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

[brandy-painter.livejournal.com]

I think you are right on in your comparison. There are a great deal of similarities. And yes I think Gen was giving Relius a choice that he felt he didn't have by offering the house and retirement.

I will say I see their love for the Queen as being very different. Relius loves Attolia, while Gen loves Irene is a simple way to state it but doesn't exactly express what I see as the difference. Attolia and Relius have a very strange relationship. Attolia was partly Relius's creation but she surpassed his teaching. At the same time Relius is partly Atollia's creation and he kind of worships her as a result. He is cautious of her in a way that shows he truly doesn't understand her, but he would do anything she asked. He is very subservient to her and doesn't challenge her. The last time I read QoA I was really struck by how little even he seemed to know of her plans and how cautious he was when discussing Nahuseresh. Gen on the other hand...

[chubbyleng.livejournal.com]

^ THIS

Oh, and I have a feeling that Relius had been tortured in Attolia's hands before KoA. After all, she did find him snooping around when they first met; hard to believe she'd accept his story readily, if he wasn't under some kind of pain.

I'll comment more on this later... gotta look for my brain.

[brandy-painter.livejournal.com]

I don't know about the previous torture thing. It is mentioned several times in the books that Relius was the one that taught Attolia all that. It was his philosophy ingrained in her that pain was the only path to truth. It is even referenced when she is questioning him after they discover his guilt. I have always wondered if that was maybe why Gen left Relius in the dungeons as long as he did. If he maybe blamed Relius for what the philosophy (which is not that solid) did to Irene and caused her to do to him. You could be right though, this is one of those thing it is impossible to know for certain.

[chubbyleng.livejournal.com]

Do we know exactly when they first met?

I seem to remember that within her first year reign, she had her tax collector's tongue and hand chopped off after finding out he was funding a revolt out of her own treasury. I'm not sure if Relius was here already.

[chubbyleng.livejournal.com]

Ah... he might or might not be. In KoA Attolia said she found Relius during her first year as queen.

[keestone.livejournal.com]

But Gen did have that choice . . . it was the one Eddis had originally thought to plan for him. :) (And I suspect Gen had an inkling that when it came down to it, Relius would be as likely to choose that option as he himself had been.)

[brandy-painter.livejournal.com]

You are right! I was actually thinking about this tonight while I was at the gym (nothing better to think about)but also it had been bothering me that I said that because I always felt that Gen did have choice. And he did. Yes, it is exactly the option Eddis gave Gen and in giving Relius the same choice he made it possible for Relius to understand him better. I was going to come and correct myself but I am glad you beat me to it. :-)

[pysch-colours.livejournal.com]

on the other hand, though, i think relius could have taken that choice & would have been happy in taking it (talking about how he wanted to open correspondence with the magus of sounis, about the sheep &c), whereas gen would not have been, because of irene, but also because he has a sense of ~responsibility when it comes to the war, because it was partly because of him that it started.
i don't know how to explain it. i feel like, yes, he could have chosen, but it wasn't really a choice, if you know what i mean?
like, it wouldn't have offered the solace it would have relius because he would have been beating himself up &c.

[keestone.livejournal.com]

Personally, I don't think Relius would have been happy in taking that choice, but he'd convinced himself that was the best he could have after his failure made him useless. Maybe a bit like studying on the Peninsula.

[beth-shulman.livejournal.com]

This is a fantastic parallel. Really, I just heard a "click" as the pieces fit together in my head :D