musings/stirring up discussion about relius & gen/mostly musings

[pysch-colours.livejournal.com]

 do i hallucinate, or am i the only one who's weird enough (and obsessed with literary symbolism enough) to see parallels between koa relius and qoa gen?

• they're both betrayed by someone/something (attolia/gods) they trusted/served
• they both end up injuring a hand in jail (well. gen's gets more than injured, but there's the symbolism!)
• they both maintain that what attolia did was just/fair, or at least that they could see her point of view
• attolia admits to loving both of them
• they both go into it ("it," i suppose, being the experience of being jailed & tortured by attolia) loving irene (i guess it's subjective when it comes to relius, but he is, at least, very devoted to her) & despite having been tortured, and in gen's case, maimed, by her, they still keep their love for her ("even if she kept me here for fifty years, i would grovel to serve at her feet" or smt and "calf love doesn't usually survive amputation, your majesty")

i think there was more that i wanted to point out, but i've forgotten it all (lj ate up my post, and it's been two days since i thought this up, so).

but yeah, do you guys think that part of the reason gen put so much effort into "saving" relius (figuratively and metaphorically) was because he could see the similarities between the two circumstances, and he didn't want relius to end up like him? (saying that he (gen) would set relius free even if he didn't choose to go back to being secretary of the archives, offering him a house in the gede valley, letting him have the happy ending that gen thought would come at the end of qoa (something about fireside stories? he was talking to helen, i don't remember the exact page or wording) because he had been more or less forced (well, coerced? it was his "destiny," at any rate, and he couldn't escape it, because even if the gods didn't outright make him do anything, he knew him well enough that it was moot) into the position of king).)

and maybe gen visits relius at night when relius wakes, terrified, because gen can relate, because he did the same after his incarceration, and he didn't want anyone to go through that alone?

thoughts? agree/disagree?

Comments

[keestone.livejournal.com]

Short version: I agree

. . . although I don't know that Gen realizes exactly how similar they can be, I think he was definitely visiting Relius at night because he saw similarities in their situations. One more point, they're both having to learn that they don't have to be independent to the point of isolation.

And I think Relius realized he was totally and hopelessly in love with his Queen way before Gen figured out what his feelings were. :)

[pysch-colours.livejournal.com]

mmm, totally true about the isolation.
& i thought i was imagining things with relius/attolia (actually, i probably still am). there's just something very appealing about them.

[keestone.livejournal.com]

I think it's totally and hopelessly unrequited on a romantic level (and there were far too many pedestals and other social barriers involved for it to be anything close to otherwise), but there's a complex and deep relationship there. :)

Interestingly, I don't think it would be much of an exaggeration to say that metaphorically, before his fall Relius was Attolia's right hand, and she lost that through betrayal as well.

[pysch-colours.livejournal.com]

mmm, agree on the first point (i do think attolia has a lot of affection for relius, but it's more on a friendly level).
& wow on the second point.
i never thought of that! :)

[pysch-colours.livejournal.com]

*insofar as much as she can afford to be friendly