To lend some kind of coherence to our Rogue Trader tabletop campaign, I've tried to think semi-seriously about how the Imperial economy works. Rogue Trader abstracts money and business with the profit factor mechanic, which I think is excellent, but in the interests of verisimilitude, I also wanted to form some notion of what actually goes on. So here I'm going to talk about what I think are the two principal drivers of the Imperial economy.
**
The Imperial economy is overseen by the Adeptus Administratum: the administrative arm of the Priesthood of Earth. The Administratum assigns each world in the Imperium a tithe grade and collects the tithe.
If you want a historical analogy, think about the annona system in the Roman Empire, where vast fleets of ships delivered grain to Rome from all around the Empire. Because of the unimaginably vast size of the Imperium of Man, obviously the tithes can't be gathered on Terra, or even in the segmentum capitals. Because the planets the tithes are collected from can be completely different and have very different tithe grades, the actual tithe can be anything from a fully equipped regiment of mechanized infantry to bulk freighters full of grain or ore, or in less typical cases, probably almost anything you can think of. The only constant is that the tithe is that planet's contribution to the business of the Imperium: war.
Because the Imperium is constantly engaged in a multitude of wars all over the galaxy, I would imagine there has to be some kind of sector- and/or subsector-level system for directing the tithes where they are needed. We can think of this as a series of supply chains that culminates in the production of Imperial Guard regiments. The focus of this production is the hive worlds. Vast urban centers housing billions of people, the hive worlds supply the soldiers and manufacture their equipment. To do this, they need gigantic quantites of ore from mining worlds and constant imports of food from agri-worlds; the recruits can be supplemented by tithes of people from feudal or feral worlds. The regiments then need to be shipped out to whatever warzone they are needed in, and provided with supplies and reinforcements.
This massive process, where the tithes from each planet are turned into fighting forces and delivered to the Imperium's field commanders and garrisons, is what I refer to as the Imperial war economy. It's a massive, galaxy-spanning planned economy run by the bureaucrats of the Administratum, so we can only imagine the gigantic inefficiencies this entails. Many of the supply chains would probably not be in any way economically feasible, but like in the Soviet Union, if no-one is counting, who cares? In addition to the regiments, the war economy also has to support the Imperial fleet, and some tithes no doubt go to the Ministorum, the Adeptus Astartes, and other Imperial agencies - not to mention the Administratum itself! But the majority of the traffic will be from planets engaged in primary production to manufacturing and recruiting centers, and from there to war zones.
I assume that the volume of the war economy is so large that it dwarfs all other shipping, and effectively defines trade routes in the Imperium. Since the tithes have to be delivered, there's an opportunity to use any excess cargo space for other exports. As tithes will usually be one-way, they provide huge opportunities for trade in the other direction: transport costs will be almost zero since the ships have to go back anyway! So the tithes are absolutely crucial in shaping the whole Imperial economy.
**
Tithes are only a part of any Imperial planet's economy, of course. It's long been established that as long as a planetary governor delivers their assigned tithes and suppresses witchcraft and heresy, they can pretty much do what they like. So governors and everyone else high enough in the planetary administration are left to enjoy the spoils, and can become very wealthy indeed. On smaller or poorer worlds, this can just mean the governor and his family; a teeming hive world will support entire noble houses.
So all these people have plenty of disposable income. What are they going to spend it on? The luxury economy. Luxury products marketed to a super-rich clientele can easily be valuable enough to ship over interstellar distances, especially if they're in fashion. You could probably do some interesting stuff with how waves of trends propagate across a gigantic interstellar empire, but it probably suffices to imagine that if some obscure luxury product becomes popular in the right circles, they'll have orders pouring in from across the segmentum, if not further.
This is also where mercantile-minded rogue traders operate, in my opinion. Recall that rogue traders are so named because they have an extraordinary license to trade beyond the Imperium, even with the xenos. For what, though? What can a rogue trader trade for that wilĺ be worth the considerable trouble of warp travel outside the Imperium? Possibly some strategic resources, but in most cases, if they're trying to make a profit out of it, surely it must be luxury goods for the Imperial elite. With their warrant, rogue traders can effectively launder xenos luxuries into the Imperial economy. Given how unequal the distribution of wealth in the Imperium is, that's going to be worth quite some money and influence.
**
There will also be other shipping routes, especially ones connected to rogue trader operations. We also know from the tabletop books that there are entire dedicated pilgrim vessels: it'll also be worthwhile to map any pilgrimage routes! In addition, there may be some substances valuable enough to transport over interstellar distances that aren't strictly part of either the war or luxury economy: building or industrial materials of exceptional quality, maybe, or some kind of consumer products that aren't exclusive enough to be restricted to the nobility, but still very valuable; I don't know! It's a big galaxy.
Anyway these were some thoughts I had bouncing around in my head on how the Imperial economy works, and how rogue traders fit into that, which I wanted to set down on virtual paper.
Jun 22, 2020
Here I Stand by email: Turn 2 (1524-1527) - The Grand Alliance
The first turn of our pandemic social isolation Here I Stand play-by-email game is behind us. It was quite a turn, with everything from piracy and theological debates to the fall of Paris and Lyon to the Hapsburgs. Now it's time to find out what happened next.
For anyone keeping score at home, the game can end at any time if one of the non-Protestant powers achieves a military victory by placing all of their square control markers, or if the Protestants achieve a religious victory by converting 50 spaces. Any power achieving a total of 25 victory points wins the game. From turn 4 onward, we'll also start checking for a Domination victory at the end of the turn: this happens if someone is 5 or more victory points ahead of everyone else.
Cards removed from the game during Turn 1:
Luther's 95 Theses
Peasants' War
Barbary Pirates
Defender of the Faith
Explorers removed: Narváez (-1)
Diplomatic situation:
The French are at war with England, the Hapsburgs and the Papacy
France is allied with Scotland
The Ottomans are at war with Hungary-Bohemia
Victory points at the end of Turn 1:
Protestants 2
France 8
England 11
Hapsburgs 12
Ottomans 12
Papacy 18
Protestant spaces: 7
**
In the card draw phase, the reformer Huldrych Zwingli appears in Zürich, which becomes the eighth Protestant space in the game. The Protestants also get their first English-language debater in William Tyndale, and a bunch more Germans. No new cards are added to the deck on this turn, so the discard pile is shuffled back into the deck and we deal everyone a new set of cards.
After everything that happened last turn, this is how many cards everyone's getting. At this point, we rolled to see what happens to the Hapsburgs' Inca conquests, and they receive one additional card.
Ottomans: 4
Hapsburgs: 6
England: 4
France: 3
Papacy: 3
Protestants: 4
With everyone's home cards and the card the Protestants kept from the previous turn, the Ottomans start with 5 cards; the Hapsburgs 7; the English 5; the French 4; the Papacy 5 and the Protestants 6.
**
With the cards dealt, it's time for the diplomacy phase. While the negotiation portion of the phase was going on, I put out a public statement in the name of the Ottoman Empire.
The Hapsburgs are only four keys away from winning outright, and I don't want the game to end on the second turn!
After the negotiation phase, we announce any public deals that have been made. The Ottomans and Hapsburgs announce nothing, but England and France announce a white peace, ending their war at the status quo with no winner, and an alliance! France and the Papacy also announce a white peace.
With no more events in the Diplomacy phase, it's on to spring deployment, which kicks off with the French playing Venetian Informant to take a look at the Hapsburgs' cards.
After that, I get things started by sending Ibrāhīm Pasha to Belgrade with five regulars and a cavalry unit. The Hapsburgs deploy one regular from Valladolid to Barcelona; England announces that they have undertaken to protect the French, and deploys three regulars and one mercenary, led by Charles Brandon, to Nantes. The French, of course, cannot spring deploy as they don't control their capital; the Papacy decline. And with that, we're on to the action phase.
**
As my first impulse, I play Thomas More for 3 CP. Suleiman and Ibrāhīm Pasha lead eight regulars and one cavalry unit to Mohács and take control of it. We also build a corsair in Algiers.
The Hapsburgs play Printing Press for 5 CP, clearing out the unrest in Vienna, moving their fleets to sea and building two mercenaries in Antwerp, as well as one in Vienna. Sticking with our naval theme, England plays Frederick the Wise for 3 CP, sending an explorer to the New World and mobilizing their fleets: the fleet in London moves to the North Sea, and the fleets in Calais and Portsmouth to the Channel. The French play their home card, Patron of the Arts, for 5 CP, recruiting two mercenaries in Rouen and three in Marseilles. The Papacy uses Papal Bull to recruit a regular and some mercenaries in Rome, and the Protestants hit the Hapsburgs with Cloth Prices Fluctuate, making them discard Arquebusiers, and placing unrest in Innsbruck and Trieste.
On my impulse, I play Charles Bourbon for 4 CP. Suleiman leads his army to Buda where we crush the Hungarians, losing only one cavalry unit in the process. This triggers the fall of Hungary-Bohemia as per section 22.5 of the rulebook: all Hungarian spaces occupied by the Ottomans, including keys under siege, fall under our control; the rest go to the Hapsburgs as Hungary-Bohemia is activated as a Hapsburg ally. I get two victory points for winning my war against Hungary-Bohemia, as well as control of Buda, which puts me up to 16 VP; the Hapsburgs now control Prague, gaining 1 VP, and we are now at war. Suleiman then marches to Pressburg, takes control of it, and besieges Vienna.
The Hapsburgs respond with Auld Alliance for 3 CP, recruiting a mercenary in Navarre and sending an explorer to the New World. The English play their home card, Six Wives of Henry VIII, and declare war on the Hapsburgs. We've now gone from France being at war with everyone to the Hapsburgs being at war with the Ottomans, the English and the French.
With their five command points, the English send their Channel fleet into the Bay of Biscay. After an unsuccesful interception attempt by the Hapsburgs' Atlantic fleet, Brandon's army lands in Spain and captures Corunna, and marches on Valladolid. Both Hapsburg capitals are now under siege!
The French play Erasmus for command points, recruiting a mercenary in Bordeaux and sending an explorer to the New World. The Papacy plays John Zapolya and uses the command points to raise more troops in Rome, and the Protestants play Pirate Haven.
