Devil’s Rest Book Club: Devil's Rest Book Club is Cameron Elston and Drew Welty. Today's episode discussed chapters 50, 51, and 52 of Empire of Silence by Christopher Rocchio, copyright 2018. Empire of Silence was originally published by Daw Books on July 3rd, 2018. Quality editing and original music by Cameron Elston. Find us on YouTube. Contact us at devil'srestbookclub.com. Devil's Rest Book Club is a production of Disquiet Pods. This episode copyright 2026, Cameron Elston and Drew Walty. Thanks for joining us and remember, rage is blindness. Welcome to another episode of the Devil's Rest Book Club where we dive into the details of Christopher Rockio's Sun Eater universe. I am your hunchbacked heterochromic Intis host Cameron and with me as always as he is Teaching the people that I'd like to get close to the real way to fight with the sword the Palatine Host of our podcast himself drew. How are you doing drew?
Drew: I am doing fantastic and today we're going to be covering chapters 50 through 52 of the first book of this series, Empire of Silence. I'm excited to continue. getting into more court...yeah, we're making it through. We're getting some, you know, like court sort of political stuff going on, relationships and stuff. It's getting good.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: We're halfway done, dude. Yeah, super excited about the rest of the book. We got a plug and chug to get done with this. I can't wait to get on to the rest of series. That's how excited I am. How excited this part of the books now that it's picked up. ⁓ It makes me. But can you give us a brief recap of what we discussed last time?
Drew: Yes. Yep. Yeah, so in the last episode we are greeted with a sort of lamenting Hadrian, sort of recounting the fact that he's feeling very stuck by his situation. We get to see the aphibia happen, where the Cielcen is actually executed. the Cielson that Hadrian had communicated with. ⁓ then we also get a ending ⁓ ⁓ Hadrian ⁓ reintroduced to Polino and gets to try to sort of re-salvage ⁓ relationship ⁓ communicate through him towards which that he ⁓ sorry to see if there is any ⁓ to mend that relationship. So a lot talk about relationships ⁓ stuff that in last episode.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: And that's where we pick up with him in chapter 50, which has two different names on which version of the book you have. ⁓ I believe chapter 50 in the original version is called Without Pretence, if I'm not mistaken. ⁓ the new version of the book, it is called The Alienage, ⁓ I'll remind our listeners, ⁓ and Alienage a ghetto for ⁓ non-human xenobites in the Empire.
Drew: Correct, yes.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: So it gives us a lot of the new name gives us an indication of what's going to happen. Hadrian immediately begins, you know, get steps off of a ship that has taken himself, the Mataro kids and Volca to ⁓ umand alienage. and doing so he steps, he's being very quickly very early on in these chapters. We've talked about before, but the political guile or the to be. ⁓ subservient for his ends and understand where he is in the situation. Hadrian is displaying that more and more and more the further we get in the book. This isn't fumbling around with politics with the Mandaris. This is Hadrian observing every single form that he needs to, to stay alive. And in doing so, he helps Dorian and Anais off the ship, sort of like hands, gives them a hand. His boots are covered in water.
Drew: Yeah. Yep.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: And get a ⁓ really interesting character building moment for Valka because he offers, he really is doing it, let's be honest, he's doing it so that he can hold Valka's hand. ⁓ just observing the fact that he has to do it for Doring and Ais. But real benefit of him is like, ⁓ maybe I'll get to hold Valka's hand. ⁓ She it away immediately and like jumps in the water and starts walking ⁓ away. awesome. get a vision of Valka in these chapters that are really, really... enlightening into who she is as a person.
Drew: ⁓ continue to get this developing sense strong personality ⁓ for and ⁓ you we're this sense that she sort of bucks the system socially and culturally, being from where she's from and now being in the Empire, disagreeing with things very forcefully, ⁓ but we're also getting sense ⁓ through this, that there's of this... almost independence to a fault where she sort of scoffs at efforts to help her in some way. It continues to give shape to who this person is. It's quite charming, actually.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: So these soldiers wearing the tar livery begin clearing a path for them between like, you imagine as they step onto the speech, ⁓ there's lot of Umond being driven around by duleters, we'd seen with shock sticks and those big machines with the dials making the noises, trying to tell them what to do. And actually these duleters line the Umond up for inspection. So this is like a almost a military thing the moment that the kids of the count ⁓ up in town. Every, you know, bow has got to be tied and every button's got to be ⁓ up and all that different stuff. It's a ⁓ formal inspection, but just the fact that the counts kids are here. There's a formality to this that wouldn't necessarily present otherwise. This alienage is a place called the Ulaquiel and I couldn't find on that name. But it does mention that this island is rare because it is a volcanic island, ⁓ one that was created and existed before the tectonic death of Emesh. So we knew that Emesh was tectonically dead, but at one point it was tectonically alive. that's where this island, there's not a lot of land mass on Emesh. And so these islands are sort of few and far between. And they also are, the fluctuates. In periods we already know based on the fact that Volca is not at Calaga, tidal forces essentially ⁓ weather ⁓ other factors block off certain land masses from being habitable ⁓ certain periods of time. ⁓ Valka points to this Palisade in water as ⁓ is inspecting the fact that there's house where this, ⁓ leader of this area lives, and getting lay of this island. He out into the water and he sees this Palisade, which is a fence in the water. and ⁓ mentions that this fence is superheated. to specifically melt any organic matter it comes in contact with. So this is keeping the umon from leaving. They're in a cage surrounding this island or this beach and they're being fenced off from ⁓ being free in the water because we know that they're amphibious, they can be on land or in water. ⁓ would otherwise just be on the bottom feeding or whatever.
Drew: Hmm.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Upon seeing that, Hadrian feels this gut feeling of how awful this is. then Valka sort of turns this on him like she has with the gladiatorial stuff, ⁓ that, ⁓ know, it's your empire that's doing this. It's like this is ⁓ fault. Like lumping him in with the rest, which you know just sticks right in his craw more than anything else. He's tried his very hardest to distance himself, at least internally, from the empire up to this point.
Drew: Yeah. Yeah, it really triggered some thought process for me when I read this line there's sort of a weird ⁓ ⁓ happening here where Adrian is having... responsibility for the Empire placed on him. ⁓ was thinking about this about whether or not that's fair or not. It's of hard to evaluate in some sense, Because Hadrian is different than the of his empire, but he benefits from existing within it. So it's like a weird situation where there's... really kind of unclear lines of responsibility here. know, like, it ⁓ obligation of a person who exists within and benefits from this environment like ⁓ tear thing down in order to somehow not be ⁓ like for something like this? Or is he just an innocent bystander that was born into it or figuring out where it is is kind of complex thus far. You know, he's, he said words that suggest he disagrees with it, but sort of unclear what your obligations are within an environment like this and whether or not it's yours or just something you live in.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: I was going to bring this up later, but I think it might make sense to bring it up now. two things. One, Valka is more right than she knows he has more say or would have more say in the social structure than most people ⁓ if he were to just be a Palatine, Cause he is a Palatine ⁓ and he is benefiting most from the society, you're saying, but he also has the most say the Palatines have of anybody in the society. know, obviously Chantry Emperor here. Palatines right below, right? He's one rung from the top of this society most Palatines have. I don't know, some semblance of power, right? They have power over the plebeians. She doesn't know that he's Palatine because of his cover, but she knows that he's higher up than a plebeian, and she's saying this. The second piece of it that I wanted to mention is the demarche in particular. We get an explanation of this in later chapter, in chapter 52. The culture that she is coming from, she is a governmental figure, right? Everybody in the demarche,
Drew: Right.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Is a governmental figure. Demarque in particular is a system of government in which like the entire populace is pulled from ⁓ different groups maintain different pieces. So like there's a transportation group ⁓ there's a farming group or whatever. So there may be a bunch of different things ⁓ the manifestation in Tavros. Every person is a member of the government. So they all have equal share.
Drew: Yeah.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: to any problem that's going on. So the fact that she's bringing up to him, she's looking at it through the lens of, well, where I'm from, I am is equal to blame for anything that goes wrong as my neighbor, right? Like everybody's, it's everybody's problem all the time. it's also everybody's say to change anything, right? That true sort of weird ⁓ democracy this manifestation.
Drew: Yeah. Yeah, it's really strange, know, because you... a situation like Valka's, ⁓ divide responsibility up so much that you some control, be it... small, like in an environment that we live in, we have some control but it's small, but we still bear some responsibility. It's just unclear about like what the implications of that are. an empire ⁓ Hadrian lives in ⁓ he doesn't have that of representation, it's strange, but yet again he's a palatine. So what does that mean? Like he have true... ability to completely buck the system or does he get crushed by the Emperor if does so and he does then like what's the obligation here? It's really complicated figuring out like how you can blame Hadrian for this situation or put that blame on him and yet Volka sort of like innately does it and it will be interesting to see as their connection and you know, just relationship or whatever it is continues the criticism stands or not and if this sort of reflex that she has continues so lots interesting thoughts about ⁓ about ⁓ dynamic
Devil’s Rest Book Club: The villicus of this ⁓ begins to greet the the Matoro children and the rest of the group. A villicus his name is Niles Engen. ⁓ A villicus is basically chief overseer. He's the boss of the Doolitters. ⁓ It comes the Roman word for manager, supervisor or overseer. ⁓ So he's one who's basically responsible for ⁓ the maintenance all of this ⁓ ghetto. ⁓ and the moment he sees the Mataros, he's very polite. He's, he's like, ⁓ sorry Lord Matarot that I couldn't be at aphibia. ⁓ I saw it on video. I heard you were gallant and he was just, you know, brown nosing the entire time. And the moment ⁓ he lays eyes on Valka is a girl. Yes, must be the Tavrosi. And he's just like immediately flips, right? He makes the, I think it's the first time we hear maybe. The second time we hear of the sign of the sun disc, we should let readers know is essentially equivalent in this universe ⁓ of crossing ⁓ right? It's warding gesture ⁓ that earth, like the sun disc would be soul, like the original ⁓ our that we live under today here on It's a, it's a warding gesture away from evil.
Drew: Yeah.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: we'll get a little bit more context about why that is in the not too distant future.
Drew: thing that stood out to me ⁓ immediately as this happened, where is and sort of like called by ⁓ to write, is that this be first that Volka's assertive nature is an adaptation the way that she is referred to. If you can imagine if she's this, ⁓
Devil’s Rest Book Club: second class citizen.
Drew: Tevarosi zinologist that goes out into the world and is treated this way all the time. One could see either people being crushed by the sort of discriminatory attitude of people or to develop an opposite reflex of being very forceful and assertive back to advocate for oneself. Maybe even overcompensating in that sense to signal that she can't be pushed around in order to ⁓ survive in an environment where she's not in her home culture in this way.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: think that there's part of it that's just her, right? Her strong willed nature. that's a good point. That's a fair point. The other part of it too, though, is ⁓ going back to the idea of the demarquis she is, you know, ⁓ one Xth percentage of the government of the demarquis. She's a foreign dignitary at all times. ⁓ So can be rude to her to a certain but they can't be so rude to her that it like immediately ⁓ cuts ties with anything.
Drew: Yes.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: that they want to do business with the demarchi. So she's afforded some liberties otherwise she would not be because she is technically a foreign dignitary. ⁓ that doesn't mean that people have to treat her nicely to your point. And so maybe that brusqueness is ⁓ learned behavior, it's also afforded by the fact that she can away with it
Drew: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, for clarity sake, think it's important, know, assertiveness is an adaptation that people can have. It's also, environment matters. being assertive just got your head cut off, you're correct that maybe she wouldn't do it. ⁓ But also assertiveness a personality trait. know, there's a sub-trait of, I believe it is, extraversion, ⁓ is assertiveness. So it is genetic
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Mm.
Drew: thing as well. is likely that ⁓ of environment she have been a strong old person ⁓ but possible that that instinct sort of grows ⁓ in environment like this due to the ability plus the necessity for her to be so. So ⁓ interesting
Devil’s Rest Book Club: They look over at these interconnected huts of rusted metal, which is this, I mean, it's a shanty town that has been constructed by the Umand. Engen mentions the fact that this be the most populous version of these alienages on all of Emesh. But because it's shanty town, it's not like meant, it's not up to code. It's not meant for people to come and
Drew: Yeah. Yeah.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: go look at it. So he's probably organized and we get ⁓ kind of a picture of that in just a minute of, know, different things. They're going to go to this side of the town where it's relatively safe and this side of the town, there's relatively safe. As begin to survey Umand and see them in this habitat, I won't say their natural habitat, but in this habitat itself, mentions that Emesh's two moons, which we have had tell of before, ⁓ make the tidal crazy on this planet. And so why we have Caligah being an issue and ⁓ the storms being so big. On top of that, like the water cycle's gotta go crazy, but two moons and two tidal forces. I could not help but keep every single time we get anything related to Emesh. is in stark contrast to everything Hadrian was on Delos, right? Delos was placid. It didn't have a moon. It was grayscale and dark. Emesh is bright and vibrant and blue and green and it's hot and it's not temperate and it has two moons and so tidal forces are crazy.
Drew: you
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Baelin Matarro is this man of passions. has this charisma. People want to get to know him. He's the kind of this land, whereas the Archon Alastor Marlowe is cold, calculating rules only by fear. So even in the ecology and the world building of the celestial bodies of Emesh, we are seeing a stark contrast between Hadrian's past and Hadrian's present.
Drew: Mm-hmm.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: One of the moons is green and is named Benach. This greenery is potentially a reference to Book of the New Sun. I'll that for people to go and ⁓ that I'd recommend everybody do it. It's great. But ⁓ the name comes from the word ⁓ for understanding. It's divine attribute or emanation on the Kabbalistic tree of life. So there's like ⁓ there's The fact that he chose this name is not by accident. There's deep references to esoterica and mysticism that may potentially even tie it closer to ⁓ Book of the New Sun. I'm not, no, you may think I'm going down to the rabbit hole. You gotta read Book of the New Sun and maybe it'll make sense.
Drew: Yep. Yep. No, no. I just think it's interesting that Adrian goes from placid planet planet he is then crushed by understanding. It's fascinating. ⁓
Devil’s Rest Book Club: OHHHH
Drew: Yeah, yeah, I didn't even think about that, but he literally, almost drowns ⁓ this planet in part because of the... That's fascinating. That's an interesting... I'm not sure if that's intentional or not, but it's... fact... Because this ⁓ is a story. He comes to the planet and the intensity of planet is partly its nature, ⁓ and it's funny one of the components of that is ⁓ his understanding. ⁓
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Yeah, ⁓
Drew: a, ⁓ at the minimum, a really amazing or a brilliant part on ⁓ the of the author here, I'm ⁓ not ⁓
Devil’s Rest Book Club: And that goes that ties back to what we've been saying about this new Hadrian that we're seeing been crushed by that understanding that you mentioned. What genius dude, genius. This is why we do this. ⁓ That's awesome. ⁓ other moon that we ⁓ see visible in this scene is a white moon named Armand. Unfortunately, I couldn't find anything related to Kabbalah in name Armand, but there may be something I missed there.
