QoA Section Three - Read-Along Week 3

[pendrecarc.livejournal.com]

Many thanks to ninedaysaqueen for organizing this!

This is the third discussion for Queen of Attolia. The first section is here, and the second is here.

These discussions are spoiler free for the new short stories, “The Wine Shop” and “The Knife Dance,” as well as the Thick as Thieves arc.

There will be spoilers for books 1-4, so if you haven’t read all the published books yet, proceed with caution.

Next week is a break week with a chat on March 19th.

***

I'm going to structure this a little differently, with a very brief (and irreverent) summary under the cut and discussion topics in comments to this post. If you want to start new comment threads with completely different topics, please do!

Section three runs from Chapter 15, which begins "Attolia turned to look at him, where he kneeled watching her face," and Chapter 21, which ends, "And she believed him."

In which...Teleus has a terrible evening, Attolia and Eugenides enjoy a romantic moonlit excursion and share fond memories of their last meeting, Attolia redefines the term "statement jewelry", Nahuseresh is schooled in diplomacy, Eddis looks a little vulpine, Eugenides naps dramatically (twice), and Attolia needs to replace her palace windows.

Comments

Favorite Lines

[pendrecarc.livejournal.com]

There are so many good ones in this section!

Top of my list will always be " 'Diplomacy,' said Attolia, 'in my own name,' as the rest of her guard rose up from the grass behind their captain." I adore Attolia's calm assertion of power and the way she turns Nahuseresh's words back on him.

I also love this one, when Eugenides has just found himself back in Attolia's power and hasn't yet discovered her true intentions, "My god, he thought, I am so frightened. O my God, if you will not save me, make me less afraid." It's so poignant and human of him, and a wonderful glimpse at the way he now relates to his gods. (Contrast this, a few chapters later, with "I can demand. Whether my demands are met or not, I can demand. I can act as I choose and not as some god directs.")

And finally, in the very last scene, "She sat perfectly still, looking at him without moving as his words dropped like water into dry earth." The prose in these books is very spare, usually relying on simple descriptions of the characters' actions and brief explanations of their thoughts, but the language in those descriptions can be so lovely and evocative.

What are your favorites?

Ex Machina

[pendrecarc.livejournal.com]

At the very end of the book, we learn (along with Eugenides) that the gods have betrayed him twice, first leading to the loss of his hand and then to his capture by Nahuseresh. We also learn the reason why.

1) Any theories about the identity of the goddess who comes to speak with Gen after he sacrifices the goat? Is it someone we've met or heard about, and will we ever learn her name?

2) Why do you think it was necessary for Moira to tell Nahuseresh how to capture Eugenides? Attolia had already agreed to marry Gen by that point and make him king--how would the outcome have been different if they'd simply moved forward from that point?

Eddis

[pendrecarc.livejournal.com]

In this section, we get two fascinating revelations about Eddis. First is Attolia's memory of the younger queen'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 then none of that advice had been needed."

This is such a great bit of backstory, and it illuminates so much about each of these queens and the very different contexts in which they came to power. I love the glimpses we get of Eddis as ruler and of Attolia's resentment of her. I also love seeing their dynamic begin to change, as they begin to consider one another as allies rather than antagonists. We don't see much of that play out on the page, but later books will give us a sense of how the relationship has progressed offscreen.

We also learn that Eddis has been dreaming of the Sacred Mountain erupting and the destruction of her city. Shortly before this, Eugenides told Attolia that Eddis could survive a Mede invasion on her own by retreating to the mountain and relying on the aid of the pirates--but now we find out Eddis has known for months that this wasn't a possibility.

I haven't reread the later two books yet, but I don't remember learning that Eddis shared this with her advisors. It's an incredibly heavy weight for her to carry alone, and makes me rethink everything she does in the second half of the book.

Rereading

[pendrecarc.livejournal.com]

This book rewards the second read (or third, or fourth, or...I've read it a lot, okay?) by letting us reinterpret so many moments with our knowledge of what the characters are actually planning.

Some of my favorite such moments:

- Attolia's encounter with her future father-in-law, when he helps her down from her horse, his hands tighten about her waist, "and for a moment she was irrationally frightened, caught by him, her feet dangling above the ground."

- Following that, when the Medes attack the Eddisian camp, we see Eugenides and his father (who isn't identified as such until later) mounting a defense. They fight brilliantly together, perfectly coordinated. It's a great reminder of Gen's training, of his father's investment in his swordsmanship, and of the tension that caused in their relationship.

- When Irene sits in her bath, right before she rejects her attendants' first choice of earrings, she thinks over her relationship with Nahuseresh, including her care in making him think she was open to his advice. It's at this point that it becomes a little more obvious that she's been trying to avoid an alliance with the Medes. I love this glimpse of how calculating she is, but also of how difficult her situation is--she's had to work hard to keep her options open.

- And, of course, I love all the double meanings in the scene immediately after this, where she goes to meet Gen and send his father back to Eddis. " 'Goatfoot,' she said, 'do you understand what is going to happen to you?' " and " 'What remains of his life, he spends with me, do you understand, messenger?' "

Others you enjoyed?

Beauty and the beast

[frosted-feather.livejournal.com]

This time around I caught the parallel words and meaning between the story of Hespira and Horreon (the Beauty and the Beast) and the last words of the book. Anyone else see this? Maybe it's been discussed before.

1) Horreon wanted to marry a woman who wanted him, but didn't think Hespira was staying with him in the dark caves of her own free will. He thought she'd drunk the love potion. But when her mother comes to get her:
"I chose," Hespira said again, and Horreon believed her."

I stopped there, noticing the importance of the words "and Horreon believed her."

2) And then, the very end of the book repeats this same scene but with Gen and Attolia. Attolia finds it so hard to believe that Gen would actually chose her, who wounded him so much, of his own free will. She's like the monster in the caves. But at the end of the book, Gen says:
"I love you."
And she believed him.

She, like Horreon, has decided to believe the words that her lover tells her. I haven't made this connection so strongly before, but this time it leapt out of the pages to me.