With these reinforcements to our navy, it's time to get started. I play Janissaries for command points. First, our corsairs sally forth from Algiers and Oran, and the Hapsburg fleets in the Gulf of Lyon and the Tyrrhenian Sea succesfully intercept them. We score no hits whatsoever, but they only sink one corsair; the pirate fleet retreats to the Gulf of Lyon. Meanwhile, the naval squadron at Coron has deployed into the Ionian Sea, and another naval move takes them into the Barbary Coast for a crack at the Hapsburg ships. We're completely unsuccesful again, losing one squadron and inflicting no damage. The Hapsburgs' obscene luck with the dice, first seen in the battle of Paris last turn, continues: I rolled a total of 13 dice in these naval encounters without scoring one single hit.
Luckily Barbarossa's piracy in the Gulf of Lyon is more succesful, scoring two hits and taking no casualties. The King of Spain is forced to eliminate one of their naval squadrons, and I get my first piracy VP! Finally, with my last command point, Suleiman leads the assault on Vienna. Rolling six dice against the Hapsburgs' three, we both score two hits, which is enough to eliminate the garrison: the Ottoman army takes Vienna.
This puts me up to 19 victory points and into the lead past the Papacy's 18.
For their part, the Hapsburgs play Holy Roman Emperor, moving Charles V to Navarre, where he recruits three mercenary units and marches the entire garrison via Bilbao to Valladolid to break the English siege. Brandon's army succesfully avoids battle and falls back to Corunna. The English then play Andrea Doria for command points: Brandon marches to Bilbao, evading a Hapsburg interception attempt from Valladolid, and lays siege to Navarre; a regular is mobilized in Calais, and the Calais army besieges Antwerp. With only one card left in their hand, France skips their impulse.
You might have noticed that the Reformation has been left in the shadow of the grand alliance against the Hapsburgs this turn. No longer: the Papacy plays Leipzig Debate and calls a theological debate in Germany, mandating Luther stay out of it.
So we roll to find who debates who, and it ends up being a rerun of last turn with Eck facing Carlstadt. This looks bad for the Protestants, but they pull off a surprise win, with the hits going 3-2 in their favor! Carlstadt's debate performance converts the burghers of Nürnberg to Protestantism. The Protestants follow up on this unexpected success with Sale of Moluccas for 3 CP, calling another debate in German. This time it's Johannes Oecolampadius vs Hieronymous Aleander: a far more even matchup for the Protestants, which they again win with one hit. Combined with Aleander's ability, that allows them to convert the electorates of Augsburg and Mainz: the Protestants now hold four of six electorates, eleven spaces in total, and knock a victory point from the Papacy, leaving them at 17-3.
I've played my home card, and I have two cards in my hand, neither of which is a mandatory event; because my administrative rating is 2, I could keep both cards for next turn and am allowed to skip my impulse. So Suleiman is spending some quality time in the Hofburg, browsing the Hapsburg imperial treasury. The King of Spain plays Unpaid Mercenaries for 3 CP, marching from Valladolid to Bilbao with the whole garrison, and moving the lone regular in Barcelona to Zaragoza. The army in Bilbao leaves one regular behind and marches on Navarre, but the Hapsburgs' luck with the dice momentarily deserts them: they score no hits and lose two mercenaries, and are forced to withdraw.
The English play Trace Italienne for 3 CP: they recruit a mercenary in Calais and assault Navarre and Antwerp. Since Navarre has no garrison, the English roll five dice, but score no hits and fail to take the key, losing a mercenary in the bargain. The assault on Antwerp also fails, with both sides losing one unit. So far this turn, the Hapsburgs have had 35 dice rolled against them in combat. With hits scored on 5+, we've combined to inflict a total of 5 hits on those 35 dice. This is the situation on the western front after the English impulse.
France skips again, and the Papacy plays Revolt in Ireland for command points, marching an army of two regulars and two mercenaries to Siena, taking control of it and besieging Florence. The Protestants then use their home card Here I Stand to fetch Printing Press from the discard pile and play it immediately.
The three reformation attempts target Trier, Cologne and Basel, and are all succesful. On my impulse, I play A Mighty Fortress as an event, granting the Protestants six reformation attempts in the German language zone.
The Protestants succesfully convert Erfurt, Kassel, Brunswick, Hamburg and Worms, only failing in Prague. This takes them up to a total of 19 Protestant spaces, including all six electorates. The VP split on the Religious Struggle card is now 10-5 to the Papacy, from 12-3.
The Hapsburgs in turn play Treachery! for 5 CP, recruiting three mercenaries in Valladolid, marching them to Bilbao and attacking the English army in Navarre with the entire army bar one regular. The English lose two regulars and retreat to Bordeaux, while the Hapsburgs lose one mercenary unit.
With no cards left, the English have to skip their impulse, and the French do the same. The Papacy plays Janissaries Rebel for 2 CP, succesfully storming Florence and spending the other command point on St. Peter's. The Protestants make maximum use of Printing Press by playing Diplomatic Marriage for command points and publishing a treatise in German. The treatise succesfully converts Salzburg and Strasbourg, and the rest of the command points set up a debate between Melanchton and Campeggio. Campeggio defies the odds and wins by a single hit, returning the electorate of Cologne to the Catholic faith.
I skip again, and so does everyone else, which means that the action phase is over!
**
Now it's on to the Winter Phase, where our armies and fleets return home. Suleiman travels back to Istanbul with two regulars; the navy in the Ionian Sea winters at Coron, and Barbarossa's corsairs return to Algiers. The Hapsburg regulars in Bilbao, Zaragoza and Navarre return to Valladolid, and the fleets winter at Seville and Gibraltar. The English armies return to London and Calais, and the fleets winter in Calais and Corunna. According to the English player, they're setting up pubs in their corner of Spain, meaning that the Hapsburgs' war seems to have led to the invention of English tourism. War really is hell.
Finally, we have a mandatory event to resolve. The sequence of play chart lists certain mandatory events which are resolved at the end of the winter phase if no-one has played that card in the action phase. Therefore, at the end of the second turn, Clement VII is resolved: the pope is dead, long live the pope.
**
The last segment of the turn is the New World phase. Somehow, despite a massive land and sea war all over Europe, every single eligible power managed to send an explorer to the New World, and now we have to figure out what happened to them. First, we select an available explorer at random from each power.
Then, we roll 2d6 for each explorer, in descending numeric value order (i.e. best explorer first), to see where they ended up. Although Pánfilo de Narváez's expedition for the Hapsburgs was unsuccesful on the first turn, the fact that it happened means the Hapsburg explorer no longer suffers the -1 "Uncharted" penalty; the French and English do. Francisco de Orellana Bejarano Pizarro y Torres de Altamirano goes first: he discovers the St. Lawrence river and nets the Hapsburgs 1 VP. Richard Chancellor and Jean-François de La Rocque de Roberval both return empty-handed, but their voyages do nullify the -1 penalty for any future French and English explorers.
**
So that was the second turn! Everyone was dealt their cards on the 27th of April; Orellana discovered the St. Lawrence on the 18th of June, just before Midsummer. The Hapsburgs went from a very succesful blitzkrieg into France to a very defensive mode this turn, while Suleiman marched on Vienna and the Reformation fairly exploded across Germany. The stage is set for a potentially interesting diplomacy phase!
**
Diplomatic situation:
The Hapsburgs are at war with England, France and the Ottomans
France is allied with Scotland
The Hapsburgs are allied with Hungary-Bohemia
Victory points:
Protestants 6
France 8
England 11
Hapsburgs 14
Papacy 16
Ottomans 19
Protestant spaces: 20
(victory points papacy 9 - protestants 6)
Cards removed from the game:
Luther's 95 Theses
Peasants' War
Barbary Pirates
Defender of the Faith
Clement VII
Explorers removed: Narváez (-1)
For anyone keeping score at home, the game can end at any time if one of the non-Protestant powers achieves a military victory by placing all of their square control markers, or if the Protestants achieve a religious victory by converting 50 spaces. Any power achieving a total of 25 victory points wins the game. From turn 4 onward, we'll also start checking for a Domination victory at the end of the turn: this happens if someone is 5 or more victory points ahead of everyone else.
Cards removed from the game during Turn 1:
Luther's 95 Theses
Peasants' War
Barbary Pirates
Defender of the Faith
Explorers removed: Narváez (-1)
Diplomatic situation:
The French are at war with England, the Hapsburgs and the Papacy
France is allied with Scotland
The Ottomans are at war with Hungary-Bohemia
Victory points at the end of Turn 1:
Protestants 2
France 8
England 11
Hapsburgs 12
Ottomans 12
Papacy 18
Protestant spaces: 7
**
In the card draw phase, the reformer Huldrych Zwingli appears in Zürich, which becomes the eighth Protestant space in the game. The Protestants also get their first English-language debater in William Tyndale, and a bunch more Germans. No new cards are added to the deck on this turn, so the discard pile is shuffled back into the deck and we deal everyone a new set of cards.
After everything that happened last turn, this is how many cards everyone's getting. At this point, we rolled to see what happens to the Hapsburgs' Inca conquests, and they receive one additional card.
Ottomans: 4
Hapsburgs: 6
England: 4
France: 3
Papacy: 3
Protestants: 4
With everyone's home cards and the card the Protestants kept from the previous turn, the Ottomans start with 5 cards; the Hapsburgs 7; the English 5; the French 4; the Papacy 5 and the Protestants 6.
**
With the cards dealt, it's time for the diplomacy phase. While the negotiation portion of the phase was going on, I put out a public statement in the name of the Ottoman Empire.
The Sublime Porte has learned that the King of Spain, who falsely calls himself Emperor, has made a completely unreasonable peace proposal to the King of the Franks, and threatens to continue his war on the Franks. Therefore, the Ottoman Empire publicly declares that the destruction of the Kingdom of the Franks is unacceptable to us, and we are prepared to do what is necessary to stop the false emperor. The Sublime Porte calls on the other rulers of Europe to recognize the threat that the schemes of the Hapsburgs pose to us all. Even the Bishop of Rome and his precious church are not safe from the treachery of the King of Spain.
The Hapsburgs are only four keys away from winning outright, and I don't want the game to end on the second turn!
After the negotiation phase, we announce any public deals that have been made. The Ottomans and Hapsburgs announce nothing, but England and France announce a white peace, ending their war at the status quo with no winner, and an alliance! France and the Papacy also announce a white peace.
