One of the things I love and appreciate about The Goblin Emperor is that Katherine Addison has the guts not to give Maia any real loopholes to get out of the system.
Maia is incredibly kind and compassionate, and its inescapably obvious that his kindness and compassion are why he manages to be a successful emperor in the end. But at the same time, one of Maia's jobs is to be the Trolley Problem Operator and the book ends with executions.
And I like that. When I was younger I liked it when protagonists discovered the Secret Third Option at the last minute. It seemed heroic. Now, it mostly irritates me.
the thing I love most about this is that not only did Shulivar realise there was a secret third option - he was the only one who was thinking about Maia as a part of the line of succession at all. literally everyone else had forgotten about him let alone considered him as a potential Emperor.
Tethimar had a whole plan to remove the entire line of succession but he'd forgotten about Maia, who would've become Emperor even if the assassination had happened after his marriage to Vedero. but if it had happened then, Tethimar would have had a much more solid position with much more broad support to push for power and authority from. including the support of Chavar and SheveƤn. which would likely have led to their attempted "non-violent" coup being much more lethal and successful.
Idra likely wouldn't have survived long, but SheveƤn and Chavar were definitely not thinking about that. the only ones who were considering the historically short lifespans of boy emperor's were Maia and Idra. and likely Tethimar, but that was likely part of the goal in his case.
but Shulivar remembered Maia's existence and was the only one amongst the Curneisei side of the conspirators who understood enough of the politics to know that Tethimar and his faction weren't actually their allies and were in fact the ones who were advocating for their oppression.
like, Maia literally brings up that Varenechibel was trying to improve things and Shulivar's response is "Against the stiff opposition of the east". Tethimar and his faction were all eastern nobles. this is why Maia realises that Shulivar's betrayal of Tethimar wasn't actually an accident or a miscommunication.
Shulivar was the only one of the Curneisei who understood that Tethimar and his faction were the center of the actual political problem preventing change. Shulivar's "betrayal" was actually an intentional political maneuver to undermine Tethimar's play for power in favour of someone that no one else was thinking of who is also half goblin and thus likely has very different political views to anyone else in the line of succession.
Shulivar basically looked at Tethimar asking them to kill the Emperor so he could take over and went "Huh. That's not a bad idea. But I don't want you in power either. What other options are there? Oooh, he looks promising! Let's go with him, instead!"
