queensthief | Torture

madclairvoyant.livejournal.com posting in

~~Hehe, I've been lurking around a lot lately.~~

So I was just curious; we know Gen was tortured as a prisoner of Attolia, but does anyone have any suggestions as to what methods they actually use? Because it seems like most of the ways that were favoured throughout history tended to permanently terminate the existence of the one being tortured? So what could have been done to him but not kill him or leave any debilitating injuries (that we know of at least)?

~~All you intelligent people out there, please help me.~~

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From: (Anonymous)

I got the impression that at least some of it, on Relius's part, was psychological. (Obviously there was more to it than that. Like the maiming itself.) It wouldn't take much, I don't think, considering Gen was alone, in pain, his physical health seriously compromised, his plans failed, his heart hurt, and his future (and his people's future) completely unknown. I got this impression from his conversation with Gen in KoA, when their places have been reversed. I could be wrong. But I don't like to think much on the other possibilities. :(

-freenarnian

From:

beth-shulman.livejournal.com

I definitely agree a good portion of it was psychological, but I think some must have been physical, too? When he goes into the bathhouse at the end of KoA, doesn't the book mention scarring (in addition to the bruises from Ornon)?

It could be that was all Sounis's tactics, though.

From: (Anonymous)

The scarring could also be him getting stabbed at both the end of The Thief and the midpoint of King Of Attolia.

From: (Anonymous)

I think it was just psychological on Relius's part, and that very briefly, and nothing else physical. They all knew he was a member of the Eddisian royal family, not just some valuable spy, and the Attolians weren't deliberately trying to start a war. I think they probably left him alone - what's more frightening than not knowing what's going to come, or when it will come?

Also, the Eddisian ambassador was at the Attolian court, and guards are not particularly closed mouthed. If anything had happened to Gen while incarcerated in Attolia, the ambassador would certainly have found out, and that too would have precipitated war. I doubt Teleus would have been unaware of the ramifications, and I doubt he would have let the prison guards do anything to Gen.

I think the scars they referred to at the end of KoA were mostly from the hunting dogs they had used to track and capture him with. The most obvious scars were probably the sword wounds from The Thief and the assassin in KoA, not from any of the guards.

From:

madclairvoyant.livejournal.com

'The long line across his belly was an angry red, but there were other marks: ragged tears around his knees and elbows, and lighter shining bands around his ankles that could only be the mark of fetters, as well as the various lines left by edged blows on his chest and arms, and one long one on his thigh. There were also a number of bruises, some newly purple and black and some fading almost to nothing. Costis wondered where they could have come from.'

I think the 'various lines left by edged blows on his chest and arms, and one long one on his thigh' , are unexplained? And Relius mentions that he would have pressed him harder, but he was afraid that Gen would die, so wouldn't it mean that he actually got pretty close to it?

~~I'm really clueless.~~

From:

anon8.livejournal.com

I read those "various lines" as newly forming bruises courtesy of his various sparring matches with his guards that morning. That's why he jokes he'll have them sold as gladiators if they give him another morning like that one. He's a great duelist, but he isn't perfect, and his guards don't all fight like Costis :). Some of them must have got in a few hits. "Edged blows" is from getting hit by the edge of the practice sword, instead of by the flat side.

It's also why Costis wonders about the old fading bruises. If the new bruises are from that morning's training session, and the king has never sparred with his guards before, who gave him the older sparring bruises? Gen answers that himself in the next paragraph, by explaining that he's been sparring with Ornon, in secret from the Attolians. I guess Ornon's a pretty decent swordsman too!

I read this as all unrelated to the scene with Relius earlier in the book. In the scene with Relius, I interpreted the pressing harder as questioning more insistently. Interrogators can be pretty relentless without being physical, but Gen appeared to already have a concussion before the blood loss, so I doubt he was very coherent in anything he said. Amputation is traumatic, physically and emotionally. They didn't have antibiotics, so there's always the risk of death by infection, especially in a dirty prison. That's why they sent him home soon thereafter - they couldn't keep him around too long for questioning because he could die from infection, and their goal was not his death after all.

Wow, sorry for such a long reply. Haven't been around for a long time, and I guess I just really got into it!

From: (Anonymous)

Lurker here -- this sounded pretty interesting so I figured I'd get in on the fun.

I don't think the "edged blows" are bruises for three reasons. First, all the other wounds mentioned in the sentence are scars, and they're all identifiable : the assassin's sword across his stomach, the fetter scars from Sounis in the Thief, and the dog bites around the elbows and knees in QoA. Logically, that would group them as scars too.

Second, at least one of the edged blows is later pointed out as a scar, specifically as the sword thrust that nearly killed him in the Thief.

Last, the bruises (at least the old ones) are mentioned in a completely separate sentence and are explained as practice sword blows from Ornon's practice bouts. So the wooden swords must bruise.

