Violent Enough?

Violence in history and story

Are things being violent enough in this tale? I poke the outline, the events, the situations --

The plot-significant violence is already baked in, it was set in the outline, and I’ve already had one slaughter. But, the tale is set in a more violent time.

Most times have, in fact, been more violent. The law is less effective, there’s little in the way of forensics so many escape if not actually caught red-handed, if you escape the immediate vicinity of your crime there is no organized pursuit, patronage protects the guilty -- at that, patronage deploys the law for the horrible offense of being on the other side, so that the innocent suffer as its hands.

Not to mention that the prisons are more unpleasant, so by the time your family talks the king around, you may already have perished from the conditions. Appealing to the law is not always a plea for justice, it’s often a request for favoritism, and another form of violence.

And when the law grows so contemptible, feuds take over. The prince’s protection can remit your sentence for fighting, but it can not remit a dagger between your ribs.

Or, if you are adequately unpopular, a lynch mob. The Spanish Inquisition’s insistence on ordinary rules of evidence (of the day!) meant that many accused witches could not be convicted, but a sufficient whipped-up village would dispose of the witch themselves.

All right, a vast range of these things are possible over the course of history. The laws handled more or less in different times and places. Even in fictional Verona, the prince can rally citizens against the feud, and order death and exile for those involved; Romeo knows that the sentence of exile is real.

Shakespeare’s history plays show greater disorder, featuring disputes over the throne and the dynasties, but also just general disorder, taking advantage of the disputes.

That is the sort of setting my tale at least borders on.

There is a dispute over the succession. There will be at least two large scale and deadly fights in the story, one of which has already killed scores, and the other of which will kill at least hundreds, possibly a thousand. But the burning question is: What should the setting have by way of background violence?

At the very least, violence needs to be enough so that the readers will understand why the heroine does not just send her parents a message with her news. She doesn’t dare. The man would likely just be murdered on the way by robbers. Or, more likely, by a lord’s men who realize that the messenger is in service to the other side.

Then, many readers have unduly rosy visions of crime rates. They imagine that the crime rate was lower in days of old, when in reality it was stunningly high when you compare it to the population. (And that when many crimes passed undetected.)

So I need some violence. Not to move the story forward (though it may sprout some effects). To suggest the level of violence they are used to. To explain why the opening violence does not bring on the level of hysterics you might expect nowadays. To raise the stakes by implying that this level of violence is actually not normal, so it is clear that what our heroine does is important.

Fights, I think. At least one of which should prove lethal. Abuse of the legal system. I suspect there will be a murder at a masquerade ball.

All this against a backdrop of continual intriguing where every noble family is trying to make hay out of the crisis, with their support being offered only for every concession they can get.

This story does not take place in a nice time in history. I will have to juggle that.