there’s a thing about Breq’s POV where she will notice the specter of servant/household labor. which makes sense considering that back when she was a ship she was the one to do the work. invisibly and without recognition. cleaning and mending and tending. We see though her eyes how much of her time was this menial labor. Comparatively little of her time was the explosive brutalism of military violence. The real exercise of power is the exercise of who sits back and who does the work.
- the perfectly white uniform of the immigration officer coming into the Radch, which she described as indicative of either a servant, or a great deal of time invested in an effort to look like there was a servant
- the impressive wall of household plants in Skaaiat’s home, speculated to be the full time job of one of the household’s occupants
There are more of examples, probably. And there’s something in here about Seivarden acting as servant to Breq in book 1.
I’m having a half-baked thought about how, even with the POV character being a millennia-old warship, with the arc of the story being about galaxy spanning imperialism and political maneuvering. this is a story about the overlooked and taken-for-granted daily work, which is what that empire invisibly hinges upon. man I love this series. And this first book in particular. It’s put together so clean.
Finally finished my reread of The Raven Tower and I love the Strength and Patience of the Hill soooo soso much. More books should have narrators fondly going oh youre so smart youre so clever yes you did it you solved my riddle <3 at the protagonist while the protagonist is screaming about how the narrator is gonna kill everybody. And then the narrator kills everybody.
there are some internet friends where eventually you start calling them by their real name and then there’s times where its like nah son your name is crispy forever
I like when people like a character so way too much that it transcends even self shipping or kinning and becomes more of a patron saint that you pray to type of deal
“patron saint” stop using catholic figures in a blasphemous way! it’s disrespectful to catholics.
Being an evil doppelganger has to be so fucked up like imagine meeting a better version of yourself. Some chain of events going differently that led to “you” being a better person in a way you can never achieve. Personally I’d have no other option but to try and kill them
It’s always “oh no my evil clone or twin or whatever is trying to kill me” and never How is my evil clone? Says a lot about society
I love watching movie credits like whoa all these people worked on this movie. And not one of them at any of point was like whoa don’t you think this movie is perhaps too dark and you can’t see shit?
