Attolia's Beauty

[velvetrose09.livejournal.com]

Okay, I know I've been posting a lot, but I've just re-read and you know how it is.

So this new thought struck me and I was wondering what you lot would make of it. Attolia and her beauty. Gen falls in love with Attolia. Attolia is known for her beauty (which Gen always forgets because she is also known for her cruelty). But he is able to fall in love with her still, despite everything. Maybe more so, because he gets to know her and how hard she has fought to keep her country. 
Only I still can't help but wonder, if Attolia was not only cruel but ugly too. I don't mean this is a 'mean' way. Eddis is described by Gen as ugly, but her personality makes her more loved. Where as with all Attolia's beauty she is only feared and well very much the opposite of Eddis. However, if Attolia was described as cruel, with a hooked nose and choppy hair...would Gen be able to find and love the real woman beneath?

Thoughts?  
 

On another note. I've been keep tract of Eddis/Sounis/Attolia vs. Mede with points so far it's 3:2
with our favorites leading! All the explanations are in this post: http://community.livejournal.com/sounis/441443.html :)

Comments

SORRY! This is a great topic.

[hazelwillow.livejournal.com]

I know, I'm going on and on........ er...on..

But something else came to me! in the Thief, "the velvet was soft, but the embroidery scratched" --the embroidery is what's on the outside, I've always taken it to mean her terrifying persona but her beauty is prob part of that, isn't it. Embroidery is superficial. It's the velvet underneath that's good. So that double-layered quality is there even in The Thief, and Gen must see through the beauty to know the jibe at her lack of kindness will be wounding.

I'm coming to associate beauty with her queenly mask more and more, and less and less with what he must love about her. Hm..

Re: SORRY! This is a great topic.

[tiegirl.livejournal.com]

INSIGHTFUL

Re: SORRY! This is a great topic.

[chubbyleng.livejournal.com]

I have a question for this one. But don't worry, it's completely independent of what you said, so don't feel as if I'm not agreeing with you or anything. ^^ I actually think you make wonderful points!

I've been puzzled about that scene where Gen tells Attolia that she's less kind than his mistress. Maybe I'm just uber slow or I lack rereads, but I've always considered that scene quite unfair for Gen.

Why did Attolia get so pissed that Gen said she was less kind? I've always thought that she hated it when people lied to her (I mean, not only hated, but considered it a terrible crime and betrayal for which she can and will execute people for.) Either way, if Gen had flattered her or said what he said, she'd still be angry at him. And he had had to say something to explain why he must choose his 'mistress' over her.

And... I don't know. It almost seems like it was a pretty well-known fact. I'd have thought that Attolia would accept it readily much like how Eddis accepts her unattractiveness readily. Is she just angry that people rub it in her face or something? Or angry that people don't consider her anything but cruel? I sort of thought that was the whole point of her mask...

Re: SORRY! This is a great topic.

[checkers65477.livejournal.com]

This is the time in Thief, right? As opposed to the time he tells her the same thing in QoA...man, no wonder she likes to slap him around sometimes.

Gen: haha, that "you're more beautiful but she's more kind" line never gets old, does it?

Irene: *smack*

Aaaaaanyway, I figured she got so angry because here he is; supposedly a nobody whose life is on the line, and he dares say that to her. She has just offered to save his life, if he'll agree to serve her, and he makes a crack like that. Also, it's likely that she knew by then (or at least suspected) who he really was, and it made her doubly mad to be told that Eddis was the better queen to serve. Plus, he was telling the truth, in a snide Gen way, and she probably didn't like hearing it. She didn't want to be cruel, and knew what people thought of her without his pointing it out.

Re: SORRY! This is a great topic.

[liereicarine.livejournal.com]

I think it's more than Gen saying that Eddis was a better ruler to serve than her. It's the very allegation that Eddis was better because she was kinder.

That is one of the most unfair things to say about Attolia because she never had a chance to be kind and have a decent life. If she had chosen to be kind instead of cruel and decisive, she would be a pawn of her first husband and his father, watching her country being badly mismanaged. No one raised her to be kind, and no one was ever kind to her (her father selling her away for a semblance of peace, her old nursemaid being unable to be loyal to her). How dare Gen expect her to be kind and fault her for not being kind.

Re: SORRY! This is a great topic.

[elle-winters.livejournal.com]

Of course Gen, a goat footed thief, is only making a point, which shouldn't bother THE QUEEN OF ATTOLIA...but it does! <3 at first sight? Maybe not, but she definitely cares, and this is the Queen of Attolia we're talking about.

I totally called it, at this moment :D