Things the Magus said...

[keestone.livejournal.com]

Okay, this one I've been wondering about for a while, and perhaps those who have gotten their hands on a CoK ARC can give a non-spoilery nod as to whether there's more info regarding this there: I can't help but wonder if Sophos is the "friend" with an "interest in botany" that the magus was recording plant specimens for (QoA, p. 101 Greenwillow hardcover). It's exactly the kind of way I could see him keeping in contact with someone he holds in high regard and cares for when contact has been restricted (if by politics rather than ill health). Sophos did do well with the classification of plants during The Thief.



Also...
I always thought it very interesting how Gen takes the Magus's pep talk, "Gen, sitting in here isn't going to help anything. You can talk sense to Eddis. Maybe you aren't a Thief anymore, but you could still do something" (p.76), and runs with it in an entirely unexpected way by blowing up the Sounisian navy in its own harbor.

I just realized the other day, the Magus has another unexpected influence on Gen's actions... I'm not going to quote the whole post-nightmare conversation in Gen's library (pp. 140-41), but:

"Tell me why the king of Sounis wants to marry the queen of Eddis." [...] "I don't mean the political advantages. He wants more than that."

"Eddis is brilliant, Gen. She's very young, almost as young as yourself, and she's already a successful leader and a gifted ruler. Her legal reforms have changed Eddis more in seven years than anyone would have thought possible when she took the throne. And on a personal level she is quite . . . magnetic."

[...]

"He's not an entirely irredeemable character," the magus said, defending his king.

"I'm sure not," Eugenides said agreeably, "but he's caused a lot of bloodshed wanting a woman he can't have."

"Not a new thing in the history of the world," the magus said.

"No," Eugenides responded thoughtfully, "and maybe I should be more sympathetic, but I think I will just go back to bed."

.
.
.

And then the next morning, he requests Eddis' permission to "run away and hide," which means he's very much formulating his plan to "steal the Queen of Attolia." Which means . . . on the obvious level that conversation is about Sounis and Helen, but on another level it's all about Gen and Irene.

And can you imagine what the magus would think if he knew that?

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

oooh, nice insights!

Charlotte

[keestone.livejournal.com]

I love Gen's twisty little brain. :)

[jade-sabre-301.livejournal.com]

I do remember someone pointing out the "and maybe I should be more sympathetic" line as referring to Gen/Attolia, but I hadn't paid attention to its status as catalyst for the next scene. Or maybe I had, subconsciously, but ANYWAY that conversation is one of my very favorite scenes because of that line, so yay for bringing it up again.

also, imagined magus's reaction: you say WHAT now?
*needs Checkers's "the magus ain't down with dat" icon*

[keestone.livejournal.com]

I'd thought about the "maybe I should be more sympathetic" before, but it's actually the entire frigging conversation in which he's clarifying his feelings by bouncing them off the magus's defense of Sounis, and wow! Because as far as I can see, Gen's somewhat obsessive actions regarding Attolia (sneaking around her palace, leaving gifts by her bed, and causing her enough embarrassment and insecurity that she felt the need to make an example of him, thus starting a war) and their fallout caused much more bloodshed much more directly than Sounis' political maneuverings due to his obsession with Helen. So, yeah. Not new in the history of the world, but ouch.

[keestone.livejournal.com]

I should add... from that perspective, you can definitely see why Sounis and Attolia regard the Thief of Eddis as a serious political threat even when he doesn't seem to be doing much.

[(Anonymous)]

Gah! That makes Gen sound a bit like Edward!!!

Charlotte

reposted due to extraneous "it"

[keestone.livejournal.com]

Gah! NOOOOO!!! Do not want!

In Gen's defense, he's a professional at sneaking around people's houses.

I can be a bit hyper-aware of stalkerish behavior, and Gen only kind of hits the trigger if I think about it from Irene's perspective.

[reader-marie.livejournal.com]

Wow.

I had, like others, thought about the "maybe I should be more sympathetic" comment (that was a HUGE breakthrough moment for me in a re-read), but I had never thought about the entire conversation in that light before.

More proof that these books are...adjectives fail me. Unbeatable? Awesome? Marvelous? (None of them really cut it.)

I also think it's ironic, then, that Eddis' name is Helen--since, as is pointed out to us in QoA, that's a name associated with a war. Eddis isn't as beautiful as Helen of Troy, but Sounis precipitates some pretty serious conflict on her account.

Of course, the only character who really gets a war started on his behalf is Gen...and I'm not sure where that parallel is going to end up, so I'll stop there.

Thanks for the insights!

(And I have the feeling the magus would NOT be amused.)

Now I have to go and re-read the plant-classification part of the book...I've always wondered if we're supposed to know the friend. For some reason I never connected it with Sophos, though!

[keestone.livejournal.com]

A conversation we'll never see...

Magus: You were asking advice on your love life?

Gen: Well, who else was I supposed to ask? Helen was trying to match me with someone safe.

Magus: There's nothing wrong with safe.

Gen: Then why didn't you tell Sounis that? It would have saved a lot of trouble.

Magus: As if he'd listen . . . well, I suppose he'd be as likely to listen as you. Gah!

[reader-marie.livejournal.com]

You just made my morning--fortunately there's no one else at home to hear my spontaneous outbursts of laughter while I'm supposed to be studying.

Gen: I didn't think this was something I could talk to my family about. You ought to be honored that I thought you worthy. And I should think you'd be overjoyed to have given advice someone actually listened to...

Magus: *explodes*

[keestone.livejournal.com]

ROTFLOL!

I'm supposed to be studying too.

