queensthief | The river knows it's time...

Hi Sounis!!!

I have not been here in so long! I got locked out of both LJ and my backup email (what possessed my 13 yo self to set my security question to the last name of the maid of honor at my wedding is almost more of a mystery than my actual answer!) but anyway, I'm back! And bearing a discussion question, too!

I was talking with

1221bookworm

and

manderelee

about the scene where Kamet meets Irene in the garden. Of course, I thought it sweet and touching and....a set up.

Think it through with me...there's Irene, in the garden- not the queens garden, mind you - the regular garden which Costis tells Kamet that she doesn't want Gen walking in. Now, Irene doesn't seem to be a 'do as I say, not as I do' sort of person, so for the sake of argument, I'm going to guess this is not a place where she can usually be found.

Kamet, however, is very fond of those gardens and Gen knows that, so I start to question the coincidence of there meeting.

It could be that Gen put them in each other's way so that Kamet could share those words of wisdom that might help Irene to heal, but I doubt it. Irene is not so easily led, and if she wanted to hear that phrase, she could just as easily have summoned Kamet. So, I still think that it was a) a set up and b) she was in on it. Also, Irene, a very private person, sharing something so personal with someone she chanced to meet in the garden seems uncharacteristic...

We tried scrutinizing the few lines of dialogue for any hidden meaning but came up empty. What do you all think?

The alternative is that MWT has successfully turned me into a paranoid reader.

Thanks for reading, please share your thoughts!!

~books

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I'm glad you made it back here and into your account! I just stumbled back a month or two ago, and it was a very good decision.

Irene, a very private person, sharing something so personal with someone she chanced to meet in the garden seems uncharacteristic

I wondered about this, too, especially when she smiled at him, as Relius's thought about her infrequent smiles and who receives them is tattooed on my heart. Reading this as a moment of character development (among other mysterious and unclear things!), it's a sign of how she's changed the way she expresses emotions in semi-public situations since QoA and even KoA. Kamet notes her physical frailty in the garden, and although the ?miscarriage? clearly had an emotional impact, but I think that I see this as a continuation of her character development/mask falling away. Her role in the country has grown less precarious and stressful since Gen has come around to being king, and her relationship with him and friendships with people like Relius and Eddis probably make her more likely to be open or vulnerable.

I like Lady Jane's reminder that she was acquainted with Kamet for more than two years before this. Maybe, even if Gen did remember the entire poem, she wanted to hear the original from Kamet himself? She could have summoned him for an audience, but meeting in the garden honestly sounds like a more pleasant place for poetry, and perhaps she didn't want anyone besides her attendants to take note of the interaction.

It's so interesting (and, tantalizing? I dunno) for something with this amount of emotional impact to happen to two main characters, and for the most sustained glimpse of it we do see is this gentle moment of poetry and closure with Irene, who was previously defined by her lack of emotion.

Thank you so much for reminding me of Relius's tender appreciation for Irene's preciously infrequent smiles. I had forgotten about that part. It reminds me of a one exchange between Irene and Relius that sends me to the moon and back:

"Am I no longer your queen?"
"Always." said Relius. and he breathed his soul into the word.

I keep coming back to suspecting that Irene feels a connection/intimacy with Kamet (neatly in contrast with her distaste for Kamet's former master), hand picked him, in the same way that Eugenides felt something special for Costis.

Contrarily, "I am a queen, not a matchmaker." Eddis said in QofA. This has me laughing because I think Gen and Irene were matchmaking Costis and Kamet all along.

***Which leads me to a head canon that I am feeling ecstatically lit by, at the moment:***
In the manner of benefactor to beneficiary, the Attolias each picked one to "sponsor" with their love and intention (Eugenides's being infamously public, full on direct, every day a new humiliation for Costis. Eugenides's was TAKING CARE OF COSTIS from a higher standpoint, even though from a concrete literal standpoint, Costis was Eugenides's nanny/babysitter/carer. (THIS dawning of the divine infinite multi-dimentional nature of their relationship is giving me chills and making it hard for me to sit still right now!)

Irene's, in contrast, was indirect from afar to the point where I don't think Kamet was conscious of her watching over him. In fact, possibly Irene is not even consciously aware that she is doing this for him. Additionally, if she had not rejected and sent Kamet's master Nahusaresh packing home in disgrace, Kamet's life would have taken a vastly different trajectory. If Irene hadn't passed up Nahusaresh, Kamet would likely have gotten the illusion he thought he wanted where he was very powerful but still ultimately enslaved by the Mede. In Irene's choosing Eugenides over Nahusaresh, she set Kamet's liberation in motion.

I suspect Irene has (possibly subconsciously) taken care of Kamet like a goddess watches over her people, thus revealing that her aesthetic Hephestia imitation is NOT simply the political manipulation tactic it was stated to be originally. MWT through Eugenides makes sure to point out in TT that Attolia "falls far short" of Hephestia's divinity--- WHICH MEANS THE OPPOSITE is actually true (because MWT and Eugenides always say the opposite of what's true)!!!!!! In Irene's transcendent redemption, she grows into Hephestia's divinity, and in these acts of bringing out the divine potential in others, she too, becomes increasingly and will ultimately be one in the image of the Great Goddess-- Afterall, there is canon / head canon that Eugenides "becomes a god" in the end (well actually he already has been, the entire time and MWT will never state it directly, she has shown us he already is in every aspect of his character development since the beginning) so of COURSE his divine counter part and twin flame Irene evolves to become and simultaneously has always been a goddess to Eugenides's being a god. The veil thins to nothingness and these connections inside souls reawaken.

It's been many lifetimes since I've even thought of this story, but when Kamet finally comes upon Attolia in the garden and they have the "river knows its time" exchange, Dorothy finally meeting the Wizard of Oz in hopes that he would help her get "back home" after her long journey came to mind for me even though their literal scene contexts aren't remotely similar. As I keep feeling into this comparison right now, I do feel like, with Kamet in Attolia, in a land he considers far below, Kamet is tired and like Dorothy, he does want to go "home," but Kamet's physical home was never his true heart's home. In meeting Eugenide's in the Attolian palace, Kamet starts to realize that he has a home, his heart has a home, although his body has no physical home (he feels less than zero connection to his home village of Setran, no connection to Medea where he was enslaved, and he felt no more at home during his stay in Attolia

The river knows it's time...

whoops, I meant to post this a few days ago :/

Re: whoops, I meant to post this a few days ago :/