FOREIGNER: Discussion Post #5

[krait]

Putting this up a bit late today; sorry to keep anyone waiting!

How have chapters 7 and 8 been treating you? Any new observations, theories, sore points, fabulous quotations?

Comments

thoughts

[krait]

Apologies for being a day late with my own comments; though I see I'm in good company. :D

Thoughts!

1. Bren with the tourists: how can he be so adorable? How can atevi tourists be so adorable? :D "Sign a card for me, nand' paidhi! Can I have a picture taken with you, nand' paidhi? Please remember my grandchildren, nand' paidhi!" Heeheehee! I melted. Wish Bren could meet the "average ateva on the street" more often, after this. He has a knack. :D

2. Proof Bren's security is highly trained and professional: the instant response to both the intruder and the social situation proves they aren't junior or incompetent staff... Making me all the more wildly curious about what went wrong earlier when Bren received the dowager's invitation.

3. Mild spoilers? Bren's reactions and, er, reactions.

4. The tenuous safety of Bren's position always startles me: his office might know he's not [insert excuse for why they couldn't reach him here], but they won't challenge the Bu-javid over the lie; they'd just try to find him so that they can make him a scapegoat and replace him.

5. Tabini's the "easiest" aiji humans have ever had to deal with! ...Why do I not feel terribly reassured? I suspected right from the first chapter, when Bren thinks about their little shooting vacation, that Tabini has studied humans intensively and is very, very good at manipulating them; I'm not sure how he did it, but I'm more convinced than ever now.

6. Banichi invites himself to dinner with Bren? After refusing to accompany Bren to breakfast with Ilisidi on the grounds that it was rude?

7. Chilling discussion with Banichi over man'chi!

"And how can you defend anything? No one understands your associations. [...] Even I don't know that absolutely, nadi. I know only what you tell me."

and questions

[krait]

1. Where is Bren's security going all the time? The nearest airport is quite far away, as I remember, and unless they've their own private vehicles (despite the lack of roads), I'm not sure where exactly they're always disappearing to!

Into the town, perhaps on mecheiti, to make communications in guaranteed non-overheard-ness, or send documents? Into the hills, to set up some kind of shelter, or trap, or...?

Or are they lying to Bren about being away, and really just down the hall in their security station doing Things Bren Doesn't Need To Know About? If so, what things?

What's your reading of the Mysterious Absences Of Security, everyone? I need some backup brains, here!

2. Does "dragonettes" bother anyone else, grammatically speaking? :D

3. What is Tabini thinking, with the television interview which he surely knows Bren isn't authorised by his own people to give?! After packing him off into out-of-sight-out-of-mind obscurity, too! Even with this not being my first time reading this book, I'm surprised by this -- is it just a very large gamble on whether he can force Bren to act for him beyond Mospheira's oversights? Is it a test of Bren's claim to hold/understand man'chi (again, a very public one involving the reputations of dozens of his own associates)?

4. Could atevi thought be more compartmentalised than humans manage? Several times now we've had an ateva tell Bren, essentially, 'don't worry, return to whatever you were doing', and some hints that they can do just that when (to a human) nerve-wracking things happen. Maybe atevi brains are faster to "come down" from adrenaline highs, and/or their equivalent fight/flight hormones are faster-dissipating?

It could account for both the blase attitudes toward violence/unexpected events, and their apparently serious advice to Bren that he disregard the power outages and go back to mental shopping for skis. Maybe even contributes to needing less sleep, if they do? Less emotional tension over everyday events = less need to process things subconsciously via dreaming?

[pebblerocker]

Some of my very favourite parts in this section! Bren running into the tourists and being polite and charming, and having them tell him about their grandchildren -- lovely! He's probably met no ordinary atevi in his life, only aijiin, politicians and servants, so this was a good glimpse for us of everyday lives and families and most educational for him. Possibly something no paidhi since Ian Bretano has had?

"I'm that tall, look!" Yes, that was very inshiebi and deserved a reprimand; on the other hand, one does not make the grade as paidhi-candidate if overly touchy about one's height, I'm sure!

I do wonder what smiling for the camera "atevi-style" looks like.

Another Djinana bit I really loved: he insists Bren can't have just toast for dinner after missing lunch, and when Bren admits his difficulty with the wild reptile of the season he has "a most conspiratorial look" when suggesting the leftover smoked meat, and is very pleased with himself to be able to bend the rules of kabiu enough to provide something the guest likes. [That's atevi like, of course.)

Banichi is unusually forthcoming over dinner: how the assassin got in, that Cenedi was the one who shot him, that he had the same teachers as Banichi did at assassin college (!), some details of where and how they're investigating, what they did with the body... as well as where Algini and Jago are, which is something the bodyguards often seem to think their charge doesn't need to know.

Another part I really love:
"There were children in that crowd! They saw a man shot!" says Bren.
"Yes, and?" says Banichi.
"It's not right. They thought it was a play!"
"Then they were hardly offended."

LOL! Some parts of atevi culture and thought are really, shockingly alien to humans.

[cheyinka]

The tourists! Seeing poor Bren just come back from riding - it makes me wonder if some of the surprise might be just because it was the paidhi not looking immaculate the way he always has on television! And then Tano scolds Bren, but nobody told Bren... poor Bren.

And then he thinks about Barb - could he really bring a wife with him? I think even if Barb wouldn't "die of boredom and frustration" that'd be a bad idea, even if he did love her rather than need her for occasional human company. (This doesn't make Bren sound like a great guy.)

He still doesn't trust Tano, it seems - I'm sure the rebuke that he had no way to expect doesn't help. But then he trusts Tano more than he trusts Djinana or Maigi...

Now he starts worrying that the Treaty might be collapsing - but he dismisses the worry immediately! Argh!

And then Jago goes back to Shejidan, or Banichi tells Bren she has... and "he didn't even ask why", which makes sense, but he doesn't even seem to wonder why! (Though it seems she really did go, because she's escorting the remains of the assassin - who was not just a little-a assassin, but a big-a Assassin, licensed to carry out assassinations, no less, but without a filing to justify it...)

"I have confidence in your professional instincts. Have confidence in mine." Aha! Banichi agrees with me that Bren's best when he's acting on instinct! :D

I have never ridden - is Bren's experience like that of a really really bad rider on a horse, or twice or ten times as bad...? He certainly seems miserable, no matter how much fun mecheita-riding seems to be to me.

"I've never betrayed you. I will not, Bren-ji," has the same emotional impact it did when I first read this! In a language that judges by previous actions and future intent, how else to say "you can trust me"? :3

And then another cliffhanger ending!

[spaceoperadiva]

I also loved Bren with the tourists. The part with the kid comparing heights reminded me of another discussion about Bren being "coded female". I don't think he really is coded female; he seems very male to me and this part, where he is compared to a kid in size emphasizes that for me. He's not woman-sized in comparison to Atevi, he's child-sized. Scary. :)

The first time I read this and this time as well, it seems to me that Banichi is being deliberately provocative during their dinner together. Like he's up to something. Emphasized by Jago's "I've never betrayed you. . ." speech.

Bren, why are you answering Cenedi's summons? TSTL, much?