As well as similarities between the central characters (oh, how I love my super-clever, super-competent schemers!), I've always seen strong similarities in the tricks played with narrative and point of view. Across the entire series, we only get Lymond's point of view for a few pages. He is the centrepoint of the whole thing, but he is seen almost entirely by other people, many of whom misunderstand him, some of whom are entirely biased against him. We have to piece Lymond together from the conflicting, and often wrong, reports of a variety of people.
It's similar with Eugenides. It's not exactly the same, of course, since we DO get his viewpoint right from the start - but it's a tricksy viewpoint, one that conceals the truth and forces us to read between the lines. From then on, we mostly see him through other eyes.
The King of Attolia is the one that reminds me most strongly of the Lymond Chronicles, though (and of the Niccolo series, too, I guess, but my memories of that series are a lot less clear.) As with some of the Lymond viewpoint characters, Costis initially dislikes and misunderstands the central character, and his narrative frequently makes confident - but false - statements about his motives. (Outsider viewpoint characters who initially misunderstand the hero: my other Favourite Thing in fiction. :-D)
Oh, and one tiny point: I have always read Sophos' thought that "he would have given Eugenides his heart on a toothpick, if asked," as a nod to Kate Somerville's thought, "I would give you my soul in a blackberry pie, and a knife to cut it with."
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Date: 6/29/17 04:56 pm (UTC)As well as similarities between the central characters (oh, how I love my super-clever, super-competent schemers!), I've always seen strong similarities in the tricks played with narrative and point of view. Across the entire series, we only get Lymond's point of view for a few pages. He is the centrepoint of the whole thing, but he is seen almost entirely by other people, many of whom misunderstand him, some of whom are entirely biased against him. We have to piece Lymond together from the conflicting, and often wrong, reports of a variety of people.
It's similar with Eugenides. It's not exactly the same, of course, since we DO get his viewpoint right from the start - but it's a tricksy viewpoint, one that conceals the truth and forces us to read between the lines. From then on, we mostly see him through other eyes.
The King of Attolia is the one that reminds me most strongly of the Lymond Chronicles, though (and of the Niccolo series, too, I guess, but my memories of that series are a lot less clear.) As with some of the Lymond viewpoint characters, Costis initially dislikes and misunderstands the central character, and his narrative frequently makes confident - but false - statements about his motives. (Outsider viewpoint characters who initially misunderstand the hero: my other Favourite Thing in fiction. :-D)
Oh, and one tiny point: I have always read Sophos' thought that "he would have given Eugenides his heart on a toothpick, if asked," as a nod to Kate Somerville's thought, "I would give you my soul in a blackberry pie, and a knife to cut it with."