-- Bren puts too much reliance on that nonfatal tea! Just because she didn't want to kill you then doesn't mean she won't off you after having some time to observe you...
-- I love that Bren's junkmail is stolen and sold on the black market! To crazy atevi who think skiing looks like fun and they don't need instructions, they'll just figure it out by pictures and guesswork. *facepalming*
-- Paidhiin have to consult; atevi initially didn't expect this, but it's now known to pretty much all the court in Shejidan. And Bren doesn't think Malguri is less informed than the court. So all the pushing they've been doing (and Tabini, too) -- is completely deliberate, and done in full knowledge that what Bren agrees to is technically out of his authority. Still trying to find out whom he favours?
-- I like the various workarounds humans have developed for diplomacy's sake -- "the numbers describe the universe, and how can the universe be infelicitous?" and the avoidance of any mention of limitlessness/infinity.
-- Tabini calls Ilisidi "my favorite enemy" in his letter! Somehow that really makes me grin. :D
-- I love the idea of an atevi paidhi-to-humans! Wish that had happened! Wish there was a novel about it, too! :D
-- Are there really a dozen "painless" methods of suicide? Especially for a man alone in a dark basement, restrained?
-- EGAD, the balcony scene blows me away! Utterly. "My eyes aren't what they were. When I was your age I could see your orbiting station. Can you, from here?" -- Ilisidi, you are...!
I think part of the impact for me is that Bren has been genuinely, totally clueless until now, and in addition to SO MUCH clicking into place, I'm also wondering what Ilisidi and Cenedi can see on his face in that moment. I suspect that nobody believed just how uninformed he was... And a great deal of their confusion and distrust of his every word was on that account. Now... do they see? Do they believe? That the paidhi is the last to know, that he has had no pressing motive for lying, no inkling that anything more is at stake upon his answers than there was a month ago?
Can they feel empathy at all, for a man in a position distant from and betrayed by his own "aijiin", or is it all their attention still focused on their own plans?
-- Of the sciences left to humans alone, add human history: no one told the atevi about the power struggle between the shipborn and the stationers. Wonder why? Too busy trying to convey the very basics ("We got lost, we had enough fuel to get here, the station broke down and we had nowhere else to go"), and/or present themselves in the best light?
-- Ilisidi's comment that "Tabini placed great confidence in you -- too damned much confidence in you" is a startling mirror of what Bren's been thinking for the last half-book, to wit: "I was too confident in my relationship with Tabini, have I screwed up everything for my species?"
-- Linguistic moment: Ilisidi knows all the good swear-words! "Baji-naji, nand' paidhi. Fortune has a human face and bastard Chance whores drunken down your streets." Given the atevi emphasis on politeness and Bren's commentary on "damn" being verboten, would he even know the words she uses? Maybe only in a "be sure you never, ever mangle a similar word into this" sort of way?
-- Restorative powers of tea! A pot later, Bren's something like back on his game, catching onto the dowager's push/challenge to leave.
thoughts and reactions, chapters 9-11
-- Bren puts too much reliance on that nonfatal tea! Just because she didn't want to kill you then doesn't mean she won't off you after having some time to observe you...
-- I love that Bren's junkmail is stolen and sold on the black market! To crazy atevi who think skiing looks like fun and they don't need instructions, they'll just figure it out by pictures and guesswork. *facepalming*
-- Paidhiin have to consult; atevi initially didn't expect this, but it's now known to pretty much all the court in Shejidan. And Bren doesn't think Malguri is less informed than the court. So all the pushing they've been doing (and Tabini, too) -- is completely deliberate, and done in full knowledge that what Bren agrees to is technically out of his authority. Still trying to find out whom he favours?
-- I like the various workarounds humans have developed for diplomacy's sake -- "the numbers describe the universe, and how can the universe be infelicitous?" and the avoidance of any mention of limitlessness/infinity.
-- Tabini calls Ilisidi "my favorite enemy" in his letter! Somehow that really makes me grin. :D
-- I love the idea of an atevi paidhi-to-humans! Wish that had happened! Wish there was a novel about it, too! :D
-- Are there really a dozen "painless" methods of suicide? Especially for a man alone in a dark basement, restrained?
-- EGAD, the balcony scene blows me away! Utterly. "My eyes aren't what they were. When I was your age I could see your orbiting station. Can you, from here?" -- Ilisidi, you are...!
I think part of the impact for me is that Bren has been genuinely, totally clueless until now, and in addition to SO MUCH clicking into place, I'm also wondering what Ilisidi and Cenedi can see on his face in that moment. I suspect that nobody believed just how uninformed he was... And a great deal of their confusion and distrust of his every word was on that account. Now... do they see? Do they believe? That the paidhi is the last to know, that he has had no pressing motive for lying, no inkling that anything more is at stake upon his answers than there was a month ago?
Can they feel empathy at all, for a man in a position distant from and betrayed by his own "aijiin", or is it all their attention still focused on their own plans?
-- Of the sciences left to humans alone, add human history: no one told the atevi about the power struggle between the shipborn and the stationers. Wonder why? Too busy trying to convey the very basics ("We got lost, we had enough fuel to get here, the station broke down and we had nowhere else to go"), and/or present themselves in the best light?
-- Ilisidi's comment that "Tabini placed great confidence in you -- too damned much confidence in you" is a startling mirror of what Bren's been thinking for the last half-book, to wit: "I was too confident in my relationship with Tabini, have I screwed up everything for my species?"
-- Linguistic moment: Ilisidi knows all the good swear-words! "Baji-naji, nand' paidhi. Fortune has a human face and bastard Chance whores drunken down your streets." Given the atevi emphasis on politeness and Bren's commentary on "damn" being verboten, would he even know the words she uses? Maybe only in a "be sure you never, ever mangle a similar word into this" sort of way?
-- Restorative powers of tea! A pot later, Bren's something like back on his game, catching onto the dowager's push/challenge to leave.