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.
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Date: 2/27/09 11:05 am (UTC)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.