#tkoa

I'm starry-eyed laughing out loud glued to the page I am ENTERTAINED

What was boring and incomprehensible upon the first read is the icing on the cake when you know. The drama. The theatrics. The subtle hints at EVERY corner that nothing is what it seems.

Look it's not the second read that has me hooked on Costis' poor existence it's the THIRD read which has me keeling over.

It takes time to understand!!! Time to get the elaborate production of outsmarting one's enemies and their intrigues. It takes so much time to see Gen's hands in every scene, even when he is not in the room at the moment - oh my gosh, the way the supposed puppet is the puppeteer all along, maaaaaan whaaaaat am I really only starting to discover the symbolism of this series now???

The incredible way that I can sort of start guessing which parts of Gen's actions are clearly staged and where he actually messes up because he is just human as well... the way his consistent lateness is profound and to be given stern attention to...

And do you want to know the best part?? There are STILL scenes that I don't fully understand. There will possibly be MORE for me to discover on an eventual fourth read.

Also POOR COSTIS oh maaaan. Gen is toying with him and Costis is as thick as a skull about it because it's not that he's not smart - he's actually very smart - it's that Gen is just such a foreign concept to him, completely out of his area of expertise, so that Costis struggles to see past what's right in front of him.

Gosh.

me, listening to folklore bc it slaps

Peace starts to play

“But there’s robbers to the east/clowns to the west/I’d give you my sunshine/give you my best/but the rain is always gonna come/if you’re standing with me”

Eugenides gave up being comfortable and loved in Eddis to be despised and harassed in Attolia, and though Irene loves him those things still cause him to suffer and miss home

“All these people think love’s for show/but I would die for you in secret”

WHEN I TELL YOU THIS WRECKED ME

“Would it be enough/if I could never give you peace”

Eugenides brings peace to everyone else, he steals peace for Eddis, he sits in stillness and quiet to give Irene a sense of peace, he takes on the heavy weight of being Annux to give the little Peninsula peace, but every move brings him further away from the peace he had living in his library. The very act of marrying Irene meant plunging himself into a court that despised him, where even his attendants make every effort to disrupt his life.

Gen: no, of course not.

Gen's inner dialogue: