Fire and weight

[aged-crone.livejournal.com]

In KoA, when the King and Queen dance, "Phresine, the queen's senior attendant, watched them from behind the throne as her queen danced like a flame in the wind, and the mercurial king like the weight at the center of the earth. . . Phresine, leaving with the queen, heard Elia murmur under her breath, 'Well, that was revealing.' 'Only to those with eyes to see,' murmured Phresine back."

It took me a while to decide what I thought that meant, and even now I'm not positive.

I'm thinking it means that the Queen, who by reputation is cold and unfeeling and basically the equivalent of a statue, is not like that at all, but alive and warm "like a flame in the wind;" and the King, seemingly so irresponsible and a "prancing lightweight" is actually the solid anchor that allows her to be like that.

I'm sure there are other opinions out there, and I'd love to hear them.

Comments

[idiosyncreant.livejournal.com]

Aha!
That passage always confused me. And it was there in the metaphors all this time...
I do believe there are layers to this, though. I assumed it must mean (with the whole pin sequence) that Gen's ability to more than compensate was being revealed, but (in context of KoA) he's stuffing that, and those who aren't already aligned with him (that is, the ladies who know what's going on with Attolia) can't see it. Because they won't.

And explaining that helped me understand better, too.

Good eye for a topic passage!