Drew: Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty amazing. Yeah, this is correct. Yeah.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: As they wait, this alienage is like partially submerged, right? Imagine like knee deep water is what it sounds like. Vulcan is walking next to Hadrian and she just remarks, you know, these ⁓ a, this is a, they're a marvel in cognitive ⁓ ⁓ yet ⁓ you guys do is have them fishing, right? Like what a waste. We could be studying these people. We could be understanding them more ⁓ you just got them fishing off the coast. And Hadrian, while they're talking about the Umand, still has this very, very vivid picture of Makisom's head in Dorian's hand as it's being held aloft by Dorian. Every time Volka is mentioning the Umand and the treatment of the Empire, Hadrian is scared to look at her as almost an of guilt ⁓ on part.
Drew: was this moment that I think is interesting when she says, you know, it's a damn waste. that these Amanda like this and Hadrian agrees with her and there's this line where he's just like, sorry, I can imagine him walking next to her and he feels her eyes like looking at him. And it's this moment that to me feels like she is looking at Hadrian and calculating and trying to reassess a little bit. It's like, who am I talking to right now? Like, like, this is like a very, it's gotta be a very disorienting experience. Us as the reader,
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Yeah.
Drew: You we've lived with Hadrian since the start of this narrative. Hadrian is super weird for being someone in the Empire, right? He's saying that he agrees with, like they're in a slum currently, in his empire. And he's saying, yeah, this doesn't make any sense. And she's like, looking at him like, what is this person? Like, it just doesn't fit into any pre-existing model that she has. So even though she has this, you know, previous section of criticism. It's your empire, Hadrian. starts saying comments like this continually and ⁓ sort of looks at him sideways like, is his empire? That's the kind of the feeling that is evoked me.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: She that that's fair. And it's also probably to her probing, like pushing a little bit to find where the button is like Hadrian's button is. She knows that at least at least up to this point, he's been ⁓ polite with her. hasn't been redurred. ⁓ I imagine for some of that, it's rare. I mean, we saw Gilliam Vass be such a jerk to her in last episode. Right. ⁓ So.
Drew: Yeah. you know, called her a whore or something. It's just, yeah, just, yeah, yeah.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Yeah, called her a heretic whore and all this different stuff. from her perspective, he's not the highest level of society, but the fact that he is as nice as he is ⁓ might be putting her off guard. And so trying to figure out where his levers and buttons are. ⁓ Hadrian, as he's watching the umand work that they are like ants working in unison guided one of the umand's songs. and then the same time, vilicus is regaling them with the fact that they are now sending umand off worlds ⁓ for the time. And Dorian makes a note the fact that I'm just the first time hurting. didn't know we ⁓ shipped them off And Engin mentions, yeah, you know, their house coward on Triton believes that they'd be good at ⁓ laying wiring seabed potentially. But the Villicus mentions that, I ⁓ don't think can screw in a light bulb. Which is ⁓ fun fact, what they doing ⁓ the moment that Hadrian meets
Drew: know. ⁓ This guy is super gross. don't like, this guy gives me bad vibes the entire time. It just feels all wrong.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: ⁓ yeah. ⁓ it doesn't get better because Hadrian then pipes up, of course, and says, so you were a trader then. And by trader, he means ⁓ slaver. Right. And so Hadrian has clocked this guy's modus operandi because that's that's his business is dealing with ⁓ ⁓ particular. And mentions that, yeah, I used to deal ⁓ the from Saddle Sood to other planets. The definition of Saddle Sood in the lexicon the index of worlds is ⁓ wild world in the spur of Orion that is mostly untrammeled, home to the Kavarad giants, ⁓ huge species of xenobites, ⁓ well as the marching towers, ⁓ of the 99 wonders of the universe, ruled by House Rodolfo. ⁓ the Kav... Huh?
Drew: Man, appendix here ⁓ just like, it's just so cool. ⁓ underappreciated. ⁓
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Dude, just wait. Just wait. Because find out that these giants, ⁓ xenobites that are native to this planet, grow up to 40 feet tall ⁓ are nominally immortal. So we don't know how old they can possibly get even though they are 40 feet tall and yet they are enslaved by the Solon Empire. On top that, the planet Satt-Al-Sud is a real ⁓ Supergiant star system that is also known as beta Aquaria in our universe like we can see it from our earth and instead I'll suit it's the side of the Arabic or the or the Farsi name for this planet for whoever might have been the Arabic name for the astronomers who discovered it, but it means the luck of Lux and it's 540 light years from Seoul The depth at which this guy deals with these planetary bodies. The reason I look all this stuff up is he has put in another plenty work. And that's probably my biggest question is ⁓ it's that there's some sort of method to the madness of how he names these planetary bodies, some of which this already exists. Subtle suit already exists. It just has a different name in English. We call it beta query. I, ⁓ but some people call it subtle suit in our world. But for other planets that we like don't know, how he goes about adding these pieces in, really want to get some more context for because it's there. The layers to it are really deep.
Drew: Well, it's also just, what's so fascinating to me about it is that is like a depth of building that I most people are not even gonna digest, including myself, because they don't read the index, right? They're not gonna see this random factoid this location. Like, he didn't have do this. ⁓ And yet he did, it just adds. just super cool, man. Like, I ⁓
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Every time he does it, may not amount to much, but in the total collective, it amounts to an incredible amount of depth and reality in world building. Because even if we never see or we do see a Cavarad giant or whatever, right? Whether or not that's a setup for later, it doesn't matter. Hadrian, the narrator is interested in that because he loves Zenos, right? Like we've already established that he's here at this ghetto looking at xenobytes.
Drew: Right. Yeah.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: So he would know this information because he's fascinated with all the 40 xenobite creatures or like that they've found.
Drew: It's super cool.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: This is depth of thinking that ⁓ of us would not get to when writing a story. ⁓ also mentions that the Cabarad had been popular in previous years in Colossus, like a hundred years before, pitting against a team of Mermenons, ⁓ which wish we got that scene ⁓ of Hadrian and Paulino and Switch and ⁓ Siren against a 40-foot tall giant. It'd be
Drew: Yeah. Hahaha dying to a cabaret.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: But as you know, as he's thinking about this and hearing that Niles Engin was a slaver of these giants, Valka clearly shows her displeasure begins like muttering to herself and walks away and then gets ⁓ her out and starts interacting with the umand. So she is like playing on her tablet, trying to communicate with them. She points to ⁓ wind chimes. Or what looked like wind chimes to Hadrian asked him his opinion on what he thinks that they are. Nobody knows. It's potentially a religious symbol, but ⁓ a symbol would indicate more intelligence than Newmont have shown. Valka mentions that she wishes that she could ask him and Hadrian's like, well, just use the tablet. You have a translator right there. Why can't you just talk to them? And she's like, don't understand their ⁓ is not language. Like we would understand language. The harmonize in different frequencies ⁓ to tasks. Collectively, they smarter as a pack or a unit, but not by much. like she mentions the case of like, One of them drones that they're hungry and so all of them go and get food together and like harmonize with that tone of being hungry until all of them are fed and then they move on to another task. This sort of gives me vibes of like the way bees work or hive minds kind of.
Drew: Yeah.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: animals, things like the ants, know, pheromones and different things that are using, that people are guiding different functions for. So it's not like she could just be like, Hey, Umond, why did you make this? ⁓ So ⁓ the first time Hadrian's heard this about the Umond itself.
Drew: Mm-hmm. Right. They wouldn't, they wouldn't. Yeah, it's not language ⁓ ⁓ have. ⁓ The Sielcidn have complex, verbal in the way that we do. The Umand ⁓ have, like, vibe songs, they, like... ⁓ connect in that way and they do things. Very complex, It's sort of a separate phenomena from language. It's communication, but language may be a strong word for it. ⁓ ⁓ have grammar. It's like frequency stuff. It's very fascinating.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: And Hadrian in talking about these frequencies asks how many of them that we know collectively as a human species. And she mentions like a few dozens of 24 to 36 of these frequencies they understand, but there's potentially more out there. But to your point, she then flips that on that conversation and him said, you know how rare it is that language develops, like grammar develops as we conceive it present in the universe. And of course, Hadrian being the smart ass is like, well, I'm exactly one in 25. And she's like, don't be a freaking smart ass dude. And she sort of is now letting him in on some of the things that she's thinking about when dealing with this. is her work as a doctor that she's doing right now is postulating, trying to gather intelligence and information about how these different things work. She mentions a theory that she read by Philemon of Neruda unnatural grammars, which is ⁓ fact that the Cielson and humanity have the structure of a grammatical language ⁓ what allowed them ⁓ ⁓ ⁓ spacefaring creatures. ⁓ way that their brains were wired because they had grammar is a direct like causal that they eventually ended up developing ways to get off world. That's the theory by Philemon of Neruda. as a note, he is a Scolius from the planet Neruda. Neruda is a reference to Pablo Neruda, who's a Chilean poet. And this planet is known for having a fungal forest and a Scolius death and am ⁓ Philemon a book of the Bible. And this is an interesting factoid too. ⁓ The come from name from comes from love. The word love ⁓ philos. It's a Pauline epistle. So meaning that the apostle Paul wrote this letter to Philemon and it's included in the biblical canon. But interestingly enough, the book of Philemon is Paul writing to Philemon telling him that his once bond servant or slave Onesimus is coming back and Paul wants to greet him as a brother. So the fact that like he chose Philemon as he's talking about the Umond is not accidental. They're enslaved and Philemon is a biblical book about uninslave about I don't know what you would call it, abolition, right? Abolition of slavery, like the removal of the status of being enslaved a person, to an individual. I thought that that was interesting.
Drew: Mmm. Mmm. That's wild,
Devil’s Rest Book Club: ⁓ Of course, Hadrian is familiar with Philemon of Neruda's theorem and just gets super nerdy about this whole thing. ⁓ she's like, ⁓ you know, this ⁓ exactly what I was thinking about. You know, just ⁓ a candy store when talking. ⁓ is ⁓ first time on the page he's been able to nerd out with somebody about this basically since Gibson, we can imagine.
Drew: Yep. Yeah, you know, that's an interesting... Interesting point, we've had different pieces of Hadrian connecting with different people at this point. We've had Polino and Switch and Crow and all these different connections, but he hasn't had a connection like this since ⁓ had who appreciated his stories and stuff, but this is like an appreciation ⁓ for the things he's obsessed with about communication and language. Yeah, yes, not just it.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: on an intellectual level.
Drew: a wonder level. He can actually converse intellectualize with this person in way that he can't with anybody else since ⁓ Gibson.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Part of it too is the fact that weird. Like according to the empire, it's weird that he's into this stuff. ⁓ borderline heresy that he speaks this Yeltsin tongue. ⁓ So the fact that he's interested in these languages and he's found somebody to vent the pressure a little bit with it is great. Valka then that, know, Philemon's theory is very interesting.
Drew: Correct, yep. Yep.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: But his sample size is too small. It's a hypothesis at best, but it has potential. they're sort of like ⁓ each other's sentences. It's a very cute moment. ⁓ a flirty moment too. Like, ⁓ we have shit. ⁓ been flirting and all this different stuff, but now we have similar interests. she to that he's catching on well for a ⁓ brand fandom.
Drew: Yeah, yeah.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: and then calls him Anna Ryan. We don't get much context into this word, but Anna Ryan will come up a lot. And we will, when we get a better definition of it later in the text, I'll let you know. it's won't be the last time you heard Anna Ryan or Anna Ryok or some variation of the sort. And doesn't know what these words mean, but he can tell that she's rousing him when doing it, but almost in a sort of playful to your point. ⁓ a playful, strong-willed and trying to catch his, trying to figure out his buttons with.
Drew: Yeah. banter and this is like girl bullying you because she kind of likes you. That's this is. ⁓
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Every dude's fantasy. a little bit. Hadrian, ⁓ as they shift the is like, well, okay, then what does the tablet do then? Why can't you just like, you have these frequencies, can you not cook some information out them? ⁓ And she's like, have you tried to tell a cat what to do? And he's like, no, we didn't have cats on Delos. They don't exist. and we get a fun little building fact that They're not on Emesh either, or if they are, they're hidden away because these ornithons, these flying serpents, would eat them. ⁓ Which is, I wonder if Rockio hates cats. ⁓ But that was a funny little thing. ⁓ it's awesome.
Drew: You It's terrible.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: But she then takes it to the next level of this language discussion saying that their consciousness operates on different principles than what we would understand.
Drew: It's a fascinating question, right? Because when we... when we think we experience, we ⁓ things in in some sense. It's very was reading ⁓ a book actually. yesterday that referenced another book and it was referencing Helen Keller's early experience in life after having lost sight and hearing and the experience of what her life was like before language. It was described almost as this memory void where there was just nothing but experience until she learned...
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Mm-hmm.
Drew: what the language for water was because someone was insisting on teaching her and running water over her hand and apparently learning just the word to orient her changed her entire life because then you could build upon everything else and so it sort of begs the question of like... Is consciousness in the way that we experience it really like interlinked with in the way that we experience it? And if language different, would that mean you are absent a conscious experience or do you just have like ⁓ such different conscious experience that we wouldn't even know what that experience would be like? It would be very Our lives are sort of narrative and language oriented in some sense. And it's almost ⁓ to imagine it would be like ⁓ to live as new mind. for example, so you wouldn't even have words to describe it. It would be ⁓ an experience that we couldn't data for. It's interesting. ⁓ begs the question about a lot of things about what they experience and what is it like and is it the same or ⁓ similar our experience.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: you're 100 % right. therapy for me is a exercise most of the time. It's finding the right words ⁓ to adequately describe an experience, see where my brain got to that place, ⁓ to try and ⁓ redo loop.
Drew: Yeah, is a genuine problem for folks ⁓ for ⁓ difficulty experiencing emotions and experience if they don't have the words to describe them. And some people don't have the words and so they can't correlate. their physical and emotional experience without language. happens in people in that way in some sense where we are dissociated our experience without the words for it. ⁓ So absent in its entirety, actually don't really, I don't know how, I don't even what that would be like. I don't know how you would be conscious and not have it, but. It's an interesting question. don't what like to be in a mod.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: ⁓ As Hadrian is looking over, sees Engin and Anais feeding these Umand children candied fruit from like a paper bag and is laughing or whatever. She's getting a very catered experience to this whole ghetto, whereas he's seeing the reality of the situation. Then they look at this bag that these Umand had made and hung from these hoops that are connected to the ceiling ⁓ that are with shells and stone. and they clack softly in the breeze. And they're postulating why they would have made them, you know, discussing their consciousness more. And then they realize that it's a communication tool. The umand don't sight, so they echo locate, right? ⁓ And this isn't loud to humans, presumably it is loud enough for them to hear it. So it's, it's in a way for them to ⁓ be guided ⁓ through particular is via these wind chimes. Hadrian then postulates that it's potentially an anaglyph, which is a carving of a three-dimensional picture ⁓ are meant to be felt and not seen. to your, ⁓ know, there's more, you know, references to ⁓ how language and sight somebody is to experience the world. Volka is incredibly impressed at the fact that he figures it out that quickly. It apparently took the Normans, you know, decades to figure that out. ⁓ mentions that these circles are perfectly circular. It's not like circular, like kind of circular. No, it's like a perfect circle for these, which is rare that you'd see. And asks if the ruins at Caligar have ruins similar like is there similar structures or glyphs or whatever there and focus is no no they're made of stone which is strange enough to be in this landscape at all because everything's like built on coral reef and the umand are not they're building shanty towns right here i have a hard time believing that ⁓ their past were enough to make stone or stone ruins Valka is distracted during this conversation because she sees an Umand who's bearing scars from Engin's group or Engin himself beating them and like chiseling their skin out, which is a new layer of cruelty that we haven't seen up to this point.
