Big news! Kingsley aka the Queer Croc WIP has an official title!

I’ve been working on this book for ten years and I had a title for a while, but then it didn’t work anymore and I settled on Kingsley as a placeholder. I actually considered just calling it Kingsley but Kingsley by Kingsley Montivelo sounded and look weird. After that failed, I was this close to just calling it the Queer Croc Book and move on. Then last night I had an epiphany. So, without further ado the official title is *drum roll*:

Say That I Slew Them Not

Origin of the Title

The title comes from William Shakespeare’s play Richard III (one of my favorite plays). Richard is trying to woo Anne, who’s father-in-law he just murdered. Oh, and he’s trying to woo her over her father-in-law’s corpse because he’s such a nice guy, haha. During the conversation, Anne calls Richard a murderer and he says:

RICHARD  Say that I slew them not.ANNE  Then say they were not slain.But dead they are, and, devilish slave, by thee.

While I love Richard III, this line sticks in my memory mostly because Robert Jordan, the lead prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials, used it in his closing statement. He argued that the Nazis claimed they committed no crime because they followed the law. Similar to Richard III, they were asking their victims and the world to declare them innocent. Jordan claimed:

“They stand before the record of this trial as blood-stained Gloucester stood by the body of his slain King. He begged of the widow, as they beg of you: ‘Say I slew them not.’ And the Queen replied, ‘Then say they were not slain. But dead they are,’ If you were to say of these men that they are not guilty, it would be as true to say there has been no war, there are no slain, there has been no crime.”

Why This Title?

You’re probably thinking, ok great, but how does this connect to a book about queer anthro crocodiles? 

First, the Nuremberg Trials and the concept of international law are a huge source of inspiration for the Nothing but Glory series as a whole. One of the biggest takeaways from Nuremberg is it’s nice to think we can create a system that holds each other accountable, but how can we when that very system is built on the destruction of others/the system cannot or refuses to apply the law equally to all perpetrators of war crimes. My own country, the United States, being one of the biggest culprits that has never been held accountable. 

That is the true heart of the book Say I Slew Them Not. Yes, Kingsley is a rebel leader who is trying to prove that he’s not as bad as he claims, but the true question isn’t whether Kingsley is a terrible war criminal or not (he is). The real question is why is Kingsley the only war criminal being put on trial when other pardoned war criminals testify against him and/or hold positions of power within the government and international system. Additionally, those same pardoned war criminals made the political, economical, and social decisions that drove Kingsley and others like him to commit acts of great violence. When only Kingsley is held accountable for his actions, is it true justice or is it an act of political power or theater? Is there any point in holding individual people accountable when it’s the system that is designed to reward certain behavior?

I also like the connection between my book and the scene in Richard III. Kingsley is responsible for a lot of deaths and betrayals, like Richard. In the Shakespeare scene, Richard’s attempts to woo Anne can be read as manipulative (and same goes for Kingsley), but it could also be read as a moment of true vulnerability with Anne in order to win her over. Still manipulative, but the emotion can also be real, which is also true for Kingsley. I could have made the title stronger: I Slew Them Not, but the conviction is wrong. Kingsley claims he’s “innocent” but he knows what he’s done and I think he is looking for some sort of validation: “Tell me I didn’t kill them all. Tell me I, alone, am not responsible for all this horror”

There is also a sarcastic twinge to the title, because the Hevians, the people who Kingsley rebelled against and are trying him for war crimes, constantly deny they ever did anything wrong ever. Heva, the colonial democracy who stripped Kingsley’s people of their home, their rights, their language, their religion, etc., who purposely poisoned Kingsley’s homeland, and a bunch of other horrible things. They pretend none of those things ever happened. They are “innocent” either because they are truly disconnected from reality or because it’s Hevian law to treat their colonial subjects like trash and so there was no crime. And so, by calling his memoir about Heva’s crimes: Say I Slew Them Not, he’s making fun of them and their ignorance. 

It’s that train of thought that convinced me this was the perfect title. In the United States we have a growing movement of white supremacists who are rewriting, erasing, and suppressing the truth so they can claim that “there was no crime”, but the history of the United States is full of crimes against humanity and acts of genocide. Just like the Hevians, we as white people can no longer claim the horror didn’t happen. We can no longer ignore that it’s still happening. It’s something my characters and us in the real world must grapple with if they, and us, want to build a progressive, loving world.