The Tyrant Philosophers/Plummel
Plummel is a Palleseen soldier serving in Statlos Shrievsby's squad, deployed into the Reproach, the collapsing district of Ilmar whose streets rearrange themselves and whose inhabitants slowly lose their Palleseen identities to the district's own logic. She appears at the nadir of the squad's mission, after a single engagement has already halved its numbers, and her brief presence on the page serves as the narrative's first concrete demonstration that the Reproach's corruption operates swiftly and invisibly. She is the soldier who reports sighting Companion-Archivist Nasely, the soldier who leads the squad across ruined ground with no regard for the terrain, and the soldier who answers a starveling's courtly salutation in antique Maric-a language no Palleseen trooper should speak-and thereby confirms to her commander that the district has already taken her.
Her arc within the single appearance is the arc of the district's victims compressed into a few pages: function, report, lead, speak, vanish. After Shrievsby's desperate gambit to shock his remaining soldiers back to themselves with a killing blow, Plummel recedes from the narrative entirely, swallowed by the same fate that claims Murredy moments later. She never reappears. What the text makes clear is that the Reproach does not wait for a soldier to fall behind; it rewrites the ones still standing in front.
Character
Personality
Plummel's conduct in the few pages she occupies is defined by action rather than reflection. She is the squad's scout, the one who "scrabbles back" to the hidey-hole with intelligence about Nasely's position, and she then takes the lead at the front of the group without hesitation. The narration characterises her advance through rubble and weeds as showing "reckless disregard for the terrain," cutting across ruined streets rather than picking a careful path-behaviour that, in the context of what follows, reads as a symptom of the corruption already working through her rather than as inherent temperament. - ch 11
Beliefs & Motivations
Omitted. The text records no inner life, stated goal, or personal code for Plummel; she is presented entirely through function and the actions she takes under the Reproach's influence.
History
City of Last Chances
Plummel is a member of Statlos Shrievsby's squad deployed into the Reproach, a ruined district of Ilmar where the streets and buildings rearrange themselves and the inhabitants "go native," losing their Palleseen selves to the district's corrupting influence - ch 11. She is present when the squad, already reduced by half after a single engagement, holes up in a house with Murredy and the remaining survivors, awaiting orders in a cityscape that has shifted since they last looked back - ch 11. It is Plummel who scrabbles back into the squad's hidey-hole and reports that she has sighted Companion-Archivist Nasely in a top-floor window, prompting Shrievsby to have Murredy confirm the street is clear before the group sets out - ch 11.
She leads the squad forward through rubble and weeds with what the narration characterises as reckless disregard for the terrain, cutting across the ruined streets rather than picking a careful path - ch 11. When the scarecrow figure who calls himself Count Dirovesnic and a cluster of starvelings emerge from the alleyways speaking in antique Maric, Plummel responds in kind with a courtly greeting in the same archaic tongue, an act that reveals she has gone native to the Reproach - ch 11. Shrievsby, confronted by this, backs away from her and shoots the scarecrow figure dead with his baton, hoping the shock of violence will pull his remaining soldiers back to their senses - ch 11. Murredy then turns and repeats the scarecrow's greeting in the same antique Maric voice, confirming that he too has succumbed, and more starvelings shuffle from the alleys to dance in a circle around the squad - ch 11. Plummel's fate after this point is not recorded; Shrievsby's attention shifts entirely to the beast from the Anchorwood that tears through the dancers and seizes Murredy, and then to Nasely's scream from the tower - ch 11.
- implied, ch 11: whether Plummel's corruption by the Reproach is reversible is left open; Shrievsby's fear of "Correct Speech" vengeance is stated to exceed his fear of the district, but no mechanism for un-corruption is offered.
Relationships
- Statlos Shrievsby - Plummel is a member of his squad; he is her commanding officer and the man she reports to when she sights Nasely in the top-floor window. The bond between them is professional and hierarchical until the moment she answers the scarecrow figure in antique Maric, at which point Shrievsby physically backs away from her-a gesture that reframes their relationship from mutual trust between officer and soldier to a commander confronting a liability. His subsequent shooting of the scarecrow is, in part, an attempt to break whatever has taken hold of her and the others, though it is not clear he believes it will work. - ch 11
- Murredy - Plummel and Murredy are the two survivors present with Shrievsby in the house when the squad is awaiting orders. They share the space of the hidey-hole and the advance through the ruined streets. The text pairs them in their corruption: Plummel speaks the antique Maric greeting first, and Murredy repeats it moments later, as though one revelation confirmed the other. After the scarecrow's death, Murredy's attention is seized by the beast from the Anchorwood, and Plummel drops from the narrative entirely. - ch 11
Tags
- soldier · #gone-native · #squad-member