With no more events in the Diplomacy phase, it's on to spring deployment, which kicks off with the French playing Venetian Informant to take a look at the Hapsburgs' cards.
After that, I get things started by sending Ibrāhīm Pasha to Belgrade with five regulars and a cavalry unit. The Hapsburgs deploy one regular from Valladolid to Barcelona; England announces that they have undertaken to protect the French, and deploys three regulars and one mercenary, led by Charles Brandon, to Nantes. The French, of course, cannot spring deploy as they don't control their capital; the Papacy decline. And with that, we're on to the action phase.
**
As my first impulse, I play Thomas More for 3 CP. Suleiman and Ibrāhīm Pasha lead eight regulars and one cavalry unit to Mohács and take control of it. We also build a corsair in Algiers.
The Hapsburgs play Printing Press for 5 CP, clearing out the unrest in Vienna, moving their fleets to sea and building two mercenaries in Antwerp, as well as one in Vienna. Sticking with our naval theme, England plays Frederick the Wise for 3 CP, sending an explorer to the New World and mobilizing their fleets: the fleet in London moves to the North Sea, and the fleets in Calais and Portsmouth to the Channel. The French play their home card, Patron of the Arts, for 5 CP, recruiting two mercenaries in Rouen and three in Marseilles. The Papacy uses Papal Bull to recruit a regular and some mercenaries in Rome, and the Protestants hit the Hapsburgs with Cloth Prices Fluctuate, making them discard Arquebusiers, and placing unrest in Innsbruck and Trieste.
On my impulse, I play Charles Bourbon for 4 CP. Suleiman leads his army to Buda where we crush the Hungarians, losing only one cavalry unit in the process. This triggers the fall of Hungary-Bohemia as per section 22.5 of the rulebook: all Hungarian spaces occupied by the Ottomans, including keys under siege, fall under our control; the rest go to the Hapsburgs as Hungary-Bohemia is activated as a Hapsburg ally. I get two victory points for winning my war against Hungary-Bohemia, as well as control of Buda, which puts me up to 16 VP; the Hapsburgs now control Prague, gaining 1 VP, and we are now at war. Suleiman then marches to Pressburg, takes control of it, and besieges Vienna.
The Hapsburgs respond with Auld Alliance for 3 CP, recruiting a mercenary in Navarre and sending an explorer to the New World. The English play their home card, Six Wives of Henry VIII, and declare war on the Hapsburgs. We've now gone from France being at war with everyone to the Hapsburgs being at war with the Ottomans, the English and the French.
With their five command points, the English send their Channel fleet into the Bay of Biscay. After an unsuccesful interception attempt by the Hapsburgs' Atlantic fleet, Brandon's army lands in Spain and captures Corunna, and marches on Valladolid. Both Hapsburg capitals are now under siege!
The French play Erasmus for command points, recruiting a mercenary in Bordeaux and sending an explorer to the New World. The Papacy plays John Zapolya and uses the command points to raise more troops in Rome, and the Protestants play Pirate Haven.
With these reinforcements to our navy, it's time to get started. I play Janissaries for command points. First, our corsairs sally forth from Algiers and Oran, and the Hapsburg fleets in the Gulf of Lyon and the Tyrrhenian Sea succesfully intercept them. We score no hits whatsoever, but they only sink one corsair; the pirate fleet retreats to the Gulf of Lyon. Meanwhile, the naval squadron at Coron has deployed into the Ionian Sea, and another naval move takes them into the Barbary Coast for a crack at the Hapsburg ships. We're completely unsuccesful again, losing one squadron and inflicting no damage. The Hapsburgs' obscene luck with the dice, first seen in the battle of Paris last turn, continues: I rolled a total of 13 dice in these naval encounters without scoring one single hit.
Luckily Barbarossa's piracy in the Gulf of Lyon is more succesful, scoring two hits and taking no casualties. The King of Spain is forced to eliminate one of their naval squadrons, and I get my first piracy VP! Finally, with my last command point, Suleiman leads the assault on Vienna. Rolling six dice against the Hapsburgs' three, we both score two hits, which is enough to eliminate the garrison: the Ottoman army takes Vienna.
This puts me up to 19 victory points and into the lead past the Papacy's 18.
For their part, the Hapsburgs play Holy Roman Emperor, moving Charles V to Navarre, where he recruits three mercenary units and marches the entire garrison via Bilbao to Valladolid to break the English siege. Brandon's army succesfully avoids battle and falls back to Corunna. The English then play Andrea Doria for command points: Brandon marches to Bilbao, evading a Hapsburg interception attempt from Valladolid, and lays siege to Navarre; a regular is mobilized in Calais, and the Calais army besieges Antwerp. With only one card left in their hand, France skips their impulse.
You might have noticed that the Reformation has been left in the shadow of the grand alliance against the Hapsburgs this turn. No longer: the Papacy plays Leipzig Debate and calls a theological debate in Germany, mandating Luther stay out of it.
So we roll to find who debates who, and it ends up being a rerun of last turn with Eck facing Carlstadt. This looks bad for the Protestants, but they pull off a surprise win, with the hits going 3-2 in their favor! Carlstadt's debate performance converts the burghers of Nürnberg to Protestantism. The Protestants follow up on this unexpected success with Sale of Moluccas for 3 CP, calling another debate in German. This time it's Johannes Oecolampadius vs Hieronymous Aleander: a far more even matchup for the Protestants, which they again win with one hit. Combined with Aleander's ability, that allows them to convert the electorates of Augsburg and Mainz: the Protestants now hold four of six electorates, eleven spaces in total, and knock a victory point from the Papacy, leaving them at 17-3.
I've played my home card, and I have two cards in my hand, neither of which is a mandatory event; because my administrative rating is 2, I could keep both cards for next turn and am allowed to skip my impulse. So Suleiman is spending some quality time in the Hofburg, browsing the Hapsburg imperial treasury. The King of Spain plays Unpaid Mercenaries for 3 CP, marching from Valladolid to Bilbao with the whole garrison, and moving the lone regular in Barcelona to Zaragoza. The army in Bilbao leaves one regular behind and marches on Navarre, but the Hapsburgs' luck with the dice momentarily deserts them: they score no hits and lose two mercenaries, and are forced to withdraw.
The English play Trace Italienne for 3 CP: they recruit a mercenary in Calais and assault Navarre and Antwerp. Since Navarre has no garrison, the English roll five dice, but score no hits and fail to take the key, losing a mercenary in the bargain. The assault on Antwerp also fails, with both sides losing one unit. So far this turn, the Hapsburgs have had 35 dice rolled against them in combat. With hits scored on 5+, we've combined to inflict a total of 5 hits on those 35 dice. This is the situation on the western front after the English impulse.
France skips again, and the Papacy plays Revolt in Ireland for command points, marching an army of two regulars and two mercenaries to Siena, taking control of it and besieging Florence. The Protestants then use their home card Here I Stand to fetch Printing Press from the discard pile and play it immediately.
The three reformation attempts target Trier, Cologne and Basel, and are all succesful. On my impulse, I play A Mighty Fortress as an event, granting the Protestants six reformation attempts in the German language zone.
The Protestants succesfully convert Erfurt, Kassel, Brunswick, Hamburg and Worms, only failing in Prague. This takes them up to a total of 19 Protestant spaces, including all six electorates. The VP split on the Religious Struggle card is now 10-5 to the Papacy, from 12-3.
The Hapsburgs in turn play Treachery! for 5 CP, recruiting three mercenaries in Valladolid, marching them to Bilbao and attacking the English army in Navarre with the entire army bar one regular. The English lose two regulars and retreat to Bordeaux, while the Hapsburgs lose one mercenary unit.
With no cards left, the English have to skip their impulse, and the French do the same. The Papacy plays Janissaries Rebel for 2 CP, succesfully storming Florence and spending the other command point on St. Peter's. The Protestants make maximum use of Printing Press by playing Diplomatic Marriage for command points and publishing a treatise in German. The treatise succesfully converts Salzburg and Strasbourg, and the rest of the command points set up a debate between Melanchton and Campeggio. Campeggio defies the odds and wins by a single hit, returning the electorate of Cologne to the Catholic faith.
I skip again, and so does everyone else, which means that the action phase is over!
**
Now it's on to the Winter Phase, where our armies and fleets return home. Suleiman travels back to Istanbul with two regulars; the navy in the Ionian Sea winters at Coron, and Barbarossa's corsairs return to Algiers. The Hapsburg regulars in Bilbao, Zaragoza and Navarre return to Valladolid, and the fleets winter at Seville and Gibraltar. The English armies return to London and Calais, and the fleets winter in Calais and Corunna. According to the English player, they're setting up pubs in their corner of Spain, meaning that the Hapsburgs' war seems to have led to the invention of English tourism. War really is hell.
Finally, we have a mandatory event to resolve. The sequence of play chart lists certain mandatory events which are resolved at the end of the winter phase if no-one has played that card in the action phase. Therefore, at the end of the second turn, Clement VII is resolved: the pope is dead, long live the pope.
**
The last segment of the turn is the New World phase. Somehow, despite a massive land and sea war all over Europe, every single eligible power managed to send an explorer to the New World, and now we have to figure out what happened to them. First, we select an available explorer at random from each power.
Then, we roll 2d6 for each explorer, in descending numeric value order (i.e. best explorer first), to see where they ended up. Although Pánfilo de Narváez's expedition for the Hapsburgs was unsuccesful on the first turn, the fact that it happened means the Hapsburg explorer no longer suffers the -1 "Uncharted" penalty; the French and English do. Francisco de Orellana Bejarano Pizarro y Torres de Altamirano goes first: he discovers the St. Lawrence river and nets the Hapsburgs 1 VP. Richard Chancellor and Jean-François de La Rocque de Roberval both return empty-handed, but their voyages do nullify the -1 penalty for any future French and English explorers.
**
So that was the second turn! Everyone was dealt their cards on the 27th of April; Orellana discovered the St. Lawrence on the 18th of June, just before Midsummer. The Hapsburgs went from a very succesful blitzkrieg into France to a very defensive mode this turn, while Suleiman marched on Vienna and the Reformation fairly exploded across Germany. The stage is set for a potentially interesting diplomacy phase!
