A rather long observation...

[kitsune-rains.livejournal.com]

So I'm re-reading The Thief and every three pages or so I say, Wait a second, what's this all about? I should ask the nice people at Sounis!

And then I forget what the hell I was talking about.

But here's something that puzzles me that I do remember. I hope I'm not being repetitive, but I didn't see this on any older posts. Gen stole Hamiathes's Gift, right? Twice. And then he's saved by it when they are captured by the Attolians... and yet, earlier in the book it was specifically said that Hamiathes's Gift was useless unless it was given to the bearer.


          " 'When a usurper stole the stone and soon thereafter died, it was understood that the power of the stone was lost unless it was given to the bearer, and so a tradition grew up that allowed the throne of Eddis to change hands peacefully when another country might have had a civil war. One person stole the stone and then gave it to his chosen candidate for the throne, in that way making him rightful king.' "

When Gen steals the stone he is paralyzed, hand extended, and though Eugenides repeatedly prompts him to take the stone he can't do a thing. But then this happens:

          "And then, because I thought that if I were dying, I would do something that very few had done since the world was made, I looked again into the eyes of the Great Goddess, and for a moment she looked back at me. That was enough."

My theory here would be that he may have never been told outright to take it from Hephestia, but she still gave him permission of sorts.

So.

Gen surrenders the stone to the magus, for however short a time and here I'm divided. I mean, why not just let the magus think he never got the stone at all? But, that aside, this is what happens:

          "I had meant to make him wait a little, but he sounded so bleak that without meaning to, I rolled my hand over and opened the fist so that he could see the Gift, resting on my palm.
          His knees seemed to weaken and he squatted down beside me with his mouth open. I smiled at his wonder and my own delight. I was taken aback when he put his arms around my shoulders and hugged me like his own son, or anyway like a close relative.
          'You are a wonder, Gen. I will carve your name on a stele outside the basilica, I promise.'
          I laughed out loud.
          'Where was it?'
          I told him about the obsidian door and the stairway to the throne room, but I stumbled a little. When it came time to mention the gods, I passed over them. It didn't seem right to talk about them in the light of day, with people who didn't believe and might laugh. If the magus noticed, he didn't comment.
          'The river came down just as you said it might,' he told me. 'And washed right across our campsite on the lower bank. So we owe you for our lives as well as for this.' He looked down at the stone he held in his hand."

And so while we weren't looking the magus managed to get the stone away from our thief. Since Gen hasn't had any dialogue at all in this exchange, it makes it seem as though he's being especially passive. It's never mentioned that he actively gives the stone to the magus, so does this mean that the magus took it? Is that why when Gen steals it back later he still won't die? Because he never relinquished it?

As an aside, when Attolia first visits Gen in the palace dungeons she turns to leave and her peplos sweeps across the back of Gen's hand. He winces because, "The velvet was soft, but the embroidery scratched."

I love this single line. It's Attolia in a nutshell. The velvet is naturally soft, but it's the embellishments that make it rough. The embroidery which is supposed to improve it, and does indeed make it prettier, makes it much less palatable up close.

Attolia herself is the same. She's a good person made harsh and cruel by her circumstances. She sacrifices her own emotions and well being (Since she's always trying to appear to be Hephestia, I could even go as far as to say she sacrifices her own self) in order to maintain the careful facade she requires to remain queen. And Gen, sees immediately past all that to the velvet underneath.

Comments

[readsintrees.livejournal.com]

I never interpreted the whole thing as Gen surviving the Attolians because of the Gift. I just assumed he wasn't badly injured enough. You're right in that the Gift only works if it's given to someone, but I don't think this applies to Gen because I wasn't under the impression that the Gift granted invincibility, just immortality. Meaning, if you're given the Gift, you can live forever as long as nothing kills you (think of the elves from Lord of the Rings....they live forever, but they can still be killed).

So yeah, Gen stole the Gift twice, and by stealing it he would not get immortality. Yes, he got stabbed by an Attolian, but it just wasn't a fatal wound. He wasn't saved by the Gift, therefore MWT storyline and logic is still correct.


I also love the line about the embroidery. I've also always taken that as a direct reference to Attolia herself.

