Miévillians discussion

This thread is for discussion of Iron Council parts 4 and 5: Chapter 14 to end of Chapter 19.

The Hainting deals with the adventures of Ori and the various factions he works with, and we encounter the huge eye in the sky.

Retread takes us back again to Judah and Cutter and the Iron Council. The Militia are hunting the IC, and they make an important decision about where to go next.

I must admit that I really do not enjoy the bits with Ori and the criminality and violence. I understand that Ori and his pals are angry young men, but...

On the other hand, I can't help constantly seeing parallels with the war with Tesh and the war with Afghanistan.

Okay, there's been something I've been wondering since, a while back, it was confirmed that most of the Iron Council consists of thieves, murderers, robbers and rapists. Why would murderers, robbers and rapists act in philanthropic ways, and why would they inspire fierce love in someone who is not one?

Sorry that I'm such a conventional bore, a stick in the mud as it were, but... I'm struggling to try and get with it here.

This assumes that those criminals who were Remade were in fact guilty of the crimes for which they were convicted. Personally I don't see why we should have great faith in the Crobuzoner criminal justice system. While I'm sure many are guilty of -something-, I'm not so sure we can trust they're all as bad as the criteria for Remaking would suggest.

What proportion of the councillors were Remade, though? It seemed to there were a fairly large number of prostitutes and more than a few "whole" railmen in the mix as well.

It does make one wonder how many of the Remade there are hardened criminals, though.

Well, Judah, (EDIT: It might have been Uzman in the presence of Judah) who loves them so much, at a point labels them explicitly as a bunch of thieves, murderers, robbers and rapists. I don't have an e-copy on the platform I'm using at the moment, but as soon as I get to a searchable copy, I'll copy and paste the passage for you.

Judah isn't particularly well equipped to judge the guilt of each of them, I'd hazard to say. I too remember him describing them thus, but I took it to be hyperbole rather than an accurate, reliable assessment.

I think, too, that the very existence of Iron Council belies the dangerousness of most of the Remade. If they were all thieves and rapists and murderers, it would been anarchy, an orgy of raped prostitutes, sodomized children, beaten and killed railmen, etc.

Instead, Judah received messages from them and order seems to have been kept. Some, no doubt, were genuine criminals reformed by their experience, and others perhaps, had to be put back in chains, but I think most were decent people who made a mistake, or were simply caught by the heavy hand of the Crobuzoner law, whether they deserved it or not.

J. wrote: "I think, too, that the very existence of Iron Council belies the dangerousness of most of the Remade. If they were all thieves and rapists and murderers, it would been anarchy, an orgy of raped prostitutes, sodomized children, beaten and killed railmen, etc."

That is my entire point, yes.
Btw, searching "rapist" I found the following paragraph about when Judah was following the bountyhunter:
"He injures or kills his quarries with the spines from his weapons or with his living nets or with sudden throat-sounds, and drags the bodies back to the way stations for bounty, and asks nothing of Judah, nor provides him anything. The count of sheep-stealers and rapists and murderers goes up, money comes in. Those the unman kills are scum, but the presence in Judah is not at ease."

It might have been Uzman who labeled his own people- you'll find the section I refer to on p.422 or thereabouts:
"—We have to be gone. Bring me a damn map. Do you realise what we’ve done here? What we are now?

A scattered mess of Remade. A town of Remade and their xenian and freeanole friends. These thieves and murderers, rapists, vagrants, embezzlers, liars.
—You look carved, Uzman says with a wonder they can suddenly hear. —Bits of wood, man-sized, whittled by gods. They blink up at him in the shadow of the train they have stolen.

Uzman was one of them, so I don't know how much hyperbole he would use on his own group. My whole point is that CM time and again seems to almost romanticize or at the very least, whitewash crime. (I know others here don't agree with me, but think about it.)

As Miéville seems to like to write around police states (New Crobuzon and Ul Quoma at least), it's hard for me to say whether he whitewashes crime, or is instead critical of how quickly our societies criminalize their citizens.

