FOREIGNER: Discussion Post #2, Spoiler Edition

[krait]

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!

Comments

[cheyinka]

Right now (Ch. 1 & 2) he reminds me a lot of Tully, from the Chanur books, if Tully could speak hani without a machine translator.

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?

[krait]

One other thing that my rereading perspective gave me:

4. Bren's still a baby at this job in a lot of ways -- seems uncomfortably perched between humans and atevi. He's not at all comfortable with atevi violence, security, assassination, lack of convenience food, or -- sometimes -- manners (he lets his face show his emotions, he gets snappy/impolite when tired, ). On the other hand, he uses atevi vocabulary unconsciously (he mentions reading the junk mail he gets as being a chance to think in English), isn't uncomfortable with servants, has done years of work to reach this position, which is definitely no sinecure: Bren mentions "studying and competing for years to be the paidhi, and becoming, in sum, fluent in a language in which human words and human thought didn't neatly translate", so we know his skill level and talents are out of the usual already.

And he's not surefooted on the human side, either -- he's dangerously close, I felt, to considering Tabini a friend after their little outing in the countryside, and he's willing to keep his own superiors in the dark regarding some actions/requests of Tabini's... and even refrains from telling them about his current situation until it's too late...

[cheyinka]

pebblerocker commented on the non-spoiler post that "trained linguists listening to [Ian Bretano's] first conversations would have had a better starting point than a biologist, assuming the ship had anyone interested in languages, which isn't a given."

Taylor's Children knew about the atevi, right? I know they were trained to be super-polyglots because of linguistic drift between the ship-humans and the Mospheirans, and I know in Book 2 we find out that at least part of the reason for the Guild opposing the landings was the existence of an intelligent indigenous species, but I don't know whether there were already linguists. ISTM there might not have been, meaning Ian might really have been the best suited for the job!

continued from Post #2

[krait]

SPOILERS for later in Foreigner; this comment is part of this thread about Chapter 1.

Bren mentions during the ride with the dowager that atevi can be reckless when testing a new arrival in a group; Bren even calls it a "aggressive" impulse, and suggests that they're undisturbed by pushing those tests to near-deadly levels. Which suggests to me that, in some situations at least, even an average, non-Security ateva is more comfortable with the implications of violence than Bren/an average human, and may not understand the strength of his reaction to the attempt on his life.

(Although what reeeeeally intrigued me was the mention of Tabini's court -- and Tabini -- doing exactly that "testing" on Bren when he first arrived! Creepy and no little disturbing, but I'm still curious about how Bren managed it and what it added to his character!)