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]

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. :-)