I can understand your perspective, though. Crime in these works is pretty nebulously defined, and Miéville does seem cavalier about its importance.

I'm sure he is critical of how easily 'criminals' are marginalized, and believe me, nobody is a greater fan of Victor Hugo than I.

I can easily excuse theft, even embezzlement, etc, but when it gets to rape and murder, especially rape, I'm starting to look at the whole thing askew.

I agree those are very different crimes, indeed. I still find it impossible to pass judgement when the people were sentenced by a fundamentally unjust government, then brutalized, humiliated, and given up into bondage for the rest of their days. Who knows what really happened? There certainly seemes to be an element of business, of exploitation, to Remaking...

Oh, as far as I am concerned, it's slave trading, pure and simple. I am not in the least implying that the practice is right or justified, and of course there is a huge potential for exploitation in it.

...all notwithstanding, I find it very implausible that every single one out of a horde of people convicted for violent crime, who would, I assume be even more embittered by their remaking and servitude, would suddenly be peaceful, compliant, loving and lovable people. I just don't see it.

True enough. I haven't gotten to a point where we see the Council again, so I can't really speak to post-crisis behaviour. Certainly what we see in the anamensis cannot be taken as the norm, since they were banded together for the sake of survival in the face of immediate danger.

I shall have to read on!

J. wrote: "True enough. I haven't gotten to a point where we see the Council again, so I can't really speak to post-crisis behaviour. Certainly what we see in the anamensis cannot be taken as the norm, since ..."

Oops, you naughty boy, then you shouldn't be in this thread yet, hm? ;) :D
On the other hand, I'm glad to see at least someone is loving the discussion so much that they can't stay away! :D

I find it a bit of a pity that CM divided it into such short parts jumping around between scenarios, which makes it harder for dividing the threads into logical pieces.

I wanted to avoid the excessive amount of threads that we had in PSS, though. I remember that people were starting to get rather mixed up with all those threads.

J. wrote: "As Miéville seems to like to write around police states (New Crobuzon and Ul Quoma at least), it's hard for me to say whether he whitewashes crime, or is instead critical of how quickly our societies criminalize their citizens..."

If I recall right, criticism of the regime is a big crime,and even if guilty of some more overt possibly 'anti-social'behavior,what kind of punishment has no end,or limit. To remake a human being in such bizarre ways, for dubious commercial profit, is torture,and it's criminal no doubt about it in my mind.

I dont have a hard time seeing that the real criminals are the ones running things...and they are bankrupt

Not all of the Remade are portrayed as being accepting of the situation by any means. There is a definate Robin Hood element that you've gotta root for.

For what it's worth, after having read through the relevant section, I think it is fair to say that Iron Council's success is somewhat far-fetched. It's all much too neat a communist utopia, isn't it? It's certainly possible an outcome like that could happen, but it is implausible.

Switching gears (or is it tracks?), though, I'm finding myself warming up to Ori and the group he's with. Granted, they are thieves, petty criminals and vigilantes, but they're not entirely bad, either. Their defence of Creekside was quite heroic, in fact. That the Toroans hate racists so deeply that they will not only use violent means to stop racists from doing harm to others but will also risk their own lives, is not something to be dismissed. I find that actually quite admirable, that they acted to restore order when the militia couldn't be bothered.

Their stated aim is anything but saintly, mind you: they are contemplating assassination, full stop. On the other hand, when faced with indiscriminate killing, with cold-blooded murder as Baron is wont to commit, the rank and file shy away. Toro himself seems to have no qualms with killing, though, and they certainly tolerate having Baron around as he is useful to their cause, so I'm not sure how much their unease counts.

Toro's gang does seem to be the most radical (or at least violent) of the Caucus factions, and the defence of Creekside aside, their activities doesn't seem to be having any kind of lasting impact. I wonder what that says, if anything, about their methods. So far they're at best morally ambiguous, and might end up doing more harm than good by killing the mayor (assuming they succeed).

