Yeah, everything is read on AO3, either firefox on my desktop or firefox on my phone.

I probably should save stuff a lot more than I do; every so often, I go on a panicked download ALL OF THE THINGS frenzy, but then it wears off.

Well, really, all I have to do to keep Carl alive is not have Aral be the Regent¹ (and any other wildly-diverging AU; for example, Carl survives in the one where Serg kills Ezar). Carl's a count's son, basically any other regent is gonna be like "yeah, sure, let's bend the rules for your kid and not call it a duel, we'll call it murder or whatever, his hand slipped, there's too much going on for me to piss you off over something this minor" (the actual severity depending on the importance of the guy he killed, this is corruption junction after all). Aral's the one with the chip on his shoulder about duelling, because of his own past with it, and about Ezar's law and all that, after having been Serg's executioner. Plus, if Aral's not the regent, there's a much higher chance that Barrayar descends into civil chaos earlier on, in which case either Carl doesn't have the opportunity to duel, or no one has energy to spare to care that he does.

But Aral's pretty proud that Barrayar kills a man cleanly instead of how Beta does it. Aral will always just kill Carl. He's too scared of what would happen if he doesn't.

Executing him is also the honorable thing on both sides of the equation. Stripping him of being Vor is massive overkill for duelling and would be such an insult to Count Vorhalas. Also, has anyone been stripped of being Vor in canon? We know they get the title from the Emperor and, sure, he can probably remove it, but has it happened? Even if it's possible, I also feel like it would be an overreach for Aral, as Regent, to do it. Sure, he gets Imperial powers, but he's probably not supposed to use them on his own class like he's the Emperor. If Aral wants a way to make an enemy of every single other Vor, arbitrarily making some random harmless second son into a pariah would be the way to do it, because if he'll do it to Count Vorhalas's son, who knows who he'll do it to. It's crossing a line. There's this social phenomenon that I don't know what it's called, but it's where if someone crosses one social norm, suddenly it's like it's free season on what else they might do, because if they'll do THAT, who knows what ELSE they'll do, the dominos might not all fall but suddenly it all looks shaky. And it would be exactly that. "Aral Vorkosigan in less than three months gets power-hungry enough to strip all rank from a Count's son all over a little bit of drunken murder". Vordarian won't just have Evon going to him, he'll have half the Vor class, anyone who isn't so dazzled by Aral that they don't think that Dorca's great-grandson won't do it to them, too. Aral is absolutely not surviving that. Aral isn't Ezar, he's not established enough to do that.

Also, what's the ban on duelling supposed to prevent? Murder, yes, but also the private justice and the blood fueds of the bloody centuries. It's supposed to have all justice go through proper channels. Aral has to keep to the rule of law, or else he's doing it, too, he's deciding that the rule isn't enough and he has to go worse. And this for one of his allies's son.

Aral isn't a known quantity politically. He's an Admiral who has been, by design, away from home for the last five years. He'll have been lucky to have any district management experience; everything else will be military experience (from age eleven), and primarily on ship duty, away from home. Everyone's still learning him, and he's still learning the job. He probably treats it like a ship. He's out of touch politically and is leaning heavily on the "hero of Komarr and Escobar" stuff, but that doesn't dazzle people for very long, epspecially not anyone who remembers him from his twenties (he's 44 in a very insular closed society, he's surrounded by people who remember his twenties). He absolutely underestimates domestic problems and that bites him. Aral basically has to keep to the rule of law because he has no clue what else to do.

