#ttd's bartseq reread

Beautiful girl (ch 1 and 3)

Phoenix (ch 6)

Sumerian boy (ch 6)

Hippo in a skirt (ch 11)

Bearded traveller (ch 15)

White winged man (ch 15)

Kusarikku (ch 23)

Many youths (ch 24)

Cricket (ch 26)

Giant gecko (ch 26)

Curl of mist (ch 28)

Served for many years, since he was a thin pale youth ✔️

The first great spirit he summoned, quietly and in secret, in defiance of the rules ✔️

With him as he learned his power and waxed in strenght ✔️

By his side as he killed a figure of authority higher than him in the hierarchy ✔️

And, of course,

And if you work hard and do everything your master tells you, one day you will go there [to the House of Parliament] too, and I will be as proud of you as can be.

Amulet of Samarkand, chapter 8

She's kind, and she's loving. And she still says all these things to a little child.

Perhaps because she truly believes them, or perhaps because it's the quickest way to get him to behave with Underwood so that he may be punished less.

But she says it.

And I do not fault her for not taking Nat and running in a world where her husband, mediocre a magician as he may be, could still summon enough low ranking spirits to find them.

But for saying these words, perhaps I fault her a little bit.

After all,

In return for her affection, Nathaniel rewarded Mrs Underwood with open devotion. He hung on every word and followed her directions in everything.

and so, for the only person who shows care for him,

The Ring of Solomon - chapter 15

I can't help but think about the in universe implications of Bartimaeus caring so much about his human disguises appearing beautiful (see, too, the girl from the first chapter and the Sumerian boy).

Asmira points it out too:

"Unlike the horrors that had attacked the caravan. Unlike its own companion [...] this spirit concealed his wickedness beneath a pleasant form."

Of course there's the matter of pride, in a sense: a disguise requires fantasy, attention to detail, artistry, all things Bartimaeus takes pride in.

But also.

It means that he has an opinion on the beauty of humans.

For as much as he vocally disparages the inefficient, gross, biology of humans, he has preferences, traits he thinks beautiful. And it's not a matter of necessity, since he does it even when he's alone, while ugly and gross appearances are mostly reserved to mock or horrify.

'Fly east to Babylon,' he said. 'One hundred miles south-east of that dread city, and thirty miles of the Euphrates 's current course, lie certain mounds of ancient diggings, set about with fragments of wind-blown wall. The local peasants avoid the ruins for fear of ghosts, while any nomads keep their flocks beyond the furthest tumuli. The only inhabitants of the region are religious zealots and other madmen, but the site was not always so desolate. Once it had a name.'

'Eridu,' I said softly. 'I know.'²

² Eridu of the Seven Temples, the bone white city, glittering in green field. One of the earliest cities of men . In its days its ziggurats rose high as a falcon's flight, and the scent of its spice markets drifted on the winds as far as Uruk and the sea... Then the river changed its course, the land went dry. The people grew thin and cruel; their temples toppled into dust, and they and their past were utterly forgotten. Except by spirits such as me. And, naturally — whenever their gold lust overcame their fears — by magicians too.

Even this soon, before Ptolemy, Bartimaeus lets through a measure of his character: he remembers.

He remembers, with far more kindness than the magician does, the city and the people.

He remembers the name, in a world where names hold immense power, and he says it softly.

As she summons him, she has to reckon with Bartimaeus's strenght. She can feel his power pressing against her bindings.

And when he appears, he's in the form of a kusarikku, "demonic" and so "different from the pleasant guise [from] the day before", but still. She "can make use of it all the same".

She's tired, and tense. She's doing something dangerous that she's unfamiliar with.

But she's not unfamiliar to danger, and she's bolstered by her duty, therefore the unforeseen strength of the djinni has to fade in the background.

And then she gives out her orders.

Asmira had expected the djinni to say something after her revelation — he had not been exactly short of comments hitherto. But instead his stillness deepened, and the little flames that had been flickering around the contours of his body dwindled suddenly and went out.

Still as a stone he stood, and as silent as one too — yet the silence he projected was utterly ferocious. It filled the room like a poisoned cloud, bearing down upon her with such intensity that her knees began to buckle. Quite unconsciously, she took a step back.

We lose Bartimaeus for two pages and a half. He's in the scene, but he's not responding in any way, except for the oppressive strength of his displeasure with the situation:

The figure said nothing. It was wreathed in smoke, a dark and frozen thing.

A cold breeze seemed to waft across her neck.

The djinni did not move. Even the fires in his yellow eyes seemed to have died away.

He is not responding, until she raises her voice causing "a stirring in the slender body".

And when he speaks, "the voice was very soft".

It's such a contrast to the Bartimaeus we know, loud and talkative, opinionated. Often, humiliated in the face of his vanity and boasting.

He's silent, still.

And he feels actually dangerous.

I don't have a closing quip about it, except for the fact that we can still feel the effects of such shock in the following chapter, as a manic sort of energy carries him through the palace.

But still, before going off to his death with Asmira, he tries to make her understand:

His shape suddenly blurred; it became a succession of tousled, wide-eyed youths, tall, short, handsome, plain, with skins of many nations. The last was the beautiful, dark-haired guise she remembered from the gorge, but this time wingless, sober-faced.

Faces of young people who died, to him, for no reason of note and he remembers them.

And when Asmira talks of the beauty of Sheba, and its cities and its gardens, he answers with memories of Uruk the city he kept in his name, of the fountains where children played, of its towers and garden.

Just like he talks about Eridu in the very first chapter.