Still, centilating a few racist pigs who were about to kill a number of defenceless khepri counts for a lot in my book.

Well, the caucus groups appear to be traditional enemies with the Quillers, if you'll cast your mind back to the puppet show in a much earlier chapter.

Yes, I have no problem with the caucus groups in general- it was with Ori himself and Toro's gang that I had more of a problem. I'm an RR'er from back in the PPS days, after all. ;) I really liked Derkhan.

Ms. Blueday was a wonderful character, wasn't she? :)

Ok, I shouldn't be here quite yet as I am about a dozen pages from the end of this section but I was having trouble with the titles of parts four and five. They just don't seem to make as much sense as the title of part four: Anamensis.

If I understand correctly, hainting is an alternative of haunting, but what is haunting who here, the big eye?

Retread just seems wrong to me. There are no 'treads' on the train, are there? Why not 'retrack' or 'retrace'?

Ha! That's a good catch, Ruth. "Retrace" might be the most natural word which fits, indeed. I hadn't given the part titles much thought, but I can understand why it would bug you.

I'd love to see one titled "Sitting Around". ;)

Ruth wrote: "Ok, I shouldn't be here quite yet as I am about a dozen pages from the end of this section but I was having trouble with the titles of parts four and five. They just don't seem to make as much sen..."

Hah, Ruth, remind me again--I think you mentioned you did linguistics? I wish we could organise to meet CM one day over coffee or drinks. Wouldn't that just be cool? Derek and Ruth would have a field day poring over words, words words with him... ;D

Hmm, good questions, Ruth. Possibly yes, the eye haunted them? Would have to think about that one.

Re retread, well, I think it is supposed to indicated that they are retracing their steps, but knowing CM, it probably has a double meaning, as in 'redo' maybe? As in retread your tires?

Btw, I might shorten the next thread to just one section, because such a lot happens in it, and we might want to discuss that as soon as we get to it.

I apologize that I'm struggling a bit in getting the threads divided into sections that are a nice fit for our discussion; I hadn't read the book before, and like we've seen, more happens in some parts than in others, so please bear with me...

Yup, linguistics, and though it was a long time ago I still very much enjoy what it adds to life.

Meeting (food even better than drinks, says I) would take quite a bit of organization....From the bits I've gleaned I think we are spread over at least 4 different countries and two or more continents. For my part, I am deep in the forests of northern Sweden.

We could always all go on a tour of London and make our CM lunch/dinner the highlight. Yes, I know, highly improbable, but one can always dream...

Ooo, that could almost draw me out of my hermit state. :)

Traveller would hate having me along on a trip to London, rabid (read: annoying) Canadian monarchist that I am. That would be a dream trip, though, topped by nothing save perhaps going to Manitoba (or is it Saskatchewan?) to meet Guy Gavriel Kay and discuss history and fantasy literature---and possibly the definition of denouement. :D

Traveller wrote: "The count of sheep-stealers and rapists and murderers goes up, money comes in. "

In the first place, these aren't Iron Councillors—they're the typical criminals who arise on the edge of civilization. They're being hunted because they prey, at least in part, on the railroad builders. And secondly, Judah betrays the bounty hunter, so he doesn't think too highly of him either.

But I'm basically with J. I don't trust that any of the "criminals" are really guilty, but if I was Uzman (especially, if I was not myself guilty of any such crime), I would have described the Iron Council that way, sarcastically.

"...all notwithstanding, I find it very implausible that every single one out of a horde of people convicted for violent crime, who would, I assume be even more embittered by their remaking and servitude, would suddenly be peaceful, compliant, loving and lovable people. I just don't see it. "

True, but remember: the worst of them have already escaped to the wilds. We know there are marauding bands of fReemade, and the bounty-hunter was hunting for a reason.

Meanwhile, I don't see that the IC is any different from any other society, except in one way. They would have had those who transgressed against the IC's own laws: but they could, and likely did, exile them.

