Posted by Tobias Seldon on December 28, 1996 at 18:53:45:
In Reply to: Demon Princes series posted by Michael Reynolds on December 10, 1996 at 16:38:14:
I think what makes the Demon Princes a particular favorite of mine is the somewhat melancholy ending. The fact that the seris was written over an extended period of time meant that Kirth's character developed along with the author himself; changing from a rather stoic, ultra-competant, somewhat socially maladjusted assasin to a rather more whimsical, wry, and empathatic type. As the reader is taken along this personal journey, and therefore identifies more emotively with Kirth, the existensial void that Kirth faces with the destruction of the last of the Demon Princes makes the ending far more unique than a rational debriefing would engander.
Kirth, thanks to the understanding of his development, is perhaps the most endearing of Vance's characters. As a result Kirth's loss of purpose, his loss of identity, strikes hard at the reader. The Kirth's grief is mirrored by the reader in that the wonderful seris is at an end, the readers journey with Kirth is at an end.In this way the reader shares the final paragraph with Kirth:
'Deflated, perhaps. I have been deserted by my enemies. Treesong is dead. The affair is over. I am done'.
A summary would blunt this grief and therefore the experience.