ship_manifesto

Title: Heir Of A Dying Day: Steerpike/Titus Groan [Gormenghast]
Author: Eli
Disclaimer: I sincerely doubt Mervyn Peake will sue me, as he is in fact dead, but his estate might. Er, not mine. I own nothing but my copy of the ‘Gormenghast Omnibus’ and a rubber duck. The title of this essay is also the title of a Lacuna Coil song, which I do not own.
Spoilers: Hell yes. The entire BBC mini-series, Titus Groan, Gormenghast, and a few semi-spoilers for Titus Alone.

I
Gormenghast, broadly speaking, is about a castle.

It is, of course, about much more than this. It’s a coming-of-age story. It’s post-1940s surrealistic fantasy. One could even argue that it’s a metaphor for the collapse of the British nineteenth-century class system and the upheaval of the world wars on English society.

But for now, let’s just say that it’s about a castle and the people who live in it.

Gormenghast is an unimaginably large castle, ruled by the aristocratic Groan family and hidebound by tradition. Every single official action of the inhabitants’ lives is regulated by rules that are practically as old as time. At the beginning of the story, the Earl of Gormenghast is Sepulchrave Groan. We are also introduced to his wife, Gertrude; his rather crazy sisters, Cora and Clarice, who are identical twins; his fifteen-year-old daughter Fuschia; and his newborn son, Titus.
The other, perhaps the most important, character we meet is a conniving, ambitious kitchen boy by the name of Steerpike.

The story of Gormenghast is in three books: in order, they are ‘Titus Groan’, ‘Gormenghast’ and ‘Titus Alone’. Mervyn Peake died halfway through writing the canon: he intended to trace Titus’ life from birth to death in a sequence of five books. Three of these – Titus Groan, Gormenghast, and Titus Alone – are finished.
The other books, Titus Awakes and Gormenghast Revisited, remain lost; however, there do exist a few pages from the beginning of Book 4.

And, if we’re going to focus on a Steerpike/Titus relationship, we have to look almost exclusively at the first two books.

II
Titus Groan, 77th Earl of Gormenghast

Titus Groan, the seventy-seventh Earl of Gormenghast. Titus’ father commits suicide fairly early on, so Titus is earled before he’s a year old. He grows up in the castle, under Steerpike’s *ahem* guidance. It’s an enormous weight for a young boy to bear (at the end of the second book, he’s only fifteen), and his most consuming wish is to escape from the castle and everything that it stands for. He flaunts authority, breaks the rules and gets away with it because he’s the Earl.

Titus as a boy and a young teenager has a tendancy to be petulant, and can be a real brat when the mood takes him. He absolutely adores his older sister, Fuchsia, and
she’s very fond of him. He can be very sulky and snarky, especially when talking to
his mother, who doesn’t seem to bear much love for him either. He really hates Steerpike; thinks he’s odious, slimy and a real creep. Not the ideal situation for romance to bloom; but then, this isn’t a romantic pairing, as we’ll see.

III
Steerpike

Steerpike is nasty. I don’t think anyone can deny this. He’s evil, he’s manipulative, he’s sociopathic, he’s self-serving, and he engineers the deaths of at least five people. Despite all this, he has fangirls.
He’s also extremely charismatic and persuasive. You might trust Steerpike…but you know you shouldn’t. He’s very good with sweet-talk, and he seduces Titus’ sister Fuchsia (after a fashion) by playing on her need for romance and adventure. He despises Titus, although he’s very good at hiding that fact behind a veneer of civility, and his dearest ambition is to seize control of Gormenghast and dispose of Titus himself.

A quick note here – at no point whatsoever in the books is Steerpike described as being remotely handsome. Peake describes a young man with ‘stiff, straw-coloured hair’; a ‘high, bulging forehead’ and ‘deep-set red eyes’, who ‘crouches’ as he walks.
However, if you go with miniseries!canon, Steerpike is played by Jonathan Rhys Meyers. Make of this what you will. He’s a damn sight easier on the eyes than Peake’s descriptions, I admit.

IV
Canon evidence?

There just about isn’t any. In the book-canon, Steerpike is effectively an asexual sociopath, and in the movie-canon, he’s portrayed as being fairly desperate for the love of Titus’ sister Fuchsia. Added to this, the boys hate each other quite cordially: Steerpike’s ultimate aim is to wrest control of the castle away from Titus, and Titus barely stands being in the same room as Steerpike. To put it bluntly, there’s no way on earth that there’s canon evidence for these two in any sort of romantic relationship.

So, where’s this pairing going?

Uh…nowhere. At the end of the second book in the trilogy, Gormenghast proper, Titus and Steerpike have a duel that results in Titus stabbing Steerpike to death.
Plus, considering that Mervyn Peake died roughly thirty years ago, we aren’t going to have any new canon.

V
Allow Me To Introduce Myself…

I first read Gormenghast when I was thirteen years old and bored, in the school library, pulling books out at random. My hands lit upon it, and lo! Love at first sight…well, sort of.
I admit fully, I am a slasher. I find slash pairings that perhaps normal readers wouldn’t think of.
And, as I re-read the trilogy, I started thinking about the possibility of slash within Gormenghast. I tend to ship happy fluffy pairings, but there was something about the idea of Titus/Steerpike that was so twisted, so painful, so wrong that it just drew me inexorably in.

VI
Why ship?

You’re looking for a loving, caring partnership?
You’re looking for a romantic fairytale with knights on white steeds?
You’re looking for rides off into the sunset?

Whyever are you reading Gormenghast!?

Seriously, Titus and Steerpike are not happy fluffy people. They’re both – individually and combined – about as cuddly as a porcupine. This pairing’s all about the hate sex.
Steerpike, technically, is Titus’ servant, yet he’s definitely the one with the control. The power dynamics are a lot of fun to play around with: but remember, they hate each other. I cannot stress this enough. Let’s talk power play. Let’s talk control. Let’s talk non-con, and emotional abuse, and constant pushing at boundaries. Let’s see abuse of positions of authority! If ever there was a pairing made for sadism, spankings, D/s, bondage and non-consensualness…this is pretty much it. Who holds the leash?

These two are practically the poster children for emotionally abusive relationships.

Remember: Gormenghast is the epitome of old-fashioned British sexual repression, and Steerpike would probably sleep with anyone if it furthers his goals of power.

VI
Beyond The Castle Walls: The Fandom

We have a fandom now? Wait…when did that happen?!

Seriously, Gormenghast fandom is pretty microscopic. However, almost every single GG fic out there is written by well-read people who have a deep and abiding love of Peake’s canon, as well as (or as opposed to) the adaptation. You have to have a very strong love of these characters to face reading the original trilogy, heh. So, where’s a slash fan to go?

www.livejournal.com/community/gormenghast – The Gormenghast Coterie, the LJ comm. General discussion and iconry, as well as some lovely fanart.

www.livejournal.com/community/thestonelanes – The Gormenghast Fanfiction Community. It’s pretty quiet, but there’s some excellent stuff.

“Steering Titus”, by Bolan: http://firstsite.prettyboys.org/archivees/steeringtitus.html

“Titus Unleashed”, by _geekie_
“Bed”, by _geekie_
“Capricious”, by freakycherie

(all three of the above can be found at The Stone Lanes LJ comm.)

Well, thank you for reading! I hope I piqued your interest, and didn't do anything horribly wrong. ^^