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| Foreigner Series; Favorite Moments (beware spoilers!) | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Feb 5 2008, 08:21 PM (6,202 Views) | |
| annmariet | Feb 6 2008, 02:01 PM Post #16 |
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Oh my - I don't even know how to narrow down my favorite parts. I LOVE this series of books, for so many reasons. I love that the characters can still surprise you after so many books in a series, I love that you just keep learning more and more about atevi as Bren learns more. I think my favorite moments, in a very generic way, are when Bren makes a leap in understanding the atevi. Like when he really starts to understand the importance of felicitous numbers in flower arrangements, or the number of staff, the slow realization of the culture he is in makes it so real and interesting to me. The layers and layers he goes through, just when you think he really understands - some new piece of information shows him a new facet of atevi society. Understanding Man'chi has been a process that grows with each book. He learned about that just from the mechita, let alone his staff and associates and Cajeiri. Oh - and any interaction with the Dowager - got to love that old lady!!! Plus all the ones already mentioned here - the green pizza, hiding the TV set from Uncle, things that show the more humorous side of the atevi. |
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| Jeimani | Feb 6 2008, 10:55 PM Post #17 |
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Bujavid Protocol Officer
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One can really tell we're all "homesick" for our Foreigner friends. Maybe reminiscing like this will help us pass the time until the next one's published! You all have already selected some of my favorites. I really like the moments where atevi are pleasantly surprised when Bren, Jase and other humans attempt and succeed at something requiring great etiquette or diplomatic skill or requiring respect for atevi traditions and history. I love the times when Ilisidi teases Bren in an affectionate way such as the day after his first tryst with Jago. I love the way Jago attempted to understand the troublesome past relationship with Barb and her sincere offers to "take care of things" so Bren wouldn't be emotionally damaged by Barb. Also the scene on the ship when Jago had to describe to Bren about her relationship with her partner Banichi and the way Banichi teases Jago about Bren. I loved it when Bren was touched by the curiosity and open-mindedness of the elderly tourists at Malguri who requested a ribbon from him and by the acceptance and enthusiasm of the workers and officials he addressed at the shuttle construction facility. I was thrilled when Banichi and Jago declined to return to Tabini's service, but, rather, chose to stay with Bren. |
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| Xheralt | Feb 7 2008, 04:52 AM Post #18 |
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I'll probably edit this post later when I think of more, but one moment I like is at the very end of Precursor, where Banichi tells Bren, after Bren shoots an unknown assailant in the melee dockside "We shall have to give you a Guild license. It was Tamun you shot." and Bren being Bren, is somewhat horrified, until assured that the man isn't dead and has been arrested. |
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| griffinmoon | Feb 7 2008, 05:18 AM Post #19 |
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Ranger
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Gent nadi: Oh yes, I remember now! Thank you. |
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| Gent | Feb 7 2008, 06:08 AM Post #20 |
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Placer of Wagers
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Jeimani: Yes! an excellent moment. I loved it when Ilsidi (after asking inappropriate questions) asks Bren if she detected strife between the two humans. Bren's reply that Jase did not expect fish at their latitude, nearly made me pass out - I laughed so hard! Xheralt: his aim improves remarkably in the series. One of my favorite moments in the most recent novel was Bren hoping nobody made a fuss about the remarkably small calibre bullet that finished off Murini. Griffinmoon: One was not entirely certain, and reading the passage again made me smile - again. |
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| Busifer | Feb 7 2008, 06:21 AM Post #21 |
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Yes, that was a fine moment :-) Another scene comes to mind - in Invader, when Banichi & Bren is checking on Jase, who is seasick, on Geigi's yacht, and after some businesslike talk Banichi suddenly asks 'So, how DID you and Jago get along?'. Bren, dumbfounded, saved only by the fact that Jase leaves the loo at that moment. |
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| leaf | Feb 7 2008, 08:56 PM Post #22 |
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I thought the scene in Invader when Bren asks Ilisidi to use her influence to assure the Association's stability and then thinks/muses on the fact that "with two words and the skill of the assassin behind her this woman could take the Association apart, wreck the peace, topple lords and assure the breakup of everything humans vitally concerned with the peace had to work with. And she refrained" To me that sums up Ilisidi. |
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| Resa | Feb 8 2008, 02:42 AM Post #23 |
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Drawer of Stuff
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(grins wildly) Very much agrees! |
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| Tevia | Feb 8 2008, 02:50 AM Post #24 |
