Tahamenay - Tumblr Posts

“vixen” nickname drop for Tahamenay, I didn't remember this one, there was another mention (two other mentions) where the nickname popped up.

HILMES NO. HILMES BAD.

As much as I know, Andragoras and Tahamine adopted Arslan because Tahamine gave birth to a baby girl, and after that she can't have baby anymore. But why Andragoras didn't try to have other babies with other women? Is there any explanation?

Okay, warning for novel spoilers.

First, the truth about the child born to Andragoras and Tahamenay. The baby was a son rather than a daughter, but unfortunately it was stillborn. This is revealed by Zahhak in Book 16:

'"If Tahamenay had given birth to the child without mishap, things would have turned out differently. Since the son born to that woman was stillborn, Andragoras panicked and staged a foolish charade. No only did he bring in someone else's son, but he also bought three baby girls, gave them the appropriate silver bracelets and sent them off to separate parts of the country. This was all for the sake of preventing the infertile Tahamenay from committing suicide."' (Book 16, Chapter Five, Part ii)

You're right that Tahamenay was left infertile after giving birth. I assume the birth itself must have been pretty traumatic for those who attended her to know this was the case right away, as if Andragoras had believed she was able to give him more children, I doubt he would have gone to all this effort.

As for why he didn't father children with anyone else, as far as I know there are no details about this, but we can make some guesses.

Andragoras doesn't seem to particularly care about the continuation of the royal line. He sees it for what it is, and in all honestly I think he gets a grim sense of satisfaction from hinting at the unpleasant truth while never revealing it in full, and was fully prepared to let the line die out after his death. I'm sure that in an ideal world he'd have liked to have his son inherit, but when that's not possible (specifically, when it's not possible for him to have another child with Tahamenay), from his point of view, a substitute will do.

He needed an heir in order to maintain stability in his rule, which is likely a big motivation for taking Arslan. By the time Arslan is named Crown Prince and officially designated as his heir, five years have passed. During that time, perhaps he held on to some hope that Tahamenay would somehow conceive again, but after five years it must have been apparent that it truly was impossible.

I do think, in the absence of a biological child with Tahamenay, he fully intended for Arslan to become Shah after his death, but was more interested in preserving his own power during his lifetime than he was in setting Arslan up for success.

For Andragoras, I think his biggest motivation was "having". The throne. The wealth and power that came with it. Pars itself. And Tahamenay as his queen. He wanted more than anything to possess her, and he did it by controlling her since he couldn't force her to love him and he knew that without believing she had a living child out there somewhere, she would find a way to escape by killing herself. Perhaps he was even so obsessed with her that no other woman would do. I believe all of this mattered more to him than thinking about what would happen to the country after his own death. He's a very selfish person, especially compared to Arslan.

Unlike Andragoras, Arslan has no personal desire for power and does not wish to be Shah for his own sake, but rather views it as his duty. He spends his whole life wondering what an ideal ruler is like and worries about not living up to that ideal. He is conscientious and puts the future of his people before all else. He doesn't care about riches or treasure. And he does not want to marry or have an heir of his own. They are total opposites in every way.

(That last bit was a digression; I just find it interesting. Hopefully this has answered your question!)

Arslan Senki Chapter 124: Arslan's Half

So @innerchorus did a commentary post about Hilmes' half here and so I'm here to deliver on Arslan's half!

Right off the bat we see Arslan kneeling, this is supposed to be a reunion between a mother and her son who got wrongfully exiled, I don't have the exact time frame but it wasn't exactly a short period, y'know? And yet there's this... distance between them, with no attempt on either side to close it. A son. Kneeling in front of his mother. As though he were a subject and not her child.

It's not so vast as the distance between Arslan and Andragoras in an earlier scene:

But it's still distance. It's still detached. And here's what I had to say about it back then:

“Look at how empty the panel looks. The distance between what's supposed to be father and son. A reunion after like what, half a year? More? Either Andragoras explicitly did not allow Arslan to approach any closer or Arslan felt like he couldn't (due to perhaps years of conditioning), whichever it is it doesn't paint a good picture of their relationship.”

Something like this doesn't come suddenly. It must be a conditioned response— Arslan has learnt that he will not be able to approach his parents as their child. How terrible is that?

Tahamenay says in this scene, “I barely recognize you.” and it's... it has a double meaning. To me. When has she ever recognized Arslan? When has she ever seen him?

Never, is the answer.

And here comes Arslan's internal monologue. I wager it's not the first time he's had these kinds of thoughts. It must've been recurring, haunting, always looming at the back of his mind. He must've known something was wrong. He must've realized. Children know more than society tends to give them credit for— they know they know when they're being neglected even as they might deny it because it's too big a truth to swallow.

