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Foreigner Series; Favorite Moments (beware spoilers!)
Topic Started: Feb 5 2008, 08:21 PM (6,196 Views)
Tevia

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Xheralt,May 1 2008
11:36 PM
I personally put it down to Jago, not knowing Bren foibles quite so well (at that point), nor being inclined to forgive them (at that point), simply reacted to one of his unintentional oversteppings of a boundary in the way most ateva would...

Interesting point. The reasoning behind this scene where Jago slaps Bren really has eluded me through at least 6 re-reads of the entire series.

I thought for a while that Jago was saying to Cenedi "Don't hit him. He's ours. If anyone is going to hit him, we will." Kind of like "Only I can be mean to my brother." kind of thing. But it doesn't fit.

I think now you are right in that Bren unintentionally overstepped a boundary.. I will re-read the passage with that in mind.

THANKS!


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hrhspence
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I don't think Jago realized just how hard her slap to Bren would be. I think she thought it would be like slapping a very errant Ateva child; but humans are ever so much frailer than her own species. Just think how far awry the torture in the basement went.
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skarrin

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As I re-read the entire series again, I keep running across funny quotes that absolutely make me put down the book and laugh.

"Don't have sex with inappropriate equipment" - "Defender".

I so want to see the staff laughing, Bren having near-hysterics, and Yolanda blushing slightly and mumbling, "Oh, dear."

That would completely make my day.
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Gent
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Tevia,May 3 2008
08:31 PM
...The reasoning behind this scene where Jago slaps Bren really has eluded me through at least 6 re-reads of the entire series...

I think the explanation for this was provided later when Jase, Bren and the Dowager ride to Mogari-nai.

Jase behaves just like Bren did in Foreigner, and Bren has to irately explain to Jase that if he asks too many questions, he may force the Atevi to lie to them. That will embarass the Atevi in question, and possibly change the nature of the relationship.

Also remember that in Atevi eyes, Bren had just acted irrationally and rushed to save Banichi. That probably had a profound psychological effect on Jago, who would have had to choose between her duty and her man'chi to her father. She had chosen duty, then had to watch her duty rush to save someone she probably wanted to save herself.

I completely understand her being a little messed up after that.

As for Cenedi - well, Bren hasn't been on the receiving end of the Dowager's dipleasure since Foreigner. I suspect the differences are a little like looking into the barrel of a gun vs holding the trigger...
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Aelith
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You tell a child not to go into the street. But it spots it's favorite toy in the middle of the traffic and without thinking dashes after it. The party on the lawn dash after the child. Screech. Bang. Child and toy are retrieved at cost. Child get a spanking for disobedience and as a release of anxiety.
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cicely58
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And to try to condition the child not to ever do that again!
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Tevia

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Gent, Aelith and Cicely58 - THANK YOU! What you've said makes great sense out of a puzzling piece.
I am also right now in the 7th round (darn I like these books) of Inheritor - I think this is one where Jase, Ilisidi and Bren will be riding to Mogari-nai. I will look for that discussion.

I'm off for :t and a read while the littles dream.
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Resa
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Tevia,May 5 2008
01:23 AM
Gent, Aelith and Cicely58 - THANK YOU! What you've said makes great sense out of a puzzling piece.
I am also right now in the 7th round (darn I like these books) of Inheritor - I think this is one where Jase, Ilisidi and Bren will be riding to Mogari-nai. I will look for that discussion.

I'm off for :t and a read while the littles dream.

I've been reading the Foreigner books since December 2006, and have now read through the bulk of them three times.

I've promised myself not to read them again until I have a few ...other... books under my belt. (Says she as she eyes Destroyer sitting on her shelf, which she is still reading off and on around those "other" books.) :pie:
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Leela-ji
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Heck, I would have slapped Bren just for fun, he was so damned whiny back then. Now he's just fussy :atwink
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Resa
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Leela-ji,May 7 2008
03:22 AM
Heck, I would have slapped Bren just for fun, he was so damned whiny back then. Now he's just fussy :atwink

HEH!
Yes, there were moments in that first book when I was tempted too.
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Chanor-ji

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Nadi:

Thank you all for coming up with such logical explanations for an incident that had puzzled me for many, many years. Especially Gent who tied Jago slapping Bren to Bren's irritation with Jase in book three.

Quote:
 
Heck, I would have slapped Bren just for fun, he was so damned whiny back then. Now he's just fussy 


Exactly what I've been thinking. That bit in the beginning when he needed the two servants in his courtyard apartment to massage his ego by acknowleging that he'd been attacked during the night just made me want to slap the little git myself.

Quote:
 
I am also right now in the 7th round (darn I like these books) of Inheritor - I think this is one where Jase, Ilisidi and Bren will be riding to Mogari-nai. I will look for that discussion.


I am so glad to discover that I am not the only obsessive-compulsive in this group. I have to replace my copy of the second book because it fell apart from so much reading and rereading. :grin
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ready
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Quote:
 
I am so glad to discover that I am not the only obsessive-compulsive in this group. I have to replace my copy of the second book because it fell apart from so much reading and rereading.


Chanor-ji, I'm so OCD that I have been accumulating hardbound 1st editions and getting two copies of most of the paperbacks; one for spare, and one for carrying around with me when I want a book for a waiting room, etc. :atwink
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agricola
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oh gee I do that too - not the 'first edition' bit, but certainly the hardcover to read at HOME and the paperback to read AWAY...

Hey, he was young, the atevi environment was still very new and very unfamiliar, strange and scary (despite his studies) and he has, laudably, grown up a lot in the last ten years (in the BOOKS!!!)

I can't help it. I don't reread and reread and reread EVERYTHING I enjoy, but I do reread REPEATEDLY - THESE books. Bren, and all his family and acquaintances, his 'friends' and his 'associates' - to me they are real people with real lives that keep going on BETWEEN the books, and around them and while the main action is elsewhere.

If it were not so, why would I care about these ragged bits and pieces of story that appear and vanish, or the numbers that behave oddly?
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Chanor-ji

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Chanor-ji, I'm so OCD that I have been accumulating hardbound 1st editions


That, thank Ghu, is something I've never acquired: the 1st edition, 1st printing disease. I have a couple of customers who do suffer from it, which means that I end up squabbling with publisherers' customer service departments a lot because a particular book arrived with a ding or tear. St. Martin's is the worst of a bad lot.
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Resa
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When I got the first Foreigner book finally in hard bound, I was so very happy. Because, there it was on my shelf, so sturdy and re-readable. And a lovely dust-jacket.

And then I found my cousin re-reading a first issue copy from the library.

I reminded her about the book on the shelf. And she simply said that she didn't want to read that one, because she didn't want to damage it.

!!!
She's since found a second, older, some-what banged around copy she had in storage. So I suspect that now we have a readable copy.
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