Sneaky answers to prayer. . .

[keestone.livejournal.com]

 I just kind of noticed this one.  Queen of Atollia Chapter 17, and Gen is marching chained, spiraling into despair:

". . . He couldn't see, except to see the queen dancing in her garden, couldn't think except of her dressed in palest green with flowers embroidered down the neck of her gown as she watched them cut off his hand.  My God, he thought, I am so frightened.  O my God, if you will not save me, make me less afraid.  He fell on the steep trail.
    He hit face first, and the stones in the mud cut into his cheek  . . .  Once upright, Eugenedies was facing Nahuseresh, who stood looking on, quite amused.  White-hot hatred burned through Eugenedies.  If he was still without hope, at least he could think clearly again."  At which point, he refuses the offer of suicide as an escape.

I love subtleties like that. 

So. I wonder. Is Gen going to have a second scar on his cheek?  Maybe even shaped like a feather?  ;)  

Comments

[peggy-2.livejournal.com]

"spiraling into despair"

very nice phrasing!

* &hearts the subtleties *

[ashertoashes.livejournal.com]

WOW - that's a cool thing to notice. I never saw that before. Powerful stuff. It's such an intense little prayer - it gives me goosebumps. i think that it's one of the rawest moments in the books. whew. gotta re-read that.

[philia-fan.livejournal.com]

Wait, we just had a discussion about that one, a few posts back. There was some debate over whether the prayer was answered or not.

[keestone.livejournal.com]

Huh. I missed that one. But, his head's been cleared, and his cheek's been cut again. I'd say that's a sign.

[philia-fan.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm with you. I was in the yes-it's-his-god-answering camp.

[peggy-2.livejournal.com]

I don't think Leslie was arguing if it was the gods answering or not, her point was that the fall would have seemed to Gen at the time of the fall as the final rejection by the gods. He wasn't really in a position to appreciate their long term view of the situation.

[willow-41z.livejournal.com]

Yes, but is he ever? Things keep happening to him that seem like the gods abandoning him but that later turn out to be a sort of blessing or favor. This is the same-- something good disguised in something bad.

[peggy-2.livejournal.com]

my impression of the earlier post was simply that she was imagining how horrible he must have felt at that moment. I had never connected the fall on the cliff with his conviction the god Eugenides would prevent him from falling for as long as his god was backing him up. It seems typical of Gen that rather than the fall putting him over the edge of despair, this simply made him really angry and determined to fight back. "I'll show them! I can do anything I want!"

[aged-crone.livejournal.com]

That is what I was getting at, Peggy. I mean, when you're in extreme danger and scared witless and you call on your god for help, your god whose primary attribute is keeping you from falling, and the next thing that happens is that you fall, you'd tend to feel abandoned. Maybe later, in retrospect, you'd have time to think, "Hey, wait, he did answer my prayer in his own twisted way, after all," but not at the time. Not like praying the horses would be quiet and having them absolutely silent. That you'd notice right away.

[peggy-2.livejournal.com]

mwt is scary brilliant, sometimes.

[bluestalking.livejournal.com]

Sometimes?

*gets all awed*

[keestone.livejournal.com]

But, when you are used to trusting your god to keep you from falling as you leap rooftops, are you necessarily going to consider losing your footing in the mud when you're off balance and chained between two people that kind of fall? We seem to have very similar readings here, but I'm not sure that Gen would have noticed that in particular as abandonment. Either way, it's awesome.

[keestone.livejournal.com]

What is it that Eddis says to Atollia? That Gen doesn't have a breaking point but a flash point?

I think that up till the point that Atollia tells Gen that Moira told her how to find him, Gen still thinks that he has failed somehow, not that he has been betrayed or abandoned. I didn't really look at the fall on the cliff in connection to Gen's conviction that his god would prevent him from falling. Rather, I saw the fall on the cliff as the point that prevents the greater fall off the cliff. "It is the curse of thieves and their right to fall to their deaths," and the cliff is right there for him to step off of.

[peggy-2.livejournal.com]

oooh. That is a very interesting perspective, too. Very good!

Gen makes that comment in KoA about Thieves and flash points, when talking to Relius.

[keestone.livejournal.com]

Ah, right. I couldn't remember who said it when and it sounded like something the queens might have been talking about.

[checkers65477.livejournal.com]

He couldn't see, except to see the queen dancing in her garden, couldn't think except of her dressed in palest green with flowers embroidered down the neck of her gown as she watched them cut off his hand.

Ooh, ooh, and this is all his love (dancing in the garden) and fear (cutting off hand) wrapped up together. Nice.

[checkers65477.livejournal.com]

Ah! And "see" involves his senses--she's beautiful and sad, and he loves her--and "think" is his brain, remembering her cruelty. Very nice.

[jade-sabre-301.livejournal.com]

I love the prayer. It's one of those "sometimes when I say Oh my God I end it with if you will not save me make me less afraid" things. XD

[pcw-rcw.livejournal.com]

This was discussed before--see the following link:

http://community.livejournal.com/sounis/148661.html#cutid1

The connection of this with Gen remembering Irene dancing is new, though.

[keestone.livejournal.com]

Ah. Nov. 4. That would explain why I totally missed this discussion (looks at humongous stack of essays I was grading during the first week of November).

Thanks for the link.

[philia-fan.livejournal.com]

Re the scar: I think I assumed the stones were cutting INTO the scar, as a message.

[keestone.livejournal.com]

I thought that might be an option too, but I threw the other one out there for the heck of it.

[alpestars.livejournal.com]

<3.

I need to reread this series again after finals.

[(Anonymous)]

Of all the times I have ever tripped and fallen on stones/gravel, I remember being scraped, not cut. Maybe they were sharp stones?

I like Gen's prayer too...the fear itself is often worse, oddly enough, than what I am afraid of.

~Feir Dearig

[bluestalking.livejournal.com]

With you there.

*looks wistfully towards America*

Mum, mum, couldn't you just...send them to me NOW instead of bringing them in January. Please?