King Of Attolia - Tumblr Posts

Alright scroll past if you don't want spoilers for Queen's Thief book 3, King of Attolia, because I'm back on my bs with memes about it to keep from yelling

Y'all weren't kidding about the Best Boy Costis, huh? We stan a hotheaded ride-or-die himbo with more heart than sense.

He doesn't get paid enough for this.

Or THIS

Speaking of the newlyweds....

Was I misreading that scene? Or was that man propositioning her on the dance floor and she had to leave to cool down because she was this close to jumping his bones in front of everyone?

Honestly the juxtaposition between how everyone assumes they must hate each other and how they are in private is hysterical to me. He loves his hot girlboss wife so much.

Alas, it comes with Responsibilities.

Can we get an F in the chat for the man who didn't think this through past "hng love"

Loved the dynamics we got once he started accepting the necessity of it tho.

My mans may be king now, but he's still first and foremost A Problem.

And of course the moments when the gloves came off

Homeboy's an absolutely unhinged murder machine waiting to blow and it's both terrifying and so satisfying.

I have more, but this is long already and i worked hard on the ones I really want y'all to see, so stay tuned for part 2 lol

King of Attolia brainrot memes part 2

(spoilers)

First, an ode to one of my favorite scenes.

Bonus:

Did I mention Costis doesn't get paid enough for this? Loved this man just being like, "Nope, I literally cannot deal with the stress right now and so have Decided That Didn't Happen."

And, of course, one of my other favorite scenes:

Not as big and flashy as "Diplomacy in my own name," but holy cow if I wasn't just as elated. Gen coming into his own! Accepting his fate with his head held high! Becoming KING! So subtle and yet so poignant!

And lastly, a shoutout to the quietly understated emotional arc in this one that threw me an unexpected gut punch.

Another 11/10, "How does she do it, this woman is so smart and clever" wild ride from the Notorious MWT, ALL HAIL THE QUEEN

I like it but it's kinda boring for like, the first half if I'm being completely honest. But Thick As Thieves is worse so whateve

On a reread, I think the King of Attolia is my favorite queen’s thief book (although admittedly I can’t wait to meet Kamet and Sophos and Pheris again)

I just love how much and for how long Costis just fucking hates Gen’s guts. And the slow, all but dragged kicking and screaming inevitability of his soft heart finding sympathy for Gen’s homesickness and loneliness. While still absolutely hating his fucking guts. And gradually coming to love and respect and fear and be exasperated by him; the inevitable hero’s journey experienced by everyone who eventually comes to love Eugenides.

I love Costis so so much. A good man, a loyal guard dog, the Attolian royal court’s most beloved punching bag (by default, since Gen can’t be included in the rankings). And still no sense of humor. Bless him.

Costis’s narration starts calling him Eugenides instead of just “the king” right after he says “Could you act like a king for once” lmaoooo

Costis at the end of King of Attolia: pick your battles. Pick fewer. Put some back. Wait you can’t fight every single guard- PICK FEWER YOU IDIOT

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”

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

Aris: how’s your morning going?

Costis: well, Attolis just asked me what my favorite color is and then told me I was wrong, as usual.

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

Chapter 4:

I think it's funny that Costis so readily volunteers to fight off the approaching swordsmen, leaving Kamet to scramble. "My alarm was perfectly reasonable, as the horsemen appeared to be waving at us, and I was certain that what they were waving was swords." Kamet's precision does nothing to hide his anxiety (which I think is well-warranted).

I have to wonder, when would Costis have realized the true depth of Kamet's fear about the skirmish? Or, more generally, that every bit of Kamet's worldview is informed by his life as a slave?

"I didn't come all the way to this godsforsaken cesspit so that I could go home and tell my king I failed him." / loyaltyyyyyy. I love Costis. flashback to KoA: "He knew he would march into hell for this fathomless king."

I know everyone has already talked about the absurdity of the lion's den, but: Costis. what are you doing.

Also, I love the surgery song. that is all.

"...how did you come to Ianna-Ir?" / "I punched the king in the face." / I knew that he would say that, but I still smiled like a loon. I love KoA so much.

Also: "He was more kind to me than I deserved and he forgave me." / love.

"Well, the Namreen aren't dropping roof tiles on my head or trying to stab me in the back." / lol.

the cooks really spent months risking their lives by putting sand in his food just to say "we miss you come visit us already you asshole"

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.

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.