Case Study: Ekaterin Vorsoisson

Editor's Note: The point of this case study is that it shows three versions of the Fairy-Tale Journey, and demonstrates that the steps can repeat, and happen in different orders than the ones laid out in the beat sheets. Victoria Lynn Schmidt pointed out you can add action to the Fairy-Tale Journey, and that’s just what happens in Ekaterin’s story.

Back Story

Lois McMaster Bujold, the author of the Vorkosigan Saga space opera, introduces a new character, Ekaterin Vorsoisson in Komarr, the eleventh book in the timeline. I should note that the characters in the saga are all human, though some may be genetically engineered or mixed with animals, e.g., Taura, who is introduced in the short story, “Labyrinth”.

Barrayar is a feudalistic society, ruled by an emperor. Komarrans are more technologically advanced than Barrayarans, and are democratic. Komarrans have spent centuries terraforming their planet, but the people must still live in domed cities, as the air outside the domes will kill them. No one alive will live long enough to see the air become breathable outside the domes.

However, Barrayar is also a world hostile to humans, but in a different way: the indigenous flora caused mutations in the human inhabitants. The mutations aren’t the X-Men kind that give you super powers, they’re typically the “Elephant Man” type. The Barrayarans ruthlessly tried to root out their mutations during their Time of Isolation, when a wormhole collapse cut them off from fresh, untainted immigrants, as well as medical aid.

The era scarred the collective psyche of the Barrayarans; women grew up knowing it was their job to murder their own mutant infants. In the short story “The Mountains of Mourning,” we learn that grandmothers would watch over their daughters to ensure they carried out the infanticide “properly.” Unless the grandmother wanted to be kind, then she would carry out the murder to spare her daughter the task.

So.

Barrayar’s Time of Isolation ended when the Komarrans found a new wormhole to Barrayar … and sold the Barrayarans out to the Cetagandans, a warlike people who live for conquest. The Cetagandans in turn brutally conquered the innocent Barrayarans.

Barrayarans spent decades fighting off the Cetagandans, and then they annexed Komarr to ensure they would never be sold out again. Many Komarrans see themselves as victims, and resent Barrayaran rule. On the galactic stage, Barrayarans are considered to be barbaric hicks compared to the libertine Betans and technocratic Komarrans.

A principle character in the saga is Miles Vorkosigan, a teratogenic mutant: he won’t pass his mutations on to his children. In Barrayar, the second book in the saga, Miles’ mother was gassed with poison during a palace coup while she was pregnant with Miles. Because of the toxin Miles is born short, hunchbacked, and brittle-boned. His head is slightly large for his body, but he is otherwise normal. Upon adulthood, he replaced his brittle bones with stronger, artificial bones. A fact he comes to rue later in Komarr.

Note: The “Vor” part of their surnames is an indication of characters who are part of Barrayar’s gentry and nobility classes. Ekaterin is gentry class, thus is properly addressed as Madame Vorsoisson. As the son of Count Aral Vorkosigan, Miles is addressed as Lord Vorkosigan. As we see in Vor Game, Miles’ actual surname is “Kosigan,” thus Ekaterin’s true surname is Soisson.

In most of the books of the saga, Miles works covert missions for ImpSec — Imperial Security — as a space mercenary. In this book; however, he’s an Imperial Auditor. I won’t spoil the reason why!

Act I: Dependent World

Centuries in the future, Barrayaran native Ekaterin Vorsoisson is a thirty-year-old housewife. As a Barrayaran, she’s been raised to value honor, and this is the central question she struggles with in Komarr.

She is dependent on her chaotic, domineering husband, who has forced her to live with a ticking time bomb in the form of a degenerative illness he’s passed on to their nine-year-old son, Nikolai. Tien refuses to get either of them treatment because the stigma against mutants is so powerful in Barrayarans. So powerful, in fact, that Tien’s elder brother committed suicide when he found out he himself had the disease. Until then, Tien himself was unaware he was afflicted as well.

Tien and Ekaterin discovered the horrible secret shortly after their honeymoon, and it’s hung over their heads ever since. Over the years, Tien made half-hearted attempts to follow his brother’s example. Marriage vows say in sickness and in health, and thus Ekaterin must save Tien from himself.

Worse, even if she were financially independent, Barrayaran law would give Tien custody of Nikolai in the event of a divorce. Nikolai, being male, is his father’s heir, and thus “belongs” with him.

Price of Conformity / Coping Strategy / Lie

In the Virgin’s Promise, living within restrictive boundaries is one coping mechanism, and for Ekaterin this manifests in three ways.

