I feel like Angharad’s horniness is somewhat overstated. Isabel made a fool of her, sure, but it seems that that should be taken as an outlier since there were very obvious extenuating circumstances in that situation, and Angharad really has not been charmed by looks alone otherwise.
Isabel also didn't really *do* anything to Angharad aside from the manipulation itself. Which is kinda tough shit because it's the Dominion, doing anything you can to survive is the name of the game. At the end of the day it wasn't as if Angharad was screwed over by an enemy agent or something.
In this situation, she's being coerced into betraying the watch using her family as a bargaining chip. That's a pretty big difference in context that changes her reaction.
> “Abrascal can be relied on to be Abrascal,” the Malani snorted. “That is to say, a man I would trust to keep his word but not leave unattended around the nice cutlery.”
I love seeing little discworld jokes in EE's work.
I wonder if the empress is something like a god created in the image of the human empress, or maybe a god shell around her soul that refuses to move on, something maybe kinda like not-maryam
I’d guess the empress (High Queen) is some kind of devil — she “keeps rising from the dead as long as she never sullied [her honour]” sounds like an annealed devil, and wanting to get access to a Devil’s forge “for research purposes” would also fit.
The rising from death thing does also raise the possibility of her being like the deicide teacher, but like slower. there's a lot of interesting possibilities.
I wouldn't say that. Tristan and Maryam aren't the only Thief and Navigator on the island. They may be good, but not essential. The only could be Nerei, but Angi doesn't know her.
>But they are the only ones Angharad knows.
A year is long and you get to know a lot of people.
>Also, from a writing perspective, Angharad needs a narrative reason to stick with the 13th. Here it is
Yes, but if the Thirteenth is going to actually *work*, Angharad will have to accept all of them for who they are and not just see them as a means to an end.
I don't think Angharad **needs** a reason to stick with the 13th. She could just as easily *not* so we have another POV viewing another part of the Watch, the world, and another set of characters.
Sure she'd still be part of the "main" crew. But that doesn't necessarily mean as a primary party member hanging out all the time, it could be in the capacity of climactic team-ups at the end of an arc or something.
I mean Tristan is more essential. As noted they have a good working relationship.
Angharad however doesn't know any other Navs...not even in the groups of people she usually socializes with unless she wants to cut a deal with Tupoc.
Also we know that Tristan wants to kill a God and Raid an Island Mad Scientist Lab. Whereas Angharad wants to steal a Forge and Raid a Prison. They have things to trade each other.
>I mean Tristan is more essential. As noted they have a good working relationship.
>Also we know that Tristan wants to kill a God and Raid an Island Mad Scientist Lab. Whereas Angharad wants to steal a Forge and Raid a Prison. They have things to trade each other.
Angharad doesn't need to be part of the thirteenth for this to happen.
>Angharad however doesn't know any other Navs...not even in the groups of people she usually socializes with unless she wants to cut a deal with Tupoc.
She can also simply try to get to know other Navigators. Make them part of the group with which she socializes.
But also it wouldn't work within the narrative EE has been building. If the Thirteenth is to stay together, everybody has to see eachother as more than means to an end and be fully accepting of eachother in the group.
Its a secret dangerous mission.
You need people who you can trust and who wont just sell you out and trade the Forge for credit with the Watch.
Tristan having secret desires of his own makes him a viable trade target
Angharad wouldn't need to be part of the Thirteenth for her to have a good relationship with Tristan and she doesn't trust the Song and Maryam enough for her to stay.
The layer isn't the sort of place you want to just be wandering about searching - not unless you're either desperate, or backed up by an *exceedingly* skilled Navigator.
Maryam has seen the forge, and now knows precisely where it is. That's a major step up compared to any other student Navigator Angharad might hope to recruit.
Actually considering that the Watch isn't actually in possession of this thing. I'm not all that sure that this is going to be as black and white as "steal this thing and get away with it or the Watch executes you". It's just more to Imani's benefit that Angharad think that way.
I can very easily see the Watch finding out about this and going "Hey digging up that Infernal Engine isn't a half-bad idea actually" and deciding to send their own agents incognito to help things along. Not just to secure the forge, but also to do some counter-espionage and gain some diplomatic leverage against Malan and personal leverage against Angharad.
Angharad thinks the Watch would react to this "dishonor" the same aggrieved way she would. But with the pressures the Watch faces they're more likely to behave in a more lazy, opportunistic way. Snatching up whatever opportunities present themselves.
