Sprog

[catwithcreamy.livejournal.com]

I've always been a bit surprised that there's no reaction from Patrick on Sprog's death in PR - have I missed it somewhere? I know Nicola feels a bit distanced from him by the whole Gondal thing , but still....anyone else found that strange?

Comments

[colne-dsr.livejournal.com]

Patrick was quite happy to abandon Sprog in Falconer's Lure. He didn't even want to bother taking off his jesses. I think Patrick was slightly too much in love with the power and grandeur of the hawks, and not with the individual bird itself.

Or if that sounds harsh, maybe it's just that he loved Regina and Jael, and Sprog was just an add-on who he didn't particularly care for. So by the time Nick got round to telling him Sprog was dead, a day or two later when she'd got her emotions under control, Patrick didn't realise just how much it meant to her, so his reaction wasn't worth reporting.

[liadnan]

I think it's the latter plus the Gondal thing. I don't have the books on me but in Falconer's Lure isn't the idea that he couldn't bear keeping Sprog around after the other two were gone.

[catwithcreamy.livejournal.com]

I think you're right when you say that Patrick didn't realise how much Sprog meant to Nick, although I would hate to feel he's as unperceptive as all that - more blinded by Gondal probably?

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

It does seem strange. Even though Patrick's feelings towards Sprog were more along the lines of exasperated pity than anything else, you'd think he would have acknowledged it somehow.

I wonder whether it's AF showing us how deep into the Gondal he and the others, to their various extents, had got - that just as things like Christmas and clothes shopping receded in favour of the imaginary world, so did an actual death (albeit one that was more or less expected) in favour of contemplating death-or-dishonour in Gondal.

[catwithcreamy.livejournal.com]

Yes, I agree - Gondal was all-consuming. But I feel it's a black mark against Patrick though. Or else it got left on the cutting-room floor?

[(Anonymous)]

Peter's Room is very episodic, isn't it? Sprog's death is almost like a short story rather than a chapter of a book - it's so self-contained and covers such a short patch of time. I sort of assume that Patrick does react somehow, but offscreen, in the space between that episode and the next one. And he probably isn't nearly as affected as Nicola is, because Sprog never belonged to him in any way that mattered. I don't think he really saw Sprog as having a personality the way Jael and Regina do. Which is reasonable, I think. Not everyone has the kind of imagination that can invest small, harmless birds with personality.

-- KSC