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

[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!

[krait]

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.

Well, aside from the increased chance of being gored and/or trampled, it's rather horselike. :D Especially the accidental split lip (you can do that when jumping, if you're leaning too far forward when the neck comes up) and the going-in-circles (try dropping a rein sometime -- embarrassing AND dizzying, esp. if the horse steps on it!) and the intimate bruising. :D Though I have never been quite as saddlesore as poor Bren, I have also never spent hours on essentially a runaway horse -- mecheiti seem to travel faster, and over rougher terrain, than I've dealt with), and what I have dealt with makes it sound reasonable!

"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

That scene hits me every time. :D Maybe if she knew that Mosphei' had a word for that, she'd feel less frustrated about how to convince Bren...?

another cliffhanger ending!

Heh, I was afraid of this when I was writing up chapter sets! I knew there was the chance, going strictly on page counts, that I'd end up breaking the plot into dangling chunks... And it's happened! (Wonder if that's a usual novel structure? "Throw a cliffhanger at them every 60 pages or so for ideal pacing"? Hmmmm.)