Drew: It's just jacked up, dude. It's so messed up, the treatment of these. weird to have a discussion about whether not these things are conscious in the way that we are, but also to experience the disgust and cruelty towards them. I think it's commenting on something that I think interesting around this, ⁓ which is that... Sometimes we characterize in terms of whether or not they're good or not, in terms of if ⁓ are something else. And I ⁓ that is way to view ethics, but I think another thing ⁓ to consider even if the were not in the way that we are. Is there something unethical about the person inflicting the harm, ⁓ of whether or not it harms the human? It of suggests an underlying cruelty to the that they sort of lack the empathetic instinct towards these things in order to inflict that harm. There was an interesting ⁓ thought experiment we ⁓ talked about my undergraduate for philosophy minor that was on this question about whether or not something has to harm something else in order referred to be unethical. this is sort of jacked up, but there was this ⁓ of like, ⁓ you walked into someone's home ⁓ ⁓ discovered that all of their furniture was covered in what appeared to be human skin, ⁓ would feel better about it if you knew it weren't real human skin? ⁓ Like, you think there's nothing wrong with it? ⁓ Or you still think that there's something deeply wrong with the person, ⁓ not they've hurt anybody, but because they have this desire to reflect harm or something like that. And it sort of evokes this emotional response which is that independent of whether or not mind ⁓ conscious in the way that we are, can still draw conclusion ⁓ there's something probably like ⁓ wrong ⁓ the person that would think it's so callously okay to inflict harm upon something like that. interesting to about. the imagining ⁓ chiseling ⁓ in way, hard to imagine it would require from a person to be able to inflict something like that. that it, separate from the Dumont, it's that has to be ⁓ amazing level of emotional suppression or psychopathy, right? ⁓ ⁓ be pretty unbelievable to do that. ⁓
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Or I mean, I don't know if dehumanization is the right word, like. Yeah, but even still, to your point, even if the umand aren't as conscious as a dog or at the dog, like a level of a dog's intelligence or whatever, hurting a dog is something that is vastly unethical and I think would hurt a lot of people. Maybe some less than others. There's, cultural mores to be included in this too. Cultural upbringings. Uh, Hadrian feels sick.
Drew: Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: When he sees this as well, and he mentions in Latin, so this guy knows Latin homo homini lupus, which is man is wolf to another man, which is interesting to note because of the fact that is the wolf ⁓ the umand here, but also, you know, it's mentioning the fact that Hadrian is looking these do-it-ers as wolves among sheep, for instance. Valka is really, really upset at the fact that she's seeing this and saying that they've gone a step too far. You, Ana Ryek, are obsessed with pain. Another variation of the word that we heard earlier. blames the Chantry. ⁓ calls him Gladiator. ⁓ ⁓ Hadrian, being really ⁓ understanding this moment, doesn't correct her and sees an opportunity to... share his inner self with her and says, you know, you're right, what they do, what the chance you do is vile. And I wanted to read something that's on page 341 in this book, particularly about this. There must have been something in my voice, a gravity. I clamped my jaw shut, suddenly afraid of saying too much or that I'd already said too much. I wanted to say more, to tell her about my father, about my duty to the chantry. But that was Hadrian Marlowe's duty, and I was Hadrian Gibson. For a moment we were like two puzzle pieces whose owner understood that they fit together, but could not see how. Had we a day or even an hour, it might have been different, and all her lingering antipathy for me might have washed away. But it was not meant to be. it was against your laws to say such things. She says, for a moment we were like two puzzle pieces that were meant to fit together, whose owner understood that they fit together, but could not see how this is a clear indication ⁓ that the that he has with all cause going to be one that is bigger than we ⁓ have. And already gotten rumblings. This is the first.
Drew: Yeah. Yeah.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: more explicit indication from narrator Hadrian that him and Valka have a very special relationship, whatever it is, in the future. Otherwise, he would say not two puzzle pieces that were meant to fit together.
Drew: Yeah, it- Yeah, yeah, it implies almost like a divine level of like, there's almost perfect about the way that they just, ⁓ at point in the story, ⁓ are of just not understanding. what their connection is yet, they're talking past each other in a certain sense because of the context of what's happening. not completely open with her because he's bound by the fact of what's happening. ⁓ doesn't know fully about it. There's like a distance that's created by circumstance, ⁓ if they could ⁓ have time to correct that, then all of sudden everything would click into place. It's a great analogy ⁓ describe what's going on. ⁓
Devil’s Rest Book Club: And it has to be underlying values based too, right? Because the thing that they bond over is the cruelty of the games of Colossus, which Hadrian still believes is a thing, despite the fact that he fought as a Myrmidon. He still believes that they're inherently bad. ⁓ ⁓ cruelty of the Xenobites and cruelty of the Chantry in particular, right? All these three things are things that Hadrian up to this point has mentioned are ⁓ of importance to him from a standpoint. And she is the only person he has met that agrees with him on those three things. So of course, in that moment, he's thinking, I to be near this woman ⁓ get to know her better.
Drew: Yeah, most important part of this section is the idea that ⁓ saying it's vile they She says, I it was against your laws. And he says ⁓ it is blasphemy be heard saying such things. ⁓ And it's this moment clarity, I think they get to share. It's very but it's this.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Yes.
Drew: him I think subtly trying to communicate to her that like he gets it and he completely does not, he's not okay with this in a not just a superficial way. Like he deeply disagrees with it. And I think also it sort of speaks to the, know, ⁓ the theme that's partly been coming up ⁓ this story is the of supervision in this world, mean, it's borderline dystopia, like what we're talking about. And the care has to have with his language, given the position he is in, is different than the care that she has to have given her position the fact that she's foreign, she's a foreign dignitary, like she can't be condemned the way ⁓ he's a very compromised position but can't talk about it in a similar way ⁓ that sort of constrained trying to recoup his with Polino and the Myrmidons. He's similarly hands here although ⁓ he is able reach her a little bit ⁓ with this comment they've sort of like ⁓ gradually snuck away little bit so.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: And, ⁓ you know, key moment for their relationship. I totally agree. ⁓ and he's so down bad because he's like, understood Shakespeare's impulse to be a glove. And that's a reference literally to Romeo and Juliet, ⁓ where Romeo is looking upon Juliet and says, ⁓ to be a glove ⁓ that hand. so is Romeo and Juliet looking at this woman. He is young, he is dumb and he loves her. He is.
Drew: moment. Yeah.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: obsessed with her. ⁓
Drew: I- there was one more line that I think was important that I forgot to mention, which is this idea of... can say them if they don't catch you, and if you can say them, you should. it- it- it- ⁓
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Interesting, interesting line.
Drew: It is, it rang like 1984 vibes to me. It's like these small rebellions. Spoilers for 1984. There's this really important moment at the start, read 1984 folks, where there's this interesting rebellious moment where a character just writes his thoughts. And it's like a genuine tiny rebellion of the situation that he's put in. And it feels like that's almost kind of what Hadrian is saying here in some sense. It's almost an answer to the question that we started this episode with, which is that, know, do you bear responsibility for ⁓ Empire And ⁓ Hadrian is saying... if you have the opportunity, given the circumstance, to resist even in a small way by saying that this is not okay, your obligation to do so. ⁓ it's a failure. ⁓ in fact, the doing the ⁓ silence, we say, ⁓ sort of to this sort of quiet, moral quiet that is described early in the story where people are not saying the things they should be saying. ⁓ And ⁓ think ⁓ almost the crux of the point of part of this book is ⁓ ⁓ ⁓ truth to the situation here and to the cruelty of what's going on is part of the reason it continues. ⁓ yeah, it sort of all comes ⁓ together this moment.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: from there, that one moment where Hadrian is pondering and, you know, living in the Shakespearean Romeo and Juliet moment, ⁓ is quick as that came, it's ⁓ dropped on his head because he immediately ⁓ gets trying to explain that He's not like everybody else in the empire. not only the, which is a
Drew: Ha Peace. Yep.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: The big indication to her that your point. Who is this guy? Why have I not met anybody like him? And in this very sweet moment, she closes the gap and lays a hand on him and with a sad smile, says that she knows that he is different. And then they snap back to reality and begin discussing the ruins and how the umand wouldn't build them. Specifically, Valka says they didn't.
Drew: Yep. Mm-hmm.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: which we get a cliffhanger on this because she is pondering before she says this, like whether or not to let him in. She like chews on the idea of letting him into her thoughts more. And then she says, yeah, the Umun didn't build Kalaga. And the moment that that happens, Anais like jumps into the scene and Hadrian like jumps up sheepishly because he knows that he's not supposed to be with this girl all by himself. And Anais
Drew: of all, what does that mean? What does that mean? What does that mean? Like, feels... ⁓ like a giant mark and we just move on. it's just... ⁓ good writing.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Right. Right! Yeah. But we, but we can, we can assume that this is the truth that they did not. Volcker believes that they did not the language discussion earlier in the chapter, the fact that the Umand have built this like crappy shanty town ⁓ and don't have anything, you know, more industrious, like big buildings or is an indication that maybe they did not,
Drew: Yeah, yeah.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: So we just get left with that pin the time being a big one ⁓ Anais like ⁓ in a China shop comes and finds ⁓ and ⁓ ⁓ alone ⁓ Hadrian is very sheepish and is like, yes, I was just hanging out with the doctor, know, discussing blah, blah, blah. ⁓ tries to shrug Valk offices. ⁓ you have some shots to give to the Umand or whatever? Valka is like, ⁓ not that kind of doctor.
Drew: He he.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Dorian pops up behind his sister and they like their clothes are like water treated. So they're hydrophobic and they look totally at a place in this crappy shanty town, which ⁓ Hadrian's memory ⁓ ⁓ ⁓ homunculus ⁓ the idea that ⁓ Palatine cast and the Palatine people are ⁓ than human, inhuman children of the tanks, cousins to the homunculi. to the extra solarians even. This is the first time we hear that. It's like the extra solarians are being lumped into this anti-humanism as well. The plebians are really human. ⁓ homunculi are not. And the moment like they have this reunion in the shanty town, Engin barges in and says, get out, out. Cause it's a liability. If this thing falls on the two Mataro kids, he's screwed. So he's like, Get out of this building. It's not safe. We have to get out of here right now. and as they're leaving Anais glares at Volka in a very, telling way. Anais was staring, no, glaring at the doctor as if she'd caught her stealing ⁓ her midway to her purse. ⁓ I at that moment, ⁓ but dismissed it when the Palatine girl seized my hand. ⁓ You come see the primitives. The vilicus is going to have them dance for us. I shot Valka a besieged expression, but the doctor only looked glassily back at me, that hard-edged smile catching in me like fish hooks. There is a competition happening between these two women and an ownership on Hadrian's part that Anais feels that is infringing upon.
Drew: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, this is the loudest it's been on the page. It is like megaphone loud right here, right? I mean, this is glare and then the like, haha, let's go come check this out. Like ⁓ like, this not even subtle at this point. Like there's something going on here and she is liking Volca. ⁓ She feels by Volca. Like very obviously so, yeah. ⁓
Devil’s Rest Book Club: 100%. But that's where we end chapter 50 and move on to chapter 51 familiar. we get, maybe we get some more information on that in this chapter. Spoiler alert. Hadrian begins the chapter as he is tutoring the Mataros, specifically Dorian at this moment ⁓ Jadion. So they're having a conversation in Jadion. and only they're talking about Colossus in particular, his story where he was, ⁓ he had The. gladiatorics, amore of Mira. He's recounting that story to Dorian in Jadian as he is drawing with charcoal, a portrait of Dorian in a gladiator outfit. Dorian's like, ⁓ that's super good. Like, where did you learn drawing? Like where, like in Jadian, he's talking to him and Hayden's like, I took up drawing because my dad said, Sim goggles weren't holy pointing it.
Drew: It's... Yeah.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Anais who's over in the corner wearing like playing sword art online basically and saying that you know this hobby is better it's a it's a holier hobby and Gibson agreed that it's more of a classical passion than pure escapism.
Drew: Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's this moment also where turns to Hadrian and Hadrian comments on how she's intentionally bending over in front of him or something. He ⁓ away and is shy about it. Remember, Hadrian's ethic around women is that he's not a fan of this kind of thing, but ⁓ sort of continues to happen here. Again, they... ⁓
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Yeah. as Dorian asked her to come look at this picture.
Drew: Yeah, yeah, yeah, And they, you know, they once again start going at him about like whether or not he's gonna go back to Colossus or anything, like you should be a gladiator. And he is sort of a little bit more open about the fact he's like, guys, like... I, if I go back, I'm gonna have to fight my friends. My friends are the Myrmidons. And I think it's what I used to make this like ⁓ like, won't be that way for long, which is like crazy ⁓ She, she, she.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: But she catches herself. She does recognize after the fact very quickly that she made a mistake. But yeah, she does say that, yeah, they're probably going to die soon.
Drew: Yes, yeah, it's still messed up. know, Adrian is, to expand upon the fact that ⁓ ⁓ not a fan ⁓ Colossus. He sort of mentions maybe that Volca's view has influenced view of Colossus. He's just very critical of it. ⁓ And Anais ⁓ is happy. is mentioned. She must we talk about ⁓ the She's clearly jealous of her. It's built upon from the previous situation. And ⁓ as they're ⁓ it starts ⁓ dawn on that... Valka is here temporarily, as a reminder. She is visiting because of the seasons flooding the ruins at Caligula, right? And so eventually these are gonna go down and they'll return. And it sort of occurs to Adrian in this moment that, oh, this is a, like, my crush is gonna leave. It becomes a big issue. Go ahead.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Yeah. Dorian in particular begins a line of dialogue. It's like, wait, they don't have the Colossus and the Demarchi. Hadrian doesn't know that I answered this because he's not really read up on culture and how it's kind of different over there. Anais brings up the fact that they're machine worshipers, are heretics. Gileam calls her a witch who gave herself to the machine. She's not human anymore. And Dorian is clearly different feeling differently than her. Cause Anais is really animosity, ⁓ ⁓ with her or frustrated with her. Clearly we can see on the page and with the that we have, ⁓ she is And Hadrian, we're a picture now that Hadrian is specifically a pet ⁓ for Anais Mataro. Dorian doesn't feel this way. He has a lover. that he hangs out with. ⁓ there's a potential for him down the line too, but like there's something going on here with Hadrian and ⁓ they are intended to be ⁓ up for one another. Whether it's to what we do not know, but we know that Anais, Anais's father has put Hadrian, ⁓ like Anais the keys to the cage. She is, Hadrian's her pet, not Dorian's pet. kind of Dorian's pet, but not really Dorian's pet, really Anais' pet. she's pissed that another woman is ⁓ that because that's not the way it's meant to be. She's to getting everything her way. I did want to, ⁓ go
Drew: Dorian, ⁓ is twisting the knife all over the in this conversation. like, yeah, Volka's great dude. She's gorgeous, don't you think? Yeah, and like, ⁓ it's just like, bro. Putting Adrian in this terrible position. Number one, ⁓ I don't get the sense he even.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: She's hot, man.
