The river knows it's time...

[booksrgood4u.livejournal.com]

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

Comments

[manderelee.livejournal.com]

I'm in the same boat as you. I was very firm about my position about the miscarriage being real. I still am in a way, but the biggest indicator for me that it might not be, is simply how polarized people are about the interpretation of the event. If the miscarriage was real, why would it be written as if there could be two interpretations, right? We know how careful MWT is as a writer. (Unless of course, this is one of those situations where the writer didn't intend to have all these double meanings, but readers found it.) And what is the purpose of it? It didn't serve anything.

I had assumed that the "come back again" might reflect some kind of spiritual belief about souls, but when I looked it up, it turned out that the ancient Greeks were one of the few polytheists who didn't actually believe in reincarnation.

I told booksrgood4u that for now, I'm going to pretend that the miscarriage didn't happen. I mean, I'm going to pretend there's no baby at all, dead or alive. I'm just going to wait it out until the next book, because I'm not sure what to feel about this.

[ninedaysaqueen.livejournal.com]

I thought the Greeks did believe in recarnation from what I know of Greek myths. Their version of Heaven was Elysium, correct? Good souls were sent there before being reborn again? Maybe, that was just certain Greek philosophers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reincarnation#Early_Greece) and not Greek culture as a rule?

Yeah, I don't think MWT is a false hope for the sake of a misdirect kind of writer. She's not Moffat, who shows you a beloved character might still be alive only to reveal this it's a backflash that happened five years ago. Boo, Moffat!

I do feel like there is more to the miscarrige, otherwise why include that in the story during a chapter that is already full of emtional scenes?

[manderelee.livejournal.com]

I only saw one resource on it (http://www.allabouthistory.org/ancient-greeks-faq.htm):

Contrary to other pagan groups, the ancient Greeks believed that souls of the deceased were not reincarnated into another bodily form and placed back on earth, but lived on in either hell or heaven as a spirit. Their after life destination was presumably based on how well they lived their life prior to their death.

The other resources I saw seemed to attribute the idea of reincarnation to certain philosophers, like you said, and it didn't seem to be a commonly-held idea at that time.

EDIT: That was just a quick google search (like 1st page). I'm sure those who studied classics would have a more educated answer.