[haleysings.livejournal.com]

*delurks* Admittedly it's been a long, long time since I've reread the Thief, but something about saying "the Gift didn't save Gen" doesn't seem right to me. One of the images of the book that always stood out to me was how Gen describes the feeling of being stabbed...if I remember right, he describes feeling as though something within him is stretched and pulled when the sword is pulled out of him. I think it's even something that should have broke...but didn't? And I'm pretty sure he also says later that he should have died, but didn't, and hated that feeling. And later he even comments that he's quite happy to get rid of the Gift because the experience spooked him so much.

Like I said, it's been a while, so maybe I falsely remembered all of this, but it's something that's stuck in my mind years after reading it...

[thelasteddis.livejournal.com]

He was supposed to die, actually, there's a whole line where he said that only the power of the gods could have kept him alive, but at the same time his living was an offense to them... I could find the quote but I'm too lazy.
I like the idea of the Magus having taken it, and Gen not having given it to him, and that's why it worked for him... cool idea!

Quotes

[kitsune-rains.livejournal.com]

I think the relevant passages from the book are:

"I'd felt my life dragged out with the sword, but in the end my life wouldn't go. It had stretched between me and the sword. I think that only the power of the gods could have kept me alive, but my living was at the same time an offense to them. I should have died, but instead the pain went on and on. Dying would have been so much easier"

"I remember the queen coming to me one night to offer me Hamiathes's Gift, but I told her I preferred to die. I'd had enough of Hamiathes's Gift and its rumored powers to confer immortality. There is something horrible and frightening and, I'd discovered, very, very painful about being trapped in this life when it is time to move on. She nodded wordlessly to me, as if she already understood. It may have been a dream"

Re: Quotes

[readsintrees.livejournal.com]

Alright, that last bit is going to mess with my head a bit...

I don't know. I still don't think it was the Gift that saved Gen. MWT is far to skillful and deliberate of a writer to have such an obvious error as Gen being saved by the Gift when the Gift is only supposed to convey immortality when it is given to the bearer, not stolen.

Re: Quotes

[zumie-ashlen.livejournal.com]

Well, the Gods DID sort of allow him to take it... that could be a type of giving...

Re: Quotes

[jade-sabre-301.livejournal.com]

I would say they did. They gave it to him so that he could give it to Eddis. I mean, he walked right up to them. He didn't sneak, like he usually does when stealing stuff.

Re: Quotes

[loquaciousquark.livejournal.com]

I agree with zumie_ashlen. For me, it was almost as if Hephestia gave him implicit permission to take it, so yes, although he's stealing it, he's stealing it with permission? So that's why they're keeping him alive, because she allowed him to take it, but he stole it, so they're offended.

Well, that's my interpretation, anyway.

[readsintrees.livejournal.com]

The only way I can see that the Gift saved Gen (and not just his own stubbornness), was if he didn't technically steal it from Hephestia in the first place. One could suggest that her returning his stare was her giving him permission to take the Gift, in which case Gen would have the powers of the Gift. However, he DID steal it back from the Magus again....so shouldn't that neutralize being given the Gift the first time around?

No, I'm going to stand firm on my opinion that since Gen stole the Gift (twice, he even mentions stealing it twice, so perhaps he doesn't feel Hephestia gave it to him) he does not benefit from its immortal powers.

For further discussion, here is the quote about being stabbed:

"I'd felt my life dragged out with the sword, but in the end my life wouldn't go. It had stretched between me and the sword.I think that only the power of the gods could have kept me alive, but at the same time my living was an offense to them. I should have died, but instead the pain went on and on. Dying would have been so much easier."

Now, I suppose everyone is reading this as Gen's life was literally leaving his body, but the Gift prevented it. I don't see it this way. Since Gen stole the Gift (twice!), it wasn't the Gift that saved him. I think it was probably a mixture of his own stubbornness, and maybe the idea that the gods interfered on his behalf (regardless of the Gift). We see in following books that the gods allow or prevent things from happening, for mysterious reasons. Maybe they were just giving Gen's life a little nudge for the sake of keeping him alive for their own plans later on. If they'd let Gen die, the Gift would either have been lost, or more likely it would have been discovered on his dead body. If it was the Magus that found it, then Sounis would have gotten the Gift, and taken over rule of Eddis. He would have waged war on Attolia, and the countries would never have been united. Also, GEn wouldn't have been able to marry Attolia and unite those two countries. When the Medes arrived, they would have been weak and fallen.

When Gen says the thing about his living being an offense to them, perhaps he just means that Aracthus was still mad about the Gift being stolen...or...who knows. Anyway, it's Gen saying "I think". It doesn't necessarily say he is correct.