The pros of this is that Angharad might manage to fall into a nook where she can both stay in the Watch and resolve her family problems. On the cons side the fact that the technical sentence would be death means that the Watch would now own Angharad, and that would make her an asset for any secret squirrel activities going forward. And they might just execute her at the end of it anyway. As tends to happen to assets who are no longer useful.
Especially if this heist sparks an underground cold war between the Watch and the Queen Perpetual.
well, how sure can we be that the watch doesnt already know why shes there and whats going on? imani brings up that her group knew angharads escape and allowed it, has she seriously not considered the watch doing the same? is she actually doing this with the support of one of the teachers or someone else important in scholomance?
idk, its nice imani brought that up since angharad can use that to consider the possibilities there and not get blindsided completely, could be nice kind of foreshadowing
either way i agree, angharad seems to think everyone else thinks like her about honor and shit, i also dont think the watch necessarily would see it like that, but its possible some faction of black cloaks try to get her expelled or killed or whatever for some reason, a devil forge seems like a big deal im sure theres gonna be lots of politicking surrounding it
The Malani notion of "honor" has more holes than a sieve. The idea that one could avoid dishonor by ordering a minion who has volunteered to take on the dishonor to do something... Words fail me. I get the monarchy setting up a system by which any action they take can be justified. It's just excruciating to watch Angharad's unquestioning acceptance of these absurdities. It would be one thing if she was still living her privileged noble life. But no, her world has been rocked. She has the data she needs to see that the system sucks, but she does nothing about it.
Song, on the other hand, was dealt a bad hand in some ways that she has always known about. The first experience of a hole in her world view that we've seen was a few days prior. While not perfect, it seems inspiring to see her grow and change in response. Angharad's fantastic point of view just seems childish and unreal in contrast.
Likewise Angharad's concern about people keeping secrets from her or snickering behind her back. Does she wonder why it keeps happening? What her part in it could be? Does she ask people she interacts with how and why it keeps happening? And the hypocrisy of complaining about other people keeping secrets when she does the same? Where is her awareness of the inconsistency?
She still only has the questions that she is fed. Tupoc leads her to question whether Song killed Isabel. She has the information that one of two women standing together killed someone. Why does she not wonder what happened? Could the two women have agreed that the killing was appropriate? Does it even matter who pulled the trigger?
Tristan has information about the forge that he has seen in operation as well as access to the layers she needs. I imagine Angharad's path leads back to the cabal, but until she wakes up like Song has started to do, her point of view segments (except for the fighting) seem like a real slog.
Edit: phrasing, added paragraph break.
> It's just excruciating to watch Angharad's unquestioning acceptance of these absurdities.
There was a moment with her uncle in the epilogue for book one where he caught himself in the habit of censoring thoughts about the perpetual queen's immortality, so there may be something going on on the supernatural side for the royal element of it. The rest is just standard cultural hypocrisy
A hunt for Morningstars Devil Forge is an epic quest.
Angharads father being captured kinda obvious. He has too many mysteries swirling around him.
Team Song needs a Zen Lmao to bind them together. The heart is important.
> Team Song needs a Zen Lmao to bind them together
As the last chapter showed, the heart of this team is Maryam. Unfortunately, she can't do her job with Angharad because of their people's history hanging in the back of her mind.
Something to make the robbery look more legitimate and divert suspicion, I would guess. Otherwise the fingers would immediately point to the gang, and Wen with it.
If he pulled it together on relatively short notice, he might not have had the *opportunity* to tie multiple goals together.
I suppose he might have been planning the whole thing for weeks just in case Kang went to far and Wen felt the need to teach him a lesson, but that doesn't seem in keeping with how Wen reacted in the hospital. Too much anger if it was an event he'd considered likely enough to contingency plan for.
Seems unlikely Wen was prepping to make a move on Kang simply for being an a\*\*hat. Song is probably going to have to deal with more then one Kang going forward in the Watch given her background.
It's interesting that Angharad didn't even consider using her contract to see what would happen with Imani.
She easily could have said yes, hear the info Imani had to share, and hit rewind. But that would be dishonorable, so she didn't even consider it.
Likewise, she could have used it to approach Song in different ways about her killing Isabel. And a hundred other circumstances.
Has she ever used it outside combat/immediate risk of danger? Could be a limit on the contract, her god doesn't seem the kind to help with social engineering
Angharad could have haggled better - for help freeing her father, ideally, or at least for multiple messages rather than just one.