**
Diplomatic situation:
The Hapsburgs are at war with England, France and the Ottomans
France is allied with Scotland
The Hapsburgs are allied with Hungary-Bohemia
Victory points:
Protestants 6
France 8
England 11
Hapsburgs 14
Papacy 16
Ottomans 19
Protestant spaces: 20
(victory points papacy 9 - protestants 6)
Cards removed from the game:
Luther's 95 Theses
Peasants' War
Barbary Pirates
Defender of the Faith
Clement VII
Explorers removed: Narváez (-1)
Turn 3 is here.
Jun 15, 2020
Discrepancies in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann
When new headlines about the disappearance of Madeleine McCann suddenly showed up earlir this month, it occurred to us that we have Netflix now and can watch their documentary on it. We actually thought it was quite decently done. The forced American perspective was dreary but to be expected; sometimes we felt that the program spent way too long going down various rabbit holes that went nowhere, and both of these tendencies exacerbated the general feeling that there wasn't really enough material for the whole series, as it tended to get stretched a bit thin, especially toward the end. Still, I feel many of the negative reviews are far too harsh, and some don't seem to understand that the program wasn't aimed at the fandom, as one is tempted to call it, but rather the (USian) general public.
Anyway having watched it, I feel that I want to make a bit of a departure from my usual content here and talk about the Madeleine McCann case. Specifically, I want to list what I think are some of the discrepancies in the story of the night of her disappearance that I think have not been adequately explained in public, and that were mostly skated over quite quickly by Netflix as well. The point is not to imply anything regarding anyone's guilt or innocence; people do illogical and inexplicable things in everyday life, misspeak and just plain make mistakes. For all I know, there are perfectly innocent explanations to everything here. But these are the unxplained discrepancies I was left with after viewing the Netflix documentary and reading up on the case online, as well as a few general observations.
**
Madeleine McCann disappeared from Praia da Luz in Portugal on May 3rd, 2007. She was asleep in her family's rented apartment while her parents had dinner at a tapas bar just across from the building. As retired police superintendent Peter MacLeod's ebook details, there is some discrepancy over the way the parents dining at the tapas bar (the "tapas seven") checked on their children in their rooms and when they did so. For what it's worth, I find the MacLeod ebook to be quite tendentious and uncomfortably eager to jump to conclusions, and I certainly don't endorse his overall theory. But I do think the text makes some good points in its examination of the witness statements. It feels worthwhile to start by noting the overall timeline of the evening.
According to the timeline in the Guardian, Mrs. McCann and the children returned to their apartment at about 18:00, and David Payne, one of the "tapas seven", checked in on them at 18:30 at Mr. McCann's request. As I've understood it, that means 18:30 is the last time someone outside her immediate family is known to have seen Madeleine alive and well. At 19:00 (I assume these times are approximations) Mr. McCann returns, and at 20:35 they join the rest of the tapas seven at the restaurant, the children having been put to bed. The McCanns leave the patio doors, facing the restaurant, unlocked since they can only be locked from the inside.
By their own account, Mr. McCann checked in on the children at 21:05 and saw them all asleep. At about 21:30, Mrs. McCann was going to check on the children, but Mr. Oldfield, dining with them, is going to visit his apartment and offers to check theirs as well. Mr. Oldfield enters through the unlocked patio doors, sees all is well inside, but cannot confirm if he saw Madeleine in her bed or not. At 22:00 Mrs. McCann goes to their apartment, and by her own account, fails to find Madeleine inside, and raises the alarm.
As far as I know, none of the above is disputed. At approximately 21:10, Jane Tanner of the tapas seven later reports seeing a man walking down the street, away from the McCanns' apartment, carrying a sleeping child. Known as the Tanner sighting, it is assumed for years that the man she saw had abducted Madeleine McCann and was, in fact, carrying her. The later Scotland Yard investigation was able to identify the man and prove that he was, in fact, another British holidaymaker, who had picked up their child from the resort's night creche and was carrying them to their apartment. However, because this was apparently not known until 2013, it was long assumed that "Tannerman" had abducted Madeleine, and therefore that she must have vanished from the apartment between Mr. McCann's visit at 21:05 and the Tanner sighting at 21:10. This was such a strong conviction for such a long time that as of this writing, the McCanns' website still hosts the identikit drawings based on the Tanner sighting with an appeal for information, even though the person has been identified. So we now know that Madeleine could have gone missing at any time between approximately nine and ten o'clock.
I'm wondering, though, whether the time window might not be even longer. If Mr. McCann did not, in fact, see his daughter at around nine o'clock, then the time she could have vanished extends to at least around 20:30. This is not to imply any sinister motive or intentional deception on his part, but if his check was actually as cursory as Mr. Oldfield's, then Madeleine may already have been gone by then.
Mr. MacLeod has highlighted a change in the statements made by the McCanns on their visits to the apartment that night. Initially, both Mr. and Mrs. McCann claimed to have entered the apartment via the front door, using their keys. Later, they changed their stories to say that they entered through the unlocked patio doors. This may well be an innocent mistake, but to my knowledge it hasn't been explained, and later retellings all have the McCanns entering via the patio. The patio doors were obviously open, since Mr. Oldfield had entered that way and did not, presumably, have a key to the apartment in the first place.
**
There are several discrepancies around what happened at 22:00, when Mrs. McCann reported Madeleine missing. First, there is the mystery of the window. Mr. MacLeod has collected several quotes from the McCanns' friends and relatives, who clearly seem to have been told that the window in Madeleine's room had been forced open. However, no evidence of this exists, and in video footage from immediately after the disappearance (as seen on Netflix), the shutter and window are clearly intact. It's never been established why the McCanns claimed the window had been broken open, when this is clearly not the case.
It's not even clear if the window was ever open at all. Mrs. McCann has given two completely different accounts of how she discovered that Madeleine was missing at 22:00, both quoted in Mr. MacLeod's ebook. In the statement she gave to the police on 4.5.2007, Mrs. McCann says that on entering the apartment, she immediately perceived that the door to the children's bedroom was open, and the window and shutter were also open. But in an interview she gave in 2008, she describes a completely different scene, where everything appears normal at first. Only when she notices that the bedroom door is open more widely than they had left it, does she go to check on the children, and in her words:
This later version is the one that the Netflix reconstruction went with. But is it possible for it to be true?
There's an odd detail related to the Tanner sighting. As Mr. McCann returned from his nine o'clock check on the children, he met a fellow Briton in the Rua Dr. Francisco Gentil Martins, leading from the apartment to the tapas bar, and stopped to chat with him. Jane Tanner passed by them and reported seeing them, but they did not see her. The Portuguese police apparently questioned whether this was possible, because the street was narrow and well-lit. It also appears that way in the Netflix series, but I don't know if it's accurate in that respect. If I read the apartment layout in the police files correctly, the children's bedroom faced the Rua Dr. Agostinho da Silva, which has the same kind of street lights as the Rua Dr. Francisco Gentil Martins (at least on Google Street View!) and appears to be equally well-lit.
In his statement of 10.5.2007, Mr. McCann describes that "during the night the artificial light coming in from the outside is very weak, therefore, without a light being lit in the living room or in the kitchen, the visibility inside the bedroom is much reduced". Presumably this is because the various shutters and curtains were usually kept closed. Writing for the Guardian, Bridget O'Donnell describes the McCanns' apartment:
As the apartment was on the ground floor and fairly close to the street, it would certainly have been uncomfortable to have the lights on inside without drawing the curtains or closing the shutters. Both McCanns testified that the window and shutter in the children's bedroom had been closed when they left, and this makes sense. However, if the apartment was quite dark at night, and the window in the children's bedroom looked out onto a well-lit street, should it not have been immediately obvious if it was open? In Mrs. McCann's initial statement it is. But in her later, much more detailed statement, she describes it as being dark, and only perceiving that the window was open when the curtains were moved by the wind.
The crime scene photos (pictures 7 and 8) show the window closed and the shutter down, but the curtains open. So there are now three different configurations for the window: Mrs. McCann's initial account where the window, shutter and curtains were open; her later account where the window and shutter were open, but the curtains closed; and the photograph showing the shutter and window closed, but the curtains open. There are obviously several questions. The shutter appears fairly opaque; if we believe Mrs. McCann's later account, was the difference in light level not perceptible until the wind moved the curtains? It's certainly possible. But if the window and shutter were open at 22:00, when were they closed? If the curtains were drawn, when were they opened and arranged behind the furniture as they are seen in the police photographs?
It does not appear that anyone except Mrs. McCann ever saw the window open, and it seems strange that she would have stopped to draw the curtains and close the window and shutter before reporting Madeleine missing. Of course she may have done so, but the discrepancy between her two accounts has never been explained; both cannot be true. As a historian, I tend to be skeptical when stories become more detailed the further they are from the actual event. Similarly, it has apparently never been explained why the McCanns initially claimed that the window had been forced, but later abandoned the claim. It's entirely possible that these discrepancies are the results of pure misunderstandings and the story becoming embellished with time, which is surely a universal human process. But as it stands, it's not at all clear what the configuration of the window in the bedroom was, or indeed if it matters at all: the apartment was readily accessible by the patio doors, nor has it been established whether the front door was locked.
Is it significant that the McCanns initially claimed to have entered the apartment via the front door, unlocking and locking it, and also that the window had been broken open, but later admitted to entering through the unlocked patio doors, and dropped the claim that the window was forced?
**
Another unexplained detail is Mrs. McCann's reaction to not immediately finding her daughter. Several sources report her screaming "Madeleine's gone! Someone's taken her!" as she ran back toward the restaurant. In the 2008 interview mentioned previously, she says "I knew straight away that, err, she’d been . . . taken, [you] know." This seems odd to me, and as I understand it, the initial reaction of others on the scene was that Madeleine must have wandered off by accident. Mrs. McCann has uncharitably been accused of trying to "plant a story" by insisting that her daughter had been abducted, when in fact she could not know that was the case. She is variously described as either making a cursory search of the apartment, or only looking in the parents' bedroom to check if Madeleine was in their bed. It is, of course, entirely credible for a parent to have an emotional reaction to finding their child missing in the middle of the night, but I feel that this does need to be included in a list of unexplained events.
