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

[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]

I kind of had the feeling of a little kid commenting on someone's disability when the kid ran up to Bren - it's hard to know just how young the kid was, since atevi are bigger, and how much it was "pointing out something adults pretend not to notice" (my reading of what "indiscreet" means in the definition for inshiebi) or how much it was deliberate.

[krait]

I kind of thought it was adorable. :D But then, I'm also a fan of Miles Vorkosigan, and I started remembering Ekaterin's concern over how her stepson was almost as tall as Miles... Hee!

Spoilerish comments regarding atevi height.