Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Honor vs Loyalty

The betrayal in the Song of Roland just reminds me of all the previous texts we've read and it makes me wonder. How is honor and loyalty valued? Even the betrayer is loyal, just not to the betrayed. One loses honor in the act of betraying, but is honored by those whom the betrayal is for, or is he? Just something to think about...

4 comments:

Eachus24601 said...

Betrayers can't be trusted either way. I think if he went over to the Spanish side he would eventually get mad at someone else and betray them. It's a character flaw that follows people around..

Nina Miller said...

Honor can not be in a negative or positive way instead it just is. I would think that to be honorable you would have to be morale. Betrayal I believe is relative to what a society thinks. If something is out of a morale act is it really cosidered betrayle.

Megan Becker said...

I don't think that the betrayer is either honorable or loyal. He has betrayed his loyalty to the person he was supposed to honor, so why should the new person he honors think that he will be loyal to them? It's a viscious cycle, and the person that commits these acts is doomed to live as someone who can't be trusted.

Eachus24601 said...

In response to Nina. I agree that honor and loyalty are both tied to the society it is in. If you were in the SS and refused to kill a jewish person, that would be a dishonerable act for that society.

In the context of Roland's society, I think a betrayer is dishonorable to both Spain and France's societies. But by corrupting a knight, it elaborates more on how the "Pagans" are evil and underhanded compared to the Christians.