It's the hidden, hurt part of his psyche, the child nestled inside, the part he's learnt to hide because who could possibly understand?

And he seamlessly wears a smile and makes small talk. Even as the questions, the hurt, the “why, why, why?”s boil and bubble in his throat.

He buries it and keeps on a brave and friendly face, as he must always have all his life.

And here comes the bombshell. The absolute lack of compassion in Tahamenay's eyes, the bluntness in her delivery as though she didn't find it worth the effort to even soften it for him, for Arslan, for a child a child a child.

And it hurts. He's known suspected for a long time. How could he not, how could he not? The questions have been piling up all his life.

And it still hurts.

This makes me so sad.

If Hilmes' revelation was like him being hurled off the top of a tower suddenly, Arslan's revelation was like being trapped in a slowly deteriorating building.

Brick by brick, beam by beam, nail by nail, it's been falling. It's been falling for a long time. This was a long time coming.

Thankfully the fall isn't as high as the tower, doesn't break as many bones, because he's been falling bit by bit instead of all in one go. Thankfully he's not alone, he has companions he can confide in. Companions who he know will not discard him for anything in the world, not even for his lack of royal blood.

And there, he will find solace and resolve.

Godspeed, my boy. I can't wait to see you show us how much you've grown.

The Queen doesn't have relatives from her birthplace, does she? She looks completely alone.

I don't think her relatives are ever mentioned, no. She does seem very isolated. It's possible that she was allowed to bring some of her maids to Pars with her, but I don't know what happened to her family or whether any of them are still alive. It's very Tanaka to just not mention them, but in Tahamenay's case it feels likely that she really is alone, and that's probably part of why she is so desparate to believe that Layla really is her daughter.

In the second half, Tahamenay ends up living in the Badakhshan region again, in a mansion that used to be the palace. She doesn't seem to be close to anyone other than Layla, but there's at least one familiar face: a white-haired old man named Katorneus, who is nearly seventy years of age and who has known Tahamenay for almost thirty years. He has managed the place since before Badakhshan was annexed by Pars, so perhaps they met there?

Tahamenay, who is ~41 at this point (Book 12), would have been roughly 10 years old when he first met her. I don't know any further backstory details for her childhood but presumably she must have been from a family with high status.

Arslan Senki Chapter 125

I'm not going to cover the whole thing, just a few bits and pieces that aremost interesting to me. My heart rate still hasn't calmed down, and the way this chapter ended is not helping! (No Zandeh yet, sadly... next time for sure!)

Losing my shit over these glimpses of TINY BABY ARSLAN and his birth father. Sad that we didn't get to see his mother too, though.

'Marzban' though, uh... I'll have to check the raw to see what it says there but I'm pretty sure in the novels it says that he rode off to battle with the rank of 100-rider captain. Honestly, Marzban feels like a totally inappropriate and way too attention-grabbing promotion for a man who needed to be killed off without anyone suspecting anything out of the ordinary.

I wonder what, if anything, will come of the 'Tahamenay's lost daughter' plotline in the manga? Will we ever find out the truth? Will it be different to the novels?

The end of the conversation between Tahamenay and Arslan felt very fufilling. Can't help but admire Arslan.

good panel GOOD PANEL

The end of this scene was slightly different to the novels, but I don't wanna drop spoilers here in case it comes up in the next chapter or so.

OKAY onto the last quarter of the chapter which is back with Hilmes and Andragoras...

What a horrific way to refer to the child he raised.

Hilmes trying so hard to rally himself after hearing all this, but when he hears Andragoras's reason for telling him all of this (which is totally on brand for Andragoras) he loses any composure he'd regained; he must sense that it's true.

I do think it's impressive that despite having the foundations of his world effectively shattered, he doesn't just let himself crumple, and his thoughts even turn to what Bahman said all those months ago, leading him to follow that line of reasoning in full and ask Andragoras who Arslan truly is.

He's cute here.

But of course Andragoras isn't prepared to answer that question, and the chapter ends with the two of them crossing blades for the first time aksdhjfshshj I am going to be an utter nervous wreck next chapter.

You know, I'm quite worried for Tahamenay. If Team Zahhak do end up coming for Andragoras's body, I don't trust them not to kill her or kidnap her.

Yeah like the moment Team Arslan left her and ran into undead Vahriz I was like, “shit, there's nobody of significance guarding her” like sure there's a couple guards but I don't think they're gonna be able to do anything if Team Zahhak were to show up suddenly... Like, I like the direction the manga took with her character but I can't help but be afraid for her. She's had her revenge, I think she's accepted that she'll never see her daughter again and that's what enabled her to kill Andragoras, like she's essentially a flag untethered to a pole and one possible way to utilize her narrative-wise is to...

Her life has been so hard already, I hope it won't have to end like this.