Reading KoA - again

[aged-crone.livejournal.com]

I've been rereading KoA again, and have come up with a couple more things to post...

For instance: "The king rarely missed an opportunity to insult the Captain of the Guard, but to the Secretary of the Archives he was unfailingly polite. It made Relius feel ill." (p. 75)

So - why is Gen polite to Relius and rude to Teleus? Because he knows what will annoy each of them most, maybe? I don't think that he dislikes Teleus more than he does Relius - or does he? Anybody else got an opinion?

And: Just after Attolia speaks with Relius and convinces him that he can't go off and keep goats somewhere, the king and queen learn that Nahuseresh had provided Sounis with the assassins who attacked Gen. "In an interview that morning with the new Secretary of the Archives, the Baron Hippias..." (p. 332). Do you think Hippias is going to be demoted and Relius given back that title? Or will Relius be doing a different job now?

Comments

[rosaleeluann.livejournal.com]

So - why is Gen polite to Relius and rude to Teleus? Because he knows what will annoy each of them most, maybe?

I think thats definitely what is going on.

[hebe0.livejournal.com]

That's what I thought, too.

[sandtree.livejournal.com]

I think maybe Eugenides knows that if he insulted Relius, Relius could come back with some biting remark, and he's not giving him the chance to do that, thus annoying Relius.

[checkers65477.livejournal.com]

Do you think Hippias is going to be demoted and Relius given back that title? Or will Relius be doing a different job now?

A different job, I got the impression. Something even higher-level than before, as befits his new status as one who is trusted implicitly.

[bluestalking.livejournal.com]

Gen's rude to the captain of the guard because he is rude to everyone.

Relius is a special case. He is the only one, aside from Irene herself, who has done something really deliberately horrible to Gen, and he did it without permission. Gen and Irene have clearly come to some terms with their mutual past; Gen and Relius obviously have not, and do not until midway through KoA.

Relius knows that Gen is rude to everyone, so he knows that Gen's politeness towards him is very deliberate. Relius knows what he himself has done to Gen, and so he knows what Gen's deliberate reason is. Being polite to Relius quite effectively emphasizes three things:

1) That Gen remembers, and wants Relius to remember, what Relius did to him.

2) That Gen hasn't said anything about it to anyone. Or rather more importantly, hasn't said anything yet.

3) That Gen is in the position to be scrupulously polite to his former torturer, and that this puts Relius in very bad position. Not only does Gen hold Relius's life in his hands, but he has a very good reason (so Relius, the eternally suspicious, sees) to extinguish it.

I expect that would give anyone tummy butterflies.

[bluestalking.livejournal.com]

(Was this just subtext that I read or was it actually said out loud in the book? That Relius Did Something more than Attolia asked him to when Gen was a prisoner in Attolia. I have no books w/me to check. At any rate, that is my theory, from Relius In Prison And Recovery--after all, there must be something that Relius is amazed to get forgiveness for.)

[dawnbluewings.livejournal.com]

"Does she know, Relius, that you came back and questioned me after she was gone?"

... Or something like that. I can't check right now, but I'm pretty sure that that was the line.

penguinkye too lazy to sign in

[thebookbug.livejournal.com]

OH HO. Thanks. :D

Re: penguinkye too lazy to sign in

[dawnbluewings.livejournal.com]

:D My pleasure. Yay for having read something so many times that you can quote it outright at people, eh??

[ladyfox.livejournal.com]

Megan has actually come out and said (somewhere, I think in the infamous letter) that Gen is polite to Relius because Gen likes to poke people and see how they jump, and he knows that Relius will be much more unnerved by his politeness than he would be by any rudeness on Gen's part.

Though I must say I quite like Penguinkye's theory as well.

[philia-fan.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'd say both, and Penguinkye put it very well.

[bluestalking.livejournal.com]

^_^ <3

[bluestalking.livejournal.com]

Maybe they aren't contradictory?