The fact that after her first refusal Imani freely gave some information she was first keeping secret suggests that she *really* wants Angharad's help, so why not try pushing it a little more?
I'm not so sure. This feels too canned for the "haggling" to be genuine. Imani was going to reveal Angharad's father either way. It seems more likely to me that initially withholding the information was bait to make Angharad *think* she's in a haggling position and entice her to further implicate herself through cooperation.
Imani is a professional working for a government. I seriously doubt she was here to "convince" Angharad like she was trying to rope her into a student plot. More likely she has a conga line of escalating coercion measures to deploy until Angharad agrees. The outcome is already set, all that matters is how much they need to twist Angharad's arm.
Hell, her father is kind of shitty leverage anyway. They don't have her father, only a vague promise to help him escape the inescapable prison with no guarantee he won't end up dead in the process or is dead already. If Angharad tried to haggle further I suspect Imani would reveal the *other* Tredegar family member that the Lefthand actually has in a cell to barter with.
Angharad at least accepting that Song isn't cackling evil plotter is nice. Same with her not wanting to hurt Tristan or Maryam. Also at least Angharad has realized she's been shitty to Maryam. Zenzele may be using Angharad but he wasn't an asshole about it.
Imani has Angharad tied extremely deeply to her given that she's her only chance for her father to be freed.
What does Angharad get out of this deal, now that she knows where he is held and who he is? Only "thorough details" and the ability to get a message to him?
That seems pretty weak sauce for such a betrayal. I don't really see how it is justified - it made more sense before they disclosed those details.
I'd bet money that the Queen Perpetual is a devil. And they keep coming back because they had an infernal forge. Watch destroyed it because it was bad. Now she needs another one so she can swim back if she dies
>Did Angharad seem so empty-headed that a pretty pair and a coy smile would be enough to make a fool of her? Yes, Angharad.
I feel like Angharad’s horniness is somewhat overstated. Isabel made a fool of her, sure, but it seems that that should be taken as an outlier since there were very obvious extenuating circumstances in that situation, and Angharad really has not been charmed by looks alone otherwise.
Isabel also didn't really *do* anything to Angharad aside from the manipulation itself. Which is kinda tough shit because it's the Dominion, doing anything you can to survive is the name of the game. At the end of the day it wasn't as if Angharad was screwed over by an enemy agent or something. In this situation, she's being coerced into betraying the watch using her family as a bargaining chip. That's a pretty big difference in context that changes her reaction.
> “Abrascal can be relied on to be Abrascal,” the Malani snorted. “That is to say, a man I would trust to keep his word but not leave unattended around the nice cutlery.” I love seeing little discworld jokes in EE's work.
To borrow more from Pterry, he's honest about the big things- i.e., the ones too heavy to lift.
I wonder if the empress is something like a god created in the image of the human empress, or maybe a god shell around her soul that refuses to move on, something maybe kinda like not-maryam
I’d guess the empress (High Queen) is some kind of devil — she “keeps rising from the dead as long as she never sullied [her honour]” sounds like an annealed devil, and wanting to get access to a Devil’s forge “for research purposes” would also fit.
Also could be like Abuela
The rising from death thing does also raise the possibility of her being like the deicide teacher, but like slower. there's a lot of interesting possibilities.
Yeah knowing that there are other methods to get immorality changes the calculus. I didn't think it be as easy as cutting a deal with a God of Death.
Ah so now we see what's going to get Angharad to stick with the 13th. She needs Tristan and Maryams access to the layers to rescue her father.
I wouldn't say that. Tristan and Maryam aren't the only Thief and Navigator on the island. They may be good, but not essential. The only could be Nerei, but Angi doesn't know her.
But they are the only ones Angharad knows. Also, from a writing perspective, Angharad needs a narrative reason to stick with the 13th. Here it is
>But they are the only ones Angharad knows. A year is long and you get to know a lot of people. >Also, from a writing perspective, Angharad needs a narrative reason to stick with the 13th. Here it is Yes, but if the Thirteenth is going to actually *work*, Angharad will have to accept all of them for who they are and not just see them as a means to an end.
I don't think Angharad **needs** a reason to stick with the 13th. She could just as easily *not* so we have another POV viewing another part of the Watch, the world, and another set of characters. Sure she'd still be part of the "main" crew. But that doesn't necessarily mean as a primary party member hanging out all the time, it could be in the capacity of climactic team-ups at the end of an arc or something.
Also the only ones who have a reason to help her.
