to an extent with Taliesin that there feels to be a bit of a difference, and I was trying to figure out the proper way to lay out what, and quite frankly I think the general feeling that I have is that the difference is martial and individual action versus mutual aid and connection.
Like, walk with me.
Thjazi was a very well known individual. I say that because its true, he was an individual. He was the face of a rebellion, seemingly inciting it, but not oriented on making a united front for the rebels, just highlighting the individual cause. He was a fighter, doing legitimate harm to the power he was opposing martially.
And then, when the war was lost, he continued to move as an individual.
Oh, yes, he had connections, but we learn at the funeral it wasn't a community of connections- they were threads that he pulled himself, the threads didn't know each other. They were temporary companions for his individual actions and goals in the fight against the sundered houses. He was a user- not an inherently bad thing to be. He knew how and when to use people, and had machinations to use their individual actions to further his goals. His entire career was built on him being the holder of all the cards and no one knowing that another person could be an ally unless they knew each other from before was an aftereffect of that. It wasn't a community, it was a network for an individual. A cause made by one with strings around the throats and hands of many.
Martial and individual action were the heart of Thjazi's actions and the cause he built.
Unlike what the schemers are building.
Yes, they have 350 names that could be used for martial action, and they told them to hang tight and stay quiet, but they did this in a way that 1, created a visual language by which these members can see and know that another being is part of their group, 2, made also a spoken word connection that is innocuous but also confirms belonging in the group, and 3 focused on immediate need with the giving of food and a temporary job to those who needed it greatly within that group. The immediate thing the schemers did was offer aid to the group in exchange for hopefully aid in return.
It was a very community oriented action, and different from how Thjazi seemed to organize his group.
Yes there is secrecy, yes no one will know everyone, but there is a clear way TO get to know someone is an ally. There is clear evidence that The Cause cares for The Community, and isn't just using it solely as a means to an end. I'm not saying that its perfect, and I'm not saying that they aren't also using people. Hand and Wheel is less of an aid and more of a business transaction- potentially giving blanks and materials to keep it on their side, and obviously the acts of administrative protest are done in a more underhanded manner that is hard to share. But the first thing they do is make a signpost for community and care for the ones under it- they don't incite violence, they give aid.
Also, this is not to say that Thjazi never aided. He and Thimble have been implied to have helped fair folk leave bad situations, and I'm sure there's more. But his overarching theme for his way of resistance was force and individual action- the falconers rebellion being a great example of so many groups, so many fires, but all individual, never burning as bright as they could together.
Thus the main difference, in what I see, from the schemers and Thjazi, is that Thjazi was a one man show- a story-book hero who had daring compatriots who disappeared at the end of the chapter as he went forward, maybe returning once in a while. The Schemers are not that. They are a coalition at their inception, and they will be that the whole time-a group, a community, doing their best to aid where they can.
Like this might not make great sense but like the feel of their attitudes towards resistance feel different. The actions end in results that are similar, but the small differences are noticeable.
