FOREIGNER: Discussion Post #6

[krait]

This is the discussion post for chapter 9-13.

I am now heartily wishing that I'd looked at chapter content as well as at page-counts, when setting up the reading schedule! (I thought even then it might bite me, and it has!) This reading was composed of a hundred pounds of action, a hundred pounds of disconnected info-bites, a thousand pounds of questions, and half a gram of explanations! My brain was churning faster than Babsidi's legs, but reached even fewer coherent thoughts than Bren manages.


On the other hand: yay, mecheiti icon becomes more appropriate than ever! :D

Comments

[cheyinka]

I tend to think getting smacked across the face is probably less serious, for atevi, than swearing, especially if it's at someone who's temporarily non compos mentis and might not be stopped by harsh language but might still stop at getting hit.

[krait]

Good point! :D They seem less interested in keeping their skins intact than humans generally are.

And maybe Jago has figured out that Bren's brain is processing too slowly right now, so she went with the obvious and un-misinterpretable way of conveying 'shut up and pay attention'?

[cheyinka]

Or even that, having done something totally insane like running after a subordinate, he might not understand a rebuke or parse a curse as a curse and not as praise ("if he's crazy enough to act totally opposite of a normal person, he might thank me for calling him a bastard!")

[krait]

Heehee! That's an idea! "He invites people to go to the moon, and makes propositions he doesn't mean, and sometimes believes we're all salad courses, so he'd probably take 'shut up you idiot' as some kind of bizarre Moon-Man flattery!"