A common mistake readers make is that they believe the Vavatch orbital is Culture. It’s very definitely not, so all the unsavory stuff going on there isn’t a reflection of the Culture. Not Damage, not the Eaters (they hate The Culture!), and so on.
Use of Weapons, Consider Phlebas, and to a lesser degree Player of Games are mostly outsider perspectives of The Culture, so that warps judgement a little too.
IDK if Iain Banks could have made it clearer that Vavatch is non-Culture. I guess us only knowing drones and orbitals from The Culture made some readers conflate the two societies despite their extreme moral differences.
The Culture doesn’t believe in non-interference. But it’s not “CIA shit” if they’re actually doing it to influence a society to become better rather than just pretending that that’s the goal in order to take their oil.
A common mistake readers make is that they believe the Vavatch orbital is Culture. It’s very definitely not, so all the unsavory stuff going on there isn’t a reflection of the Culture. Not Damage, not the Eaters (they hate The Culture!), and so on.
Use of Weapons, Consider Phlebas, and to a lesser degree Player of Games are mostly outsider perspectives of The Culture, so that warps judgement a little too.
IDK if Iain Banks could have made it clearer that Vavatch is non-Culture. I guess us only knowing drones and orbitals from The Culture made some readers conflate the two societies despite their extreme moral differences.
I also only ‘read’ as an audio book so i might missed a few details. I was not even referring to Vavtch. But the cia shit they pull in PoG.
The Culture doesn’t believe in non-interference. But it’s not “CIA shit” if they’re actually doing it to influence a society to become better rather than just pretending that that’s the goal in order to take their oil.