# Nonviolence and the Hero’s Duel ## Highlights ### > three narrative strategies for subverting the duel, all of which have appeared in speculative fiction. - [View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01fgwf1sjeyxvep01xeb3ypj5n) ### > Princess Bari doesn’t kill the monstrous guardian, though. Instead, she marries him. This is a subtle example of substitution. It - [View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01fgwf2sbb5cjqxq9rgqb626xz) ## New highlights added September 30, 2021 at 9:33 PM ### > The strategy of interruption, though, doesn’t always require a divine or semi-divine agent, as the television show *Bridgerton* demonstrates in its fourth episode. (Although the Bridgerton books are straightforward Regency romances, the television show introduces an alternate history element. Based on that technicality, it doubles as speculative fiction.) The heroine Daphne rides her horse into the middle of a duel between her elder brother and her love interest, the Duke of Hastings. After interrupting the duel in this fashion, she compels the latter to marry her. Here, an ostensibly less powerful figure (given the social s - [View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01fgxshwkqq2ftjv0k1zc73zx4) ### > The final strategy for subverting heroic duels is nonresistance. Perhaps the best example of this comes from the *Star Trek: Deep Space Nine* episode “The House of Quark.” Through a comedy of errors, the Ferengi Quark becomes the head of a Klingon house, and the leader of a rival house challenges him to a duel. Quark accepts the challenge, but throws down his weapon at the start of the fight. He won’t allow his opponent or the watching crowd to pretend that this duel is anything but an execution. In this manner, Quark ensures that his adversary can only defeat him through dishonorable means—that is, by striking a much smaller, unarmed opponent. > Through this act, Quark upsets the ordinary duel dynamics. A traditional duel often isolates combatants from their social context. The barroom clears out. Hector and Achilles meet alone outside the walls of Troy. Boxers are physically roped off from the cheering crowd. Conversely, the strategy of nonresistance resituates the duel within its social context. When Quark’s opponent moves in for the kill, the Klingon chancellor intervenes—saving the Ferengi’s life and excommunicating his dishonorable adversary. Quark’s “victory through nonresistance” succeeds by pulling the social context back into the duel. I've seen this before but where? oh right, Codex Alera when tavis Mom challenges the wall guy to a duel - [View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01fgxtbvx2ysaknpht5tt1w7fp)