**
Finally, the most baffling detail of all is the claim that the McCann twins, sleeping in the same room as Madeleine, had been sedated. Mr. MacLeod dedicates a full chapter to this, and here I feel that his arguments have real merit. This is an important point, because many of the theories that posit the McCanns were somehow culpable in their daughter's disappearance are based on the idea that they had sedated their children. While this may seem extreme stated in such bald terms, in fact children can apparently be effectively put to sleep with fairly harmless over-the-counter medications. The argument is superficially strengthened by the fact that both McCanns are medical doctors, and Mrs. McCann was a qualified anaesthetist. I apologize for omitting their professional titles, but distinguishing between two Dr. McCanns would make this an even more arduous text!
No physical evidence that the McCann twins were sedated exists; they were tested, but at such a late date that apparently no traces of any substance would have survived. Given how prominently the sedation story has been used to cast blame on the McCanns, it seems ironic that it apparently originates with Mrs. McCann herself. She has stated numerous times, both to the police at the time of the disappearance and publicly later, that she believes the twins and, presumably, Madeleine, had been sedated by the abductor. This is certainly borne out by the fact that all through the night of Madeleine's disappearance, the twins apparently slept soundly. They did not even wake up when they were moved to another place to sleep. In the Netflix documentary, a vacationer at the resort describes Mrs. McCann as "howling" over the disappearance of her daughter. It seems absolutely incredible that the two-year-old twins would have slept through all this, and yet this seems to be an undisputed fact, commented on by the McCanns and the Portuguese police on the scene at the time. So it seems that the twins were indeed sedated.
But how? I agree with Mr. MacLeod that it seems incredible that an intruder could have sedated the children. Any effective sedative would have to have been administered by injection, ingestion or inhalation. If the idea was to keep the children quiet and docile, surely this would have been completely defeated by waking them up to make them eat or drink a sedative, let alone trying to inject them with a hypodermic needle. Applying chloroform would have left telltale marks and an easily detectable smell, and more exotic tranquilizers are frankly very difficult to believe. Now, I'm not an expert in these things, so if there's some credible way in which an intruder could have sedated the children that I'm unaware of, then I am happy to be corrected. But I fully agree with Mr. MacLeod that it is very difficult to understand how this would have been accomplished in practice.
Further, I don't understand why the children would have been sedated. Even when applying a sedative is possible, it's at best an inexact science, and there is always some risk. One of the odd details around the disappearance is that according to the McCanns, Madeleine had asked why they hadn't come the previous night when she cried. A neighbor also testified that on that previous night, she heard a child, presumably Madeleine, crying for an hour without anyone responding. So why would an abductor have found it necessary to sedate the twins at all? They could hardly have done anything more dangerous than crying. Madeleine was only four years old; surely a determined abductor would have easily overpowered her. So what I would add to Mr. MacLeod's analysis is that I don't see what the point of sedating the children would be in the first place. Certainly it's difficult to understand why an abductor would go to the trouble of sedating the twins in any scenario.
This is how Mrs. McCann describes the twins' condition in her book.
Dr. Kate McCann is a qualified anaesthetist, and so is Dr. Fiona Payne, a fellow member of the tapas seven. Dr. Gerry McCann is a general practicioner, and most of the rest of the tapas seven were also medical doctors. It seems amazing that this group of medical professionals would have observed that two very young children were sedated, conclude that they had been put in this condition by a malicious intruder, and not seek any kind of medical care for them. Instead, the twins were simply left to sleep it off, with occasional checks on their breathing. Again, I am not an expert on the subject, but I agree with Mr. MacLeod's analysis that it seems incredibly unlikely that two trained anaesthetists would have automatically assumed that the children had been sedated competently by an intruder and were in no danger, and therefore no medical attention was necessary. The twins were not taken to a hospital or any medical facility.
In his publication, Mr. MacLeod draws the conclusion that Mrs. McCann was not concerned about the twins because she had sedated them herself. This idea is at the heart of many of the theories that implicate the McCanns in the disappearance of their daughter, although I think that requires not so much leaping but making a hyperspace jump to a conclusion. But if it is not the case that they sedated the children themselves, then Mrs. McCann's behaviour with regard to the twins on the night of the disappearance seems very difficult to explain.
**
These are some of the questions I was left with after watching the Netflix documentary. Given some of the things I've read online, I feel I have to stress that I don't think any of these things individually or as a group are anything remotely like sufficient cause to malign the McCanns, let alone accuse them of some kind of criminal conspiracy. People misremember and misspeak; our recollections are imperfect and mutable; we make bad decisions. I consider it probable that there are more or less innocent explanations for all of these discrepancies.
One thing I wish Netflix had done was draw on a broader area of expertise. I think a gender studies perspective into how especially Kate McCann has been portrayed as a bad and uncaring mother would have been invaluable. Motherhood is such a deeply politicized and policed place where so many different ideologies intersect. My simple definition of patriarchy is that it's a system where a woman can never do anything right. Kate McCann has been portrayed as both an irrational, hysterical and overemotional mother, and a cold, sociopathic, unfeeling mother. You may think that's a spectrum where there's an acceptable golden mean of motherhood in the middle, but there isn't. The fact is that there is no "right" way to grieve over the inexplicable loss of a child. You cannot look at a parent who's lost a child and say "aha! They are not exhibiting the correct stages of grief, therefore they are faking it". Or indeed anyone who's faced a traumatic event. Yet we do this with people in the public eye constantly, especially anyone who is presented to us as a victim: we assess if they're worthy of our sympathy. And we do it with criteria that are so bad, so fundamentally discriminatory and ideological, that the process is horrible. I really think there are a lot of disciplines in the humanities and social sciences that can shed a lot of light on this, but in a crime documentary, we hear from policemen and journalists, and the policemen's solution is always more resources and powers for the police. It's not a good look, and there are reasons to think that it's had very unfortunate effects on our society.
The disappearance of Madeleine McCann is obviously a fascinating case. The breathless and totally irresponsible press coverage, and the way in which public sentiment is built and then suddenly makes a dramatic turn, is a real microcosm for so many things that were happening around the same time. It's difficult to not notice that the British home secretary who oversaw the review of the case, which later turned into the ongoing Scotland Yard investigation, was Theresa May: she of the racist "hostile environment" policy and later Brexit prime minister. I think that with phenomena like Brexit and Trump, we've gone long past manufacturing consent: our mass media manufacture entire theaters of emotions for us to get caught up in. In some ways, the publicity around the McCann case was a precursor of the emotional theatrics of Brexit. We're long overdue for a proper look at what the media do in our society, and what effects it has on us all.
In the meantime, we hope against all odds that Madeleine McCann is alive and well somewhere.
Anyway having watched it, I feel that I want to make a bit of a departure from my usual content here and talk about the Madeleine McCann case. Specifically, I want to list what I think are some of the discrepancies in the story of the night of her disappearance that I think have not been adequately explained in public, and that were mostly skated over quite quickly by Netflix as well. The point is not to imply anything regarding anyone's guilt or innocence; people do illogical and inexplicable things in everyday life, misspeak and just plain make mistakes. For all I know, there are perfectly innocent explanations to everything here. But these are the unxplained discrepancies I was left with after viewing the Netflix documentary and reading up on the case online, as well as a few general observations.
**
Madeleine McCann disappeared from Praia da Luz in Portugal on May 3rd, 2007. She was asleep in her family's rented apartment while her parents had dinner at a tapas bar just across from the building. As retired police superintendent Peter MacLeod's ebook details, there is some discrepancy over the way the parents dining at the tapas bar (the "tapas seven") checked on their children in their rooms and when they did so. For what it's worth, I find the MacLeod ebook to be quite tendentious and uncomfortably eager to jump to conclusions, and I certainly don't endorse his overall theory. But I do think the text makes some good points in its examination of the witness statements. It feels worthwhile to start by noting the overall timeline of the evening.
According to the timeline in the Guardian, Mrs. McCann and the children returned to their apartment at about 18:00, and David Payne, one of the "tapas seven", checked in on them at 18:30 at Mr. McCann's request. As I've understood it, that means 18:30 is the last time someone outside her immediate family is known to have seen Madeleine alive and well. At 19:00 (I assume these times are approximations) Mr. McCann returns, and at 20:35 they join the rest of the tapas seven at the restaurant, the children having been put to bed. The McCanns leave the patio doors, facing the restaurant, unlocked since they can only be locked from the inside.
By their own account, Mr. McCann checked in on the children at 21:05 and saw them all asleep. At about 21:30, Mrs. McCann was going to check on the children, but Mr. Oldfield, dining with them, is going to visit his apartment and offers to check theirs as well. Mr. Oldfield enters through the unlocked patio doors, sees all is well inside, but cannot confirm if he saw Madeleine in her bed or not. At 22:00 Mrs. McCann goes to their apartment, and by her own account, fails to find Madeleine inside, and raises the alarm.
As far as I know, none of the above is disputed. At approximately 21:10, Jane Tanner of the tapas seven later reports seeing a man walking down the street, away from the McCanns' apartment, carrying a sleeping child. Known as the Tanner sighting, it is assumed for years that the man she saw had abducted Madeleine McCann and was, in fact, carrying her. The later Scotland Yard investigation was able to identify the man and prove that he was, in fact, another British holidaymaker, who had picked up their child from the resort's night creche and was carrying them to their apartment. However, because this was apparently not known until 2013, it was long assumed that "Tannerman" had abducted Madeleine, and therefore that she must have vanished from the apartment between Mr. McCann's visit at 21:05 and the Tanner sighting at 21:10. This was such a strong conviction for such a long time that as of this writing, the McCanns' website still hosts the identikit drawings based on the Tanner sighting with an appeal for information, even though the person has been identified. So we now know that Madeleine could have gone missing at any time between approximately nine and ten o'clock.
I'm wondering, though, whether the time window might not be even longer. If Mr. McCann did not, in fact, see his daughter at around nine o'clock, then the time she could have vanished extends to at least around 20:30. This is not to imply any sinister motive or intentional deception on his part, but if his check was actually as cursory as Mr. Oldfield's, then Madeleine may already have been gone by then.