However -- that doesn't necessarily mean that they are torture marks. Gen has been in enough battles as a combatant to explain them easily (QoA). In addition, when you look at how Relius was tortured for an example of possible methods, he was evidently beaten (face bruised, body painful) and his fingers broken, but nothing that would leave a physical mark.

In Gen's case though, we're given a pretty good summary of his wounds in the scene before he gets his hand cut off and they're all from the chase. Also, I'm pretty sure that takes place within about a day of his capture (captured at night, brought to queen, almost hanged, hand taken off before supper next day. Should be less than 24 hours.)

However, after he gets his hand cut off, there's a period of three days before the queen sees him again and sends him home. We also get a pretty good look at his wounds when he arrives home, and he doesn't seem to have been beaten.

It's my guess that Relius used the three days to question Gen, who would have had an amputated limb, no pain medication, a high fever, and other injuries. Also, somewhere around 16-17. Not much point in torture. It's not like it would increase the pain by much. And if they send him back, he's still a member of the royal family. Punishment they might allow, visible torture, never. Eddis had issues even with the type of punishment Attolia chose.

Also, I think that the reason that Attolia waited three days to send him back was that she was giving Relius time to question him. Otherwise, there's no reason to delay sending him back. She only sent him back when he'd reached a point where it was obvious he soon wouldn't be able to give any information at all.

From: (Anonymous)

(Another lurker >:D)

Hmm, I don't know; member of another royal family or not, I don't think Attolia wouldn't be within her rights to treat him him as she would any other political prisoner; that is, she could torture him, and angry as Eddis would be, the outrage would be more over because she loved him as a cousin, and not because Attolia harmed a prince of the house. Since Gen had renounced his right to inherit his father's estates and whatnot to become the Thief. I think? Particularly since Eddis would have issues with anything they do.

And if Attolia kept Gen to let Relius question him, wouldn't she stay to find out more about her rival queen, and wouldn't they torture him? Because they would probably know that Gen wouldn't say anything at all, and if she wanted information and bothered to keep him for as long as three days, wouldn't she have done/allowed Relius to do everything short of possibly killing him?

... And I no longer make any sense.

From: (Anonymous)

First lurker here (call me Bree). This is fun! I love debates! (Friendly ones).

So you make a good point about how since Gen is in some ways no longer a house prince (Thieves cannot own anything) Eddis is seemingly not within her rights to react in the way she does. Looked at that way, her confiscation of the caravans (the act that provokes the war) is an overreaction prompted by her love for her cousin and her anger at his treatment, not a rightous reaction to Attolia overstepping her rights and treating a prince as a common thief.

However.... ( you knew this was coming) the reason he has no property is that he became the Thief of Eddis. And that position could be considered (at least historically, if not recently) an equal position with the reigning monarch, since the Thief historically acts as a kingmaker as well as master spy. There's a reason they don't talk much about the Thieves in Eddis ;)

I think that it's good to remember that of the two, Gen's royal status is actually considered the lesser honor (in Eddis). The Thieves were always kingmakers and Gen is (as far as we know) the first one with royal blood and they still get crazy honor (technical term ;). The Attolians are more impressed with his royal side, true, but I'm pretty sure Attolia is the exception to the rule and thinks of him more like an Eddisian, Thief first, prince second.

So by that categorization, he's actually worth more than a House Prince. And since the Thief holds the position for life, Attolia not only purposefully provoked Eddis, she meant to damage her throne irreparably, by damaging her Thief. Remember, for a long time she hated Eddis because of jealousy. Gen was (I think, less evidence to support this theory) mostly used as a tool to get back at Eddis for what she had that Attolia didn't: support and love.

Quotes!
"Crodes," she said, "tell him the next ten large caravans."
Politically the loss of Eugenides's service was severe. Sounis was eager to expand his borders, and only his fear of assassination kept him in check. But Attolia hadn't had merely a political loss in mind. If she'd wanted Eddis to be without the Thief's services, she could have executed him. She meant to hurt Eddis at every level and she'd succeeded. A hundred caravans of merchandise couldn't repair the damage. (P. 41, QoA)

"I have always envied Eddis", she said to herself as she stood up to pace. It was true...At Eddis's coronation Attolia had poured her advice like vitriol into the ear of the new queen, watching her face whiten, viciously satisfied to be the one to tell the girl what the world was like when you were a queen. And none of that advice had been needed. Eddis had gone on as free in her mountains as Attolia had ever been enslaved. Eddis, with her loyal ministers, her counselors, her army, and her Thief to serve her.
"At any rate she won't have her Thief back," Attolia murmured. (P. 290-292, QoA)

-- posting twice due to length

From: (Anonymous)

Now as to torture....

