The Queen Of Attolia - Tumblr Posts
Every once in awhile I do a sketch and it ends up being Attolia again. I just. I love drawing her.
Yet another two-overlapping-colors palette.
When I first started this project, it was with a burning determination to be the first person to ever make an animatic for the Queen's Thief series. I'm not sure if someone beat me to it in the three years since then, but I am pretty ecstatic to share the finished product with all of you regardless.
Can someone explain to me that part in King of Attolia when someone says "that was revealing" and pheresine says "only to those who have eyes to see"
Like maybe I'm missing something, I'm not sure? Like is she just referring to the fact that most of the attolians aren't going to reevaluate the king no matter what info they get? Because honestly that's the best ive come up with. What exactly was revealing/revealed? Is it about their relationship??
i was watching a youtube video about the three main character deaths you can use in a story (physical, professional & psychological) and consequently the three main threats that can hang over a character’s head, and i realised one of the reasons eugenides’s arc is so interesting in the queen’s thief is that he suffers all three.
the physical aspect is fairly self-evident (*insert hand pun*). obviously, he never actually dies, but the threat is ever present and he does suffer quite a lot of physical harm which deeply affects the plot and his character arc.
this goes hand in hand (i swear i wasn’t actually trying to insert a hand pun) with the professional death, because the loss of his hand means, to him, that he can never steal anything again. he overcomes this, but it’s terribly hard, and he goes through a lot of development because of it. then he gets himself into a “disaster”: he becomes king. and he can’t be the thief anymore, not like he used to. he can’t be independent, he can’t do whatever he wants. even though he can still work in the shadows, he’s in the light and everyone is looking at him, and all those eyes expect things from him. the king of attolia is about him reconciling his identity as thief and his identity as king, about him stepping into his new role.
of course, he’s not just a thief, he’s the thief. in the last book, the figure of the thief acquires a darker meaning. it’s threatening, and terrifying, a slippery slope. gen is always at risk of tripping, of falling, of completely losing his humanity. he suffers a lot psychologically through the series, but i’d say this is the main psychological death looming over him. and he doesn’t die, because a lot of people love him, and a lot of people are ready to catch him. “saved him from what? saved him from becoming the thief, the murderous figure sitting alone with his dead.”
a friend of mine is reading the queen’s thief and guys. guys. will someone in my life finally understand the cultural significance of “diplomacy. in my own name” and “and she believed him” and “stop whining and go to bed” and “i love your eyes, i love your ears and i love every single one of your ridiculous lies” and “I CAN DO ANYTHING I WANT”
I wanna say that every part of King of Attolia is my favorite part but possibly my favorite part is when Attolia goes “Relius. You are my oldest and most trusted advisor, who helped me keep my throne and committed your life to me. But you made a mistake, so I’m going to have to kill you.” And Relius goes “My queen, you are incredibly correct, that is 100% the right thing to do” and Gen is standing there like “wtf is wrong with you people, I thought I was the one with poor coping mechanisms”
Actually this is the first time I realized Gen has no problem fighting every single member of the guard cause that’s just. How they do things in Eddis. Boy was probably like “ah, FINALLY, some reminded of home!”
Honey are you okay you've barely touched your mocking other people
They'd mock each other so much. Kaz wears three piece suits and Gen pays for sophos to have embroidery on embroidery, but Kaz would never slouch and gen would never let anyone see him sit properly. They're both absolute romantics, but Kaz calls his crush/bff an investment and Gen tells his #1 hater that he loves her. Kaz can't handle touching anyone, and Gen kissed his wife in front of a crowd. Kaz ripped out a man's eye and Gen made a vow to never take a sword unless his life was in danger.
They would absolutely have a grudging respect for each other and openly mock each other. Gen thinks Kaz is uptight and focuses too much on money, Kaz thinks Gen believes too firmly in his gods and has gotten weak.
Neither one can imagine living with the other's disability. Neither ever mocks the other's trauma. They both know what it's like to have had to grow up too soon. They have both lost family close to them. They both have disabilities due to their work. They are both utterly devoted to the people they love. They both plan intensely and then wing it.
Gen and inej would get along swimmingly. Kaz would go to inej's room to talk to her and wait for her, and then she'd come through the window with gen, having gone to watch the sunset from the roof or something, and Kaz would be peeved and impatient for gen to go away and gen would laugh at him about it. Inej and gen both have a firm belief in their gods and are physically talented, flips and climbing and all. Both gen and inej left home and get extremely homesick.
Kaz and Gen would either hate or love eachother, no inbetween
Was it maybe that the king and queen are obviously more close than everyone thought? Like she lets him get away with the hairpin thing? Is it because he's possessed by The Eudgenides but not everyone can see that?
Can someone explain to me that part in King of Attolia when someone says "that was revealing" and pheresine says "only to those who have eyes to see"
Like maybe I'm missing something, I'm not sure? Like is she just referring to the fact that most of the attolians aren't going to reevaluate the king no matter what info they get? Because honestly that's the best ive come up with. What exactly was revealing/revealed? Is it about their relationship??
Every time I finish rereading one of the books I pull up Tumblr, Pinterest, and livejournal to look for other people talking about it because I always miss stuff and other people are as excited as I am
Have just finished "Thick as Thieves", book five of Megan Whalen Turner's "Queen's Thief" series, and I'm frustrated I have no-one I can gush over this.