[thelasteddis.livejournal.com]

WHOA.
For the sake of arguement, let's make some assumptions.
Hephestia 'gave' Gen the gift.
The god's may have stolen it from one of the Eddisian Kings in the first place, to keep it safe from the invaders. That Eddisian King becomes the hiding place, Hephestia becomes the Thief, Gen becomes... the recipient. The rightful King.
(Now there is a fault in my logic - I'm using a very flawed assumption here) Gen, in taking, not just recieving, the gift, becomes the Thief as well as the recipient, the gift is taken by the Magus (Gen doesn't give it up - he keeps control over the gift), Gen steals it back (I'm assuming this does not effect the gift in any way), is saved by it because he is the rightful owner as well as Thief, and gives it to Eddis, who becomes the recipient and rightful Queen.
Conclusion: no one stole the gift from Gen or Eddis. Eddis' rule is secure, but Gen... may have a right to rule Eddis, as well. Which would be a lot of proof to the Gen-becomes-ruler-of-the-three-countries theory.

[haleysings.livejournal.com]

No, I don't know...that just seems overly complicated. I agree with you that MWT's a skillful writer--which is part of why I reject this idea. The text makes it so obvious (to me) that the Gift does save Gen, that it's hard to see why MWT would make it so the reader has to come up with some convoluted reason why it's not the Gift on their own (particularly when this is a book marketed to preteens).

To me, I see two options:
(1) The Gods "gave" it to Gen when he stole it by allowing him to steal it, or
(2) ...This is Gen being an unreliable narrator and spicing things up.

I think the first option is much better, but the second option came into my head so I figured I'd toss it out there, too.

[etv13.livejournal.com]

Maybe the problem is that the tradition that grew up after the usurper died focuses too literally on the idea of the stone's being "given to the bearer" and not on the underlying motivations of the Thief. In other words, the stone does keep Gen alive, because Gen didn't steal it to have for himself, like the usurper, but to give to his cousin for the good of their country.

[kitsune-rains.livejournal.com]

Oh, I like that thought. Maybe that's why the tradition of Thief and all its trappings sprung up. Different technicalities with the Gift but the same effect. So maybe the Gift works as long as you're doing your best to get it to your candidate for the throne?
Except, I wonder how many thieves got to the throne room and took the stone and still couldn't get out of the maze.

[thelasteddis.livejournal.com]

Oooooooooh... I like this. Especially the 'for the good of the country' part - it seems very like the gods to have all sorts of convultuted unwritten rules about the gift. Poor Moira, having to put up with the god's silly whims of mysticism.

[etv13.livejournal.com]

Although maybe it's not so much the gods having a lot of rules, but that there's a single underlying principle (selfishness/unselfishness, in highly simplified terms) that people just haven't had a chance to see. All we're told is that from the single example of the usurper, it was "understood" that the stone had to be given to you to work. I'm suggesting that maybe that understanding is incorrect (right in spirit, but a little off in detail) and that what really matters is the thief's motivation, or purity of heart, not the distinction between "given" and "stolen."

It seems a little weird to be talking about Gen's "purity of heart," given how cagey and canny and generally twisty he is, and he certainly has his faults (arrogance and temper chief among them) but when it comes right down to it, he's pure gold, isn't he? He says himself (and the story bears him out) that he goes to all the trouble of stealing the Gift (and being imprisoned in Sounis and all the risky rest of it) because he loves one of his relatives, and in QofA he's willing to lay his life on the line (and be tortured, too) for love (of country, of Helen, of Irene). No wonder the gods want to keep him alive.

[magicsandwiches.livejournal.com]

Yes! And this is what makes Gen so likable (lovable), despite being such a brat. Underneath all his lies and insults and deceit, he has incredible depth of feeling and goodness of heart.

Terribly fascinating.

[zumie-ashlen.livejournal.com]

Can I just say how awesome it is to have a place to come talk about this? Seriously, I'm geeking out over this discussion (although I don't have much to contribute--been a while since I read The Thief). Loving all the comments! :D

[charlotteslibrary.blogspot.com (from livejournal.com)]

Oh my gosh--is that foreshadowing then, when Attolia's emboridery scratches Gen's hand of what she's going to do to his hand next?

[reader-marie.livejournal.com]

Wow!