Drew: do this like weird locker room talk or anything like that but it's also in front of Anais which puts everyone in a weird position and just makes it awkward because I guess Dory is completely socially inept about this or something. It's just just to mess with it. Yeah one of the two.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: that or he's intentionally doing it to his sister. One of the two. Adrian just like spit takes, ⁓ He also indicates in his conversations that on the sly, he's been going to her room look at ruins and talk and whatever. ⁓ he mentions that, you ⁓ yeah, she's a brilliant zinologist. Did you know she's been to the tomb of Simi in the red on Judeca? Like she's been to Judeca. clearly Hadrian does not want her to know that she's been hanging out with, um,
Drew: Yeah.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: with Valka as much as she has. So Hadrian's now getting keyed in on the idea that Anais is upset at the fact that he has a close relationship with Valka. ⁓ she just says, I don't even know what you see in her. An off-worlder like that. And he's like, I'm an off-worlder too, your ladyship. Dorian just in his own world is like, ⁓ you think they'll let me fight, you think dad will let me fight in Colosso? And Anais has an idea. She's like,
Drew: You
Devil’s Rest Book Club: You should teach us to fight. Hadrian's like, wait, don't you have somebody who's been teaching you since you were young? It's like, yeah, but he's not that good. he was for them, teaching them languages and kind of a semi-scholius tutor. ⁓ He has now been pigeonholed into also being their Felix, ⁓ like being their combat instructor as well.
Drew: Right, he sort of gets cornered by a social convention here. It seems like he's like, I don't think it's appropriate for me to refuse a palentine their request in this circumstance because of his position. And so he is sort of asked something that he can't refuse and it's up having to actually do this, which is, it feels like something he does not want to do, frankly.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Yeah. And they also mentioned like their, their sword master's not that good. Um, we need a better one. And we cut in this scene to Dorian complaining, but why do we have to train outside? have to imagine, it's worse training in, in Emesh than it is in, um, Delos for instance, just because of temperate weather or whatever. But Hadrian's a very disciplined person. he.
Drew: Yeah, yeah.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: He trained without shoes for like the better part of 20 years every single day in sword fighting. And that's how he became so good as he is and it has allowed him to survive. And not to mention the fact that he also trained in E-mesh in the same conditions that they're training in. conditions theoretically than when he was training as a Mermedon. And moment that these Mataro kids are out there, they're complaining.
Drew: Yeah, they're soft. Especially Dorian, which is just like, just like kind of, ⁓ ⁓ being so whiny drives me crazy. And he's being of rough with them. Like he's just like, listen guys, like this is what has to done you want to be good at this.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: This is the guy who had the salesman head in his hand.
Drew: And ⁓ Hadrian also comments on the fact that they actually are poorly trained. So they weren't like just... why? their swordmaster is actually ⁓ not that good. you know, Adrian starts explaining like, you need to be, if you're going to be in Colossus, listen, dude, like it's, you're going to be in these conditions. And Dorian says like the most obnoxious thing I've I've read in this book so far, which is that the gladiators suits are water cooled, which is just like, off the page is so disgusting to me ⁓ this kid is trying to get out of harsh training because he's gonna be in this perfectly like comfortable suit killing ⁓ like just it's so ⁓
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Yeah. to a guy who had to fight gladiators in these water-cooled suits, right? Like on top of it too, I don't know.
Drew: Right, yeah, it's just deeply upsetting.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: He also mentions the idea that maybe was better than I thought. Maybe is one of the best. mean, this guy's bad. Clearly, these kids are not good. ⁓ The that he's ever seen ⁓ in of the Palitin class. ⁓ But also flips it on us. Maybe Felix is really, really damn good. And so he gets to impart not only wisdom that he gained from Felix, but he also from... his time in Colossus. He also makes note that Dorian has had this like ability to be ambidextrous, which is a pain because not only like if you pick a side and you have like a dominant hand, then you only have to learn what's one set of footwork. But if you're ambidextrous, you have to learn both sides. ⁓ And a very interesting thing because theoretically it's going to be harder at the beginning, but longer term, it would be ⁓ more beneficial be ambidextrous. ⁓ But it's It's frustrating from Hadrian's perspective that he has to spend double the amount of time trying to train this kid.
Drew: for those that ⁓ no... ⁓ no combat sports experience or anything like this. kind of like both sides things actually matters. I trained jiu jitsu for years and wrestled for several years and most of my ability is doing things on a specific That's very normal and so ⁓ you end up with a lopsided, can give your opponent advantage by the fact that you do things in a particular way routinely. So is an investment but there is an actual advantage to being able to switch and get out of people's comfort zones and stuff.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: After an hour of them training, Gilliam Voss enters into their training yard. Also, like they're training on like grass and Hadrian's got bare feet on this grass. So their training conditions are like way better than the freaking Mermadon's ones. Gilliam greets them and then like looks at Hadrian and is like, wait, like he keeps seeing him. Like this new villain ⁓ keeps him. like, what are you doing here? And why are you waving swords at the young masters or whatever? And he's like, Hey, reverence. Like he's being very polite. He said, they've asked me to instruct them on fencing, but you know, I'll, I'll leave if you want me to. And the kids are like, no, no, no, of course not. has come to pick them up, ⁓ presumably for lesson or for something prayer related or whatever. but in doing he pulls Hadrian aside and says like, what is it that you're doing here? So Gilliam's being an inquisitorial like figure. He's not a, an official inquisitor on behalf of the Chantry, but he is doing his part as an advisor to the court in buffering the, the Mataro house to Hadrian because Gilliam also does not does not understand the full way to the situation because Hadrian is hiding from the Chantry and it's dangerous for the Mataro's to let the Chantry in.
Drew: Yeah.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: on what's happening here, because theoretically that would mean the death of Hadrian or even more people.
Drew: What's interesting about this is, people that are, paranoid ⁓ tend find out because sort of intuitively and they're like sort of seeking like the weirdness ⁓ and Gilliam is and maybe for like wrong ⁓ but he has the intuition that something is off. about the situation doesn't make sense. He's commenting, he's like, listen, I first saw you in ⁓ bottom slave ⁓ level the Colosseum, ⁓ and are now tutoring the children ⁓ the Count Emesh. is something about this situation that is not making... ⁓ not making sense. Other people are of like casually accepting it, but Gilliam is just like, this is not adding up. Like what is, what are you doing? What is wrong?
Devil’s Rest Book Club: which Hadrian sort of postulates or why Gilliam could be this way or ⁓ concerned about this situation. And he gives a few potential reasons. One interesting one ⁓ that he's protecting the Palatine class, even though he is the of the impropriety of the Palatine class. He sort of calls that the hypocrisy of like ⁓ the that it is inappropriate ⁓ for to be having this much favor. ⁓ and everything should be done the right way the fact that this is an intus who ⁓ all social standards of the empire ⁓ not exist. but he's very polite. ⁓ this is a, a different Hadrian. He's explaining him, like, look, I wouldn't be here I didn't want to be here. ⁓ I really don't have a choice. and Gilliam still buffers against him and says, hey, you're being too familiar with these kids. Like, don't be improper with them. And Hadrian immediately is like, proper? ⁓ sorry. you think that I've done anything touched a nice the wrong way, I assure you I have no intention of doing so. ⁓ we know based on earlier in the chapters, like, that's exactly what she wants. But ⁓ Gilliam ⁓ does not want that.
Drew: Hehehehehe
Devil’s Rest Book Club: And then we wanted to read page 351 in particular.
Drew: 351 was this commentary of kind what you were saying is, what was Gilliam to them or they to Gilliam? Was this court puritanism only that? The protection of palatine blood from the lowborn humanity Gilliam perceived me to be. He was palatine but marked by his affliction ⁓ as less than a homunculus in many ways. Often I found that outsiders cling hardest to those labels that are denied them. ⁓ weak men are the most aggressive and unskilled ones allowed us to boast. ⁓ was palatine, ⁓ the fact that ⁓ thought I was not was important to him. ⁓ was ⁓ and little more. sort of this, thought it was interesting and worth reading because ⁓ this... ⁓
Devil’s Rest Book Club: ⁓ so I can we pause there? I want to it's different in this portion of it just slightly at the end, which gives some more clarity. ⁓ Gilliam was not Palatine, not truly. And so the fact that he thought that I was not was important to him. Situated as he was at the perimeter of that highest caste, placed there by his defects, he had appointed himself its gatekeeper and raged against any he perceived as assaulting its walls.
Drew: ⁓ yeah. Go ahead. Yeah, yeah, is actually better. Rocco good, I'm really glad he did this. It's interesting it sort of speaks to, we've had some about this previously, but ⁓ there's this sort inferiority feeling that people can sometimes have, and so they ⁓ require this sort reinforcement ⁓ they feel consistently they're right on the edge of something, or ⁓ because they feel insecure. status is on the table to be challenged, right? ⁓ so ⁓ sort of feels this instinctual need to like reassert the boundary because frankly the boundary falls, he's fallen far. You know, like he's got so much to lose. And even though got a point here, like to try to reinforce, like he is onto something that is genuinely going on, it may be reinforced by this like sort of need to reset the social. structure because he's that gatekeeper like Rockio says. He's got maintain the status because it's very important to him.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: want to take a moment to think about Gilliam's mindset here for a little bit. Clearly, he is written as a villain on the page. He's a barrier to our narrator and our hero, ⁓ I guess our POV in most of the cases. outside of perspective of Gilliam, we don't really get much context in how intices are thought about or treated in society. This is the first intice that we've met. We know that they are like... I don't know, there is a shame that becomes somebody like this, but honestly, Gilliam has done nothing wrong. It's his mom that decided to try and have a child outside of the confines of the high college. So Gilliam is a product of his parentage and his parents sinning, anything that he did inherently. So is he not kind of... also doing this because only way that he remains in his position is to be the safeguard. ⁓ Despite the fact that the system is like
Drew: Mmm.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: violently against him. Does that make sense?
Drew: Yeah, it's interesting. Yeah, it's like he almost has to, he to be like a valuable instrument in order to like keep himself because that's the thing that like, yeah, yeah. It's also interesting, like you could imagine, this is not on the page, but it's sort of ⁓ interesting to ⁓ about. Be to think about if...
Devil’s Rest Book Club: That's right.
Drew: One had an intest, right? So like his mom, for example. You can imagine, you know, already the Palantine class had this very distant relationship with their children, but if your child became the sort of like the visual representation of your shame because you decided to do this, almost like the intest gets some of it, but you get it as well, right? Because you participated in this. I could almost imagine that being going from not even just uninvolved parents to ⁓ cruelty in some sense. It'd really interesting to if that out in this way ⁓ where... He's not just created by the way that society treats him, but maybe by the way his parents treated him, or his mom treated him, because of being the object of this shameful thing. it's interesting. Gilliam's a really fascinating character. one the characters in this book, actually. ⁓ He really jumps off page for me.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Yeah. Hadrian mentions to him that like, look, dude, if I could be on the first ship at a system, I would, but you're your count. Bailey and Matar was the one that wants me here. And Gilliam's like, well, count Matar doesn't do everything a hundred percent right. Like he's the everybody else in court may accept you, but I won't. And explain why you were in the bottom of the freaking. Like, why were you going to see the Sielson? Cause this is, this is a crucial point too. If Gilliam's.
Drew: Yeah.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: A member of the Chantry. And we already have seen the fact that one, there was a Chantry. He was involved in getting the Cielcen on planet. We already have had other indications as well that the Chantry are a buffer against the Cielcen in the world. With Eusebia talking about the fact that like she's very hawkish against the Cielcen ⁓ earlier in book. These two forces diametrically opposed. ⁓ The Chantry and Cielcen. And they're very suspicious of anything Cielson related because it's heresy So Gilliam is doing his job here when he's asking Hadrian about you were going to see the Sealson. And Hadrian even mentions on the page that, ⁓ know what, he's kind of right. Like there's no answer that I could adequately give him that satisfy this. Me just to the Sealson at all is going to get me accused of being a spy for the enemy. And there's nothing can really do to rectify that. ⁓
Drew: This is sort of what I mean as well by the sort of like the sort of paranoid ⁓ because he's... he is questioning the situation, he's wrong about the accusation in some sense because the weirdness about the situation with Adrian and DC Ellison... operative part is not that he went and talked to the DC Elson. The weirdness comes in in truth with how he got out of that situation by the Count giving him this position and letting him off the hook because but is fixated on that because it's weird. And so there's an interesting here where Gilliam is ⁓ on to the that something suspicious here, but he's fixated on the wrong part of it. ⁓ So there's. there's truth, but it's inaccurate identification of what's wrong. is sort of what I mean by like. the paranoid instinct gets onto something, but is not always right about the particular thing that they are getting onto. It's not actually, it's unproductive to lie to folks like these, if you can help, because you're going to trip up on one of these things, they're gonna pick up and you're going to end up getting caught, because they have this innate sense for it, but the details are typically wrong because they just, make ⁓ about things you can't possibly know, right? So it's interesting.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: He mentions that like you even going to see the creatures is a incredibly grievous Grievous sin one of the twelve and what could you possibly learn from the beast and Hadrian's like well, you know It might be worth trying to understand the only other space-faring race that exists in the galaxy and he's like heresy heresy How dare you? is the only one meant for the galaxy. It's like I wanted to go to see with eyes unclouded I
Drew: Yeah.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: the eyes and clouded because I think this is a direct reference and if it is it's also fantastic to Ashitaka in Princess Mononoke. So Hadrian sees himself potentially and he's already indicated this earlier in the book, like he wants to understand ⁓ in general, but ⁓ Cielcen in particular, he already speaks their language. He wants to understand the way that they think, ⁓ way that they do things and the way that they interact. He wants to see with eyes unclouded. Ashitaka Princess Mononoke ⁓ is young prince who gets exiled from his land because he gets cursed. he doesn't want that curse to spread to his village. And he travels all the way across the country ⁓ then is basically in between these forest spirits ⁓ against industrialized man. And he ⁓ there ⁓ see with eyes unglotted. That's his destiny, according to ⁓ fates, whenever they ⁓ bones or whatever. ⁓ that's his whole thing is to like bridge the gap between ⁓ man and where they're doing things right and where they're doing things wrong. and nature and where it's doing things right and where it's doing things wrong. Hadrian wants to be put in that position kind of with the Sielson. He wants to understand the way that they're thinking. He wants to end the war. He wants to ⁓ out ways which he could maybe there's a, maybe the right situation, ⁓ he could solve this long problem.
Drew: Hmm.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: only people were to sit down and talk and discuss ⁓ eyes unclouded, which means ⁓ chantry, no Cielson somewhere in between, right? He wants to be the in between.
