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| I think Sir Miles, by the end of the story, is clearly revealed to be nothing more than a coward. He serves the Archons because he is afraid of them. Yet, he is unable to rise in their hierarchy because he wishes to retain his humanity (or perhaps he simply fears castration). He is also a tragic character, in a sense, since the later parts of the story reveal that as a young man he set out to join the Invisibles and ended up being recruited into Masonry and murdering Meryl. However, as the story progresses, we start to get a better idea of just how monstrous the archons are and we see in Miles a reluctance. In this new context, Miles starts to emerge as a more sympathetic character. His homeless hunts in fox gear, which seemed the act of a monstrous psychopath, are actually part of a programmed persona that is desperately trying to hone itself for survival. He desperately believest that the Archons are invincible and that their arrival is inevitable. Is he evil? Yes, but his initial subversion to the archons came during a bad LSD trip during the 60's. Who knows what he was like before then? The book implies that he was probably just a bright young Englishman with a fascination with the esoteric and an interest in existentialism. So, the fact that we know there was a split, a time where he might have followed another path, gives us some sympathy for him. In the first two books, Miles is a menacing and hateful character. But after 'Entropy in the UK' he just doesn't seem all that threatening. In fact, he provides the reader with a look at the fascinating world of the archons. These are frequently some of the best (and creepy) scenes in the series and I think that these, combined with his newly submissive role, are what ultimately serve to make us identify with him. In the end, he's still a bastard, though, and gets what he deserves. |
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