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One must admit that a favorite passtime is opening and disecting a random passage from the later books - looking for balance of an odd number of phrases in a sentence, odd number of options for action or an odd number of people in the room. This is not only when Herself makes a point to bring it to our attention, but almost universally by the end of Deliverer. What fun this must have been to write (says the most complete non-writer in the world). |
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| Xheralt | Feb 8 2008, 09:35 AM Post #25 |
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I think of *generations* of paidhiin who strove to always, always, always, be felicitous in every utterance, except by accident, mistake, or miscalculation. So it was a breakthrough moment, a great moment, when Bren, sensing it was "invited" by the phrasing of a question, INTENTIONALLY uses an infelictity of two. Also, given that generations of paidhiin had it drilled into their skulls to "never joke with persons of rank", Bren declined an invitiation to fish with Geigi by saying (paraphrase) "if I don't get back to my office, the stack of paperwork will reach up the station before we do". This was of course before the shuttles were built and flying. These are HUGE gambles, remembering that paidhiin almost certainly have it drilled into their skulls that if they screw up badly enough, humanity could become extinct. (At least, locally, but who knows about Earth's condition?) Obviously, Deana-ji either didn't get that lesson, or thought it simply didn't apply to her. |
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| byrdstation1 | Feb 8 2008, 10:37 AM Post #26 |
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Ah, yes, you have already captured many of my favorite moments. I will repeat only two of those because they are so dear to me: the bathtub scene with Jago and the incredible moment when Algini called Bren aiji-ma. Wow. There are some others that pop into my head: Bren trying to explain to Jago why Barb kissed him on the boat: "Just confirming a truce." "Indeed." You simply have to -- sorry, atevi, I am human -- love Jago. The moment when Bren saw Tabini's Ragi banner fluttering above the train as it roared toward Shejidan and who knew what fate. And the time when Ginny answered the door to her compartment on the ship (clad only in a large towel, if I remember correctly) to tell Bren that she'll provide whatever backup he needs. The conversation Bren has when he has to inform two of his household that he must leave them on the station when he and his, uh, more active Assassin staff return to the world to try to find and help Tabini. The quick letter Bren wrote to the young sons of, was her name Sandra? -- telling them that their mother had indeed once saved the world and Tabini himself owed her a favor. And, oh my goodness, the list could well nigh be endless, now couldn't it? Ms. Cherryh has done mighty well by us! I have joined the Drooling Parade, sitting in a little camp chair on a street corner just below the Bujavid, waiting for booksellers to march by with Foreigner #10. |
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| Busifer | Feb 8 2008, 01:19 PM Post #27 |
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I'm reading Pretender right now and most of the train scenes are heart-warming... but when Bren arrives at the engine, finding Tabini there - that's a GREAT moment, I think. |
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| Serendipity | Feb 8 2008, 05:37 PM Post #28 |
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Avenging Minion
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Best liked moments? Um ... from the first word of book #1 to the last word of book #9 ... I really liked when Bren's roaming the Malguri halls, looking for a cup of tea and muttering that he would be another ghost. Also, when he's told that after hearing him speak they knew he would never be their enemy. And an unnerving thought: if Bren had capitulated and sold Tabini out, Ilisidi probably WOULD have shredded the Association and might even have made humans fair game; certainly she would never have respected humans again. That was actually Bren's true testing, not only of him but humans generally. And I think that was where he really became the paidhi, meeting the atevi on their own terms while being true to himself. |
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| Gent | Feb 8 2008, 07:46 PM Post #29 |
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Placer of Wagers
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LOL @ cheating. I just re-read the ribbons moment, when Tano shyly replies to Bren that if HE were to give him a ribbon, his father would acknowledge his success and finally stop pestering him to become an Engineer. Things like that leave me stunned. How can Bren not see how important he is to the Atevi populace? The man is so self-deprecating it borders on psycopathy. He actually explains it a little later. Just like Xheralt said, Bren reflects on how the Mospheira University beats the "God complex" out of them with images of the countless dead from the last war. I think they did a little too good of a job. Ethical egoism is a philosophy wherin whatever benefits you is morally "good". If there is no benefit for you, it is "wrong". Bren seems to believe the opposite. Whatever is good for everyone else is morally good. If it's doesn't help someone else, he doesn't want to do it. |
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| Arianne_Luinithil | Feb 9 2008, 03:45 PM Post #30 |
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Bu-javid tekikin
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Aak! One's associates have already come up with the more memorable moments, I'm afraid. But one of my favourites is the one where Jase tumbles Tatiseigi at a certain very formal, televised dinner to avoid the danger of an exploding photographic flashbulb and the resulting image of said scene in my head. |
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8:45 AM Jul 11