Drew: Yeah.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: And he's also trying to explain to, to get Williams, like what what the FD mean eyes and clouded. What do mean? You know, he's just cannot give up the idea that this is all blasphemy. Gilliam's like, there's nobody who could challenge ⁓ mankind space, period, full stop. ⁓ And there's a ship in orbit that is from the war that is replacing soldiers and fixing itself. And he was like, well, what do you think about that? ⁓ What's up in there? Gilliam's like, I.
Drew: Yeah.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: I hear you speak their evil tongue, their vile tongue. like, I don't speak very well. And he's actually being truthful here because he speaks like a kid. Gilliam basically leaves him saying, stay away from them kids. Stay away from them kids, you creep. And saunters off. then Hadrian ⁓ calls back hey, Gilliam. And he thinks about five things to say. All of it was intus related. And he's like, ⁓ it's not a good idea. It's like, don't assume you knew. Like, I don't know, I guess trying to call out the fact that he's Palatine and you're not, like he's trying to dig at him a little bit, but man, kind of a lame way to leave the situation. I think Hadrian thinks it was cooler than it was, but it didn't strike me as very cool coming off the page as we end chapter 51.
Drew: It's a real call out, know, Gilliam is off on some stuff, he's making assumptions and stuff like that, you He's sniffing up the right tree, yeah, for sure,
Devil’s Rest Book Club: He's pretty darn close. He's pretty darn close. Yeah. doesn't know how close he is, but he sees pretty darn close. But we begin ⁓ chapter little talks. says, yeah, I didn't think about Gillian very much after that. And he still continued to be the tutor and the trainer, for the counts kids, right? Like he's.
Drew: ⁓ give... Just completely disregard it. just... ⁓
Devil’s Rest Book Club: I mean, he really doesn't have say, right? He does not have a say. If the Mataro kids want him there, if Bailey and Mataro wants him there, he has to be there. Gilliam doesn't understand that, but Hadrian does.
Drew: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: ⁓ he is prepping them specifically for an ambassadorial trip from the principalities of JAD. so it's pertinent that he continued ⁓ ⁓ them in Jadian language and custom and all this sort of stuff, which is interesting because Hadrian himself has never met somebody from JAD before, but he's heard so much about them. ⁓ get some ⁓ building that ⁓ principalities of JAD were once part of the Imperium. but they rebelled against the throne at 9,000 years ago and won their freedom and their genetic destiny. they, they, we know that they have, they have removed themselves from the cycle of the high college to some degree. And in doing so have been able to create clone armies that they use to fight and battle. And Hadrian even mentions like, and this is Hadrian, the product of eugenics mentioning this. Let's keep that in mind.
Drew: Yeah. Yep.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: that they embrace eugenics to the nth degree. So this is in ⁓ nation of the Superman, Ubermensch like to the highest degree while also being this interesting. We already know that they wear masks at court. We know that they are inherited. We find out here that they're inheritors of the Mediterranean. ⁓ Rocchio has said, like, imagine Persians and Italians together made a society ⁓ swordsmen. ⁓ there you have the
Drew: It's so cool.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: ⁓ The Jattians.
Drew: They have these like ⁓ legendary sword masters called like, how do you pronounce this? My skill away?
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Myskeloi Myskelos is the individual Myskeloi for the multiple
Drew: It sounds like a Jedi or something, it just sounds sick, right? Like, I it's cool. Super cool.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Yeah, so a myscily as a reminder for anybody from the is of the legendary swords masters of Jad drawn exclusively from the Iali cast credited with superhuman speed and skill. So not only are these like ⁓ supermen, these are super swordsmen as So like they breed these superheroes. and then teach them the best ways of the sword. mentions the fact that he and Valka have been spending more time together. And fact that she's the first person that had like gotten this tiny little glimpse into who ⁓ Hadrian is, not Hadrian Gibson, and she had not cast him out, which is giving him even reason outside of the... shared mutual interests or the academic side of things and ⁓ that they have to go and hang out with her. ⁓ He would often go to her door and then like knock on it and then they would go walk around the halls because they can't go out of the castle together. She can, but he cannot.
Drew: There is a... So there's a line that I was really interesting, which was that she had seen me and she had not despised me. There's this idea in a particular therapeutic modality that is interesting, it's called Gestalt Therapy, but the idea is like that what is sort of healing for people is genuine contact with other human beings. And what that is, is this idea that... When we interface with other people, there is sort of like a little of a performance that is not genuine that is going on between the two people. know, someone's about something, so they hide a thing or they behave in a way or they mask something with humor. They're hiding part of themselves with ⁓ some strategy protect themselves emotionally. And therefore that prevents from making actual contact with other human beings and people. do this to protect themselves emotionally essentially. But if do that then you don't get genuine connection with people, right? You don't actually get to feel like you have real friends because no one actually sees you because you are hiding underneath all of the stuff you're doing. It feels like to me ⁓ part of happened here with this line and over the course of ⁓ their relationship they continue to talk is that ⁓ Hadrian is able to show part of like the real person Hadrian. ⁓ and it isn't met with like from his father. Like he gets to show a passion for this thing ⁓ he's not criticized in the room for that's inappropriate or this is blasphemy or you're like. bad ⁓ or something like that. He ⁓ with ⁓ person who sees ⁓ in a genuine way and because that, she doesn't of it. She actually kind of agrees in a lot of ways. So he gets to have a real connection. in a really profound way and share in that interest with another person. it's really is that he gets to his guard down so that he gets to actually connect because he's not criticized while his guard is down.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: This doesn't help him in his like down badness for sure. He goes to her room again and ⁓ knocks at the door and is like, Hey, Dr. Andara, Dr. Andara, welcome. ⁓ keeps tapping at it a few times. ⁓ you would think that like after two or three times you'd have the propriety to just leave, ⁓ Just go back to your room. Hadrian does not. ⁓
Drew: Right, yeah.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Turns the knob and finds out that it's not locked in like steps into the room. It says Valka Valka. And he sort of on the page gives us an explanation. there's somebody Brown out, know, ⁓ have been so regular. you know, who knows if they left the door unlocked or maybe she left it that way. Of course I'm going to come in and make sure that she's okay. ⁓ It's he needed an excuse to go outside. but he. ⁓ decides to go in to the room and even in the low light, yeah, the room is completely messy. And the moment he's like, this girl that I thought is the first, is this first time inside of the room.
Drew: It's a mess.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: This girl's like really messy and it kind of bothers me a lot because Kedron is very clean, very disciplined, very organized. The fact that Valka is not at all. He ⁓ mentions he was forced to reevaluate the doctor to remind myself that at one end of my private affections ⁓ was person and at the other end, the dream of one, which is a very, very interesting way to talk about the fact that we put expectations on other people, especially in ⁓ romantic
Drew: Yeah. Yeah.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: that like unspoken, unrealized expectations of people that will buffer against reality pretty calm.
Drew: ⁓ know, think we ⁓ I a lot of us have this about like, like this perfect or something like that. that we're going to be in a relationship with. And you get into a relationship with someone and they're like a person and flawed in all of the ways that people are. And I think, you if you carry that fantasy into relationship, you are like doomed to be disappointed by the human being that's in front of you. And I really appreciate this because, you know, could paint this picture of Volka as this hyper-assertive, intelligent ⁓ You could very easily make this person appear flawless. Giving ⁓ this ⁓ something she's kind of messy. ⁓ Pretty messy. ⁓
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Pretty pretty messy. As a messy person, she's pretty messy.
Drew: she gets and like maybe like she just like doesn't organize things and stuff gets scattered everywhere and she doesn't it's It humanizes this character because it gives this character like a genuine like flaw and it's a makes this person feel real. Frankly, this it makes this person feel like more than a character. You know, like if there nothing wrong with this person ⁓ and she just badass lady buck the system or whatever, she wouldn't feel real ⁓ in the way that does because she has this. I also just appreciate that our character has to grapple with something a flaw of something that he cares about ⁓ to observe and ⁓ start gradually digest and accept that.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: I'll say this. a lot of ⁓ discourse like, the in Sunnitor aren't as good. Hadrian's so amazing and such the best character or whatever. But all the other characters suck. Anybody who thinks that is not reading enough, reading enough into what is going on here. ⁓ We've gotten a re in three chapters, we've gotten a really interesting picture of Valka. She ⁓ ⁓ ⁓ ⁓ doctor. is a
Drew: Yeah, yeah.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Xenologist to study or somebody who studies? Zenos she has theories that are alternative to the the mainstream is brusque and independent. She's also extremely messy ⁓ is thoughtful and funny and all this different stuff and we've gotten that in three chapters of the book and we've you know These are two puzzle pieces that ain't fit together. So they're not ⁓ not together right now So don't know how, and Gillian Vos, like you mentioned before, I don't know. Anybody who thinks that the other side characters that aren't named Hadrian Marlowe in this series are not well written have not actually spent the time reading what is actually written on the page. Go read it again.
Drew: Yeah, slow down. Yeah, slow down. I agree. And that's partly a criticism of myself, frankly, because I didn't read... I read too fast, actually, the first time I read this. And I don't know why, but think that with slower read and a closer eye, there's more depth here than I think it's given for. I agree. ⁓
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Same. Partially my fault, I kept saying, hey, when are gonna finish that freaking book? Hurry up. Because I was done months before you, but it's fine. So he's entering the room, he's like, Baka, ⁓ Hello? ⁓ then finally he sees her like kind of like getting dressed or whatever disheveled. And she's like, Adrian, how do you get in here? He's like, the door was locked. I didn't know if you'd left it that way or if it was the power. You know, they really ought to do something about this. You know, the ⁓ diplomatic apartments and if these doors are coming and locked and it's gonna be a bad deal ⁓ She's like well, it's fortunate that I've got a young man like you bursting into my room to defend me ⁓ is so funny ⁓ she's digging at him right here. It's like dude. Come on ⁓
Drew: I thought Hadrian was dead in this moment. fact that she says it this way, she's crazy into this guy. This is insane. As he's walking in, he's trying to...
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Yeah
Drew: say like hello and she's not responding like bro you're a crazy person you're like walking into her room and ⁓ and she just makes a joke about it and she just lets it go which is super cool i i it yeah it speaks to her character that she's able to it for a age ran at least ⁓
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Yeah. give, I'll give Hadrian some credit. It sounded like they had planned to meet up at this time. So it's, he's not completely unexpected at this time inside of her room. While she's disheveled, you find out that she's hung over, right? Like essentially she's been drinking or something like that. Like her eyes had been a scant and then she notices Hadrian, is interesting. Let's, I want to go back there and see if there's anything that we can pick up.
Drew: Yes.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Where is it? She was dressed in this moment. Her eyes were closed, but Hadrian doesn't know if she's asleep or whatever. It seems like she's hungover or drunk. She needs water. She goes to get it. ⁓ has barged in on a hungover woman in her apartments and still manages to end up staying there for an extended period of time. So props to him, ⁓ but ⁓
Drew: You
Devil’s Rest Book Club: If she didn't like him at all, then it would be a very, very bad situation. So he, he apologizes, recognizing his error of his ways. And she says that she'll let it go. And they immediately start talking about what interests them, which is these, you know, the CLCN or like the, the Zeno language stuff. So he mentions, have you ever seen CLCN Udari Tano? I patted myself down. Remember belatedly that I had neither a pen nor journal with me.
Drew: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: There were some examples mixed in with the portraits and landscapes and illuminated quotations that were my custom. And she like is still hungover. She's like, come again. It's like, they're writing. Do you have a, and then she immediately pulls out a pen because she's an academic, it at, throws at him and he catches it without thinking and then sits on the edge of the couch and then begins, you know, finding finds a loose sheet of paper and like, Hey, can I write on this? And, you. So this is a very fun scene. This scene would be in the movie, I think of, you know, Hadrian pushing a boundary, but also them discussing like the language, him drawing, you getting a picture of who Valka is outside of, you know, just cool, badass chick.
Drew: Yeah, yeah.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: She, mentions their age difference here. She's older than him. The Tavrosi in particular do have some sort of genetic modification similar to the way the palatines do, but not exactly the same and by Hadrian's not as good. ⁓ But she be like, we don't get an indication at this moment of how much older she is than him, but she could like, she doesn't look that ⁓ much older than but she could be like 50, 60, 100 and he's, What? 24? So he's a kid to her. He's a kid to her. And so I get this feeling that she kind of looks at him like a kid. His is amusing. She's impressed with him when he can come up with all these different put the two and two together that took other people decades to figure out. But ⁓ is. strikes me this moment that she doesn't see him as necessarily the way that sees her.
Drew: 23, 24. Yeah. Hmm. Maybe so. I would say, you know, the... sort of being amused by his excitement about stuff gives me like the vibe of like... ⁓ share this interest so it's not completely the same, but it gives me the vibe of like me ⁓ getting explaining ⁓ the of a book I'm reading to my wife and she's like quietly smiling at me like because she's like amused that I'm excited about something but like...
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Does that make sense? Yeah.
Drew: doesn't really, yeah, yeah, I know, yeah, I know. What would we do without him, right? So that's the sort of vibe I get is like she's just sort of like amused by Adrian and like him just getting really into and excited about the thing. It's a, it suggests, you know, like maybe a little distance, but like she likes Adrian clearly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Yeah, she enjoys spending time with him for sure.
Drew: He asks her why she was sitting in the dark and then she mentions the tides retreat, which is interesting connection, right? ⁓ that imply she's upset that she might be leaving soon? I don't know if that's connection there, or if she's ⁓ skipping past changing the to something else. I actually don't ⁓ quite know.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Yeah. It's, it's hard to read her in the situation why she would be by your estimation drinking because of that. ⁓ man, cannot wait. this sucks being here. Or is it.
Drew: Yeah. Yeah.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: man, I'm leaving behind something that I care about. It's, probably a mixture of both. don't really get an indication. ⁓ it's explicitly, but Hadrian does like get worried of like, when are you going to come back or whatever? and she mentions that, you know, like I'll, I'll be back some time and then back, you know, she'll be down this cycle. so, but soon is not necessarily as soon as
Drew: Yeah, yeah.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: It means on other places she mentions. it's probably both. It's probably complex. And then she catches him staring at her as she's slamming back this
Drew: And he...
Devil’s Rest Book Club: She mentions that she gets headaches that it's really, really nothing. And he's like, can I get you anything? He's like, in my apartment, ⁓ out. Come on, dude. She's like, it's my place. Chill out. And then ⁓ when he catches her saying you're staring and he apologizes.
Drew: It's great.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: And then, you know, he just is caught in her beauty or whatever, and he's trying to talk, but he really can't. wondering what information to let out, whether it's, you know, the chantry. Like he's, holding back a little bit. but he can't because he can't tell her literally any of who she is. ⁓ She can see Hadrian Gibson for now. ⁓ and she's gotten a little peek into Hadrian Marlowe, but he wants to in this moment. just tell her everything. But he also knows that he's in the council apartments and presumably they have no privacy. So he can't really do anything about it. So he flips the subject and asks if she likes it on Emesh. And she's like, ⁓ things are pretty different here than where I'm from. And he's like, well, okay, do you want to go back home? She's like, shit, no, Zeno's are over here. Why would I want to go back home? Like I... I studied the zinology for a reason. Like I got to go where the zinous are. And we get an interesting thing here specifically that like zinous in the Tavrosi Demarchi are treated as equals, like as part of the equals. So we have sentient beings that are like, I don't know if you'd call them domesticated, but integrated in society way more than we've seen any of the zinous integrated here, which there's some short story action or some continued sun interaction.