I've loved all five of the six books books in the series. Every one has had me on tenterhooks throughout, and with twists and turns that have frequently left me shocked and amazed, even when expecting to be tricked and bamboozled.
So if you want complex and clever storytelling, with well fleshed out and believable characters; telling a story of complex political intrigue set in a pseudo-Mediterranean fantasy world; then I thoroughly recommend this series
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.
the amazing @onebulb made this for me, so here: queen’s thief as vines but now it’s an actual video instead of gross links.
Do you copy the mannerisms of the woman who cut off your hand and destroyed your life, or are you normal
The Thief is a great read that I really enjoyed!
every book in the series that followed it made me deranged and I mean that in the most positive way possible
There are many things I love about The Queen of Attolia but one of my favorites is how relentlessly Gen roasts Eddis throughout.
Our little fashion obsessed lying brat tells her not to wear a pin with a certain scarf and she does it anyway. Fine, he’ll steal the pin and serves her right.
He tells her that her clothes don’t fit and she looks awful.
The magus says she’s “magnetic” on a personal level and Gen responds, “Bro, have you looked at her? She’s ugly!”
The magus, gently and diplomatically, says she’s perhaps not the ideal of conventional beauty and Gen goes on to list all of her physical flaws with absolutely no hesitation like he’s been waiting for a chance to do so.
And I love it so much because he so obviously adores and loves her. It reminds me very much of my relationship with my own sister and how she talks to me.
And I just know that if Gen ever overheard anyone else say Eddis is ugly, he would absolutely not be okay with it. And it just makes me love him all the more.
It would make him so insufferable if he was stoic. It would be too childish, because anyone who has been in some pain knows it's a lot, and it's way better to play it up than to play it down. If it's about attention, you'll get more attention if you play it down and everyone still knows you're injured.
This goes hand in hand with his character. It allows him to pass under the radar because everyone is used to ignoring his moans. It also is a part of his goofier, less mature self, which is why you see as the books go on he becomes more chill. In The Thief he flips out at Pol for cleaning his injured hands. In the Queen of Attolia, he's depressed for the majority of the book, and everyone acknowledges he's not himself, no jokes, grinning, he becomes stoic. The in King of Attolia, he's getting back into his groove and freaks out after the attempt on his life, whining the entire walk back to his room, as well as flipping out at Petrus when he starts doing the stitches (only to show how much control he actually has by calming down and not reacting at all to the stitches), and in a smaller way, he also complains about sword practice. In conspiracy of kings, he's less present, but he has his moments with sword practice. Think as thieves, he briefly complains about brinna hitting him, but again, he doesn't appear much. Then in return of the thief, he complains for the show of it mostly. He walks in on the ambassador kissing Irene and positively flips out, but when Irene gets sick, he doesn't waste any time talking about himself, he doesn't complain about the food that's brought to him (this is before he goes to the kitchens, so it still has sand, jars he can't open, etc) but he puts up with it silently. Then later when they go to war, he has his fair share of poor health. He gets a fever 2 days into riding and he blows it off, saying oh it's just this dumb coat makes me so hot, I'm not sick, and follows it up with complaints about the doctors. And later he's unconscious for several days and reassures the important people that he's alright. Over the course of the 6 books, he goes from complaining about everything to using complaints as a form of communication and only complaining when it's appropriate/acceptable. He whines as they get home after months away because they all know he's happy to be home and excited to see his wife and kids. He knows when he can and can't complain.
Anyway I don't really know where I was going with this but one other thing. Ages ago, I read the false Prince by Jennifer Nielsen. People said the main character was like gen. No hes not. Dont let anyone lie to you. He demonstrates the difference between Gen as a whiner and Gen as a stoic because the main character, Jaron is supposed to be all tough and stoic and LITERALLY CLIMBS A CLIFF WITH BOTH LEGS BROKEN, not to mention he then gets into a sword fight with his arch nemesis and fights until he passes out and then when he regains consciousness, his arch nemesis is like well I beat you but I decided you can have control of the pirates anyway. And since some people obviously have no idea what is plausible, they should really not be trying. That's something that's great about gen. Is it possible for him to just chill no matter the injury? Yeah probably. But would he? No. It adds so much more to him to not walk off every inconvenience and I love his complaining
One of the things that makes Eugenides such a fantastic character is that he’s brave and loyal and noble, but not even a little bit stoic.
He spends so much time moaning and complaining. He gets scared and he cries and he feels no shame about any of it. He broods and wallows. The gods themselves tell him to stop whining.
I know a certain amount of it is a calculated act, but also, he’s mostly leaning into his strengths in those cases. It’s just so rare to see genuine heroism in a character with such traditionally unheroic traits, and I love it. It’s not something to overcome, it’s just who he is — the most inspiring man you’ll ever meet, openly nursing grudges and dishing out petty insults by the dozen.
My sister is dyslexic, so I read these books aloud to her. She completely missed the part about the hand, but not even halfway through goes, "I don't want it to happen, but I feel like Irene and gen will get together" and I had the hardest time not flipping out
My sister, who doesn’t often get into reading, started reading The Queen’s Thief and I am being so so normal about it
Eugenides, right? But what if, for Gen and Irenes anniversary or something, he has a set of wine glasses made that say "you've been poisoned" at the bottom. These glasses will only be used on particular occasions, for instance, when gen and Irene have private dinners, just the two of them; private dinners with Helen and sophos; or dinners to welcome new ambassadors