Mr. MacLeod has highlighted a change in the statements made by the McCanns on their visits to the apartment that night. Initially, both Mr. and Mrs. McCann claimed to have entered the apartment via the front door, using their keys. Later, they changed their stories to say that they entered through the unlocked patio doors. This may well be an innocent mistake, but to my knowledge it hasn't been explained, and later retellings all have the McCanns entering via the patio. The patio doors were obviously open, since Mr. Oldfield had entered that way and did not, presumably, have a key to the apartment in the first place.
**
There are several discrepancies around what happened at 22:00, when Mrs. McCann reported Madeleine missing. First, there is the mystery of the window. Mr. MacLeod has collected several quotes from the McCanns' friends and relatives, who clearly seem to have been told that the window in Madeleine's room had been forced open. However, no evidence of this exists, and in video footage from immediately after the disappearance (as seen on Netflix), the shutter and window are clearly intact. It's never been established why the McCanns claimed the window had been broken open, when this is clearly not the case.
It's not even clear if the window was ever open at all. Mrs. McCann has given two completely different accounts of how she discovered that Madeleine was missing at 22:00, both quoted in Mr. MacLeod's ebook. In the statement she gave to the police on 4.5.2007, Mrs. McCann says that on entering the apartment, she immediately perceived that the door to the children's bedroom was open, and the window and shutter were also open. But in an interview she gave in 2008, she describes a completely different scene, where everything appears normal at first. Only when she notices that the bedroom door is open more widely than they had left it, does she go to check on the children, and in her words:
"I was looking at Madeleine’s bed which is here, and it was dark and I was looking and I was thinking is that, is that Madeleine or is that the bedding and I couldn't quite make her out, and it sounds really stupid now, but at the time I was just thinking I didn’t want to put the light on because I didn't want to wake them, and literally as I went back in, the curtains of the bedroom which were drawn, [demonstrates with both forearms together] that were closed, “wheesh’ like a gust of wind kind of blew them open."
This later version is the one that the Netflix reconstruction went with. But is it possible for it to be true?
There's an odd detail related to the Tanner sighting. As Mr. McCann returned from his nine o'clock check on the children, he met a fellow Briton in the Rua Dr. Francisco Gentil Martins, leading from the apartment to the tapas bar, and stopped to chat with him. Jane Tanner passed by them and reported seeing them, but they did not see her. The Portuguese police apparently questioned whether this was possible, because the street was narrow and well-lit. It also appears that way in the Netflix series, but I don't know if it's accurate in that respect. If I read the apartment layout in the police files correctly, the children's bedroom faced the Rua Dr. Agostinho da Silva, which has the same kind of street lights as the Rua Dr. Francisco Gentil Martins (at least on Google Street View!) and appears to be equally well-lit.
In his statement of 10.5.2007, Mr. McCann describes that "during the night the artificial light coming in from the outside is very weak, therefore, without a light being lit in the living room or in the kitchen, the visibility inside the bedroom is much reduced". Presumably this is because the various shutters and curtains were usually kept closed. Writing for the Guardian, Bridget O'Donnell describes the McCanns' apartment:
One morning, I saw Gerry and his wife Kate on their balcony, chatting to their friends on the path below. Privately I was glad we didn't get their apartment. It was on a corner by the road and people could see in. They were exposed.
As the apartment was on the ground floor and fairly close to the street, it would certainly have been uncomfortable to have the lights on inside without drawing the curtains or closing the shutters. Both McCanns testified that the window and shutter in the children's bedroom had been closed when they left, and this makes sense. However, if the apartment was quite dark at night, and the window in the children's bedroom looked out onto a well-lit street, should it not have been immediately obvious if it was open? In Mrs. McCann's initial statement it is. But in her later, much more detailed statement, she describes it as being dark, and only perceiving that the window was open when the curtains were moved by the wind.
The crime scene photos (pictures 7 and 8) show the window closed and the shutter down, but the curtains open. So there are now three different configurations for the window: Mrs. McCann's initial account where the window, shutter and curtains were open; her later account where the window and shutter were open, but the curtains closed; and the photograph showing the shutter and window closed, but the curtains open. There are obviously several questions. The shutter appears fairly opaque; if we believe Mrs. McCann's later account, was the difference in light level not perceptible until the wind moved the curtains? It's certainly possible. But if the window and shutter were open at 22:00, when were they closed? If the curtains were drawn, when were they opened and arranged behind the furniture as they are seen in the police photographs?
It does not appear that anyone except Mrs. McCann ever saw the window open, and it seems strange that she would have stopped to draw the curtains and close the window and shutter before reporting Madeleine missing. Of course she may have done so, but the discrepancy between her two accounts has never been explained; both cannot be true. As a historian, I tend to be skeptical when stories become more detailed the further they are from the actual event. Similarly, it has apparently never been explained why the McCanns initially claimed that the window had been forced, but later abandoned the claim. It's entirely possible that these discrepancies are the results of pure misunderstandings and the story becoming embellished with time, which is surely a universal human process. But as it stands, it's not at all clear what the configuration of the window in the bedroom was, or indeed if it matters at all: the apartment was readily accessible by the patio doors, nor has it been established whether the front door was locked.
Is it significant that the McCanns initially claimed to have entered the apartment via the front door, unlocking and locking it, and also that the window had been broken open, but later admitted to entering through the unlocked patio doors, and dropped the claim that the window was forced?
**
Another unexplained detail is Mrs. McCann's reaction to not immediately finding her daughter. Several sources report her screaming "Madeleine's gone! Someone's taken her!" as she ran back toward the restaurant. In the 2008 interview mentioned previously, she says "I knew straight away that, err, she’d been . . . taken, [you] know." This seems odd to me, and as I understand it, the initial reaction of others on the scene was that Madeleine must have wandered off by accident. Mrs. McCann has uncharitably been accused of trying to "plant a story" by insisting that her daughter had been abducted, when in fact she could not know that was the case. She is variously described as either making a cursory search of the apartment, or only looking in the parents' bedroom to check if Madeleine was in their bed. It is, of course, entirely credible for a parent to have an emotional reaction to finding their child missing in the middle of the night, but I feel that this does need to be included in a list of unexplained events.
**
Finally, the most baffling detail of all is the claim that the McCann twins, sleeping in the same room as Madeleine, had been sedated. Mr. MacLeod dedicates a full chapter to this, and here I feel that his arguments have real merit. This is an important point, because many of the theories that posit the McCanns were somehow culpable in their daughter's disappearance are based on the idea that they had sedated their children. While this may seem extreme stated in such bald terms, in fact children can apparently be effectively put to sleep with fairly harmless over-the-counter medications. The argument is superficially strengthened by the fact that both McCanns are medical doctors, and Mrs. McCann was a qualified anaesthetist. I apologize for omitting their professional titles, but distinguishing between two Dr. McCanns would make this an even more arduous text!
No physical evidence that the McCann twins were sedated exists; they were tested, but at such a late date that apparently no traces of any substance would have survived. Given how prominently the sedation story has been used to cast blame on the McCanns, it seems ironic that it apparently originates with Mrs. McCann herself. She has stated numerous times, both to the police at the time of the disappearance and publicly later, that she believes the twins and, presumably, Madeleine, had been sedated by the abductor. This is certainly borne out by the fact that all through the night of Madeleine's disappearance, the twins apparently slept soundly. They did not even wake up when they were moved to another place to sleep. In the Netflix documentary, a vacationer at the resort describes Mrs. McCann as "howling" over the disappearance of her daughter. It seems absolutely incredible that the two-year-old twins would have slept through all this, and yet this seems to be an undisputed fact, commented on by the McCanns and the Portuguese police on the scene at the time. So it seems that the twins were indeed sedated.
But how? I agree with Mr. MacLeod that it seems incredible that an intruder could have sedated the children. Any effective sedative would have to have been administered by injection, ingestion or inhalation. If the idea was to keep the children quiet and docile, surely this would have been completely defeated by waking them up to make them eat or drink a sedative, let alone trying to inject them with a hypodermic needle. Applying chloroform would have left telltale marks and an easily detectable smell, and more exotic tranquilizers are frankly very difficult to believe. Now, I'm not an expert in these things, so if there's some credible way in which an intruder could have sedated the children that I'm unaware of, then I am happy to be corrected. But I fully agree with Mr. MacLeod that it is very difficult to understand how this would have been accomplished in practice.
Further, I don't understand why the children would have been sedated. Even when applying a sedative is possible, it's at best an inexact science, and there is always some risk. One of the odd details around the disappearance is that according to the McCanns, Madeleine had asked why they hadn't come the previous night when she cried. A neighbor also testified that on that previous night, she heard a child, presumably Madeleine, crying for an hour without anyone responding. So why would an abductor have found it necessary to sedate the twins at all? They could hardly have done anything more dangerous than crying. Madeleine was only four years old; surely a determined abductor would have easily overpowered her. So what I would add to Mr. MacLeod's analysis is that I don't see what the point of sedating the children would be in the first place. Certainly it's difficult to understand why an abductor would go to the trouble of sedating the twins in any scenario.
This is how Mrs. McCann describes the twins' condition in her book.
In spite of the noise and lights and general pandemonium, they hadn’t stirred. They’d always been sound sleepers, but this seemed unnatural. Scared for them, too, I placed the palms of my hands on their backs to check for chest movement, basically, for some sign of life. Had Madeleine been given some kind of sedative to keep her quiet? Had the twins, too?
Dr. Kate McCann is a qualified anaesthetist, and so is Dr. Fiona Payne, a fellow member of the tapas seven. Dr. Gerry McCann is a general practicioner, and most of the rest of the tapas seven were also medical doctors. It seems amazing that this group of medical professionals would have observed that two very young children were sedated, conclude that they had been put in this condition by a malicious intruder, and not seek any kind of medical care for them. Instead, the twins were simply left to sleep it off, with occasional checks on their breathing. Again, I am not an expert on the subject, but I agree with Mr. MacLeod's analysis that it seems incredibly unlikely that two trained anaesthetists would have automatically assumed that the children had been sedated competently by an intruder and were in no danger, and therefore no medical attention was necessary. The twins were not taken to a hospital or any medical facility.
In his publication, Mr. MacLeod draws the conclusion that Mrs. McCann was not concerned about the twins because she had sedated them herself. This idea is at the heart of many of the theories that implicate the McCanns in the disappearance of their daughter, although I think that requires not so much leaping but making a hyperspace jump to a conclusion. But if it is not the case that they sedated the children themselves, then Mrs. McCann's behaviour with regard to the twins on the night of the disappearance seems very difficult to explain.