[sgwordy.livejournal.com]

Magus: *explodes*



*snicker* :)

[savetheworld42.livejournal.com]

The fact that a woman named Helen had beauty so great it started a war is mentioned in QoA. I found it interesting that, although the gods are different in the books, that myth seems to correspond with the ancient Greek one from our world.

[keestone.livejournal.com]

A lot of the stories at least show similarities to ancient Greek myths.

Athena was allowed to use her father Zeus' thunderbolts as Hephestia (and of course with that name and the mountain connection there's a reference to Hephaestus as well), and there's an element of Prometheus in the story of Eugenides stealing the thunderbolts.

Hespira is very much a Persephone figure . . . which is interesting, because Gen is directly compared to her, and that makes him a figure of balance as Persephone balances the seasons.

Although, I think the myths that bear stronger similarities are the stories we haven't seen of the new gods that Sounis and Attolia nominally worship. One of the biggest differences with the old gods of Eddis is that the old gods are not only active, they actually care about humans.


Which reminds me . . . I want to know what Tethys lesions are. Tethys is wife of Oceanus. What kind of disease would be named after her?

[reader-marie.livejournal.com]

Yes--part of what makes these books fun for me is when I (or we, as in Sounis collectively) run into historical events, myths, and people that seem to correspond to things in the books. I know the books take place in an "alternate reality" (which is kind of a stuffy term, but it' the best I can come up with just now), but there are lovely little points of overlap with our world and history that make me smile. Plus, it keeps me alert when reading history and literature--on the lookout for fun parallels.

[elvenjaneite.livejournal.com]

I don't know about the botany thing, but the magus/Gen conversation makes SO MUCH sense! I'm constantly amazed at these books. Constantly.

[gamwyn.livejournal.com]

Wow. That's AWESOME. And deep. I heart MWT (and Gen of course) so much!!

[tiegirl.livejournal.com]

My OOOOOH when I read your post made Rrelf mutter, "Well, don't hurt yourself."! I had thought about the magus/Gen stuff before (probably because of Sounis LJ) but I never thought about the botany friend before! Veeeerrry interesting!

[savetheworld42.livejournal.com]

I thought of Sophos as well when the Magus was collecting plant specimens. It could have been his way of convincing himself that Sophos is still alive and that they will continue with the botany lessons that Sophos enjoyed somewhat (at least more than Ambiades did).

[keestone.livejournal.com]

I don't think Sophos had been kidnapped at that point but had been removed from the Magus' influence to a different tutor?

[savetheworld42.livejournal.com]

That's right! *smacks forehead* Well, I guess he wanted to resume lessons? Sophos is the only person I remember who has been mentioned to study plants with the Magus.

[keestone.livejournal.com]

The way I figure it, if Sounis distrusted the Magus enough to remove his heir from his influence, correspondence would be restricted to very safe and unpolitical topics, and plants are both very non-political and a topic Sophos seemed interested in learning about. IIRC, the Magus did offer something similar to Gen as well when he mentioned sending him volumes to update the library.

[thelasteddis.livejournal.com]

So in this analogy Gen... is Sounis? 0_o

Sorry. All the intelligent comments have been made already.

However, I do have one question. What would have happened if the Magus had just said, "yeah, well Sounis is obviously insane but since when has that been a surprise"? It seems to me as though Gen is still questioning his own sanity in loving Irene, and is trying to see if this is, in any way, shape, or form, normal. The magus says, without realizing it, yes. What if he had said no?

Just a thought.

[(Anonymous)]

Then he might have, without realizing it, devastated Gen. And I'm sure Gen would LOOK nonchalant about the whole situation but he'd probably go back into his room and cry. Poor baby!

Thanks goodness for the Magus and his unrelenting morals.

I bet after he realized what Gen was doing he was probably like "shitt! THAT'S what he was talking about...*nervous glances at Helen*
Um your majesty...Yeaa, you know how Gen disobeyed your wishes and camped out in Attolia and now he wants to marry her? Yeah, that just might be partly my fault..."

[thelasteddis.livejournal.com]

Helen: *EXPLODES*

[keestone.livejournal.com]

Yup. :D At least Gen did know that the Magus was consistently loyal to Sounis before the conversation, so it was more a "how can you think this is okay" than a "do you think this is okay" question.

I also think he's still questioning his own sanity here, and if the Magus had decided to say that Sounis' actions were indefensible Gen might have decided against pursuing Attolia and it would have changed the outcome of the war completely.

[tearoha.livejournal.com]

This conversation is one of my favourite parts ofQoA, for just the reason you said - it's SO AWESOME in hindsight when you realise that Gen was actually talking about himself. But I never considered that he was actually asking the Magus for, well, for matchmaking advice. And got it - especially as what the Magus says could also apply pretty well to Attolia. HEE! XDDDD

I love how MWT writes scenes like this, when characters seem to be talking about one thing, but may actually have another, quite different subject in mind. And at the risk of being proved absolutely wrong in March, I like to think that something similar is happening in one of the exchanges between Helen and the Magus in KoA. They've been talking about Gen's oaths to Eddis and the possibility of Sophos being dead (We know better... Yayyyy!)It goes something like this:

"If he is dead, and not a hostage somewhere... would you see me marry Sounis, instead?"
... The magus answered, very reluctantly, "Yes."
No more needed to be said. They both understood that if Eugenides was King of Attolia, he would face difficult and painful decisions that he would make in the interests of nations, not individuals, no matter how much he might love them. (pp. 318-319 Koa paperback)

That, particularly the last clause, sounds to me like another double-layered conversation. I wonder if what they both have in mind is their own situation, or lack thereof?

I remember a question some time ago about the Magus' botanical friend, but as far as I can remember, no-one brought up Sophos - nice observations!

[tiegirl.livejournal.com]

o_O! Maybe all you Magus/Helen shippers are right! Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm