Chapter 43: ...Is Mightier...

''To modern eyes, the historical emphasis on the importance of hospitality between guests and hosts seems to be of exaggerated, even absurd levels of importance. We forget, with our modern mass transportation systems, or even just the freedom of movement that dragon-riding grants, that prior to the domestication of dragons, a journey of twenty miles was a day's trip by foot, with no guarantee of shelter or food at the end of it, except for hospitality. Thus these rules resulted from tradition, practicality, and social necessity in order to keep peace between neighbors.''

Further emphasizing hospitality's importance, in nearly all pre-dragon societies and religions, hospitality was mandated by divine decree or example.

…the Norse religion's canon offers up the Hávamál, with the oral antecedents of the text dating prior to the Reformation, which details significant instructions on the duties and responsibilities of hosts and guests, dictated by Odin as wisdom and instruction on proper behavior…

''…the Abrahamic religions all have strong injunctions and passages about the importance of hospitality. Beginning with Abraham himself, he offered bread and gave a feast to guests and was blessed—and the subsequent passages deal with Sodom and Gomorrah, two cities that routinely and violently breached hospitality and were destroyed in divine punishment…''

''…Hinduism tells of the god of death, Yama, in the story Nachiketā, who returned home after an absence to find that he had kept a guest waiting for three days. Having violated hospitality by causing trouble for a guest, even unknowingly, Yama offered his guest three boons, and revealed secrets of the gods in the act of fulfilling them…''

—Nationbuilding: How People Move, Talk, Think, Organize, & Structure Themselves, 1888, Amsterdam University Press

Foreshadowing
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Epigraph Tie-In

 * The epigraph talks about the importance of hospitality. The chapter shows Bladewit reluctantly ruling hospitality takes precedence over the law saying thralls are freed on Berk.

Other

 * Based on certain lines such as "The king looked to Stoick.  "What seems to be the problem?" he asked politely, and something in his tone irked Stoick." and "Eochaid cocked his head.  "Truly?  And here I thought that was bardic exaggeration!"  He still seemed amused… but there was an air of contempt to it as well that set Stoick's teeth on edge.", Eochaid was fully aware that Berk practices universal freemanship and that it was not bardic exaggeration. He brought thralls anyway to provoke them, likely hoping to enrage them enough to impact their judgement in negotiations so he could gain an edge.

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