message 0063

• Speculations on Goldtooth, Jik and Haisi

>From: Lesley Grant <lgrant>
>Subject: cherryhlist
>Date: Mon, 11 Jan 93 9:07:42 GMT


I was thinking about the characters of the various mahen agents in
the Chanur books recently. Goldtooth and Jik are consistently shown
as professionals, while Haisi seems -- well, not to have what it takes,
to be charitable. And yet they all act in much the same way in their
dealings with hani. Are we to assume some sort of secret agent training
school at Maing Tol? Somehow I don't see any Personage willing to
employ a person with such a putative standardised experience. I was
wondering if Haisi is supposed to be consciously modelling himself on
the example of more successful (and more famous, as mahen agents aren't
at all secret) agents, known to have success in their dealings with
hani.
	Goldtooth and Jik both quite definetly know a lot about hani
customs, culture and general mindset, so several of their actions must
be interpreted as deliberate, rather than just general 'mahen ways'.
First, hani see bared teeth as threat. The standard way Goldtooth
(and, to a lesser amount, Jik) has of greeting Pyanfar is with a broad
grin. Granted, mahendo'sat really do smile like that, just like humans,
but given that among other mahendo'sat and the kif these grins are
less forthcoming it does seem like a tactic to annoy.
	Both G. and J. also touch Pyanfar far more than she likes. The
fact that hani don't seem to touch as much is implied in _Pride_ when
Tully's gesture of a handshake is described as 'one of his own kind, who
was always touching'. While Goldtooth is pretending to be an innocent
merchant he politely doesn't touch Pyanfar except to touch her fingertips
at the conclusion of the deal of pearls for welders. When he's in agent
mode he slaps her back, holds her arm, etc practically every time he sees
her, even though it is always received unfavourably. Doesn't Jik go even
further and stroke her face at one point?
	Both G. and J. also appear to have the ultimate psychological
weapon against Pyanfar (and perhaps all hani, who knows), in their
implication of her as sexually attractive to them. Hani are shown to be
extremely private about sex (well, with husbands anyway), and just don't
discuss it with outsiders. Even cosmopolitan ones like Pyanfar refuse to
even think about cross-species posiblities. So when Goldtooth tells her
'You beautiful' or (even worse, as it means 2 alien men were discussing
her charms) Jik says 'Ana right, you got lovely eyes', Pyanfar is made
literally speechless, unable to retort to the outrageous insult, or, more
importantly to the outrageous demand that typically proceeded  it.
	So what, you say. Well Haisi also does all these things, but fouls
them up in a manner suggesting he's just heard about them second hand. He
grins way too much, right from the moment of meeting Hilfy, thus allowing
her to adjust to see it not as a threat. He touches her, then looks
innocently wounded when she throws his hand off. He reduces the shock value
of admiring her, telling her she's 'pretty' too often, then clumsily mkes
the innuendo too obvious by actually propositioning her in a half-joking
way. By that stage, Hilfy has managed to control her reactions to all his
posturing, and the whole effort is wasted on his part. Given that Haisi
consistently has no effect with these tactics, yet continues to use them
seemingly in the firm knowledge that they are or should be successful, I
think he's going on knowledge gained from agents who are successful when
they use these tactics. And as Goldtooth and Jik are the agents we see
using these tactics, they are probably the people Haisi is trying to
emulate. 
	What do others think?

				Lesley