J. wrote: "Still, centilating a few racist pigs..."

Damn. I thought you had found another obscure Miévillism, then I realized you'd just hit the wrong key.

Ruth wrote: "If I understand correctly, hainting is an alternative of haunting, but what is haunting who here, the big eye?

Retread just seems wrong to me. There are no 'treads' on the train, are there? Why not 'retrack' or 'retrace'? "

Thanks for "hainting": I had forgotten to look that up. Yes, I'd guess it was the big eye, and other manifestations.

From the Shorter Oxford,
Tread (noun) 13a: ...now esp. , the part of a wheel on a vehicle that touches the ground or a rail; the part of a rail that the wheels of a vehicle touch.

So, I'd say it works.

J. wrote: "Traveller would hate having me along on a trip to London, rabid (read: annoying) Canadian monarchist that I am. That would be a dream trip, though, topped by nothing save perhaps going to Manitoba ..."

Only if it meant you insist I have to refer to QE as : Her Royal Highness Queen Elizabeth every time.

Count me out on the GGK trip. I'd rather say hi to Gabriel Garcia Marquez or Isabel Allende, or... let me think: is Umberto Eco still alive?

Traveller wrote: "Only if it meant you insist I have to refer to QE as : Her Royal Highness Queen Elizabeth every time.... is Umberto Eco still alive?"

Ahem. Despite being a Canadian-republican (small 'r' please - I'm way too pink to be a Republican), I do know the correct titles. The Highnesses are all princes and princesses. Liz is a "Royal Majesty".

And yes, Eco is still alive.

I'm sorry to have to tell you this, Derek, but you evidently are not as familiar with royal styles as you think. The Queen is simply styled Her Majesty, with no "Royal" in between. In Canada this is most obviously evidence by the designation of naval ships (Her Majesty's Canadian Ship, HMCS) as well as HMC Dockyard in Halifax, but there are many more examples in the UK.

Also, HRH does not only apply to princes and princesses, but also to spouses of princes, who do not acquire princely title upon marriage. The wife of the Prince of Wales is exceptional here, but the title Princess of Wales is a courtesy rather than a title held by right.

But I digress. :)

J. wrote: "I'm sorry to have to tell you this, Derek, but you evidently are not as familiar with royal styles as you think. "

Hey, I'm a republican!

Bloody royal parasites. Nothing but handlingers.

Traveller wrote: "We could always all go on a tour of London and make our CM lunch/dinner the highlight. Yes, I know, highly improbable, but one can always dream..."

Count me in.
Find an amazon/goodreads tie in and get them to sponsor us.
Or better yet,just send the man an invitation.

J. wrote: "I'm sorry to have to tell you this, Derek, but you evidently are not as familiar with royal styles as you think. The Queen is simply styled Her Majesty, with no "Royal" in between. In Canada this..."

I thought I was teasing you for once insisting I refer to Queen Vic as Her Royal Highness Queen Victoria, but my memory may have been clouded by amusement. It may have been her majesty, though I do seem to remember a "Royal" somewhere in the title as well. It could be that we also discussed someone like Diana or one of the princes, (I may have mentioned that my cousin was at Sandhurst with Harry and that he was a nice chap, but like you say, we're digressing.)

"Count me out on the GGK trip. I'd rather say hi to Gabriel Garcia Marquez or Isabel Allende, or... let me think: is Umberto Eco still alive?" (Hmmm, didn't work as italics)

Yes, Traveller, I believe he is. At least he was a few months ago when he was on Swedish TV promoting his latest book, 'Prague Cemetery', I believe, or maybe 'Inventing the Enemy'. Wonderfully articulate and enjoyable to listen to. The program is called Babel, maybe it can be found online. The interview was in English.

And I would be in for a trip to meet Guy Gavriel Kay, J., and for a discussion of denouement, definitely. (I'm told my short stories are missing that but I'm not sure I agree, but like all you above, I digress.)