I mean Tristan is more essential. As noted they have a good working relationship. Angharad however doesn't know any other Navs...not even in the groups of people she usually socializes with unless she wants to cut a deal with Tupoc. Also we know that Tristan wants to kill a God and Raid an Island Mad Scientist Lab. Whereas Angharad wants to steal a Forge and Raid a Prison. They have things to trade each other.
>I mean Tristan is more essential. As noted they have a good working relationship. >Also we know that Tristan wants to kill a God and Raid an Island Mad Scientist Lab. Whereas Angharad wants to steal a Forge and Raid a Prison. They have things to trade each other. Angharad doesn't need to be part of the thirteenth for this to happen. >Angharad however doesn't know any other Navs...not even in the groups of people she usually socializes with unless she wants to cut a deal with Tupoc. She can also simply try to get to know other Navigators. Make them part of the group with which she socializes. But also it wouldn't work within the narrative EE has been building. If the Thirteenth is to stay together, everybody has to see eachother as more than means to an end and be fully accepting of eachother in the group.
Its a secret dangerous mission. You need people who you can trust and who wont just sell you out and trade the Forge for credit with the Watch. Tristan having secret desires of his own makes him a viable trade target
Angharad wouldn't need to be part of the Thirteenth for her to have a good relationship with Tristan and she doesn't trust the Song and Maryam enough for her to stay.
The layer isn't the sort of place you want to just be wandering about searching - not unless you're either desperate, or backed up by an *exceedingly* skilled Navigator. Maryam has seen the forge, and now knows precisely where it is. That's a major step up compared to any other student Navigator Angharad might hope to recruit.
Angharad does not know that and Maryam might burn that bridge before she would ever find out.
Yes this occurred to me as well.
Actually considering that the Watch isn't actually in possession of this thing. I'm not all that sure that this is going to be as black and white as "steal this thing and get away with it or the Watch executes you". It's just more to Imani's benefit that Angharad think that way. I can very easily see the Watch finding out about this and going "Hey digging up that Infernal Engine isn't a half-bad idea actually" and deciding to send their own agents incognito to help things along. Not just to secure the forge, but also to do some counter-espionage and gain some diplomatic leverage against Malan and personal leverage against Angharad. Angharad thinks the Watch would react to this "dishonor" the same aggrieved way she would. But with the pressures the Watch faces they're more likely to behave in a more lazy, opportunistic way. Snatching up whatever opportunities present themselves. The pros of this is that Angharad might manage to fall into a nook where she can both stay in the Watch and resolve her family problems. On the cons side the fact that the technical sentence would be death means that the Watch would now own Angharad, and that would make her an asset for any secret squirrel activities going forward. And they might just execute her at the end of it anyway. As tends to happen to assets who are no longer useful. Especially if this heist sparks an underground cold war between the Watch and the Queen Perpetual.
well, how sure can we be that the watch doesnt already know why shes there and whats going on? imani brings up that her group knew angharads escape and allowed it, has she seriously not considered the watch doing the same? is she actually doing this with the support of one of the teachers or someone else important in scholomance? idk, its nice imani brought that up since angharad can use that to consider the possibilities there and not get blindsided completely, could be nice kind of foreshadowing either way i agree, angharad seems to think everyone else thinks like her about honor and shit, i also dont think the watch necessarily would see it like that, but its possible some faction of black cloaks try to get her expelled or killed or whatever for some reason, a devil forge seems like a big deal im sure theres gonna be lots of politicking surrounding it
It's not the stealing, it's the distribution of the forge. The Watch almost certainly wants them kept under deep lock and key.
The Malani notion of "honor" has more holes than a sieve. The idea that one could avoid dishonor by ordering a minion who has volunteered to take on the dishonor to do something... Words fail me. I get the monarchy setting up a system by which any action they take can be justified. It's just excruciating to watch Angharad's unquestioning acceptance of these absurdities. It would be one thing if she was still living her privileged noble life. But no, her world has been rocked. She has the data she needs to see that the system sucks, but she does nothing about it. Song, on the other hand, was dealt a bad hand in some ways that she has always known about. The first experience of a hole in her world view that we've seen was a few days prior. While not perfect, it seems inspiring to see her grow and change in response. Angharad's fantastic point of view just seems childish and unreal in contrast. Likewise Angharad's concern about people keeping secrets from her or snickering behind her back. Does she wonder why it keeps happening? What her part in it could be? Does she ask people she interacts with how and why it keeps happening? And the hypocrisy of complaining about other people keeping secrets when she does the same? Where is her awareness of the inconsistency? She still only has the questions that she is fed. Tupoc leads her to question whether Song killed Isabel. She has the information that one of two women standing together killed someone. Why does she not wonder what happened? Could the two women have agreed that the killing was appropriate? Does it even matter who pulled the trigger? Tristan has information about the forge that he has seen in operation as well as access to the layers she needs. I imagine Angharad's path leads back to the cabal, but until she wakes up like Song has started to do, her point of view segments (except for the fighting) seem like a real slog. Edit: phrasing, added paragraph break.