This is not to say that I don't think anyone should write Carl Lives! But this is apparently my manifesto of why Aral Is Gonna Kill Carl. ;)

...Also, as far as what Miles does in MOM, I'm heavily biased because I didn't like it to the point where I've never read it straight through and there are probably parts of it I haven't read, but that's the kind of punishment that 1) doesn't do much, and 2) is the kind of thing you do when you can't spare someone's labor. Having it be like she's dead, ordering no mourning, this is a way to make her into someone remembered, "hey did you hear what Miles Vorkosigan did to this specific person we're always gonna name" (the anti-Vor folks are gonna make her into a folk hero, as will the pro-infanticide folks). Sure, Harra gets stuff out of it, but her mother's labor remains in the community that needs it, and nothing other than humiliation and loss of property happens to her. And she's probably not someone who is gonna feel humiliated and they're already dirt poor. Also, Aral should never have sent his TWENTY YEAR OLD SON who has NO LEGAL TRAINING to go rule on a DEATH PENALTY CASE with NO SUPPORT on NO NOTICE especially when it was clear that Miles DID NOT WANT TO DO IT and WAS NOT READY, what the actual fuck Barrayar. Sure, sure, Miles is supposed to learn an important lesson, but poor people do not exist for rich people to learn lessons on them. (And then it fucking happens again in Memory so Miles can go get True Wisdom From The Poors to snap him out of his depression, that's just great)




¹ Except having Ezar survive. Ezar would just kill the guy. But Ezar went on a serious murder spree both with Escobar and around Escobar, cleaning out everything. Ezar's been the Emperor for 30 years. Probably the only reason he didn't kill Aral was because of Piotr (and, extrapolating and with an unclear timeline, maybe Xav) and because Aral's not expendable. Carl is the definition of expendable, he's literally written as being a pointless waste of space. The only reason his death "matters" in the book is because it leads to Evon and the soltoxin.

I am always willing and happy to talk about this stuff! Aral is something of a political unknown, which might help him initally (how many people who, like Padma, know he used to declaim revolution is probably small and they'll likely have thought he grew out of it, being a major military figure). But Ezar was more concerned about war, so having Aral, who is good at wars, is the most important thing. He can always get advisors who know things about utterly unimportant stuff such as "how do you government". He also outright hates the ministries, which is gonna go GREAT, since they're a major part of the civilian government. I think the power swung back more to the Counts during the Regency; the Ministries kinda vanish in later books. But Ministries are the only way for non-military proles to get their fingers into anything. But it's also speaks to another fundamental difference between Ezar and Aral: Ezar didn't grow up the heir to anything and had to take it. Aral was promoted from the spare when he was 11 and has no one vying with him for countship succession since there's no one else in the family. Aral never fought for his place, he fought to survive the civil war, yes, but no one was challenging his right to succeed his father. But Ezar had to fight for everything he's gotten. Aral won't see the Counts as an enemy, just as a boring relic that should be abolished because it's a fossil. But the Ministries, those are the ones who are dangerous upstarts (and also, 1) he killed a minister in a duel for sleeping with his wife, and 2) the miinstry of political education is trying to kill him). But Ezar had to fight the Counts and wants to centralize power in the person of the Emperor, he wants to finish what Dorca did and get everything out of the hands of the Counts. So you promote proles to everything, put them on the General Staff (Kanzian), give them ministries and control of major things (Grishnov, Quintillan), and if you let someone like Aral Vorkosigan get the personal loyalty of a major part of the military, you damn well make sure that's pointed in the direction you want, so it doesn't swing around and start pointing at YOU. (That's one reason to point a finger for the solstice massacre at Ezar; it stops Aral from being too popular). Like, Ezar conditioned Aral to not want to be Emperor. That was on purpose.

And Aral had to be Ezar's main contingency plan, in case of fire break the glass. Ezar keeps Aral off-planet. The longest times he was at home as probably planning for Komarr (unknown how long he spent on planet for that) and being stuck on the frostbite-pit-of-drunken-doom for, what, five months? So that's away from the capital. We have no idea how long military leaves are, so add those in, maybe he spent them in the capital, maybe he spent them on the lake, maybe he went skiing with friends, we don't know. Ezar keeps Aral away from consoliating political power, he also keeps him in his back pocket in case he's needed. (This is interesting in that he kept Padma on planet. Sure, maybe this is because he thinks he needs another contingency plan, but he also has Padma included as someone who wants to be Emperor. Ezar's keeping an eye on him. He doesn't need to keep that eye on Aral.)