Her first coping strategy is to “grey rock”. In her youth, one of her brothers tormented her. Their parents did not reign him in, nor did they protect her, or teach her to protect herself. Instead, her mother advised her to act like a stone. Thus Ekaterin says to Miles, “I’m all stone now.”

And she means it: she tamps down all of her personality and sexuality, believing she’s preventing Tien from persecuting her with false accusations of infidelity. He lost at least one job because he was always stalking her, trying to “catch” her in adultery.

Even restricting her friendships to other women didn’t protect Ekaterin from this accusation. Now she has no friends at all. She wears dun-colored clothes, as boring and plain as possible.

Placating Tien is the second strategy, seen throughout the first half of Komarr. But managing his emotions results in second guessing herself. Furthermore, she retreats into “propriety,” certain that if she follows the rules of proper Vor-lady behavior, she can’t be reproached.

These three defenses don’t really work, but she clings to them nonetheless.

Inciting Incident

Ekaterin’s genius Uncle Vorthys, an Imperial Auditor, is coming to investigate the partial destruction of Komarr’s soletta array. A space ship crashed into it, killing several people. Was it an accident, or sabotage?

Vital to Komarr’s terraforming project, the array’s destruction has political implications: Uncle Vorthys is therefore bringing with him one Miles Vorkosigan, who also happens to be the emperor’s foster brother. Cordelia and Aral, Miles’ parents, served as the emperor’s regents after he was orphaned at age five during the events of Barrayar. The emperor is now engaged to a Komarran woman, and hopes that the union will make relations with Komarr more harmonious.

Once again — it is implied that she’s asked this before — Ekaterin attempts to persuade Tien to see a Komarran specialist about his illness, Vorzohn’s Dystrophy. Again he refuses, on the grounds that his career is finally taking off.

Theme Stated: To yourself and to others be true

In the first chapter of Komarr, Miles talks to Ekaterin about Barrayaran political theory, and the web of loyalty between the rulers and those they rule. He asks, “How do we be true to one another?”

Anti-Virgin: Refuses the Opportunity to Shine

This occurs several times, but in the opening chapter of Komarr, Miles discovers Ekaterin’s passion for botany via the books in her greenhouse, and her bonsai skellytum plant. Inherited from her aunt, Ekaterin has lugged the bonsai around to every place she and Tien have lived. Early in their marriage, she’d planned to have a large garden, but thanks to Tien she is reduced to only the bonsai.

She downplays her love of botany. A few chapters later, when Miles suggests she get a botany job on the terraforming team, Ekaterin demurrs, fearful of the appearance of nepotism. Bureaucrat Venier backs up Miles, but Ekaterin won’t commit to her dream yet.

Note: Depending on how you look at it, Ekaterin’s garden designs, kept on her computer, could be considered a secret world. If so, then Miles’ discovery of that world constitutes a caught shining moment.

Coping strategy / Lie on full display

Though she grey-rocks through an impenetrable fortress of propriety, Ekaterin shows flashes of backbone. Knowing that Tien is habitually careless with his equipment prompts her to ignore his claim to have checked their son Nikolai’s breath mask during an outing outside the domes. Risking Nikolai is not an option, so she doesn’t give her son his mask until she’s satisfied it will protect him.

Tien notices she won’t take him at his word, and frowns. After the field trip, Tien snaps at her in front of her uncle and Miles when she reminds the group to recharge their masks.

Later, to defuse Tien, she reluctantly offers him sex. Reluctant because she never enjoys the act with him. She mentally reviews all the ways Tien has robbed her of peace, joy, and prosperity over the course of their marriage. Ekaterin lies to herself, telling herself that if she could just kill off her need for affection, she will be free.

During what should have been post-coital bliss, Tien is again enraged when Ekaterin mentions the bank called. They needed her signature for a transaction Tien was attempting. Under Barrayaran law, her signature wouldn’t be required; Tien forgot the sexes have equal rights on Komarr.

Ekaterin asks him if he was finally funding Nikolai’s treatment, and when he claims to be, she offers him the money she’s secretly saved for the purpose. She tries to convince herself that Tien will get treatment for himself and their son.

Loses a weapon: privacy

Ekaterin is intensely private, her only defense from Tien’s prying. Even he didn’t know of her secret fund for Nikolai. However, while Miles is borrowing her computer, he uses his ImpSec training to see her private files.

Not only does he see her garden designs, he also sees the secret account she created to fund Nikolai’s treatment. He knows the very secret she’s struggled to protect: that Nikolai and one of his parents has Vorzohn’s Dystrophy.

