Bold title i hope, its good to grab ones attention at the beginning.
But i really mean this question, they have all the hallmarks of psychologically damaged people. Abusive childhood? Check. Abusive Parents? Oberon pittied them against each other. Check. They had to prove their worth by walking the Pattern. Corwin diagnosed Brand as having a mental ilness. But Corwin himself does not seem all that stable himself considering his personality development making him a new person through the ages. Did the nature of living endless lives make Amber Lords and Ladies nihilistic solopsists? They handle Shadowwalking with casual ease one might find in a child playing in a porcelain shop. The ysimply dont care, well, maybe Corwin does eventually. He says to his son they all had to mature. But Dworkin, way beyond what one mind consider normal said they were failures. Compared to Chaosites, who are depicted as rather static in their existence(at least how i see them compared to amberites, Rogers presentation changed during the books) Amber Lords and Ladies and wild cards all the way.
So, thought, reactions insults? Did i just miss the point of the books or does anybody agree with this?
I always got a very Shakespearean / Greek god vibe from how Zelazny portrayed the Amber court. As they existed as characters for maximum drama, its understandable they would be portrayed as unhinged and for good reason, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Correct me if I'm wrong as I haven't read the books for ages, but I remember the first series being entirely told through the eyes of Corwin. Thus, we are getting his biased view on the personalities of his family. That might also be a factor.
Yes, you are correct, Corwin is the only and an unreliable Narrator of the first series.
Still, lets take Gerard for example. Hes ''the best of them'' according to Brand. His main defining characteristic is that hes good at beating people up with his fists, so violence. Hmm. Also, All of Corwins relatives are trying to get the throne. To achieve this and become the most important one in the family, they become monomaniacs and aim to fulfill their scheming agendas to the utmost.
Thats a faceted view i have, but is it shared by anybody else?
Other than Brand, and Dworkin in his latter years, I don't think any of them are insane. They are all a product of their upbringing and the ever present sibling rivalry over the throne. Their "couldn't care less" attitude in some respects is down to their perspective. If you're capable of living 10,000 years in the absence of assassination then what happens over a 60 year lifespan for an average human is not of great consequence to them.
Whilst I agree that the books are coloured from Corwin's perspective, his outlook was radically altered as a result of what happened to him, the attempted assassination, the black plague which caused him to completely lose his memory of who he was, and then the many lifetime he was forced to live there after with no explanation as to why. It was only Eric's decision to try and assassinate him again that caused him to remember his past when he awoke in the asylum. If Eric had just left him alone then the story would have been different.
This also shows another aspect of some of them, Eric was paranoid with respect to Corwin despite the fact that Corwin was potentially indifferent to him, but then Eric was a little paranoid any way. he viewed the throne as his by right and nobody else was going to have it.
Gerard is just a typical bully, and in many ways so are Julian, Caine , and Fiona.
I read the thread title and had an interesting thought: does having perfect order imprinted on the "human" mind drive you insane?
In the chronicles we hear about the pattern taking apart and rebuilding people. Corwin literally uses it to reboot his mind/memories. Merlin tells us that those who walk the Logurus go insane "for a time" after traversing it. That is having pure chaos re-write your brain.
Is pure order more subtle, but more long-term?
Having the ability to literally reshape reality to your desire makes you more foreign to the normal human experience then any eccentric rich man/king who always got their way.
So . . . yeah, maybe they are all insane. They keep coming back to Amber because it is the only place they can't change on a whim, and has the only people who can oppose and ground them a little.
I like that. Paper reality is worthless, Amber is the gold standard. And conversely, for Chaos reality is a tool, unchanging reality is useless.