Drew: Yeah.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: available right there. What did the Zenos and Tavros act like?
Drew: have like a bar and they like play the flute, the space flute or something like that, like a mazai's licentia. This another connection point between her and Hadrian, like where, like know Hadrian wants to go out in the universe and you know explore and he doesn't to go back home, right? And it sounds like she's very similar, right? Her mission and her calling is out in the universe, not ⁓ on Tavros, ⁓ So it's connection point for them.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: This is the port in the story that we had brought it up early in the, in the episode about background on how Tavros is a, is a society works with each person having an equal weight of their own share of the vote. she also, ⁓ they twist, they, they continue talking about the, bring it back to the umand and how the umand's language develops and all this different stuff. ⁓ And compares the umand songs to.
Drew: Yeah.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: A little better than what the ancient dolphins had. just to note the dolphins. I don't know if you've, ⁓ did you read, ⁓ hitchhikers guide to the galaxy or see the movie.
Drew: I haven't. I've seen the movie but I don't recall any of the details. I've got it on my shelf. I need to read it.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: I mean, dolphins are an apt comparison in this case because they in ⁓ similar way. And it's indicating that ⁓ are pretty, like pretty, pretty intelligent. They're not dogs. Like dolphins are very smart. ⁓
Drew: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think they were previously compared to whales, right? Like, they're implied to be in tubs.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Yeah, that sounded like whale song and elephants previously, right? ⁓ This is another checkbox in the, okay, these are more intelligent than we're them out to be, even though they communicate a bit differently. But specifically, I do wonder if the dolphins are a reference to Hitchhiker's Guide. Probably not, but.
Drew: Right, right. Yeah, yeah. I agree. Mm. ⁓ interesting section that I thought was worth reading that as she starts to about the dolphins, she starts off, that's a fair comparison. They're cleverer than dolphins, perhaps only because they can use tools. ⁓ Do you ⁓ And she talking. ⁓ Adrian says, you ever someone speak of something that consumes them? that lights them up from the foundations of their soul. Velka spoke with such fervency that I forgot myself for a time. animosity she felt toward me upon our first meeting seemed to have mostly evaporated, ⁓ into hesitant respect for me ⁓ for my situation. ⁓ I, ⁓ feared her. ⁓ feared what she represented and that I cared for what she thought of me. ⁓ feared the secrets I was made to carry, my name, my blood. I that she would think me false, my respect for her ⁓ work. It's almost like he's staring at her amuse now and admiring her. and the idea of just watching someone you care about be swept up in they're excited about life ⁓ it's joyful seeing someone experience that. This is ⁓ it feels me ⁓ to be truly, love ⁓ is maybe the word, it's to just truly appreciate a person to just be like. ⁓ energized by them excited about life or something like that. It's an experience. Just, their connection just very good. It's just very, very good. ⁓ buy, their is really, really good on the page.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Yeah, genuine.
Drew: just really appreciate it he to flip ⁓ storming someone's room unannounced to dinner so ⁓ job adrienne's smooth ⁓ smooth criminal
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Yeah, impressive. I think to your point, is love that is, mean, you could do that for a friend to being excited for them, but it's different when it's a romantic love, right? Like there's a, there's a, there's a calling to a pulling on the heartstrings that happens ⁓ when that is genuine, that is different than me being excited for you being excited about something that I don't necessarily share the same interest.
Drew: I agree. Yeah. Yeah. something that's sort of brilliant too about the way this is described, you know, like where she starts to talk about something and is excited about it and it sort of fades into his internal admiration for ⁓ That's almost exactly what it feels like when you're experiencing it. Like, you know what I Because like you, because you, like as you're experience... No, but you can start to, you can start to feel ⁓ that rise up in you as they start to...
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Yes. Yes. Because you won't be able to remember what it actually is, but you can remember the way you felt.
Drew: It's exactly how it feels. ⁓ how, it's just because Rockio's been in love. I don't know if he was ⁓ in at the time of writing this, but it feels like exactly what it's like to be to somebody you love talk about something they're passionate about. it's ⁓ just very written. I really like this section.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: I am excited. So end up going out to eat ⁓ and he it into dinner ⁓ and only does he turn it into dinner at the very end of it after they've eaten. ⁓ And love the pitchy tone when he asks her out to dinner too, cause it's like, ⁓ you to out to dinner with ⁓ me? very, ⁓ like get a ⁓ very side of Hadrian in this, in this portion of the book. but also a promise that they'd speak again tomorrow. So this is the beginning of something, right? This is.
Drew: Yeah.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: If we look at the meta narrative of what we've seen so far. should expect some tension going forward in the future because I'm not use is not gonna like what's here on this page right she ⁓ lays to hatred and is trying so hard to get him to at her boobs. And hatred only wants to hang out with vodka like only wants to hang out with vodka so.
Drew: Yeah. talk about tentacles and aliens. Yeah, yeah. ⁓
Devil’s Rest Book Club: And many many more things but that's where we will end our episode today Thank you for joining us for another episode of the devil's dress book club and we will continue on always forward And we will see you folks next time
Drew: And always down. See you folks.
Drew: I am doing fantastic and today we're going to be covering chapters 50 through 52 of the first book of this series, Empire of Silence. I'm excited to continue. getting into more court...yeah, we're making it through. We're getting some, you know, like court sort of political stuff going on, relationships and stuff. It's getting good.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: We're halfway done, dude. Yeah, super excited about the rest of the book. We got a plug and chug to get done with this. I can't wait to get on to the rest of series. That's how excited I am. How excited this part of the books now that it's picked up. ⁓ It makes me. But can you give us a brief recap of what we discussed last time?
Drew: Yes. Yep. Yeah, so in the last episode we are greeted with a sort of lamenting Hadrian, sort of recounting the fact that he's feeling very stuck by his situation. We get to see the aphibia happen, where the Cielcen is actually executed. the Cielson that Hadrian had communicated with. ⁓ then we also get a ending ⁓ ⁓ Hadrian ⁓ reintroduced to Polino and gets to try to sort of re-salvage ⁓ relationship ⁓ communicate through him towards which that he ⁓ sorry to see if there is any ⁓ to mend that relationship. So a lot talk about relationships ⁓ stuff that in last episode.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: And that's where we pick up with him in chapter 50, which has two different names on which version of the book you have. ⁓ I believe chapter 50 in the original version is called Without Pretence, if I'm not mistaken. ⁓ the new version of the book, it is called The Alienage, ⁓ I'll remind our listeners, ⁓ and Alienage a ghetto for ⁓ non-human xenobites in the Empire.
Drew: Correct, yes.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: So it gives us a lot of the new name gives us an indication of what's going to happen. Hadrian immediately begins, you know, get steps off of a ship that has taken himself, the Mataro kids and Volca to ⁓ umand alienage. and doing so he steps, he's being very quickly very early on in these chapters. We've talked about before, but the political guile or the to be. ⁓ subservient for his ends and understand where he is in the situation. Hadrian is displaying that more and more and more the further we get in the book. This isn't fumbling around with politics with the Mandaris. This is Hadrian observing every single form that he needs to, to stay alive. And in doing so, he helps Dorian and Anais off the ship, sort of like hands, gives them a hand. His boots are covered in water.
Drew: Yeah. Yep.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: And get a ⁓ really interesting character building moment for Valka because he offers, he really is doing it, let's be honest, he's doing it so that he can hold Valka's hand. ⁓ just observing the fact that he has to do it for Doring and Ais. But real benefit of him is like, ⁓ maybe I'll get to hold Valka's hand. ⁓ She it away immediately and like jumps in the water and starts walking ⁓ away. awesome. get a vision of Valka in these chapters that are really, really... enlightening into who she is as a person.
Drew: ⁓ continue to get this developing sense strong personality ⁓ for and ⁓ you we're this sense that she sort of bucks the system socially and culturally, being from where she's from and now being in the Empire, disagreeing with things very forcefully, ⁓ but we're also getting sense ⁓ through this, that there's of this... almost independence to a fault where she sort of scoffs at efforts to help her in some way. It continues to give shape to who this person is. It's quite charming, actually.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: So these soldiers wearing the tar livery begin clearing a path for them between like, you imagine as they step onto the speech, ⁓ there's lot of Umond being driven around by duleters, we'd seen with shock sticks and those big machines with the dials making the noises, trying to tell them what to do. And actually these duleters line the Umond up for inspection. So this is like a almost a military thing the moment that the kids of the count ⁓ up in town. Every, you know, bow has got to be tied and every button's got to be ⁓ up and all that different stuff. It's a ⁓ formal inspection, but just the fact that the counts kids are here. There's a formality to this that wouldn't necessarily present otherwise. This alienage is a place called the Ulaquiel and I couldn't find on that name. But it does mention that this island is rare because it is a volcanic island, ⁓ one that was created and existed before the tectonic death of Emesh. So we knew that Emesh was tectonically dead, but at one point it was tectonically alive. that's where this island, there's not a lot of land mass on Emesh. And so these islands are sort of few and far between. And they also are, the fluctuates. In periods we already know based on the fact that Volca is not at Calaga, tidal forces essentially ⁓ weather ⁓ other factors block off certain land masses from being habitable ⁓ certain periods of time. ⁓ Valka points to this Palisade in water as ⁓ is inspecting the fact that there's house where this, ⁓ leader of this area lives, and getting lay of this island. He out into the water and he sees this Palisade, which is a fence in the water. and ⁓ mentions that this fence is superheated. to specifically melt any organic matter it comes in contact with. So this is keeping the umon from leaving. They're in a cage surrounding this island or this beach and they're being fenced off from ⁓ being free in the water because we know that they're amphibious, they can be on land or in water. ⁓ would otherwise just be on the bottom feeding or whatever.
Drew: Hmm.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Upon seeing that, Hadrian feels this gut feeling of how awful this is. then Valka sort of turns this on him like she has with the gladiatorial stuff, ⁓ that, ⁓ know, it's your empire that's doing this. It's like this is ⁓ fault. Like lumping him in with the rest, which you know just sticks right in his craw more than anything else. He's tried his very hardest to distance himself, at least internally, from the empire up to this point.
Drew: Yeah. Yeah, it really triggered some thought process for me when I read this line there's sort of a weird ⁓ ⁓ happening here where Adrian is having... responsibility for the Empire placed on him. ⁓ was thinking about this about whether or not that's fair or not. It's of hard to evaluate in some sense, Because Hadrian is different than the of his empire, but he benefits from existing within it. So it's like a weird situation where there's... really kind of unclear lines of responsibility here. know, like, it ⁓ obligation of a person who exists within and benefits from this environment like ⁓ tear thing down in order to somehow not be ⁓ like for something like this? Or is he just an innocent bystander that was born into it or figuring out where it is is kind of complex thus far. You know, he's, he said words that suggest he disagrees with it, but sort of unclear what your obligations are within an environment like this and whether or not it's yours or just something you live in.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: I was going to bring this up later, but I think it might make sense to bring it up now. two things. One, Valka is more right than she knows he has more say or would have more say in the social structure than most people ⁓ if he were to just be a Palatine, Cause he is a Palatine ⁓ and he is benefiting most from the society, you're saying, but he also has the most say the Palatines have of anybody in the society. know, obviously Chantry Emperor here. Palatines right below, right? He's one rung from the top of this society most Palatines have. I don't know, some semblance of power, right? They have power over the plebeians. She doesn't know that he's Palatine because of his cover, but she knows that he's higher up than a plebeian, and she's saying this. The second piece of it that I wanted to mention is the demarche in particular. We get an explanation of this in later chapter, in chapter 52. The culture that she is coming from, she is a governmental figure, right? Everybody in the demarche,
Drew: Right.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Is a governmental figure. Demarque in particular is a system of government in which like the entire populace is pulled from ⁓ different groups maintain different pieces. So like there's a transportation group ⁓ there's a farming group or whatever. So there may be a bunch of different things ⁓ the manifestation in Tavros. Every person is a member of the government. So they all have equal share.
Drew: Yeah.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: to any problem that's going on. So the fact that she's bringing up to him, she's looking at it through the lens of, well, where I'm from, I am is equal to blame for anything that goes wrong as my neighbor, right? Like everybody's, it's everybody's problem all the time. it's also everybody's say to change anything, right? That true sort of weird ⁓ democracy this manifestation.
Drew: Yeah. Yeah, it's really strange, know, because you... a situation like Valka's, ⁓ divide responsibility up so much that you some control, be it... small, like in an environment that we live in, we have some control but it's small, but we still bear some responsibility. It's just unclear about like what the implications of that are. an empire ⁓ Hadrian lives in ⁓ he doesn't have that of representation, it's strange, but yet again he's a palatine. So what does that mean? Like he have true... ability to completely buck the system or does he get crushed by the Emperor if does so and he does then like what's the obligation here? It's really complicated figuring out like how you can blame Hadrian for this situation or put that blame on him and yet Volka sort of like innately does it and it will be interesting to see as their connection and you know, just relationship or whatever it is continues the criticism stands or not and if this sort of reflex that she has continues so lots interesting thoughts about ⁓ about ⁓ dynamic
Devil’s Rest Book Club: The villicus of this ⁓ begins to greet the the Matoro children and the rest of the group. A villicus his name is Niles Engen. ⁓ A villicus is basically chief overseer. He's the boss of the Doolitters. ⁓ It comes the Roman word for manager, supervisor or overseer. ⁓ So he's one who's basically responsible for ⁓ the maintenance all of this ⁓ ghetto. ⁓ and the moment he sees the Mataros, he's very polite. He's, he's like, ⁓ sorry Lord Matarot that I couldn't be at aphibia. ⁓ I saw it on video. I heard you were gallant and he was just, you know, brown nosing the entire time. And the moment ⁓ he lays eyes on Valka is a girl. Yes, must be the Tavrosi. And he's just like immediately flips, right? He makes the, I think it's the first time we hear maybe. The second time we hear of the sign of the sun disc, we should let readers know is essentially equivalent in this universe ⁓ of crossing ⁓ right? It's warding gesture ⁓ that earth, like the sun disc would be soul, like the original ⁓ our that we live under today here on It's a, it's a warding gesture away from evil.
Drew: Yeah.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: we'll get a little bit more context about why that is in the not too distant future.
Drew: thing that stood out to me ⁓ immediately as this happened, where is and sort of like called by ⁓ to write, is that this be first that Volka's assertive nature is an adaptation the way that she is referred to. If you can imagine if she's this, ⁓
Devil’s Rest Book Club: second class citizen.
Drew: Tevarosi zinologist that goes out into the world and is treated this way all the time. One could see either people being crushed by the sort of discriminatory attitude of people or to develop an opposite reflex of being very forceful and assertive back to advocate for oneself. Maybe even overcompensating in that sense to signal that she can't be pushed around in order to ⁓ survive in an environment where she's not in her home culture in this way.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: think that there's part of it that's just her, right? Her strong willed nature. that's a good point. That's a fair point. The other part of it too, though, is ⁓ going back to the idea of the demarquis she is, you know, ⁓ one Xth percentage of the government of the demarquis. She's a foreign dignitary at all times. ⁓ So can be rude to her to a certain but they can't be so rude to her that it like immediately ⁓ cuts ties with anything.