J. wrote: "This assumes that those criminals who were Remade were in fact guilty of the crimes for which they were convicted. Personally I don't see why we should have great faith in the Crobuzoner criminal ..."

the reality is that once someone has been remade,that person is branded and all actions thereafter are illegal to some extent.There were tight laws about these things,who could do what where.

Anyway,even if they were guilty,you don't graft flippers or install boilers in people,whatever they did.

To me the riling against remaking feels a bit moot, since, like I already mentioned when we read PSS, it's clearly something that is impossible to achieve in our world according to any of the laws of biology in our universe, and that goes for humans anywhere. CM still chooses to have 'humans', and so, if the natural laws of Bas-lag is different enough to ours for 'remakings' such as grafting octopus tentacles onto a human in such a way that the human brain can start to use these tentacles in a functional way, or replacing a persons' organs with machinery that runs on coal in such a way that the person actually has to eat coal-- I mean, that is just so fantastical that it completely defies belief. So to me it has very much a comic book feel to it.

(Yes, I know this is fantasy, but it would have been easier if CM had chosen to call his creatures something else than 'humans' because the use of the word humans for his creatures makes them too analogous to actual humans.)

...so, I've been seeing remaking more as a metaphor or symbol than anything 'real'. Perhaps the closest analogy we could have of the remade with real humans, would be bio-engineered human clones (which we don't have yet, of course) that are commercially bred and used as slaves, like the scenario that David Mitchell sketched in his book Cloud Atlas.

Of course, humans have through history made use of human slaves, probably to some extent another analogy of the remade, just sans the remaking, of which the use of prisoners for commercial gain can be seen as one.

Of course the issue here, is that corruption in the system can cause it to happen that people are convicted of crimes more easily if some profit can be made out of them. This issue has received some media coverage already. One of the articles I link to in the next thread might include the bit on private prisons in the US.

..and those of you who have read up on the trade in body parts may know of the extremely disturbing trend in China, where organs are harvested off live political prisoners.

EDIT: As clarification, when I talk about "remaking and remade" I see the actual surgery and the system of doing this to convicts and of using these convicts as labor- (for instance, putting spades onto a man's hands and using him to dig), as inclusive in the term remaking and remade.

Remaking indeed has no parallel in the real world, so we have to construct imperfect analogies. Your analogy, though, Traveller, is betrayed by the process' very name: theses people were not bred as cyborgs or chimera, but were transformed, still retaining a memory of being free and fully human.

If you'll allow, I think a close analogy for voluntary Remaking might be a sexual reorientation: one becomes something different, as fully as current technology allows, without erasing what they once were. Tanner Sack underwent voluntary Remaking, and while he became something other than what he was, the transformation was both his choice and carefully tailored so that he could live happily and productively in water.

Punitive Remaking, on the other hand, seems to be more like an intentionally botched sex reorientation, designed so that the person becomes something between man and woman, as visibly as possible to act, as Magdelanye said, as a brand. It is similarly difficult or impossible to undo as well.

Does that make sense?

J. wrote: "Remaking indeed has no parallel in the real world, so we have to construct imperfect analogies. Your analogy, though, Traveller, is betrayed by the process' very name: theses people were not bred a..."

You state the obvious of course, as far as what remaking in the Bas-lag world is like.
...but I think you seem to be missing a few points.

Now, you are trying to make an analogy between remaking and a sex change. Firstly, sex-changes are usually voluntary. Remaking is almost always involuntary. Tanner Sack was remade as a convict, he only voluntarily had the remaking added to- he had added to what was already there.

And in the case of Mr Motley, we are not told how he started off- if his initial remaking had been voluntary or not.
Whereas some hermaphrodites have no choice, being born that way, elective hermaphrodites (the ones made that way by surgery) choose to be that way, and most of them pay lots of money for it to be done; it is their choice, where remaking is not the choice of the remakee.

(Also, I really think we should leave transsexuals out of the discussion, because the analogy certainly doesn't fit, and is unfair to them.)