(Gen and Relius)
"If it wasn't for the Mede Ambassador's timely and provoking interruption, i would have been safely dead, and there wouldn't have been a great deal of blood shed."
"You've heard?" Relius asked.
"I wasn't there for Ornon's part."
He'd been puking on the wet floor of a cell in the queen's prison. Not far from where Relius himself had been. ( p 289 KoA)

"How embarrassing," she said, looking at his maimed arm.
The king looked up then and followed her gaze. If it was embarrassing to wake like a child screaming from a nightmare, how much more embarrassing to be the reason your husband woke screaming. (P 208, KoA)

And the most convincing...

"Does she know that you came back to question me after she left?"...
Relius shook his head almost imperceptibly. "She didn't want to know then."
"And you weren't foolish enough to tell her later?"
"No. Though she will have guessed."
Did I tell you anything?" the king asked conversationally.
Costis shuddered from head to toe.
"No", said Relius. "You begged in demotic. You babbled in archaic. I would have pressed you harder, but I was afraid you might die. She didn't want you dead." The Secretary of the Archives finally turned his head to look at the king. "I wish I'd killed you."
"Brave words, Relius."
"No one here is brave. Just stupid. Did you come to hear me beg? I will. I have. You know the words." The tears rose in his eyes, and his voice weakened. "Please don't hurt me any more. Please, please, no more." (p 245-246, KoA)

So, reading between the lines of this last quote, Relious "questioned" Gen after he got his hand cut off, although not in a way that was visible. And Attolia was willingly staying unaware of what was happening to him, although according to QoA, she listened outside his cell every night as he prayed and cried. Gen uses her memories of that prayer, to free Telus. It's also pretty clear that at the time, she'd been indoctrinated by Relius that truth is needed to rule and that truth only comes through torture. Gen actually uses Relius's torture to teach him and her by experience that torture doesn't work the way hey think it does. He also uses it to help Relius understand that just as he can love the queen after torture, so can Gen.

-- Bree

From: (Anonymous)

Hmm, true that Gen would be more valuable as the Thief, as opposed as the uncountable number of princes that they seem to have, but by protocol, I mean that Eddis would have been viewed as less justified to have waged a war over the Thief, rather than a prince, because his value is determined by the Eddisian culture, and the time he lived in, so in theory, Attolia would have been more justified in torturing the Thief, than a prince, I guess. Though, of course, she herself knows that the Thief meant a lot more to Eddis, both the queen and the country, and she definitely wanted to hurt Eddis, because she could never be at peace with the relatively easier reign that Eddis enjoyed.

~ Cass, the other lurker, muahahaha

From: (Anonymous)

Very true. I think Eddis in particular plays by slightly different "rules of the game" if you will. Certainly if Sounis had captured the Thief he would have slapped him in irons, tortured him, and then killed him. And certainly in his capacity as kingmaker/near royalty, Gen has the status of a political prisoner, but in his capacity of master spy for Eddis (which was what he was acting as when Attolia caught him) he doesn't have any sort of protection and would expect torture and death if caught. He's rather an interesting player because he alternates between some very different roles with very different rules attached.

(As a side note, Costis has been given some pretty different roles too, with the accompanying grey areas of rules, so I wonder if he's going to be a pretty big player in the future. Gen certainly sees something in him, despite the jabs about no humor and younger-version-of-Telus.)

I think everyone agrees that hanging him (without torture) would have been a nice compromise between his royal/kingmaker status and the spy role he was caught in, since it punishes him with more or less dignity and it leaves Eddis the option of a new Thief. However, cutting his hand off and tortureing him treats him as a simple spy and is a direct strike at Eddis, by treating her Thief and favorite cousin as a common criminal. It's a very angry sort of move, and also I think a desperate one.

Remember, Attolia knew about the death threat to Sounis, she'd seen the letter Eddis sent to him. And Gen had been visiting her pretty regularly and had gotten past her guards into her bedroom. She knew she was vulnerable to him. And she also knew how loyal he was to his queen. So I'd say cutting his hand off was both vindictive and desperate.

However -- I'm also pretty sure she regretted it almost instantly. She waited outside his cell those three nights, alone. She thought it was necessary, but she regretted it. And I'm also pretty sure that it's her regret and grief about that that Gen is eventually able to use in KoA to change her opinion about whether or not that sort of action always needed. He used it very obviously in Telus's case -- with the prayer she remembered -- and slightly less obviously in Relius's case. However, I think it's also important to remember that only having Gen as her husband allows her to change the rules she plays by. He tends to alter the rules of the game :P

From:

aged-crone.livejournal.com

I think you are all overthinking this.

GEN: *lies on floor staring up at Relius*
RELIUS: Ha! I stand before you and eat this chocolate bar and don't offer you a bite of it!
GEN: *howls in anguish* Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!