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

I adore this conversation...

[11rod88staff11.livejournal.com]

You know.... I really didn't feel like there was real grief being felt by the Attolias. (By the way... I just adore how it's a matter of one letter to the name to completely change who of three people it is referring to, now: Attolia = Irene, Attolis = Eugenides, now the Attolian = Costis) So I too have a strong feeling that it wasn't a straight up miscarriage... Was there ever a pregnancy? Was there a pregnancy, a birth and a transference of the child to foster elsewhere? (Hence, the "when she comes again...") Also interesting is how early on, some men are speculating that it was a "he," a son, because they favorite it to be so, whereas Irene, symbol of the feminine's lifelong clash with the patriarchy... distinctly says "she."

I agree it was absolutely a set up... to forge a a connection/initiation of Kamet into the inner circle (the queen essentially went to HIM in the more general palace garden, even while she was ill (could the miscarriage be hiding a real and genuine illness of some other sort?) To the poster who said, perhaps it was Irene this time who Saw something special in Kamet and handpicked him this time and not Gen, but in the same way that Eugenides essentially handpicked Costis (and if there is a real parallel here, how ironic the differing forms of their respective initiations, Costis's initiation being baited by Gen and subsequently punching him in the face in defense of Teleus, and the gentleness and seriousness of Kamet's meeting in the garden with Irene. If there is a parallel, it's exquisite to comparing the two monarch's differing approaches side by side.

I read a brilliant fanfic recently about Costis/Kamet and one observation that I LOVED that the author made was was that Costis treats everybody as equals (See: Punches Gen in the face, also best friends with Aris, who is a lower social class than he) and what results is Eugenides treating him as an equal (See: what results of Costis punching Gen in the face-- even though the ensuing dialogues are always very Gen-with-the-upper-hand heavy, there is a deeper undertone to it that was very man-to-man.

Whereas, as the fanfic goes (sorry I can't recall the title but it's from archiveofourown.com), Kamet, no matter how hard he tries, he is so damaged from enslavement that he can't treat anyone as an equal, he fluctuates between treating Costis like a master/someone much higher than him to "treating Costis like something stuck to the bottom of his shoe")... and...I feel like Irene and Kamet have something along these lines in common, being so damaged and untrusting that they struggle to approach people as equals. (and then you have the beautiful juxtaposition of the fact that they actually are at opposite ends of the social hierarchy... and yet... in a way... equally imprisoned.)

In Irene ... both she and Kamet are both "haughty" but I think it's more in how Irene approaches everyone like a bladed war chariot scythe, even her sense of humor is aggressive, and speaks to no one as an equal as she is (so understandably, after a lifetime of the patriarchy trying to take it from her) protective of her authority over all. And we arrive at yet another beautiful juxtaposition.... I just got done relishing in how Irene and Kamet, very unlikely reflect each other and then the beauty in the contrast of how Irene is prone to very real violence (by her own hands striking them, and ordering people hung, she ordered Gen's hand cut off and watched...) while Kamet has been so extremely, heartbreakingly enslaved against "even looking at a butter knife" that he can't bring himself to ever physically defend himself even in the most desperate situations.