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Some edits to B2Ch33.  Some of them address Amy's comments; some do not.  All add w$rds.

Hence, saith I, it is stage-setting, and not full-blossom narrative.

If it were not aimed at an age group, what would its genre be?  Is it a coming-of-age story?

I've done a cursory check.  Depending on the source, the curtsey (spelling varies) may be accompanied by a bowing of the head, or the head bow is considered part of the basic movement.  So the head bow isn't wrong, but it may be an ancillary obeisance.  And since Melayne was taught it as a child, in case she had to face royalty, I expect she would have been taught it with the head bow.

In ballet, the bow extends to the shoulders, with the arms bending toward each other.  (But this isn't ballet.)

Oh, channeling Bimmy: There's an ad running on WFAN (NYC's original sports radio) for a plumbing supply house: "Are you suffering from frozen nipples?  From your nipples to your ballcocks ...."

(Oops, wrong thread.  Well, let it be.)

Hmm.  So what I though was a category error report was instead a rejection of my use of the word in attempting to explore the boundaries you attach to its proper use?

Even with that, I'm going to have to go a long way to follow you.  First, words often attach to multiple concepts.  Somewhere (I'm trying to recall where) C. S. Lewis gives a range of different meanings attached to the word 'romantic'.  (Falling in love is not among those meanings.)

Your position seems to me to be something like a form/content distinction, in that misuse of the content denies that the form is that form.  It is (as I now see it) as if a process-server carrying a writ that is improperly issued is no longer a process-server.

You haven't read Acts?  Read it.  It's a whopping good story.  There are a few chapters near the beginning that read too slowly, but after that it's a roller-coaster.  And there's a romance involved--ROMANCE--and lots of hard-to-spot clues.  Primo stuff, and not typical fantasy.

Charles_F_Bell, I would like to understand what you mean but you seem to regard every question I ask as a category error, and your attempts to take me past the difficulty seem to lead me back to the same difficulty.  I would like to understand what you believe here, but my efforts seem fruitless and more frustrating to you than to me.  You've set your beliefs out, but I can't do you the consideration and give you the respect  of considering them!

I suspect that I would agree completely with about a tenth of what you say, and partly with another half.  Regardless, it would be satisfying to achieve what I've been told is called stasis (hard-long 'a'):  agreement on what the issues are, what our respective beliefs are, and where they diverge.  That doesn't seem to be possible now, and I count it a loss.

In short, I don't understand, I don't now expect to understand, I thank you for trying, and I hope that this statement is useful for you, if only to know why I've stopped bothering you on this topic.

Oh, feck!

So you use the term in that sentence to mean not a particular instance of 'anti-concept' but the anti-concept as a category?

Do you then regard prescriptivist grammar as a product of Progressivism?  If so, I think you are mistaken.  The warhorse example, the non-splitability of the infinitive, is held originate in applying the grammar of classical languages (and especially Latin) to English.  But the classical education, involving medieval and classical Latin as well as Hellenic Greek and old Hebrew, was shunned and dis--valued (sorry, can't find the word just now) by the Progressive movement, so it seems unlikely that the atomic infinitive is as recent a development as Progressivism.

I don't argue that the situation is 'just' as we now understand the word.  I argue that justice and injustice are not part of the word derivation, and that the implications of the word 'patriarchy' do not apply, because they imply intent, and the structure that resulted was the only one that could have worked.

Here's an ugly fact: what we call the Stockholm Syndrome allows a conquered tribe or clan to assimilate into the conquerers, preserving their lives, their utility in the present, and their genetic endowment.

We are, in the old language, rational animals.  It took a long time for the 'rational' part to happen, and even longer for it to take hold.  Imputing motive, as the word 'patriarchy' does, cannot fit the actual play of cause-and-effect that brought us to this point.

Note that some of the nastiest 'patriarchal' laws came into being in the name of progress and protection during the industrial revolution.

By sharing a near-common prologue, you tie the stories together.  By italicizing it and keeping it teaser-brief, you use it to lay a little backstory, and hint at much more.

Another future scene started bugging at my consciousness and getting in the way of what I need to do.  I just spent a day or so on it and put it up in Book II.  If you need points, feel free to have a look.  It's only about 1260 words, and should probably be about 960.

Amy, if you care to look, nit and peck me to death on the description; it's your metier.  And, as I say in the notes, my biggest concern is whether the over-the-top meeting goes off the deep end.