Reread odds and ends
Sep. 23rd, 2017 01:50 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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queensthiefI recently finished up my post-Thick as Thieves reread of the series and, of course, wound up noticing some things I hadn't before, some of which hinge on what we learned in TaT and some of which do not (and have probably already been noticed by someone around here). I thought my reread notes would make a short list, but this post got away from me a bit ... so, if you don't mind slogging though a rather long list, I'd be curious to hear your thoughts, or anything that you've noticed lately!
The Thief
1. I enjoyed that, in TaT, while Costis was undeniably competent at most things, his Mede wasn't that great. Unlike Gen's Mede, I thought -- Gen, who can pull off "Sounisian gutter," an Attolian accent fit for the queen's indentured or a king himself, and speaks Mede with a "perfect" accent. I'm sure he's put a lot of work into the Attolian accent, at least, ever since visiting Attolia with his grandfather, but, also ... one of the gifts that Earth gives Eugenides the god is "the gift of languages that he might understand the animals all around him." Hmmm...
2. Then, Earth gives her son "the gift of summoning that he might converse with the lesser gods of streams and lakes." I'm not sure whether this bears out with Aracthus at all, but the mystery goddess from the end of QoA has "a voice as gentle as rain and as cool as water." It seems likely that someone has connected this before, but I certainly hadn't! (Also, I was reading this story so closely and still failed to notice the immortality-at-15 would-be gift that![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
canonisrelative pointed out in the chat!)
3. When Lyopidus visits his brother, Eugenides lives "across the middle sea" ... could this be somewhere in Medea or what eventually becomes Medea? Does he run into Immakuk and Ennikar??
4. Eugenides to Lyopidus: "The Earth gives me no gifts that she does not give all men. I can hardly ask her to give every man an iron cooking pot in order to have one of my own." But, Eugenides, if every man had an iron cooking pot at all times, Kamet wouldn't have to miss the one that he and Costis leave behind before being captured by the slavers! (See p.162 and 179) I don't exactly know how this would work -- would Earth just show up with a new iron cooking pot whenever you need a replacement?
5. Again, old news, but ... that's Teleus at the top of the cliff, isn't it? He transferred the guard who essentially killed Gen, so I suppose it must have been him. Oof.
The Queen of Attolia
1. I laughed out loud when, at the top of the stairs, the Eddisian chaimberlain gives Irene shoes that are "a good fit." I get the impression that Gen was a bootboy mostly just in name, and we already knew that he had access to her shoes and anything else in her room, but ... :)
2. In the boat scene, Gen says that if the Medes invade "there will be an Eddis long after Sounis and Attolia are gone." Ouch.
3. Ok, so after finding out about Sandy/Brinna, I was in the camp that assumed that the sand was there to give Gen a hard time for not visiting his old friends (my reasoning was that if some of the court knew about his bootboy days, the kitchens also must), but from a conversation with Eddis, Gen says that the sand started appearing as soon as they reached the capital after the engagement, so it DOES seem most likely that it was because they DIDN'T know who he was. Poor Gen.
4. Mystery goddess: "You have much still to lose." Given what happens in TaT, I would like to say ouch, again. :(
The King of Attolia
1. "Costis was puzzling through the convolutions of human relationships, which were so unlike the neatly arranged patterns in a fireside story." EXCEPT WHEN THEY ARE... I've always liked this quote and how it runs up against the very relevant fireside stories in these books, but it's especially fun now that Costis's own relationships are very much like fireside stories. He ends the last book by committing to be like a character in a fireside story!
A Conspiracy of Kings
2. "I picked through Poers's arguments, looking for the places where one might suspect the author was concealing something, without knowing exactly what." Hm, Sophos, if only I could relate to you in this moment...
3. I used to kind of take Sophos' portrayal of Akretenesh and Melheret's superiority in this book with a grain of salt, and the two of them honestly seemed a little indistinguishable, but after reading a book from Kamet's (initially very imperialist) perspective, their characterization really clicked fo r.
