this is stuff you like and thank you to the patron who requested the Deed of
Paksenarrion a long time ago see? I got to it eventually! And to all of you who
voted for it as well because you know when you have a kind of half-formed
thought about something and then you read a book and you go ah there it is
well I had that with Paksenarrion and anger because I was right in the middle
of the second book when the whole Jordan Peterson Cathy Newman interview happened
that was serendipitous but we'll get to that the deed of Paksenarrion is a three
book series by Elizabeth moon in which we have Paksenarrion Dorthansdotter
who comes from a place so small it doesn't even have a name it's just near
three firs I don't think we even find out what country she lives in until were
several hundred pages into the book the plot of the deed of Paksenarrion goeth
thusly when she's 18 years old Paksenarrion's father tells her she has to get
married and she says uh no and leaves home to join a group of reasonably noble
mercenary soldiers led by a Duke she learns how to fight and there are a
bunch of battles which aren't really that important except insofar as we now
know that Paksenarrion can fight. Then some bad things happen and we spent the
rest of the book trying to track down one particular Lord called Siniava
the honeycat and then we find him and we git im and that's the end of the
first book book 2 she strikes off on her own and does some adventuring then she
gets religion and then she joins sort of a religious order which is going to
train her to be a paladin and then some bad things happen at the end of book two
she leaves the order and wanders around in the world for a while and it's not so
fun book three we fix the bad things and then there's some intrigue about restoring
a king to his rightful throne and then it all gets really Passion of the
Christ near the end and it just it was it's
just a bit hairy but it's allocating it honest anyway Paksenarrion is a tall
muscular blonde lady and she is very very straightforward that's probably why
she makes such a good paladin there's nothing tricksy about Paks and
there's nothing particularly subtle about her either
there are a lot of heroes who get angry a lot and sometimes that anger is
portrayed as just a noble and sometimes it's portrayed as stupid and leading to
them making mistakes but Paksenarrion somewhat unusually rarely gets angry
and works very hard to be charitable even though she is a soldier and
soldiers do a lot of fighting so if you want the bottom line because we're going
to delve off on a tangent at this point the Deed of Paksenarrion is a lot of fun
and I liked it and while there are some parts that you should probably skim if
you're a bit squeamish like I am I would recommend it. A big thing with the Deed of
Paksenarrion is how she deals with courage and bravery but I want to talk
about how she deals with anger and I also want to talk about Jordan Peterson
no honestly it's a very relevant point so in book 2 Paksenarrion gets
kidnapped by evil elves and is made to fight orcs under the direction of evil
spider demon cult type thing she does get rescued by her party but after that
the party are a bit concerned that she may have fallen prey to evil influences
which is obviously a no-no if you're a paladin and how that works out is we see
her being more angry than usual we see her losing her temper twice in a week
which is probably more than she is lost her temper at any point in the previous
one and a bit books and while that's no more anger than would perhaps be
considered reasonable it's very much out of character for her and it concerns her
quite a lot and this uncharacteristic behavior is a sign as it turns out that
a great evil has rooted itself in her mind and it will need to be torn out
otherwise she's gonna go very evil and possibly die and so tear it out they do
but at great personal cost to Paksenarrion who can't do much of anything for
quite a while it's a really interesting subplot about courage and bravery and
how paladins are often not perhaps as empathetic as they could be with the
common people because they don't understand the fear of being helpless
and like I said I like that sub plot a lot but back to anger. anger is an
emotion that can be tremendously helpful and there is a prevailing view on
certain often younger (to generalize wildly) parts of the internet that anger
is vital to making anything happen because anger against injustice is
natural and good and suchlike but personally I'm finding as I get older
that anger is tremendously helpful but only for short periods of time or for
specific instances anger is very good at overriding your don't make a fuss
socialization in that you can make an almighty fuss when
something is very bad and wrong but the flipside is that anger is also deeply
destructive to health and to well-being and to character. And I've been thinking
a lot about character recently and about persuasion and about keeping your temper
even when faced with the provocation of someone who is deliberately trying to
rile you up after all Paksenarrion would and I think the world probably needs
more people like her. I was not at all familiar with Jordan Peterson until
quite recently if I have been pushed I would probably have gone when YouTube?
Canadian? academic? and that would have been about it but he wrote a book and so
as you do he went on a book tour which included the UK and he went on channel 4
to be interviewed by Cathy Newman and there was an awful lot of subsequent
discussion of the interview on a few forums I frequent which included very
often the words 'train wreck' and so I thought I should watch this and so I did
and as someone who wasn't really familiar with either of the people
involved before the interview it came across very much like that video with
the frozen trolls and Elsa's dad 'so what you're saying is' which is inevitably
followed by a gross oversimplification or a complete misrepresentation of what
they just said. Cathy Newman to my mind had been told before the interview that
the angle they were going for was 'crazy Canadian hates everyone especially women
get him to say something clickbait worthy ok!' I watched it and I cannot tell
you how many times I went 'that's not even slightly what he just said! are you
even listening!' full disclosure I suspect Jordan Peterson and I would not have
particularly similar views on the world though I don't know perhaps I should
read his book and find out but if the idea was to trip him up and make him
look like an extremist loon then it failed spectacularly and I think one of
the big reasons for that was that he was just so prodigiously reasonable I don't
know if I could have held onto my temper in those circumstances but it was
obviously the right decision to do so he could have lost his temper he could have
stormed out he could have lectured her and his fans would have forgiven it I'm
sure because that's often what fans do but if you do that then the people who
are looking for a reason to dismiss your arguments
we'll find it really easy to do so and the people who were on the fence will
probably fall on the side of can't be bothered but I've seen this a lot and
even on the internet that if you are calm and reasonable and factual that
people might not change their mind or agree with you right then but they might
just go away and think about it and they might conclude you were right though if
they change their mind at the later point they are unlikely to credit you
for it but it doesn't matter because they agree with you now so win for you
the internet is full of videos with titles like "person of particular
ideological persuasion REKT by person of opposite ideological persuasion!'
somehow I don't think Paksenarrion would really approve. it's one thing to dissect
an argument and pick apart why it's illogical or you don't like it it's
quite another to show you're an idiot and you're wrong and you're stupid for
ever believing this thing and you're wrong and you're an idiot makes good
copy for your YouTube audience who already agree with everything you say
but if you want to actually affect change I think Jordan Peterson and
Paksenarrion have it right it is much more effective to hang on to your temper.
losing your temper and the cause of righteousness feels really good and warm
and glowy but it doesn't take the anger away quite the contrary
in fact according to psychologists quiet contemplation and/or vigorous exercise
will help you deal with anger effectively venting it just leads to
there being more of it and Paksenarrion seems to know this instinctively but I
think maybe it's an important lesson for the rest of us too. thanks for watching
this episode of stuff you like thank you to my patrons who suggested and voted on
this so long ago but I got to it if you would like to join my patrons who are
wonderful and lovely then you should go to patreon.com/jillbearup and
regardless I'll see you all next time man this really is turning into the year
of books isn't it?