In that story, the great man’s fortune and power were not the problem; they were the solution — the wealth that had crushed the widow reappearing, at the end, as the wealth that lifted her up, so that the audience could go home feeling that money in good hands fixes what money in bad hands breaks, and that the basic arrangement of the world was sound.

The story let everyone admire the rescuer without ever questioning why a rescue had been necessary.

And it quietly erased the actual heroes, because in the savior story the poor are cast as passive, grateful, acted-upon — objects of the rich man’s virtue rather than agents of their own.

But that was a lie, and Corbin had watched the truth of it with his own eyes.

Lianna had not been passive.