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FOREIGNER: Discussion Post #2, Spoiler Edition
If you have discussion points for Chapters 1-2 you wish to bring up but which include spoilers, please post them here. Then link your comment in the general post, so those who want to avoid being spoiled can do so!
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It also really amused me to read about Bren dressing himself and braiding his own hair, when in not that many books he's going to sit and let someone do all of that even when there's a rush for time!
Also, either Bren is wrong or Cherryh changed her mind about how prevalent Assassins would be - Bren thinks that "Banichi, unlike the majority of the aiji's guards, had a license," and ISTM from later books that unless Tabini had a lot of guards (dozens), most of them would be Assassins. On the other hand, when Tabini announces his Intent, he specifically names which Assassin he will authorize to carry out the, uh, intent, so to speak, so maybe licensing is more a matter of being someone who acts publicly as an Assassin?
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I noticed that, too -- I hadn't quite remembered if he could braid his own hair adequately! :D Even funnier when I think that he's braiding his own hair and dressing himself, but just been informed he's going to be changing his own sheets... and compare that to his eventual position. Heh.
either Bren is wrong or Cherryh changed her mind
I made a little "!" by that in my copy. I suspect that Bren is just naive -- even in book 5 or whatever, remember how he's surprised when Banichi says the head of Damiri's staff was Guild? So either Bren's just naive, or Cherryh changed her mind and is cleverly covering that by implying Bren's naivete... :D
Given that comment by Banichi, it seems that pretty much everyone in the Guild knows each other, or at least those at the top know each other (presumably anyone high enough to be employed in the Bujavid is familiar with others in that ranking)...
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They -- or perhaps just Bren -- does seem to have at least some genuine concern for not repeating the problems of Earth's 21st century, too; Bren thinks of human records of human development on Mospheira, which "suggested, with the wisdom of hindsight, that consuming the planet's petrochemicals in a vast orgy of private transport wasn't the best long-range choice for the environment or the quality of life" and takes pride in the fact that "atevi had made enormous advances, and the air above the Bergid range still sparkled".
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Those 'heretics' have spawned some fan discussion somewhere before; people were pretty excited at the idea that there might be an atevi subgroup whose interactions were much closer to humans. (Arguable, for certain humans -- e.g. the party on Mospheira who wants to just massacre them all, whom I'm not exactly thrilled to share a species name with. I'd rather Banichi than the Humans First party.)
With society forcibly centralized under a Ragi aiji
One of the things I really liked about the later books was the way some of the ethnic divides amongst atevi come into play -- I felt it made the atevi much more, well, likely? believable? Anyway, yes -- Lord Geigi being a Maschi overlord whose demesne is mostly Edi was interesting and made me wonder a bit how things might have turned out if, say, the coastal people hadn't delayed so long on first contact that Manadgi's aiji pushed in first...
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Well, but while that might not be universal, it is human, isn't it? :D Whereas the Ragi and their neighbours seem to feel basic 'affection'/loyalty/fellowship only with those who have the same man'chi, the way we see with Jago and Banichi... They feel no compunction about attacking someone with clearly opposing man'chi, nothing like what Bren feels after wounding an unknown assailant in defence of his own life.
Granted, though, we're seeing security staff at those invasions, so maybe they get training the way human militaries do regarding killing? Do we ever get any inforrmation on what joining/being part of the Guild entails?
Heh, now I wonder: how does one become an assassin? Do Assassin parents go to their child's Career Dayy and explain the exciting satisfaction of hunting down targets for one's contractor, after the other parents have extolled the virtues of growing (not)wheat or fixing train engines? :D Does the Guild have a recruitment centre in the major cities, in an effort to collect likely young college-age pupils? Are there posters? Slogans, like the U.S. and its "Be All You Can Be" advertising?
Hmm, come to think of it: Army Of One? Applies to the Guild much better than it does to the U.S. Army! (AHAHAHAHA, SOMEOME WHO CAN DRAW: DRAW THAT RECRUITMENT POSTER, PLEASE!)
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We do get some hints of it in Deliverer and the two books after that, as Cajeiri's Taiben associates start preparing to learn how to be proper security staff.
What I mean about the man'chi-to-everyone thing is that as it stands right now, atevi can rationalize human behavior by saying that, okay, they don't say they feel man'chi, but they respect the treaty with Tabini-aiji and his predecessors, so that's close enough - but if atevi society did the have-man'chi-to-everyone thing, there'd be atevi trying to get humans to do, I guess, "individual treaties", rather than just being linked to the aiji, and that'd go pretty badly, since we just don't feel that emotion.
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some lord with one bodyguard and a dotted outline on the lord's other side - "The Guild wants YOU to make this group a felicitous number!"
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*Facepalm*!
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