In addition, sex-changes are only done using the patient's own body tissues. Please google for more info on exactly how it is done.

Which leads me to state another obviousness. If I really were to graft the limbs of an animal or even of another human being onto your body, your body would reject the foreign protein and would create a biological barrier between your body and the foreign object. So firstly, we have to assume that they had found technology to suppress such a reaction; and yet, in our own world with all of it's advanced tech, we still find it difficult for human bodies to accept things like transplanted hearts from humans where the biological systems between the organisms are much more similar than those between humans and squid or humans and insects. Our nervous sytems, just for one, are totally different.

So as I said in my post above, there is no way to make an analogy to anything like remaking in the real world. It is too far removed from what can be achieved in our world, especially if you go have a look at how the brain works.

So, I was drawing threads to our real world in my post above not regarding the physical aspect of remaking, but rather the symbolic aspects, more relating to the penal aspects of "remaking" such as the fact that NC uses prisoners as slaves, and that NC takes ownership of their bodies in a very complete and very literal way.

I see remaking as a symbolic thing, being symbolic of the objectivization of human beings, and of attempts to control other human beings, and worse, to transform them into something they are not, for financial gain, or to conform to the ruling classes idea of morality.

Actually, if you really did want some kind of physical analogy, we can look at how women (and now men too) have plastic surgery done on themselves to please society.
Changing the way you look in servitude to the whims of society might be seen to be some form of remaking, no? But even so, it's not quite the same as remaking. I'm talking about cases like Michael Jackson, where Jackson had the surgery done to try and fit in with what he perceived societies' expectations were. (Transsexuals have surgery done in order to change into something that psychologically feels a better fit for them. Remade change into something that, with rare exceptions, have negative implications for them.)

But, I think the bottom line for me about remaking is that CM is trying to point us to things that society does that we need to be vigilant about. One of them is the marginalisation, and as you already remarked, 'branding' of criminals.

Another is when society pressures us into becoming something that we are not. I'm not sure we should be seeing remaking quite so physically rather than symbolically. Keep in mind that an author communicates with his reader via his fiction--we're discussing a stylized, fictive world here.

That is one of the things that I have been trying to say in my previous post, but I probably didn't express it very well.

Have you read Cloud Atlas, btw?

I gave an example of a voluntary Remaking; I assume you'll agree it's an equally valid area of investigation. Voluntary Remakings are a small minority, I don't deny, but they clearly happen. I was trying to establish that the process is not innately cruel, and that for some it is desirable and, hopefully, beneficial.

It was not my intent to make any comments on transexuals at all, but in retrospect I can see how the second part of my analogy might be misconstrued. I didn't mean to suggest that being neither male nor female is bad, but simply that to be forcibly transformed permanently into something else is a subversion of what Remaking could be. It is, in the end, always going to be a flawed analogy.

Plastic surgery is a pretty good and (helpfully) simple analogy. I had not actually thought of it, probably because it is only cosmetic rather than transformative. I wonder if there is precedent for a judge handing down plastic surgery as sentence, somewhere. I think I might look into that.

Anyway, we seem to agree on the symbolism of Remaking. Your last post was indeed clearer in expressing your views. I hope I've done likewise. So I will quit trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, I think.

I have not read Cloud Atlas. If you think I should I'm certainly willing. From what little I've read about it sounds like my kind of thing.

Actually, the discussion above is making me wonder why there is indeed no more evidence of plastic surgery and other potentially enhancing surgeries being done in Bas-lag, given the apparent ease of remaking. I mean, why, for instance, don't Vodyanoi who prefer to live on land, not have their skins changed to make it easier for them?

Or shouldn't I be expecting logic from New Weird novels? ;)

Logic? What's that? :)

There is a mention of a Remade vodyanoi at some point, I think, but they are conspicuously absent, yeah. Miéville clearly need to write more novels!

