As far as spoilers go, I've read the whole series, but I am really bad at remembering what happens when in a long series of books; doing it with only what has been 'officially' read so far makes it easier not to accidentally spoil later books. The first thing I noticed is that Bren is using the atevi word for the clicking bird or lizard or whatever (o'oi-ana); either the humans adopted the word, or he doesn't use the human word.
Next, of course, is the description of firing a pistol - it always delights me when that's done accurately. It also means that they're definitely more technologically advanced than M.'s time; a pistol that can just be pulled out from under a mattress and fired is not something that a culture that sees any advanced machine as clockwork is likely to produce.
Bren is obviously familiar with Banichi and Jago, but he's also afraid of them, and he clearly has no guards of his own, or the habit of keeping door-sized windows closed and locked at night, despite living somewhere that assassins are common - "Assassins, he understood; but that any ordinary assassin should come into the residential compound [...] nobody in their right mind would do that." Despite the whole, you know, living around assassins thing, he doesn't seem like he's normally afraid of things.
In the next section there's television, and servants bringing breakfast - which was dissonant then (not as much now - see my comment on the spoiler post) because, you know, modern handgun, television... servants as a matter of course? It's not even that they're the people who bring everyone on the garden court breakfast, because Bren thinks of them as his servants.
It made me wonder whether humans had servants, too; it seems strange for a culture with space-level technology to have them as a matter of course, and of course even if it was bizarre to Bren before, he's been the paidhi for a while, but it was another "this is an alien culture" moment for me.
Bren's pretty comfortable with walking right up to Tabini-aiji's chair, and Tabini's clearly comfortable enough with him to joke with him - not only is Bren enough of a presence that those who are normally at court don't take his alien-ness as noteworthy, he's got some kind of real relationship with Tabini. (I mean, if Tabini taking him shooting and giving him an illegal gun wasn't a sign of that already.)
He's comfortable enough as "the paidhi" that he doodles during the energy council meeting - though possibly that's because he can't speak in the meeting unless invited to do so (!). He's apparently very interested in making sure that the aiji of the Ragi stays in power and that the system doesn't become decentralized, which strikes me as weird and possibly a bad idea (why are humans preventing atevi from developing a less-centralized society? just so that humans don't get wiped out?)
On the other hand, he's still uncomfortable with atevi having man'chi instead of personal relationships, and repeatedly fails to interact 'normally' with Jago - on the other hand, she doesn't scare him like Banichi does, and he's not afraid of accidentally offending her.
As far as the rest of atevi society goes, apparently an armed society is a polite society, because there's one jail and four "labor-prisons" for three hundred million atevi, none of which seem overcrowded. Assassins must be licensed, and intent must be filed before an individual assassination is attempted. You have to "file on" someone before attempting to kill them. Tabini thought it was acceptable, though not the best course of action, for a woman to "register a feud" with her ex-husband.
And! It looks like the first paidhi was Ian - Bren remembers him as Bretano, but it seems like it'd be the same guy, even though that was 20+ years after first contact.
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branchandroot
and on that farm there was a o'oi-ana, e i e i o
Date: 2011-06-07 04:59 pm (UTC)The first thing I noticed is that Bren is using the atevi word for the clicking bird or lizard or whatever (o'oi-ana); either the humans adopted the word, or he doesn't use the human word.
Next, of course, is the description of firing a pistol - it always delights me when that's done accurately. It also means that they're definitely more technologically advanced than M.'s time; a pistol that can just be pulled out from under a mattress and fired is not something that a culture that sees any advanced machine as clockwork is likely to produce.
Bren is obviously familiar with Banichi and Jago, but he's also afraid of them, and he clearly has no guards of his own, or the habit of keeping door-sized windows closed and locked at night, despite living somewhere that assassins are common - "Assassins, he understood; but that any ordinary assassin should come into the residential compound [...] nobody in their right mind would do that." Despite the whole, you know, living around assassins thing, he doesn't seem like he's normally afraid of things.
In the next section there's television, and servants bringing breakfast - which was dissonant then (not as much now - see my comment on the spoiler post) because, you know, modern handgun, television... servants as a matter of course? It's not even that they're the people who bring everyone on the garden court breakfast, because Bren thinks of them as his servants.
It made me wonder whether humans had servants, too; it seems strange for a culture with space-level technology to have them as a matter of course, and of course even if it was bizarre to Bren before, he's been the paidhi for a while, but it was another "this is an alien culture" moment for me.
Bren's pretty comfortable with walking right up to Tabini-aiji's chair, and Tabini's clearly comfortable enough with him to joke with him - not only is Bren enough of a presence that those who are normally at court don't take his alien-ness as noteworthy, he's got some kind of real relationship with Tabini. (I mean, if Tabini taking him shooting and giving him an illegal gun wasn't a sign of that already.)
He's comfortable enough as "the paidhi" that he doodles during the energy council meeting - though possibly that's because he can't speak in the meeting unless invited to do so (!). He's apparently very interested in making sure that the aiji of the Ragi stays in power and that the system doesn't become decentralized, which strikes me as weird and possibly a bad idea (why are humans preventing atevi from developing a less-centralized society? just so that humans don't get wiped out?)
On the other hand, he's still uncomfortable with atevi having man'chi instead of personal relationships, and repeatedly fails to interact 'normally' with Jago - on the other hand, she doesn't scare him like Banichi does, and he's not afraid of accidentally offending her.
As far as the rest of atevi society goes, apparently an armed society is a polite society, because there's one jail and four "labor-prisons" for three hundred million atevi, none of which seem overcrowded. Assassins must be licensed, and intent must be filed before an individual assassination is attempted. You have to "file on" someone before attempting to kill them. Tabini thought it was acceptable, though not the best course of action, for a woman to "register a feud" with her ex-husband.
And! It looks like the first paidhi was Ian - Bren remembers him as Bretano, but it seems like it'd be the same guy, even though that was 20+ years after first contact.
More commentary is at the spoiler post.