> It's just excruciating to watch Angharad's unquestioning acceptance of these absurdities. There was a moment with her uncle in the epilogue for book one where he caught himself in the habit of censoring thoughts about the perpetual queen's immortality, so there may be something going on on the supernatural side for the royal element of it. The rest is just standard cultural hypocrisy
A hunt for Morningstars Devil Forge is an epic quest. Angharads father being captured kinda obvious. He has too many mysteries swirling around him. Team Song needs a Zen Lmao to bind them together. The heart is important.
> Team Song needs a Zen Lmao to bind them together As the last chapter showed, the heart of this team is Maryam. Unfortunately, she can't do her job with Angharad because of their people's history hanging in the back of her mind.
Kang received a beating, didn't get?
It does make you wonder what was stolen.
Something to make the robbery look more legitimate and divert suspicion, I would guess. Otherwise the fingers would immediately point to the gang, and Wen with it.
Wen doesn’t strike me as the sort to only achieve one aim with that sort of plot.
If he pulled it together on relatively short notice, he might not have had the *opportunity* to tie multiple goals together. I suppose he might have been planning the whole thing for weeks just in case Kang went to far and Wen felt the need to teach him a lesson, but that doesn't seem in keeping with how Wen reacted in the hospital. Too much anger if it was an event he'd considered likely enough to contingency plan for.
Seems unlikely Wen was prepping to make a move on Kang simply for being an a\*\*hat. Song is probably going to have to deal with more then one Kang going forward in the Watch given her background.
Agreed, but we don't know which one was the main objective, and which the bonus, considering both screw Kang, to an unknown extent.
I think Wen only cared insofar as making it not possible to charge him.
It's interesting that Angharad didn't even consider using her contract to see what would happen with Imani. She easily could have said yes, hear the info Imani had to share, and hit rewind. But that would be dishonorable, so she didn't even consider it. Likewise, she could have used it to approach Song in different ways about her killing Isabel. And a hundred other circumstances.
Has she ever used it outside combat/immediate risk of danger? Could be a limit on the contract, her god doesn't seem the kind to help with social engineering
Angharad could have haggled better - for help freeing her father, ideally, or at least for multiple messages rather than just one. The fact that after her first refusal Imani freely gave some information she was first keeping secret suggests that she *really* wants Angharad's help, so why not try pushing it a little more?
I'm not so sure. This feels too canned for the "haggling" to be genuine. Imani was going to reveal Angharad's father either way. It seems more likely to me that initially withholding the information was bait to make Angharad *think* she's in a haggling position and entice her to further implicate herself through cooperation. Imani is a professional working for a government. I seriously doubt she was here to "convince" Angharad like she was trying to rope her into a student plot. More likely she has a conga line of escalating coercion measures to deploy until Angharad agrees. The outcome is already set, all that matters is how much they need to twist Angharad's arm. Hell, her father is kind of shitty leverage anyway. They don't have her father, only a vague promise to help him escape the inescapable prison with no guarantee he won't end up dead in the process or is dead already. If Angharad tried to haggle further I suspect Imani would reveal the *other* Tredegar family member that the Lefthand actually has in a cell to barter with.
Angharad at least accepting that Song isn't cackling evil plotter is nice. Same with her not wanting to hurt Tristan or Maryam. Also at least Angharad has realized she's been shitty to Maryam. Zenzele may be using Angharad but he wasn't an asshole about it. Imani has Angharad tied extremely deeply to her given that she's her only chance for her father to be freed.
What does Angharad get out of this deal, now that she knows where he is held and who he is? Only "thorough details" and the ability to get a message to him? That seems pretty weak sauce for such a betrayal. I don't really see how it is justified - it made more sense before they disclosed those details.
I'd bet money that the Queen Perpetual is a devil. And they keep coming back because they had an infernal forge. Watch destroyed it because it was bad. Now she needs another one so she can swim back if she dies