Plastic surgery is not just cosmetic, btw. Usually we refer to a plastic and reconstructive surgeon, because a lot of what the latter kind of surgeon does, is to reconstruct people's bodies to a semblance of normality after burn and other injuries.

For instance, I had a contracture in the fold of my arm after severe burns, which needed reconstructive surgery to restore full functionality of the arm.

You get them on hands and other joints too. See: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/artic...

In these cases, the surgery is not done to change, but an attempt to restore as closely as possible what had once been.

J. wrote: "I gave an example of a voluntary Remaking; I assume you'll agree it's an equally valid area of investigation. Voluntary Remakings are a small minority, I don't deny, but they clearly happen. I was..."

Just for clarification: J, when I was talking about "remaking" (and I suspect Magdelanye too) I was talking about the penal system of remaking, in addition to it being a physical procedure.

When we are introduced to the concept in PSS, it is introduced mainly as a penal procedure. I had assumed that people who had come this far with the book would have understood that, and also, as we see in the earlier chapters of PSS, that NC uses 'remade' as in 'convicts' as free labor, and they also "sell" these convicts very much in the way that slaves used to be bought and sold in previous ages on our world.

I think that the "Remade" and fReemade" very much indicates a person who has been through the NC penal system. Hence my analogy to slaves, and my mention of systems where money is made out of a society's penal system.

Derek (GR: TELL your users about the censorship policy!) wrote: "Traveller wrote: "The count of sheep-stealers and rapists and murderers goes up, money comes in. "

In the first place, these aren't Iron Councillors—they're the typical criminals who arise on the ..."

Still, most of the persons who captured the train in the previous section describing the revolt, had been Remade, right?
I'd like to comment on this, but it would be a spoiler in this thread, so I put it on the next thread.

(view spoiler)[ Re this point, please see my message 32 in the next thread: http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1... (hide spoiler)]

(Btw, the reason I included the first result of my rapist search, was actually just that here, they are described as "scum". (Maybe not a very good point, and maybe it even points to your interpretation that Uzman's assessment may have been ironical, but still) : The count of sheep-stealers and rapists and murderers goes up, money comes in. Those the unman kills are scum, but the presence in Judah is not at ease." )

Part of the remaking punishment was also that the remade were charged for the cost of the remaking, hence becoming slaves to work off the payment.
Talk about double-punishment.

I think perhaps the reason why elective remaking is not done (that we read about) is the stigma that comes with the whole process, it marks you are an outlaw and a slave.

Jeanette (jema) wrote: "Part of the remaking punishment was also that the remade were charged for the cost of the remaking, hence becoming slaves to work off the payment.
Talk about double-punishment.

I think perhaps the..."

Phew, but you are sharp to have picked up (and remembered) the bit about about that the remade had to pay for the process, Jeanette! I'd actually missed or forgotten that.
Good point about the stigma, yes. The details of Mièville's world is so different to ours that I sometimes miss out on some of the nuances.

Maybe remaking is even outlawed on people who are not convicts, because if everyone started doing it, the stigma would be subverted.

I'd missed that, too. Do you remember whereabout it's stated, Jeanette?

I think you're onto something, Traveller. At the very least it would make slave-convicts easier to manage.

I wonder how long Remaking has been used as a form of punishment. The social stigma is obviously very strong. Even Judah (I think) says that it's not proper for a wife to stay with her husband if he is Remade, and whole and Remade coupling obviously made him uncomfortable---and that's after the Iron Council rebellion.

Which allows us to see how free people feel in Armada, and what an 'outlaw' place it is, for Tanner to be remade again of his own free will and choice.

J. wrote: "I'd missed that, too. Do you remember whereabout it's stated, Jeanette?


I think it was somewhere in Anamnesis - about when they rebelled and took over the train,or just before when the owner finally comes with the money but can't pay out any to the remade.

Ah, indeed you're right:

—And you Remade. Weather Wrightby smiles a sad smile. —I don’t know, he says. —I don’t know. You are indentured men. I don’t make laws. You have debts to the factories that made you.

Good to know!