**
These are some of the questions I was left with after watching the Netflix documentary. Given some of the things I've read online, I feel I have to stress that I don't think any of these things individually or as a group are anything remotely like sufficient cause to malign the McCanns, let alone accuse them of some kind of criminal conspiracy. People misremember and misspeak; our recollections are imperfect and mutable; we make bad decisions. I consider it probable that there are more or less innocent explanations for all of these discrepancies.
One thing I wish Netflix had done was draw on a broader area of expertise. I think a gender studies perspective into how especially Kate McCann has been portrayed as a bad and uncaring mother would have been invaluable. Motherhood is such a deeply politicized and policed place where so many different ideologies intersect. My simple definition of patriarchy is that it's a system where a woman can never do anything right. Kate McCann has been portrayed as both an irrational, hysterical and overemotional mother, and a cold, sociopathic, unfeeling mother. You may think that's a spectrum where there's an acceptable golden mean of motherhood in the middle, but there isn't. The fact is that there is no "right" way to grieve over the inexplicable loss of a child. You cannot look at a parent who's lost a child and say "aha! They are not exhibiting the correct stages of grief, therefore they are faking it". Or indeed anyone who's faced a traumatic event. Yet we do this with people in the public eye constantly, especially anyone who is presented to us as a victim: we assess if they're worthy of our sympathy. And we do it with criteria that are so bad, so fundamentally discriminatory and ideological, that the process is horrible. I really think there are a lot of disciplines in the humanities and social sciences that can shed a lot of light on this, but in a crime documentary, we hear from policemen and journalists, and the policemen's solution is always more resources and powers for the police. It's not a good look, and there are reasons to think that it's had very unfortunate effects on our society.
The disappearance of Madeleine McCann is obviously a fascinating case. The breathless and totally irresponsible press coverage, and the way in which public sentiment is built and then suddenly makes a dramatic turn, is a real microcosm for so many things that were happening around the same time. It's difficult to not notice that the British home secretary who oversaw the review of the case, which later turned into the ongoing Scotland Yard investigation, was Theresa May: she of the racist "hostile environment" policy and later Brexit prime minister. I think that with phenomena like Brexit and Trump, we've gone long past manufacturing consent: our mass media manufacture entire theaters of emotions for us to get caught up in. In some ways, the publicity around the McCann case was a precursor of the emotional theatrics of Brexit. We're long overdue for a proper look at what the media do in our society, and what effects it has on us all.
In the meantime, we hope against all odds that Madeleine McCann is alive and well somewhere.
Jun 8, 2020
Rogue Trader: Now in 28mm
Back in 2014, I started a role-playing campaign using the since-discontinued Fantasy Flight Games Rogue Trader system. Seeing as how I've already spun the campaign into a justification for a series of Warhammer 40,000 games starring many of our characters in their previous lives, I figure it's about time I made 28mm models of their campaign iterations as well. Here's some of them now!
Cardinal-Commodore Brother Malachi of the Missionary Diocese of the Wounds of St. Cyrillos
I've been a little bit improper and started modelling our player characters with Brother Malachi, but this was where the whole project started: we were discussing the character's uniform with the player while I was browsing 28mm models online, and one thing led to another. The Cardinal-Commodore's model is built from Anvil Industry bits: officer coats, dress uniform legs, specialist weapon arms (to hold his flamer), epaulettes and, delightfully and by the player's personal choice, a tricorne hat.
I started by painting and varnishing the front of the torso and the part of the flamer that was going to be up against it. The shirt is Deep Sky Blue, with Old Gold braids, and the trousers are London Grey; the flamer is Gunmetal Blue. The fur lining on the jacket is Orange Red, and the flamer pipe (?) connecting to the fuel tank is Copper.
Then it was time to put everything together: arms, head, fuel tank and epaulettes.
I should say that the Anvil Industry parts were an absolute delight to work with, and I highly recommend them. Next, after a white undercoat for the unpainted bits, I painted on the main colors.
I then gave the flamer and fuel tank a Black Glaze wash, highlighted the epaulettes a bit with Gold and gave the fur and feather a dash of Fluorescent Orange.
Finally, I applied some facial scarring with Red and a Medium Fleshtone wash.
All that remains is to paint the base Neutral Grey, and we are done!
I'm very pleased with how characterful the model looks! In his youth, the Cardinal-Commodore was a preacher attached to the 165th Ophir Highlanders during the Ignatian rebellion, where he looked like this:
The model is a GW Warrior Acolyte from the old Inquisition range.
Arch-Militant Crimson Chirikov
An original member of our first group, Crim is an Imperial Guard veteran who follows a simple credo: her boss points, she shoots. Presumed lost in the Charriere incident, she made her way back to Imperial space with the Cardinal-Commodore, and was last seen signing up for the Aquilian Crusade at Babylonia Typhonis.
The model is a plastic Sister of Battle with a Postapoc Female Head from Brother Vinni, and a plasma cannon from an old Space Marine Devastator Squad box. I'm quite happy with how this all came together!
Painting her, I decided to use Black Grey as the Frunze armor color. The lumen-heraldry on her armor is in Pink.
This is Crim in her army days, as a soldier in the 76th Chirikov Rad-Guards:
Astropath Luna Faenius of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica
An Astropath assigned to House Frunze, Luna helped Brother Aphesius root out a sect of heretics on Sancrist and now serves as part of the astropathic choir on the Frunze flagship.
The model is Victoria Miniatures' splendid Astro Witch, who I painted according to a color scheme drawn by the player. That's Royal Purple and Medium Blue on the robes, and a German Camo Black Brown staff.
Rogue Trader Laurenz Frunze
I enjoyed working with Anvil bits so much that I wanted to make more models! It was therefore about time I respect the chain of command, and model our Rogue Trader, Laurenz Frunze himself. Laurenz is young for a Rogue Trader, having been plucked out of Commissar training when he unexpectedly inherited the Warrant. A valiant and inspiring leader, Rogue Trader Frunze was last seen leading his flagship into battle against an unholy alliance of pirates and xenos raiders in the Pinus system.
I was originally just going to straight up use a Commissar model, but the player expressed a desire for something simpler. So I started out with the other officer coat and dress uniform legs, added fatigue command arms, a dress uniform head chosen by the player, and the power sword from the plastic Sisters box, as well as some epaulettes.
I gave him a Black Grey Frunze uniform under the commissar jacket, and a sash in the house color, with his ancestral seal in gold.
Astropath Cynthia of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica
After a long stint at (as) an astropathic relay station, Cynthia was assigned to House Frunze, where she served as part of Cardinal-Commodore Malachy's retinue and is currently the Rogue Trader's personal Astropath.
Her model is a female robed cultist from Anvil Industries, with a staff I built from a GW banner pole and an autopistol from a plastic Chaos Cultist.
Brother Aphesius
A priest and skilled chemist, Brother Aphesius was recently charged with the local crimes of disturbing the Emperor's peace, destruction of property, endangerment of critical life support systems and arson in the Vestigium Hanini system, and the Imperial crimes of resisting the Adeptus Terra, incitement to treason and treason. He was released into exile under Rogue Trader Laurenz Frunze's supervision, and now spreads the word and wrath of the Emperor in parts unknown.
The model is another Anvil robed cultist, with a long hair head from the same company and a flamethrower from a Cadian squad box.
Adept Cornelius Gorgo, formerly of the Administratum
Finishing off our trio of commanders was easy, because the fleet officer model in GW's Regimental Advisors pack was perfect for Cornelius. Formerly a high-ranking member of the Administratum, Adept Gorgo was hired by House Frunze to manage their finances; what he ended up doing was something rather different.
Adept Gorgo is wearing a Light Grey outfit with Dark Sea Grey cuffs, and a Medium Sea Grey tunic.
**
I've also made our characters a Land Speeder. I can't remember the exact circumstances of its purchase, but the Rogue Trader wanted one, we made an acquisition roll for it, and it succeeded; so now he has a Land Speeder. Here it is!
A Land Speeder Storm seemed the most appropriate kind for a Rogue Trader, so that he can transport his retinue. They also acquired a plasma cannon, so I stuck the other one from the Devastator kit on.
Frankly, I'm delighted with this. Vehicles are fun, so I'm also on the lookout for a Tauros, since there's at least one in the Frunze motor pool, but have had no luck finding a model!
**
So that's the first batch of Rogue Trader miniatures; I'll have more later!
Cardinal-Commodore Brother Malachi of the Missionary Diocese of the Wounds of St. Cyrillos
I've been a little bit improper and started modelling our player characters with Brother Malachi, but this was where the whole project started: we were discussing the character's uniform with the player while I was browsing 28mm models online, and one thing led to another. The Cardinal-Commodore's model is built from Anvil Industry bits: officer coats, dress uniform legs, specialist weapon arms (to hold his flamer), epaulettes and, delightfully and by the player's personal choice, a tricorne hat.
I started by painting and varnishing the front of the torso and the part of the flamer that was going to be up against it. The shirt is Deep Sky Blue, with Old Gold braids, and the trousers are London Grey; the flamer is Gunmetal Blue. The fur lining on the jacket is Orange Red, and the flamer pipe (?) connecting to the fuel tank is Copper.
Then it was time to put everything together: arms, head, fuel tank and epaulettes.
I should say that the Anvil Industry parts were an absolute delight to work with, and I highly recommend them. Next, after a white undercoat for the unpainted bits, I painted on the main colors.
I then gave the flamer and fuel tank a Black Glaze wash, highlighted the epaulettes a bit with Gold and gave the fur and feather a dash of Fluorescent Orange.
Finally, I applied some facial scarring with Red and a Medium Fleshtone wash.
All that remains is to paint the base Neutral Grey, and we are done!
I'm very pleased with how characterful the model looks! In his youth, the Cardinal-Commodore was a preacher attached to the 165th Ophir Highlanders during the Ignatian rebellion, where he looked like this:
The model is a GW Warrior Acolyte from the old Inquisition range.
Arch-Militant Crimson Chirikov
An original member of our first group, Crim is an Imperial Guard veteran who follows a simple credo: her boss points, she shoots. Presumed lost in the Charriere incident, she made her way back to Imperial space with the Cardinal-Commodore, and was last seen signing up for the Aquilian Crusade at Babylonia Typhonis.