What a great discussion...I've had a lot of fun reading/following it so far! I'm not sure I have much to contribute, except to say that when I first read The Thief, I skipped right over the implication that Hamiathes' Gift might have saved Gen's life, until I got to the end and started to wonder. The second time I read the book I went, "of course! That's why he didn't die--because he had the Gift!" So I've always been under the impression that it was the Gift that saved him, and I'd never really thought about the whys and hows until now. (So thanks for making me think!)

I'm still not quite sure what I think, but I do like the idea that the Gift takes into account the intentions of the thief or bearer. Also, I think it's pretty clear that Gen (not the Magus!) gets the permission of the gods to take the stone--is it at the end of The Thief that he says he'd come to believe each successive generation removed the Gift from the temple only with the permission of the gods?

Oh--and I also love the line about velvet and embroidery. So Attolia. (And I never even thought that it might be foreshadowing! Yikes!)

[philia-fan.livejournal.com]

I think the Gift kept Gen alive because he wasn't stealing it for himself, as others have said.

However, I also think that every action the gods take is always open to skepticism. It's clear that a lot of people in Gen's world don't believe in the gods -- so everything they do can look like coincidence to those who haven't come face to face with them. I think it's deliberately left to the reader to decide whether the Gift saved Gen, whether the gods saved him without the use of the Gift, or whether he was just amazingly lucky that that sword didn't kill him.

[sclerotia.livejournal.com]

I always thought the stone had saved Eugenides twice. Once when the river would have drowned him and once when the sword would have killed him. And I thought that it was the ruler of Eddis who had to receive the stone as a gift and not the Thief. After all a Thief is a thief and would naturally be stealing the stone.

[checkers65477.livejournal.com]

I always thought the stone had saved Eugenides twice. Once when the river would have drowned him

Yes! I thought that, too. After all, he had the stone in his hand, and something made the doors explode like that. Why would the water pressure suddenly be too much? The Magus explained it away as due to the age of the temple, but who knows?

[kitsune-rains.livejournal.com]

I figure that Aracthus just destroyed the temple out of anger.
And it makes me wonder if he destroyed the temple every time someone stole the stone back or if he just did it after Gen because he knew Helen would end up destroying it anyway.

[(Anonymous)]

In the short story when Eddis is a child we are told that she will be the last. The temple won't be needed again, so they destroy it.

It always seemed to me that Hephastia gave Gen permission to steal the stone, and now I'm tempted to read waaaaay too much into it and wonder if it ties into the whole Annux thing that is coming. Stone being given to the rightful ruler, and all that.

Also, if Eddis ends and the temple is gone, what will happen to the gods? It seems like they will be ending too. Like the Greek gods?

-ELM-

[sublimelysuki.livejournal.com]

*delurking*

I agree somewhat on this. I didn't get the impression that you need to be given or it's "useless."

You just need to be given the stone to *rule* Eddis. The properties work regardless.
*relurks*

[hazelwillow.livejournal.com]

Well, this is months late, but I had fun reading this discussion and I have something to add. I puzzled over this when I read the thief... and this is what i thought:

As I remember, when we find out that the stone doesn't work if it's stolen, it's in the context of someone who stole it directly from the previous king. And I think they stole it in order to become king themselves --but then they died, so the stone's power hadn't worked on them. At that point in the book we don't know about the gods involvement so it's not mentioned.

But it turns out when the king's thief steals it, he's stealing it from the gods, not the previous king directly (It mentions the gift must have been hidden in the temple with each successive generation for centuries), and it's only ever removed "with the permission of the gods".

I think what matters is that you stole it from the gods, because that really means the gods have let you steal it from them. And they did give Gen permission (the god Eugenides does explicitly --a good task for the god of thieves, giving the thief permission to steal from them!). Gen was someone the gods trusted to take the gift, and I don't think that trust would go away just because the Magus had it for a short time. So its power worked on him, and on other people he decided to give it to voluntarily. If someone had stolen it from Gen, it wouldn't have worked on them.

What really matters is the god's involvement/permission. It gives the gods a say in who will be the next ruler of eddis, every generation, because only a thief they trust would be able to take it from the temple, and only someone he trusts could become the next ruler.

:)
thanks for indulging my nerd-enthusiasm!

[hazelwillow.livejournal.com]

p.s. i never realized it saved him twice --what a good point! ;p

[checkers65477.livejournal.com]

Yay for fellow-nerd-enthusiasm!

All of what you say makes lots of sense.

[peggy-2.livejournal.com]

nice observation