Drew: Yes.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: that they want to do business with the demarchi. So she's afforded some liberties otherwise she would not be because she is technically a foreign dignitary. ⁓ that doesn't mean that people have to treat her nicely to your point. And so maybe that brusqueness is ⁓ learned behavior, it's also afforded by the fact that she can away with it
Drew: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, for clarity sake, think it's important, know, assertiveness is an adaptation that people can have. It's also, environment matters. being assertive just got your head cut off, you're correct that maybe she wouldn't do it. ⁓ But also assertiveness a personality trait. know, there's a sub-trait of, I believe it is, extraversion, ⁓ is assertiveness. So it is genetic
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Mm.
Drew: thing as well. is likely that ⁓ of environment she have been a strong old person ⁓ but possible that that instinct sort of grows ⁓ in environment like this due to the ability plus the necessity for her to be so. So ⁓ interesting
Devil’s Rest Book Club: They look over at these interconnected huts of rusted metal, which is this, I mean, it's a shanty town that has been constructed by the Umand. Engen mentions the fact that this be the most populous version of these alienages on all of Emesh. But because it's shanty town, it's not like meant, it's not up to code. It's not meant for people to come and
Drew: Yeah. Yeah.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: go look at it. So he's probably organized and we get ⁓ kind of a picture of that in just a minute of, know, different things. They're going to go to this side of the town where it's relatively safe and this side of the town, there's relatively safe. As begin to survey Umand and see them in this habitat, I won't say their natural habitat, but in this habitat itself, mentions that Emesh's two moons, which we have had tell of before, ⁓ make the tidal crazy on this planet. And so why we have Caligah being an issue and ⁓ the storms being so big. On top of that, like the water cycle's gotta go crazy, but two moons and two tidal forces. I could not help but keep every single time we get anything related to Emesh. is in stark contrast to everything Hadrian was on Delos, right? Delos was placid. It didn't have a moon. It was grayscale and dark. Emesh is bright and vibrant and blue and green and it's hot and it's not temperate and it has two moons and so tidal forces are crazy.
Drew: you
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Baelin Matarro is this man of passions. has this charisma. People want to get to know him. He's the kind of this land, whereas the Archon Alastor Marlowe is cold, calculating rules only by fear. So even in the ecology and the world building of the celestial bodies of Emesh, we are seeing a stark contrast between Hadrian's past and Hadrian's present.
Drew: Mm-hmm.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: One of the moons is green and is named Benach. This greenery is potentially a reference to Book of the New Sun. I'll that for people to go and ⁓ that I'd recommend everybody do it. It's great. But ⁓ the name comes from the word ⁓ for understanding. It's divine attribute or emanation on the Kabbalistic tree of life. So there's like ⁓ there's The fact that he chose this name is not by accident. There's deep references to esoterica and mysticism that may potentially even tie it closer to ⁓ Book of the New Sun. I'm not, no, you may think I'm going down to the rabbit hole. You gotta read Book of the New Sun and maybe it'll make sense.
Drew: Yep. Yep. No, no. I just think it's interesting that Adrian goes from placid planet planet he is then crushed by understanding. It's fascinating. ⁓
Devil’s Rest Book Club: OHHHH
Drew: Yeah, yeah, I didn't even think about that, but he literally, almost drowns ⁓ this planet in part because of the... That's fascinating. That's an interesting... I'm not sure if that's intentional or not, but it's... fact... Because this ⁓ is a story. He comes to the planet and the intensity of planet is partly its nature, ⁓ and it's funny one of the components of that is ⁓ his understanding. ⁓
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Yeah, ⁓
Drew: a, ⁓ at the minimum, a really amazing or a brilliant part on ⁓ the of the author here, I'm ⁓ not ⁓
Devil’s Rest Book Club: And that goes that ties back to what we've been saying about this new Hadrian that we're seeing been crushed by that understanding that you mentioned. What genius dude, genius. This is why we do this. ⁓ That's awesome. ⁓ other moon that we ⁓ see visible in this scene is a white moon named Armand. Unfortunately, I couldn't find anything related to Kabbalah in name Armand, but there may be something I missed there.
Drew: Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty amazing. Yeah, this is correct. Yeah.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: As they wait, this alienage is like partially submerged, right? Imagine like knee deep water is what it sounds like. Vulcan is walking next to Hadrian and she just remarks, you know, these ⁓ a, this is a, they're a marvel in cognitive ⁓ ⁓ yet ⁓ you guys do is have them fishing, right? Like what a waste. We could be studying these people. We could be understanding them more ⁓ you just got them fishing off the coast. And Hadrian, while they're talking about the Umand, still has this very, very vivid picture of Makisom's head in Dorian's hand as it's being held aloft by Dorian. Every time Volka is mentioning the Umand and the treatment of the Empire, Hadrian is scared to look at her as almost an of guilt ⁓ on part.
Drew: was this moment that I think is interesting when she says, you know, it's a damn waste. that these Amanda like this and Hadrian agrees with her and there's this line where he's just like, sorry, I can imagine him walking next to her and he feels her eyes like looking at him. And it's this moment that to me feels like she is looking at Hadrian and calculating and trying to reassess a little bit. It's like, who am I talking to right now? Like, like, this is like a very, it's gotta be a very disorienting experience. Us as the reader,
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Yeah.
Drew: You we've lived with Hadrian since the start of this narrative. Hadrian is super weird for being someone in the Empire, right? He's saying that he agrees with, like they're in a slum currently, in his empire. And he's saying, yeah, this doesn't make any sense. And she's like, looking at him like, what is this person? Like, it just doesn't fit into any pre-existing model that she has. So even though she has this, you know, previous section of criticism. It's your empire, Hadrian. starts saying comments like this continually and ⁓ sort of looks at him sideways like, is his empire? That's the kind of the feeling that is evoked me.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: She that that's fair. And it's also probably to her probing, like pushing a little bit to find where the button is like Hadrian's button is. She knows that at least at least up to this point, he's been ⁓ polite with her. hasn't been redurred. ⁓ I imagine for some of that, it's rare. I mean, we saw Gilliam Vass be such a jerk to her in last episode. Right. ⁓ So.
Drew: Yeah. you know, called her a whore or something. It's just, yeah, just, yeah, yeah.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Yeah, called her a heretic whore and all this different stuff. from her perspective, he's not the highest level of society, but the fact that he is as nice as he is ⁓ might be putting her off guard. And so trying to figure out where his levers and buttons are. ⁓ Hadrian, as he's watching the umand work that they are like ants working in unison guided one of the umand's songs. and then the same time, vilicus is regaling them with the fact that they are now sending umand off worlds ⁓ for the time. And Dorian makes a note the fact that I'm just the first time hurting. didn't know we ⁓ shipped them off And Engin mentions, yeah, you know, their house coward on Triton believes that they'd be good at ⁓ laying wiring seabed potentially. But the Villicus mentions that, I ⁓ don't think can screw in a light bulb. Which is ⁓ fun fact, what they doing ⁓ the moment that Hadrian meets
Drew: know. ⁓ This guy is super gross. don't like, this guy gives me bad vibes the entire time. It just feels all wrong.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: ⁓ yeah. ⁓ it doesn't get better because Hadrian then pipes up, of course, and says, so you were a trader then. And by trader, he means ⁓ slaver. Right. And so Hadrian has clocked this guy's modus operandi because that's that's his business is dealing with ⁓ ⁓ particular. And mentions that, yeah, I used to deal ⁓ the from Saddle Sood to other planets. The definition of Saddle Sood in the lexicon the index of worlds is ⁓ wild world in the spur of Orion that is mostly untrammeled, home to the Kavarad giants, ⁓ huge species of xenobites, ⁓ well as the marching towers, ⁓ of the 99 wonders of the universe, ruled by House Rodolfo. ⁓ the Kav... Huh?
Drew: Man, appendix here ⁓ just like, it's just so cool. ⁓ underappreciated. ⁓
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Dude, just wait. Just wait. Because find out that these giants, ⁓ xenobites that are native to this planet, grow up to 40 feet tall ⁓ are nominally immortal. So we don't know how old they can possibly get even though they are 40 feet tall and yet they are enslaved by the Solon Empire. On top that, the planet Satt-Al-Sud is a real ⁓ Supergiant star system that is also known as beta Aquaria in our universe like we can see it from our earth and instead I'll suit it's the side of the Arabic or the or the Farsi name for this planet for whoever might have been the Arabic name for the astronomers who discovered it, but it means the luck of Lux and it's 540 light years from Seoul The depth at which this guy deals with these planetary bodies. The reason I look all this stuff up is he has put in another plenty work. And that's probably my biggest question is ⁓ it's that there's some sort of method to the madness of how he names these planetary bodies, some of which this already exists. Subtle suit already exists. It just has a different name in English. We call it beta query. I, ⁓ but some people call it subtle suit in our world. But for other planets that we like don't know, how he goes about adding these pieces in, really want to get some more context for because it's there. The layers to it are really deep.
Drew: Well, it's also just, what's so fascinating to me about it is that is like a depth of building that I most people are not even gonna digest, including myself, because they don't read the index, right? They're not gonna see this random factoid this location. Like, he didn't have do this. ⁓ And yet he did, it just adds. just super cool, man. Like, I ⁓
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Every time he does it, may not amount to much, but in the total collective, it amounts to an incredible amount of depth and reality in world building. Because even if we never see or we do see a Cavarad giant or whatever, right? Whether or not that's a setup for later, it doesn't matter. Hadrian, the narrator is interested in that because he loves Zenos, right? Like we've already established that he's here at this ghetto looking at xenobytes.
Drew: Right. Yeah.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: So he would know this information because he's fascinated with all the 40 xenobite creatures or like that they've found.
Drew: It's super cool.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: This is depth of thinking that ⁓ of us would not get to when writing a story. ⁓ also mentions that the Cabarad had been popular in previous years in Colossus, like a hundred years before, pitting against a team of Mermenons, ⁓ which wish we got that scene ⁓ of Hadrian and Paulino and Switch and ⁓ Siren against a 40-foot tall giant. It'd be
Drew: Yeah. Hahaha dying to a cabaret.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: But as you know, as he's thinking about this and hearing that Niles Engin was a slaver of these giants, Valka clearly shows her displeasure begins like muttering to herself and walks away and then gets ⁓ her out and starts interacting with the umand. So she is like playing on her tablet, trying to communicate with them. She points to ⁓ wind chimes. Or what looked like wind chimes to Hadrian asked him his opinion on what he thinks that they are. Nobody knows. It's potentially a religious symbol, but ⁓ a symbol would indicate more intelligence than Newmont have shown. Valka mentions that she wishes that she could ask him and Hadrian's like, well, just use the tablet. You have a translator right there. Why can't you just talk to them? And she's like, don't understand their ⁓ is not language. Like we would understand language. The harmonize in different frequencies ⁓ to tasks. Collectively, they smarter as a pack or a unit, but not by much. like she mentions the case of like, One of them drones that they're hungry and so all of them go and get food together and like harmonize with that tone of being hungry until all of them are fed and then they move on to another task. This sort of gives me vibes of like the way bees work or hive minds kind of.
Drew: Yeah.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: animals, things like the ants, know, pheromones and different things that are using, that people are guiding different functions for. So it's not like she could just be like, Hey, Umond, why did you make this? ⁓ So ⁓ the first time Hadrian's heard this about the Umond itself.
Drew: Mm-hmm. Right. They wouldn't, they wouldn't. Yeah, it's not language ⁓ ⁓ have. ⁓ The Sielcidn have complex, verbal in the way that we do. The Umand ⁓ have, like, vibe songs, they, like... ⁓ connect in that way and they do things. Very complex, It's sort of a separate phenomena from language. It's communication, but language may be a strong word for it. ⁓ ⁓ have grammar. It's like frequency stuff. It's very fascinating.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: And Hadrian in talking about these frequencies asks how many of them that we know collectively as a human species. And she mentions like a few dozens of 24 to 36 of these frequencies they understand, but there's potentially more out there. But to your point, she then flips that on that conversation and him said, you know how rare it is that language develops, like grammar develops as we conceive it present in the universe. And of course, Hadrian being the smart ass is like, well, I'm exactly one in 25. And she's like, don't be a freaking smart ass dude. And she sort of is now letting him in on some of the things that she's thinking about when dealing with this. is her work as a doctor that she's doing right now is postulating, trying to gather intelligence and information about how these different things work. She mentions a theory that she read by Philemon of Neruda unnatural grammars, which is ⁓ fact that the Cielson and humanity have the structure of a grammatical language ⁓ what allowed them ⁓ ⁓ ⁓ spacefaring creatures. ⁓ way that their brains were wired because they had grammar is a direct like causal that they eventually ended up developing ways to get off world. That's the theory by Philemon of Neruda. as a note, he is a Scolius from the planet Neruda. Neruda is a reference to Pablo Neruda, who's a Chilean poet. And this planet is known for having a fungal forest and a Scolius death and am ⁓ Philemon a book of the Bible. And this is an interesting factoid too. ⁓ The come from name from comes from love. The word love ⁓ philos. It's a Pauline epistle. So meaning that the apostle Paul wrote this letter to Philemon and it's included in the biblical canon. But interestingly enough, the book of Philemon is Paul writing to Philemon telling him that his once bond servant or slave Onesimus is coming back and Paul wants to greet him as a brother. So the fact that like he chose Philemon as he's talking about the Umond is not accidental. They're enslaved and Philemon is a biblical book about uninslave about I don't know what you would call it, abolition, right? Abolition of slavery, like the removal of the status of being enslaved a person, to an individual. I thought that that was interesting.
Drew: Mmm. Mmm. That's wild,
Devil’s Rest Book Club: ⁓ Of course, Hadrian is familiar with Philemon of Neruda's theorem and just gets super nerdy about this whole thing. ⁓ she's like, ⁓ you know, this ⁓ exactly what I was thinking about. You know, just ⁓ a candy store when talking. ⁓ is ⁓ first time on the page he's been able to nerd out with somebody about this basically since Gibson, we can imagine.
Drew: Yep. Yeah, you know, that's an interesting... Interesting point, we've had different pieces of Hadrian connecting with different people at this point. We've had Polino and Switch and Crow and all these different connections, but he hasn't had a connection like this since ⁓ had who appreciated his stories and stuff, but this is like an appreciation ⁓ for the things he's obsessed with about communication and language. Yeah, yes, not just it.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: on an intellectual level.
Drew: a wonder level. He can actually converse intellectualize with this person in way that he can't with anybody else since ⁓ Gibson.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Part of it too is the fact that weird. Like according to the empire, it's weird that he's into this stuff. ⁓ borderline heresy that he speaks this Yeltsin tongue. ⁓ So the fact that he's interested in these languages and he's found somebody to vent the pressure a little bit with it is great. Valka then that, know, Philemon's theory is very interesting.