4. I forgot about Polystrictes hiding in his well!Foreshadowing?!
5. "Gen was practicing with a member of his guard" (before sparring with Melheret) ... Hm, Costis knows about Gen bugging Melheret, so, even if he isn't at the palace and/or gets that story secondhand, he's definitely in Attolia at the same time as Melheret. The ambassadors "newly arrived from distant parts of the world" are the reason for the parade in the prologue -- is Melheret one of those ambassadors? (Possible contradiction, describing his first time embarrassing himself in the Attolian throne room, Sophos says "I had forgotten the arrival of the ambassadors from the Continent" before noticing Melheret's party as well.) If so, this sort of helps us narrow down when Costis leaves for Medea! (Also, we know that Ornon is around for Sophos's first stay in Attolia -- can we assume that they traveled together?) Is it too good to be true that he's the one warming up with Gen? I would think he'd be doing more important things to prepare since being detached from the guard, but getting a demonstration of Mede swordplay from the man who trained Nahuseresh might actually be quite useful for someone who is about to go to Ianna-Ir and steal someone from under Nahuseresh's nose....
6. I tried to keep an eye out for clues about Attolia being pregnant but didn't notice anything besides Gen saying that he had asked to see Galen, which I think I remember people pointing out seven years ago, so that's nothing new.
7. When she confronts him in Elisa, Lady Hanaktia calls Sophos "great king" twice. Unlike Kamet, Sophos understands the connotations of "annux" and uses the word in chapter 15 (one of the third person chapters, though!) so we should assume that she literally is just saying "great king," right? It would be odd if she was calling him Annux...
8. In Eddis, Sophos's mother tells him, "You can't hide from someone in her own palace." It's a good point, but, in these books ... you certainly can. (Compare with "Kings don't move mountains as a favor to a friend" and "You've come from an audience with the king, but before that from the prisons. Not how an honored guest is usually received.")
Thick as Thieves
1) It's ... a beautiful thing that the very first thing that Costis says to Kamet is Kamet's name, but it takes Kamet 289 pages to say Costis's.
2. I think I saw something about this here or on tumblr, but the ring that Costis sells in Sherguz is not the same ring he wears in KoA. This one is gold rather than copper -- does that mean that it's not a ring of Miras (is it for Eugenides? Are rings a Eugenides thing?), or is it just a new, gold one because gold comes in handy when you lose most of your money in a river because you're carrying your traveling companion instead?
3. I read the miller's dog as Unse-sek at first, but now I think that it's the lion as much as it is anything...
4. Ennikar: "sometimes we mistake these things" If "these things" = "people being dead," then yes, definitely. Twice!
5. "I kept going until I could see his face, see every detail -- the quirk of his eyebrow, the twist at the corner of his mouth, the mark on his cheek... The quirk of his eybrow, huh? !!!
So ends my list. Thanks for reading it? I'm especially curious to hear if anyone came to different conclusions than I did, because, you know, sometimes we mistake these things.
The Thief
1. I enjoyed that, in TaT, while Costis was undeniably competent at most things, his Mede wasn't that great. Unlike Gen's Mede, I thought -- Gen, who can pull off "Sounisian gutter," an Attolian accent fit for the queen's indentured or a king himself, and speaks Mede with a "perfect" accent. I'm sure he's put a lot of work into the Attolian accent, at least, ever since visiting Attolia with his grandfather, but, also ... one of the gifts that Earth gives Eugenides the god is "the gift of languages that he might understand the animals all around him." Hmmm...
2. Then, Earth gives her son "the gift of summoning that he might converse with the lesser gods of streams and lakes." I'm not sure whether this bears out with Aracthus at all, but the mystery goddess from the end of QoA has "a voice as gentle as rain and as cool as water." It seems likely that someone has connected this before, but I certainly hadn't! (Also, I was reading this story so closely and still failed to notice the immortality-at-15 would-be gift that
canonisrelative pointed out in the chat!)3. When Lyopidus visits his brother, Eugenides lives "across the middle sea" ... could this be somewhere in Medea or what eventually becomes Medea? Does he run into Immakuk and Ennikar??
4. Eugenides to Lyopidus: "The Earth gives me no gifts that she does not give all men. I can hardly ask her to give every man an iron cooking pot in order to have one of my own." But, Eugenides, if every man had an iron cooking pot at all times, Kamet wouldn't have to miss the one that he and Costis leave behind before being captured by the slavers! (See p.162 and 179) I don't exactly know how this would work -- would Earth just show up with a new iron cooking pot whenever you need a replacement?
5. Again, old news, but ... that's Teleus at the top of the cliff, isn't it? He transferred the guard who essentially killed Gen, so I suppose it must have been him. Oof.
The Queen of Attolia
1. I laughed out loud when, at the top of the stairs, the Eddisian chaimberlain gives Irene shoes that are "a good fit." I get the impression that Gen was a bootboy mostly just in name, and we already knew that he had access to her shoes and anything else in her room, but ... :)
2. In the boat scene, Gen says that if the Medes invade "there will be an Eddis long after Sounis and Attolia are gone." Ouch.