During a private outing, Miles sees right through Ekaterin’s attempts to find out how his mother dealt with his mutations. He confesses to violating her privacy, and offers her his assistance. Nevertheless, Ekaterin is furious. And frightened: when she tells him that she isn’t sick, this was tantamount to betraying that Tien is sick.

First Pinch Point / Betrayal

An extra corpse is found in the soletta wreckage, and Miles and Vorthys now have proof of murder. Miles instructs Tien not to alert Tien’s office to the surprise visit Miles plans for the next day. However, Ekaterin later hears Tien making a phone call in which he not only violates the command, he’s talking to a conspirator as a conspirator.

During the call, Tien reveals he lost huge sums of money — far more than he makes on his government salary, and a bill is due. It dawns on Ekaterin that he’s lied about his intention for the money she gave him for Nikki’s treatment: Tien has betrayed her and Nikki.

Awakening / Preparing for the Journey

Immediately, Ekaterin investigates what her husband was up to with his secret stash of money. Though he betrayed her, she can’t ask for help without in turn betraying Tien. She’s all alone, and no one can save her.

Ekaterin wrestles with her marriage vows: for years her honor bound her to save Tien from suicide. Now; however, she has no choice but to leave him. She begins preparing to divorce him; Tien is facing prison so she’s freed from her fear of losing Nikki.

Confronting Tien is a crucial moment, because Ekaterin steadfastly held to “death before dishonor.” Divorce meant becoming forsworn; honor demanded “Til Death Do You Part,” even as her marriage slowly killed her soul. Staying with Tien after discovering his dishonor would mean compromising her own honor … and cheapening her sacrifice.

When confronting Tien, she uses her grey-rocking tactic to great effect: he can no longer affect her with his dramatics and outlandish accusations. Nor guilt-trip her into knuckling under him. Even when he threatens her cherished bonsai skellytum she remains unmoved.

As a big, strapping man Tien is physically intimidating. Ekaterin faces him anyway, silently reminding herself that he never hit her. This fact is a brilliant choice by LMB: Honor is the arena in which Ekaterin must battle for self-hood, in keeping with her upbringing. She is not given an “easy out” by making her husband a wife-beater. Instead of being a cartoon villain, Tien is a more subtle tyrant.

Unnerved by Ekaterin’s preternatural calm, Tien is pushed to the Midpoint with Miles.

Midpoint

In desperation, Tien races back to his office to intercept Miles, who is still investigating the files there. Trying to pass himself off as a material witness, Tien seeks immunity. Miles lets him think they have a deal. By chance they encounter Tien’s Komarran co-conspirators, who end up chaining Miles and Tien to a rail outside the dome, and call Ekaterin to pick them up.

All should be well…except Tien failed to charge up, or check his breath mask after their earlier outing. While it is possible for mask-wearers to share masks, he and Miles are chained too far apart. An anguished Miles reflects that in the old days, he could have broken his wrists to escape the handcuffs, but his bone replacements have eliminated the option. Bless him, he tries anyway.

Just as in all fairy tales, the heroine’s tormentor is always punished in some fashion related to the way in which they tormented the heroine.

Ekaterin loses her home

Not right away, but her home was tied to Tien’s government post, and with him dead, his successor, Venier, will now take the apartment. Thanks to Tien’s chaotic behavior and erratic employment history, Ekaterin is destitute. More, she’s unskilled, and hasn’t had a job, ever. Going back to her family on Barrayar means she will be trapped in yet another dependent world. How can she free herself?

True and False Rescues, Fun & Games

True Rescue: Miles gets Ekaterin off the hook for one of Tien’s debts. He also smooths the way for Nikki to get treatment. With Tien dead, Ekaterin is finally free to tell Nikki he has Vorzohn’s Dystrophy. Miles gives Nikki a pep talk about it, and when Nikki barricades himself in the bathroom to avoid going to school, Miles coaxes him out.

Hears the Call: Miles points out that rather than return to her father’s home, where she will be infantilized and married off again, Ekaterin should consider staying with her aunt and uncle. Vorthys and Helen are nurturing: as professors, they’re used to their students spreading their wings and leaving the nest. Miles suggests that while living with them, she could get the training to become a terraformer herself. She laughs about him wanting her to have a planet. This desire of his will become important later.

Fun & Games: Miles treats Ekaterin and Nikki to lunch at an expensive restaurant, which she could never have afforded even when Tien was alive.

