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your unreliable narrator fucking bit me

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unfortunately the awful little freak everyone hates has saved the world so now we all have to try to be nice

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if your lie is a good enough lie god will make it real

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Anne-Marie Zanetti, (Australian, b. 1965) “Abundant”, oil on linen, 85 x 145 cm

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Mosaic from Pompeii; circa 100 BC.

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there are some things a character should not be able to tell us about themselves EVEN with a gun to their head. depending on the character that could even expand to include "most" things

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The thing about Queen's Thief is that the reveals that come with Gen's trickster type, don't just reveal that he is smarter or more skilled than the people around him (or the readers) thought, but also that he is more good than they originally thought. Gen's goodness is a part of the twist.

This is probably most prominent in King of Attolia where his surprising mercy is a huge part of the plot (and his genuine love and friendship). But it happens over and over again.

In The Thief we are led to believe that he is motivated primarily by self-interest and we are surprised by the depths of his loyalty, the generous affection that comes out for the Magus, and by the fact that he is actually primarily motivated by duty and love for his queen/favorite cousin/reigning bestie.

In Queen of Attolia the twist is that his actions which looked like generalized mischief and political power plays actually all spring from love, and that love arose initially from empathy with a girl's loneliness.

Or when he becomes king, and then it's revealed that yes he got what he wanted but actually this is an act of self sacrifice (for the sake of Irene and Hellen and Eddis).

And on and on.

The pettiness and the pride and the mischief for its own sake are all still there, but they coexist with this deep undercurrent of loyalty and duty and love and mercy and kindness. And when push comes to shove that undercurrent will always win out and its that which makes the twists so triumphant and satisfying.

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gen

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And Costis heard, as clearly as he'd heard the king speaking, another voice. It said, "Go to bed." Eugenides the man and Eugenides the God, an illustration of one of my favourite scenes from The King of Attolia! This was my gift for @etoilegarden for the @hamiathesgiftexchange!

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Cover of a Persian manuscript (Collected works of Hafiz, circa 1799).

Decorated with a design in watercolours of a bird amongst flowers painted onto lacquered leather then covered with more coats of lacquer.

National Library NZ on The Commons

Wikimedia.

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you’re gonna have to put yourself into a mesopotamian mindset

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The Epic of Gilgamesh illustrated by Wael Tarabieh (½)

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Eugenides leaving earrings at the altar of his god then leaving earrings for Irene I'm firing myself into the sun

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Audacity incarnate.

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The point of fiction is actually to put that guy in a situation™️, and he might try to tell you the point is to then get him out of the situation, WRONG, second situation

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the first and only rule of having fun in a fandom is picking a narratively insignificant or underappreciated character to be balls to the walls crazyinsane about

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me reading the thief: what the hell is wrong with this guy