The model is a plastic Sister of Battle with a Postapoc Female Head from Brother Vinni, and a plasma cannon from an old Space Marine Devastator Squad box. I'm quite happy with how this all came together!
Painting her, I decided to use Black Grey as the Frunze armor color. The lumen-heraldry on her armor is in Pink.
This is Crim in her army days, as a soldier in the 76th Chirikov Rad-Guards:
Astropath Luna Faenius of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica
An Astropath assigned to House Frunze, Luna helped Brother Aphesius root out a sect of heretics on Sancrist and now serves as part of the astropathic choir on the Frunze flagship.
The model is Victoria Miniatures' splendid Astro Witch, who I painted according to a color scheme drawn by the player. That's Royal Purple and Medium Blue on the robes, and a German Camo Black Brown staff.
Rogue Trader Laurenz Frunze
I enjoyed working with Anvil bits so much that I wanted to make more models! It was therefore about time I respect the chain of command, and model our Rogue Trader, Laurenz Frunze himself. Laurenz is young for a Rogue Trader, having been plucked out of Commissar training when he unexpectedly inherited the Warrant. A valiant and inspiring leader, Rogue Trader Frunze was last seen leading his flagship into battle against an unholy alliance of pirates and xenos raiders in the Pinus system.
I was originally just going to straight up use a Commissar model, but the player expressed a desire for something simpler. So I started out with the other officer coat and dress uniform legs, added fatigue command arms, a dress uniform head chosen by the player, and the power sword from the plastic Sisters box, as well as some epaulettes.
I gave him a Black Grey Frunze uniform under the commissar jacket, and a sash in the house color, with his ancestral seal in gold.
Astropath Cynthia of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica
After a long stint at (as) an astropathic relay station, Cynthia was assigned to House Frunze, where she served as part of Cardinal-Commodore Malachy's retinue and is currently the Rogue Trader's personal Astropath.
Her model is a female robed cultist from Anvil Industries, with a staff I built from a GW banner pole and an autopistol from a plastic Chaos Cultist.
Brother Aphesius
A priest and skilled chemist, Brother Aphesius was recently charged with the local crimes of disturbing the Emperor's peace, destruction of property, endangerment of critical life support systems and arson in the Vestigium Hanini system, and the Imperial crimes of resisting the Adeptus Terra, incitement to treason and treason. He was released into exile under Rogue Trader Laurenz Frunze's supervision, and now spreads the word and wrath of the Emperor in parts unknown.
The model is another Anvil robed cultist, with a long hair head from the same company and a flamethrower from a Cadian squad box.
Adept Cornelius Gorgo, formerly of the Administratum
Finishing off our trio of commanders was easy, because the fleet officer model in GW's Regimental Advisors pack was perfect for Cornelius. Formerly a high-ranking member of the Administratum, Adept Gorgo was hired by House Frunze to manage their finances; what he ended up doing was something rather different.
Adept Gorgo is wearing a Light Grey outfit with Dark Sea Grey cuffs, and a Medium Sea Grey tunic.
**
I've also made our characters a Land Speeder. I can't remember the exact circumstances of its purchase, but the Rogue Trader wanted one, we made an acquisition roll for it, and it succeeded; so now he has a Land Speeder. Here it is!
A Land Speeder Storm seemed the most appropriate kind for a Rogue Trader, so that he can transport his retinue. They also acquired a plasma cannon, so I stuck the other one from the Devastator kit on.
Frankly, I'm delighted with this. Vehicles are fun, so I'm also on the lookout for a Tauros, since there's at least one in the Frunze motor pool, but have had no luck finding a model!
**
So that's the first batch of Rogue Trader miniatures; I'll have more later!
Jun 1, 2020
Let's Read Tolkien 69: The Pyre of Denethor
When the dark shadow at the Gate withdrew Gandalf still sat motionless.
Pippin tells Gandalf that Denethor has finally lost it, and Gandald decides he has to rescue Faramir since no-one else can. At the hallows, they find Beregond has broken in and is trying to stop Denethor's servants from finishing the titular funeral pyre. Gandalf and Denethor argue, and Gandalf grabs Faramir off the pyre. Denethor reveals that he has a palantír, in which he's seen the corsair ships coming up the Anduin - but completely misunderstood their significance. He sets himself on fire and dies on the pyre, and the building eventually collapses on top of him - although apparently someone goes in and digs out the palantír later.
**
The Steward of Gondor is dead; long live the Steward of Gondor. Like the other climactic chapters of Book Five, this is also a short one.
Earlier, Gandalf remarked that the blood of Númenor ran particularly pure in Denethor, whatever that's supposed to mean. I think it needs to be noted that for all of this racist obsession with bloodlines, clearly the pure blood of Númenor doesn't stop you from being a complete horse's ass and not only abandoning your post in wartime but damn near murdering your son as well. In this context, Gandalf gives a rare theological statement:
The word "heathen" is interesting here; it really does apparently come from the same root as heath, and the meaning is something like those who live out in the wastes. So it does kind of make sense to use it of the people who lived in what is now Gondor before the Númenorans came, but it does bring up the question of religion in general. What, exactly, distinguishes the people of Gondor from the heathens? We've encountered some forms of religious ritual, most prominently with Faramir's men in Ithilien. The Rohirrim and the hobbits have nothing like it, though. Would you call hobbits heathen? It's a funny word to use. Tolkien's problem seems to be that nobody in Middle-earth can be a Christian, since they don't have the gospel, but he doesn't want them to be pagans either, so they hover in this state between a Christianity with Eru standing in for God and a society that seems almost completely unreligious.
Denethor's obsession with death and the end of his house is, of course, the culmination of Tolkien's idea of the "Egyptian" character of Gondor, with Denethor wanting a royal funeral so he can travel to the afterlife with his son. It's almost bitterly ironic that Denethor declaims on the failure of the West, like so many racists of Tolkien's time and ours, when everything that happens in this chapter is really a failure of his character and leadership.
It's also kind of funny to me that Denethor accuses Gandalf of the same things Moorcock and others have: ordering everyone around and seeking to remake Middle-earth in his own image. It's no coincidence that he says many of the same things Saruman did.
Gandalf seems to take it a little hard that he had to go rescue Faramir, and while he was busy, Théoden was killed. This raises two questions in my mind. First, why did he feel he had to rescue Faramir in the first place? Denethor had already abandoned his command, and Gandalf and Prince Imrahil were de facto in charge. If Denethor burned himself and Faramir, what difference would it have made to the battle? None that I can see.
Secondly, what would have happened if Gandalf had ridden out and confronted the Witch-king? Would he have destroyed him, or would the boss Nazgûl have lived to fight another day? You can certainly argue that Gandalf is "no man", but a more Tolkienian reading here would be that Sauron's corruption of Denethor accidentally leads to the destruction of the Witch-king. But even Gandalf isn't omniscient.
**
Next time: leechcraft.
Pippin tells Gandalf that Denethor has finally lost it, and Gandald decides he has to rescue Faramir since no-one else can. At the hallows, they find Beregond has broken in and is trying to stop Denethor's servants from finishing the titular funeral pyre. Gandalf and Denethor argue, and Gandalf grabs Faramir off the pyre. Denethor reveals that he has a palantír, in which he's seen the corsair ships coming up the Anduin - but completely misunderstood their significance. He sets himself on fire and dies on the pyre, and the building eventually collapses on top of him - although apparently someone goes in and digs out the palantír later.
**
The Steward of Gondor is dead; long live the Steward of Gondor. Like the other climactic chapters of Book Five, this is also a short one.
Earlier, Gandalf remarked that the blood of Númenor ran particularly pure in Denethor, whatever that's supposed to mean. I think it needs to be noted that for all of this racist obsession with bloodlines, clearly the pure blood of Númenor doesn't stop you from being a complete horse's ass and not only abandoning your post in wartime but damn near murdering your son as well. In this context, Gandalf gives a rare theological statement:
"Authority is not given to you, Steward of Gondor, to order the hour of your death," answered Gandalf. "And only the heathen kings, under the domination of the Dark Power, did thus, slaying themselves in pride and despair, murdering their kin to ease their own death."
The word "heathen" is interesting here; it really does apparently come from the same root as heath, and the meaning is something like those who live out in the wastes. So it does kind of make sense to use it of the people who lived in what is now Gondor before the Númenorans came, but it does bring up the question of religion in general. What, exactly, distinguishes the people of Gondor from the heathens? We've encountered some forms of religious ritual, most prominently with Faramir's men in Ithilien. The Rohirrim and the hobbits have nothing like it, though. Would you call hobbits heathen? It's a funny word to use. Tolkien's problem seems to be that nobody in Middle-earth can be a Christian, since they don't have the gospel, but he doesn't want them to be pagans either, so they hover in this state between a Christianity with Eru standing in for God and a society that seems almost completely unreligious.
Denethor's obsession with death and the end of his house is, of course, the culmination of Tolkien's idea of the "Egyptian" character of Gondor, with Denethor wanting a royal funeral so he can travel to the afterlife with his son. It's almost bitterly ironic that Denethor declaims on the failure of the West, like so many racists of Tolkien's time and ours, when everything that happens in this chapter is really a failure of his character and leadership.
It's also kind of funny to me that Denethor accuses Gandalf of the same things Moorcock and others have: ordering everyone around and seeking to remake Middle-earth in his own image. It's no coincidence that he says many of the same things Saruman did.
Gandalf seems to take it a little hard that he had to go rescue Faramir, and while he was busy, Théoden was killed. This raises two questions in my mind. First, why did he feel he had to rescue Faramir in the first place? Denethor had already abandoned his command, and Gandalf and Prince Imrahil were de facto in charge. If Denethor burned himself and Faramir, what difference would it have made to the battle? None that I can see.
Secondly, what would have happened if Gandalf had ridden out and confronted the Witch-king? Would he have destroyed him, or would the boss Nazgûl have lived to fight another day? You can certainly argue that Gandalf is "no man", but a more Tolkienian reading here would be that Sauron's corruption of Denethor accidentally leads to the destruction of the Witch-king. But even Gandalf isn't omniscient.
**
Next time: leechcraft.
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