Eugenides

"I will give the stone to Sounis of course. He will be king. I will be the King's Thief," [said the magus].

This pricked my professional pride. I was going to do the stealing, and he was going to take the credit. His name would be carved in stone on a stele outside the basilica, and mine would be written in the dust.

OH!!

it’s probably a coincidence

but what if it isn’t????

maybe it is

Helen: Hey Irene! You wanna be in a snowball fight with us?

Irene: I’ve never actually been in a snowball fight.

Helen: Really?

Irene: I don’t even know the rules.

MoW bringing the BDE (Big Dad Energy).

“Your Majesty…”

The king rubbed his hand over his face. “And I was just thinking of you, and here you are, you poor silly bastard, trying to tell me to get down off this wall.”

1) First, the chest punch of Gen wouldn’t be king if he had two hands. Not just because of the path it put him on with Attolia, but nothing could have convinced him to stop being Thief. The gods narrowed his options.

…a harsh voice Costis had never heard…

Moira: You really should talk to him.

Eugenides: You can’t reward bad behavior. That’s bad godding. Reinforcement.

Moira: He’s doing a drunk handstand.

Eugenides: He’s deliberately showing off. I thought that Costis was going to be a balancing influencer, but nOOOoooo

Moira: He’s falling

Eugenides: OH SHID GOTTA GO

She freaking told us.

She freaking TOLD US and we were still surprised by the well.

Gen summons Sophos for another discussion. It’s stilted and awkward and impersonal. Finally at the very end, he breaks and asks if Sophos likes the wardrobe. He won’t even look at Sophos when he asks. Sophos mentions the pockets are weird. That’s as far as it goes.

“I’m not swearing any oaths to her,” said Eddis.

Sounis laughed. “I should hope not.”

Eddis changed the subject then, asking, “Do you sleep? You look tired.”

Like, girl… the rumors about Eugenides sleeping with Eddis don’t piss you off because it strengthens the Eddisian court. You don’t secretly wish that someone would sneak into your bedroom at night because you feel guilty about hurting them and want to apologize.

I think it’s one of those… really tragic things about Irene, that not only does she not recognize these as romantic feelings, but that she can’t. Even when Eugenides proposes to her, her mind doesn’t go “oh, that’s what’s been happening.” She has such a mental block that she can’t conceive of herself as a soft, romantic, loving, lovable person. She scorns the very idea of marrying Eugenides, and when he confesses that he loves her, she reacts with anger and hostility even though we the readers can see that she has feelings for him, too.

And it keeps going! If this were a romantic comedy, things would have been hunky dory from the minute she recognizes her feelings, at that moment when she thinks Eugenides is poisoned and realizes she “could” have loved him. But no! Eugenides makes a lighthearted joke about their married life and she snaps at him. Throughout the negotiations, she refuses to believe that their feelings are actually genuine, to the point where two people loving each other and wanting to get married is more complicated than drawing up a peace treaty between two warring nations!

Kamet went back for Costis and

I stretched my neck and turned my head, listening for any sign of life, and impale myself on a splinter of broken wood.

“Monsters of hell,” I whispered sharply, pulling away from the splinter that was sticking into my skin perilously close to my eye.

“But he did a good job! He should get my mark of approval!”