Matt,
Could you state, more specifically, which of the arguments you feel are straw men? I'm aware of what that means, and I think I've got the scenes you're talking about, but I'm not quite certain (on the Siri one especially) where you are finding the characters to be less sophisticated than the reader.
Certainly...
With Vivenna I was referring to page 14 in chapter 26, specifically the parts where Vivenna is thinking that to believe someone is wrong about something is to put yourself above them. I thought the part before it, the conversation with Jewels, was really good, so I was disappointed that Vivenna then got mentally stuck at this point. It seems to me that it's a simple trap that any mode of thinking offers some "out" from. The "modern" approach of reason and rationality would state that believing someone is wrong about something is simply not putting yourself above them; you're only putting yourself above someone if you deny their ability to learn via reasoned debate the incorrectness of their belief, or deny them the same chance to convince you that they are right and you are wrong. Some religions would assert that their precepts only apply to those who abide by the same faith, so it's okay to place yourself above non-believers. In feudal times there was the parents vs. children argument, that commoners were like children who needed the guidance of the nobility and/or priesthood. Etc.
So it seemed a bit of a straw man for her to be getting stuck on this question, because every society has some built-in way of answering it. Vivenna is a Princess, after all: a monarchy must be based on some justification for putting some people above others, that she must be familiar with. The scene thus felt like an artificial delay in Vivenna's story -- she wouldn't be grappling with this question, because she would already have a socially-supplied answer. She would either be grappling with the justification that underlies that answer, or with the other fundamental questions she's facing.
With Siri, well, I myself have been called sarcastic more than once in the past (shocking, I know), so I guess the way she tries to define and justify sarcasm jumped out at me. I think her definition (at the top of chapter 25, page 9) is actually backwards: sarcasm is when you say something with one meaning, often a meaning that might in other circumstances be kind, but mean it in a negative way, the opposite of its literal meaning. When my younger brother messes up and I say, "oh, brilliant!," that's sarcasm. It is by definition derisive: one of the roots of "sarcasm" means "to tear flesh." When Siri says that being sarcastic is when you say "things that might be hurtful to someone, but you say them in an affectionate way, or in a playful way," really that's just irony: saying the opposite of something to achieve a particular emphasis. Sarcasm often includes irony, but all that is ironic is not sarcastic. Ironically, Siri's and Susebron's banter is in fact somewhat sarcastic -- even though none of it actually fits Siri's definition.
(Apologies for the lecture...don't even get me started on "sardonic!"
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Anyway, I thought this was a straw man because Susebron asks Siri some pretty big questions -- "why do people not say what they mean" and "why do they make fun of each other" -- and Siri gives an overly-simple answer to the straw man: "to be playful or tease."
Does that make sense? Maybe it's just me, but in each of these scenes, as I was reading them I found myself thinking "that's not right," or "I could answer that better," or "come on, the answer is obvious," etc. That the scenes occurred in back-to-back chapters made it especially noticeable.
MattD