False Rescue: Venier, Tien’s successor, makes a move on Ekaterin. He promises her that she can stay in the apartment, as it will now be his. However, the apartment is the last place Ekaterin wishes to stay, and she’s uninterested in Venier. And Venier doesn’t know Ekaterin, so his interest is purely physical. Remember, a rescue is false if it’s offered for any reason other than recognizing the protagonist’s worth.

True Rescue | Loses another weapon: repression — For years Ekaterin wondered if she truly hated sex, or if she only hated sex with Tien. To escape his persecution she repressed her sexuality. But, to clear her of suspicion in Tien’s death, ImpSec agents administer fast-pentha, a truth serum. In Miles’ presence, Ekaterin helplessly confesses feeling attracted to Miles, and wondering about his scars.

Earlier in the book, Ekaterin saw Miles’ scars after an accident during an outing. The scars tell her that he’s survived terrible things.

“Do you want to know how?” they seem to ask.

Yes, she thought.

Protective of Ekaterin’s dignity, Miles steers the interrogation to make clear that the money Ekaterin mentions was Nikki’s treatment money she’d saved up, not the bribes Tien had taken. Thus, Ekaterin is cleared of suspicion as his accomplice.

Second Pinch Point

Miles figures out what the conspiracy is really about, and the devastating, horrible plans the Komarran conspirators have in store for Barrayar.

All Is Lost

Ekaterin is captured by the conspirators, who turn out to be on the same space station where she’d gone to meet her aunt Helen. The vengeful Komarrans insist they’re in the right for the horror they’re about to unleash on Barrayar, because of a massacre when Komarr was conquered. In the Solstice Massacre, two hundred “counselors” (akin to senators) were executed by Aral Vorkosigan’s political officer — against his orders.

However Professora Helen, a history teacher, promptly schools them: thanks to the Komarrans, five million Barrayarans were killed in the first wave of the Cetagandans’ invasion.

On Komarr, Miles is terrified. Duty requires that the women will be sacrificed for the sake of saving the world: the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few … or the one.

Dark Night of the Soul

Ekaterin reflects on the huge stakes, and how she is honor-bound to die saving Barrayar. Bravely she accepts this duty, musing that she can be courageous because her son is far from the danger. With her heart outside her body — her son — she can’t be destroyed. This is a source of inner strength, which she must rely on, as the laws of physics make it impossible for Miles to rescue her. He isn’t on the space station, and time is of the essence …

Final Battle

Ekaterin saves the world, and survives. Miles arrives to arrest the bad guys, and apologizes for the necessity of risking her sacrifice. Insulted, Ekaterin scoffs: she’s vor, of course she would give her life to save Barrayar! Of course Miles should have sacrificed her if necessary!

Ekaterin is heroic. However, the implications of the bad guys’ plans are so fearsome that the details must remain classified. Thus, Ekaterin’s heroism must be kept a secret. Miles commiserates, explaining that details of the feats and derring-do he committed to earn honor in Barrayar’s militaristic society are also classified, thanks to ImpSec. Instead, he rewards her with a fancy bauble designed to look like a miniature globe of Barrayar.

Gives Up What Kept Her Stuck

Inwardly, Ekaterin is hesitant to accept Miles’ gift, but the fact that Aunt Helen sees nothing improper about it encourages her to accept it. Aunt Helen is not concerned about propriety, yet she has a happy life and a happy marriage. Think on that, Ekaterin tells herself, and thus she chooses Aunt Helen as her Guide.

Anti-Virgin: Ekaterin reflects on the happy marriage between Aunt Helen and Uncle Vorthys. Forty years of wedded bliss … a possibility lost to her. She concludes she doesn’t have what it takes to experience such a marriage.

Miles gives Ekaterin all of his comm numbers … and the run down of his previous girlfriends and unrequited loves.

Answers the Call

After the run down, Ekaterin notices the aftermath of Miles’ relationships with women is that they go from “rags to riches” in one sense or another: A mutant slave becomes a sergeant of a mercenary fleet, a worker bee mercenary becomes the fleet’s admiral, a marginalized bastard becomes a jump ship captain, and one woman even becomes an empress.

Whereas, Tien “protected” Ekaterin so thoroughly that she couldn’t grow, stagnating so that at thirty she is in the same place in life as she was at twenty (see the Hag). Clearly, Miles never offered his girlfriends such “safety.” She jokingly asks if she can take a number to be his next girlfriend. Miles replies that the next number is one.

Though Komarr is over, Ekaterin’s journey is incomplete. Saving Barrayar was an external problem, a mythic problem. Her real problems are internal: can she take power over her own life? This question is answered A Civil Campaign. Stay tuned for the conclusion of this case study!