3. Ok, so after finding out about Sandy/Brinna, I was in the camp that assumed that the sand was there to give Gen a hard time for not visiting his old friends (my reasoning was that if some of the court knew about his bootboy days, the kitchens also must), but from a conversation with Eddis, Gen says that the sand started appearing as soon as they reached the capital after the engagement, so it DOES seem most likely that it was because they DIDN'T know who he was. Poor Gen.
4. Mystery goddess: "You have much still to lose." Given what happens in TaT, I would like to say ouch, again. :(
The King of Attolia
1. "Costis was puzzling through the convolutions of human relationships, which were so unlike the neatly arranged patterns in a fireside story." EXCEPT WHEN THEY ARE... I've always liked this quote and how it runs up against the very relevant fireside stories in these books, but it's especially fun now that Costis's own relationships are very much like fireside stories. He ends the last book by committing to be like a character in a fireside story!
A Conspiracy of Kings
2. "I picked through Poers's arguments, looking for the places where one might suspect the author was concealing something, without knowing exactly what." Hm, Sophos, if only I could relate to you in this moment...
3. I used to kind of take Sophos' portrayal of Akretenesh and Melheret's superiority in this book with a grain of salt, and the two of them honestly seemed a little indistinguishable, but after reading a book from Kamet's (initially very imperialist) perspective, their characterization really clicked fo r.
4. I forgot about Polystrictes hiding in his well!
5. "Gen was practicing with a member of his guard" (before sparring with Melheret) ... Hm, Costis knows about Gen bugging Melheret, so, even if he isn't at the palace and/or gets that story secondhand, he's definitely in Attolia at the same time as Melheret. The ambassadors "newly arrived from distant parts of the world" are the reason for the parade in the prologue -- is Melheret one of those ambassadors? (Possible contradiction, describing his first time embarrassing himself in the Attolian throne room, Sophos says "I had forgotten the arrival of the ambassadors from the Continent" before noticing Melheret's party as well.) If so, this sort of helps us narrow down when Costis leaves for Medea! (Also, we know that Ornon is around for Sophos's first stay in Attolia -- can we assume that they traveled together?) Is it too good to be true that he's the one warming up with Gen? I would think he'd be doing more important things to prepare since being detached from the guard, but getting a demonstration of Mede swordplay from the man who trained Nahuseresh might actually be quite useful for someone who is about to go to Ianna-Ir and steal someone from under Nahuseresh's nose....
6. I tried to keep an eye out for clues about Attolia being pregnant but didn't notice anything besides Gen saying that he had asked to see Galen, which I think I remember people pointing out seven years ago, so that's nothing new.
7. When she confronts him in Elisa, Lady Hanaktia calls Sophos "great king" twice. Unlike Kamet, Sophos understands the connotations of "annux" and uses the word in chapter 15 (one of the third person chapters, though!) so we should assume that she literally is just saying "great king," right? It would be odd if she was calling him Annux...
8. In Eddis, Sophos's mother tells him, "You can't hide from someone in her own palace." It's a good point, but, in these books ... you certainly can. (Compare with "Kings don't move mountains as a favor to a friend" and "You've come from an audience with the king, but before that from the prisons. Not how an honored guest is usually received.")
Thick as Thieves
1) It's ... a beautiful thing that the very first thing that Costis says to Kamet is Kamet's name, but it takes Kamet 289 pages to say Costis's.
2. I think I saw something about this here or on tumblr, but the ring that Costis sells in Sherguz is not the same ring he wears in KoA. This one is gold rather than copper -- does that mean that it's not a ring of Miras (is it for Eugenides? Are rings a Eugenides thing?), or is it just a new, gold one because gold comes in handy when you lose most of your money in a river because you're carrying your traveling companion instead?
3. I read the miller's dog as Unse-sek at first, but now I think that it's the lion as much as it is anything...
4. Ennikar: "sometimes we mistake these things" If "these things" = "people being dead," then yes, definitely. Twice!
5. "I kept going until I could see his face, see every detail -- the quirk of his eyebrow, the twist at the corner of his mouth, the mark on his cheek... The quirk of his eybrow, huh? !!!
So ends my list. Thanks for reading it? I'm especially curious to hear if anyone came to different conclusions than I did, because, you know, sometimes we mistake these things.