Drew: Correct, yep. Yep.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: But his sample size is too small. It's a hypothesis at best, but it has potential. they're sort of like ⁓ each other's sentences. It's a very cute moment. ⁓ a flirty moment too. Like, ⁓ we have shit. ⁓ been flirting and all this different stuff, but now we have similar interests. she to that he's catching on well for a ⁓ brand fandom.
Drew: Yeah, yeah.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: and then calls him Anna Ryan. We don't get much context into this word, but Anna Ryan will come up a lot. And we will, when we get a better definition of it later in the text, I'll let you know. it's won't be the last time you heard Anna Ryan or Anna Ryok or some variation of the sort. And doesn't know what these words mean, but he can tell that she's rousing him when doing it, but almost in a sort of playful to your point. ⁓ a playful, strong-willed and trying to catch his, trying to figure out his buttons with.
Drew: Yeah. banter and this is like girl bullying you because she kind of likes you. That's this is. ⁓
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Every dude's fantasy. a little bit. Hadrian, ⁓ as they shift the is like, well, okay, then what does the tablet do then? Why can't you just like, you have these frequencies, can you not cook some information out them? ⁓ And she's like, have you tried to tell a cat what to do? And he's like, no, we didn't have cats on Delos. They don't exist. and we get a fun little building fact that They're not on Emesh either, or if they are, they're hidden away because these ornithons, these flying serpents, would eat them. ⁓ Which is, I wonder if Rockio hates cats. ⁓ But that was a funny little thing. ⁓ it's awesome.
Drew: You It's terrible.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: But she then takes it to the next level of this language discussion saying that their consciousness operates on different principles than what we would understand.
Drew: It's a fascinating question, right? Because when we... when we think we experience, we ⁓ things in in some sense. It's very was reading ⁓ a book actually. yesterday that referenced another book and it was referencing Helen Keller's early experience in life after having lost sight and hearing and the experience of what her life was like before language. It was described almost as this memory void where there was just nothing but experience until she learned...
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Mm-hmm.
Drew: what the language for water was because someone was insisting on teaching her and running water over her hand and apparently learning just the word to orient her changed her entire life because then you could build upon everything else and so it sort of begs the question of like... Is consciousness in the way that we experience it really like interlinked with in the way that we experience it? And if language different, would that mean you are absent a conscious experience or do you just have like ⁓ such different conscious experience that we wouldn't even know what that experience would be like? It would be very Our lives are sort of narrative and language oriented in some sense. And it's almost ⁓ to imagine it would be like ⁓ to live as new mind. for example, so you wouldn't even have words to describe it. It would be ⁓ an experience that we couldn't data for. It's interesting. ⁓ begs the question about a lot of things about what they experience and what is it like and is it the same or ⁓ similar our experience.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: you're 100 % right. therapy for me is a exercise most of the time. It's finding the right words ⁓ to adequately describe an experience, see where my brain got to that place, ⁓ to try and ⁓ redo loop.
Drew: Yeah, is a genuine problem for folks ⁓ for ⁓ difficulty experiencing emotions and experience if they don't have the words to describe them. And some people don't have the words and so they can't correlate. their physical and emotional experience without language. happens in people in that way in some sense where we are dissociated our experience without the words for it. ⁓ So absent in its entirety, actually don't really, I don't know how, I don't even what that would be like. I don't know how you would be conscious and not have it, but. It's an interesting question. don't what like to be in a mod.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: ⁓ As Hadrian is looking over, sees Engin and Anais feeding these Umand children candied fruit from like a paper bag and is laughing or whatever. She's getting a very catered experience to this whole ghetto, whereas he's seeing the reality of the situation. Then they look at this bag that these Umand had made and hung from these hoops that are connected to the ceiling ⁓ that are with shells and stone. and they clack softly in the breeze. And they're postulating why they would have made them, you know, discussing their consciousness more. And then they realize that it's a communication tool. The umand don't sight, so they echo locate, right? ⁓ And this isn't loud to humans, presumably it is loud enough for them to hear it. So it's, it's in a way for them to ⁓ be guided ⁓ through particular is via these wind chimes. Hadrian then postulates that it's potentially an anaglyph, which is a carving of a three-dimensional picture ⁓ are meant to be felt and not seen. to your, ⁓ know, there's more, you know, references to ⁓ how language and sight somebody is to experience the world. Volka is incredibly impressed at the fact that he figures it out that quickly. It apparently took the Normans, you know, decades to figure that out. ⁓ mentions that these circles are perfectly circular. It's not like circular, like kind of circular. No, it's like a perfect circle for these, which is rare that you'd see. And asks if the ruins at Caligar have ruins similar like is there similar structures or glyphs or whatever there and focus is no no they're made of stone which is strange enough to be in this landscape at all because everything's like built on coral reef and the umand are not they're building shanty towns right here i have a hard time believing that ⁓ their past were enough to make stone or stone ruins Valka is distracted during this conversation because she sees an Umand who's bearing scars from Engin's group or Engin himself beating them and like chiseling their skin out, which is a new layer of cruelty that we haven't seen up to this point.
Drew: It's just jacked up, dude. It's so messed up, the treatment of these. weird to have a discussion about whether not these things are conscious in the way that we are, but also to experience the disgust and cruelty towards them. I think it's commenting on something that I think interesting around this, ⁓ which is that... Sometimes we characterize in terms of whether or not they're good or not, in terms of if ⁓ are something else. And I ⁓ that is way to view ethics, but I think another thing ⁓ to consider even if the were not in the way that we are. Is there something unethical about the person inflicting the harm, ⁓ of whether or not it harms the human? It of suggests an underlying cruelty to the that they sort of lack the empathetic instinct towards these things in order to inflict that harm. There was an interesting ⁓ thought experiment we ⁓ talked about my undergraduate for philosophy minor that was on this question about whether or not something has to harm something else in order referred to be unethical. this is sort of jacked up, but there was this ⁓ of like, ⁓ you walked into someone's home ⁓ ⁓ discovered that all of their furniture was covered in what appeared to be human skin, ⁓ would feel better about it if you knew it weren't real human skin? ⁓ Like, you think there's nothing wrong with it? ⁓ Or you still think that there's something deeply wrong with the person, ⁓ not they've hurt anybody, but because they have this desire to reflect harm or something like that. And it sort of evokes this emotional response which is that independent of whether or not mind ⁓ conscious in the way that we are, can still draw conclusion ⁓ there's something probably like ⁓ wrong ⁓ the person that would think it's so callously okay to inflict harm upon something like that. interesting to about. the imagining ⁓ chiseling ⁓ in way, hard to imagine it would require from a person to be able to inflict something like that. that it, separate from the Dumont, it's that has to be ⁓ amazing level of emotional suppression or psychopathy, right? ⁓ ⁓ be pretty unbelievable to do that. ⁓
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Or I mean, I don't know if dehumanization is the right word, like. Yeah, but even still, to your point, even if the umand aren't as conscious as a dog or at the dog, like a level of a dog's intelligence or whatever, hurting a dog is something that is vastly unethical and I think would hurt a lot of people. Maybe some less than others. There's, cultural mores to be included in this too. Cultural upbringings. Uh, Hadrian feels sick.
Drew: Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: When he sees this as well, and he mentions in Latin, so this guy knows Latin homo homini lupus, which is man is wolf to another man, which is interesting to note because of the fact that is the wolf ⁓ the umand here, but also, you know, it's mentioning the fact that Hadrian is looking these do-it-ers as wolves among sheep, for instance. Valka is really, really upset at the fact that she's seeing this and saying that they've gone a step too far. You, Ana Ryek, are obsessed with pain. Another variation of the word that we heard earlier. blames the Chantry. ⁓ calls him Gladiator. ⁓ ⁓ Hadrian, being really ⁓ understanding this moment, doesn't correct her and sees an opportunity to... share his inner self with her and says, you know, you're right, what they do, what the chance you do is vile. And I wanted to read something that's on page 341 in this book, particularly about this. There must have been something in my voice, a gravity. I clamped my jaw shut, suddenly afraid of saying too much or that I'd already said too much. I wanted to say more, to tell her about my father, about my duty to the chantry. But that was Hadrian Marlowe's duty, and I was Hadrian Gibson. For a moment we were like two puzzle pieces whose owner understood that they fit together, but could not see how. Had we a day or even an hour, it might have been different, and all her lingering antipathy for me might have washed away. But it was not meant to be. it was against your laws to say such things. She says, for a moment we were like two puzzle pieces that were meant to fit together, whose owner understood that they fit together, but could not see how this is a clear indication ⁓ that the that he has with all cause going to be one that is bigger than we ⁓ have. And already gotten rumblings. This is the first.
Drew: Yeah. Yeah.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: more explicit indication from narrator Hadrian that him and Valka have a very special relationship, whatever it is, in the future. Otherwise, he would say not two puzzle pieces that were meant to fit together.
Drew: Yeah, it- Yeah, yeah, it implies almost like a divine level of like, there's almost perfect about the way that they just, ⁓ at point in the story, ⁓ are of just not understanding. what their connection is yet, they're talking past each other in a certain sense because of the context of what's happening. not completely open with her because he's bound by the fact of what's happening. ⁓ doesn't know fully about it. There's like a distance that's created by circumstance, ⁓ if they could ⁓ have time to correct that, then all of sudden everything would click into place. It's a great analogy ⁓ describe what's going on. ⁓
Devil’s Rest Book Club: And it has to be underlying values based too, right? Because the thing that they bond over is the cruelty of the games of Colossus, which Hadrian still believes is a thing, despite the fact that he fought as a Myrmidon. He still believes that they're inherently bad. ⁓ ⁓ cruelty of the Xenobites and cruelty of the Chantry in particular, right? All these three things are things that Hadrian up to this point has mentioned are ⁓ of importance to him from a standpoint. And she is the only person he has met that agrees with him on those three things. So of course, in that moment, he's thinking, I to be near this woman ⁓ get to know her better.
Drew: Yeah, most important part of this section is the idea that ⁓ saying it's vile they She says, I it was against your laws. And he says ⁓ it is blasphemy be heard saying such things. ⁓ And it's this moment clarity, I think they get to share. It's very but it's this.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Yes.
Drew: him I think subtly trying to communicate to her that like he gets it and he completely does not, he's not okay with this in a not just a superficial way. Like he deeply disagrees with it. And I think also it sort of speaks to the, know, ⁓ the theme that's partly been coming up ⁓ this story is the of supervision in this world, mean, it's borderline dystopia, like what we're talking about. And the care has to have with his language, given the position he is in, is different than the care that she has to have given her position the fact that she's foreign, she's a foreign dignitary, like she can't be condemned the way ⁓ he's a very compromised position but can't talk about it in a similar way ⁓ that sort of constrained trying to recoup his with Polino and the Myrmidons. He's similarly hands here although ⁓ he is able reach her a little bit ⁓ with this comment they've sort of like ⁓ gradually snuck away little bit so.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: And, ⁓ you know, key moment for their relationship. I totally agree. ⁓ and he's so down bad because he's like, understood Shakespeare's impulse to be a glove. And that's a reference literally to Romeo and Juliet, ⁓ where Romeo is looking upon Juliet and says, ⁓ to be a glove ⁓ that hand. so is Romeo and Juliet looking at this woman. He is young, he is dumb and he loves her. He is.
Drew: moment. Yeah.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: obsessed with her. ⁓
Drew: I- there was one more line that I think was important that I forgot to mention, which is this idea of... can say them if they don't catch you, and if you can say them, you should. it- it- it- ⁓
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Interesting, interesting line.
Drew: It is, it rang like 1984 vibes to me. It's like these small rebellions. Spoilers for 1984. There's this really important moment at the start, read 1984 folks, where there's this interesting rebellious moment where a character just writes his thoughts. And it's like a genuine tiny rebellion of the situation that he's put in. And it feels like that's almost kind of what Hadrian is saying here in some sense. It's almost an answer to the question that we started this episode with, which is that, know, do you bear responsibility for ⁓ Empire And ⁓ Hadrian is saying... if you have the opportunity, given the circumstance, to resist even in a small way by saying that this is not okay, your obligation to do so. ⁓ it's a failure. ⁓ in fact, the doing the ⁓ silence, we say, ⁓ sort of to this sort of quiet, moral quiet that is described early in the story where people are not saying the things they should be saying. ⁓ And ⁓ think ⁓ almost the crux of the point of part of this book is ⁓ ⁓ ⁓ truth to the situation here and to the cruelty of what's going on is part of the reason it continues. ⁓ yeah, it sort of all comes ⁓ together this moment.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: from there, that one moment where Hadrian is pondering and, you know, living in the Shakespearean Romeo and Juliet moment, ⁓ is quick as that came, it's ⁓ dropped on his head because he immediately ⁓ gets trying to explain that He's not like everybody else in the empire. not only the, which is a
Drew: Ha Peace. Yep.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: The big indication to her that your point. Who is this guy? Why have I not met anybody like him? And in this very sweet moment, she closes the gap and lays a hand on him and with a sad smile, says that she knows that he is different. And then they snap back to reality and begin discussing the ruins and how the umand wouldn't build them. Specifically, Valka says they didn't.
Drew: Yep. Mm-hmm.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: which we get a cliffhanger on this because she is pondering before she says this, like whether or not to let him in. She like chews on the idea of letting him into her thoughts more. And then she says, yeah, the Umun didn't build Kalaga. And the moment that that happens, Anais like jumps into the scene and Hadrian like jumps up sheepishly because he knows that he's not supposed to be with this girl all by himself. And Anais
Drew: of all, what does that mean? What does that mean? What does that mean? Like, feels... ⁓ like a giant mark and we just move on. it's just... ⁓ good writing.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Right. Right! Yeah. But we, but we can, we can assume that this is the truth that they did not. Volcker believes that they did not the language discussion earlier in the chapter, the fact that the Umand have built this like crappy shanty town ⁓ and don't have anything, you know, more industrious, like big buildings or is an indication that maybe they did not,
Drew: Yeah, yeah.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: So we just get left with that pin the time being a big one ⁓ Anais like ⁓ in a China shop comes and finds ⁓ and ⁓ ⁓ alone ⁓ Hadrian is very sheepish and is like, yes, I was just hanging out with the doctor, know, discussing blah, blah, blah. ⁓ tries to shrug Valk offices. ⁓ you have some shots to give to the Umand or whatever? Valka is like, ⁓ not that kind of doctor.
Drew: He he.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Dorian pops up behind his sister and they like their clothes are like water treated. So they're hydrophobic and they look totally at a place in this crappy shanty town, which ⁓ Hadrian's memory ⁓ ⁓ ⁓ homunculus ⁓ the idea that ⁓ Palatine cast and the Palatine people are ⁓ than human, inhuman children of the tanks, cousins to the homunculi. to the extra solarians even. This is the first time we hear that. It's like the extra solarians are being lumped into this anti-humanism as well. The plebians are really human. ⁓ homunculi are not. And the moment like they have this reunion in the shanty town, Engin barges in and says, get out, out. Cause it's a liability. If this thing falls on the two Mataro kids, he's screwed. So he's like, Get out of this building. It's not safe. We have to get out of here right now. and as they're leaving Anais glares at Volka in a very, telling way. Anais was staring, no, glaring at the doctor as if she'd caught her stealing ⁓ her midway to her purse. ⁓ I at that moment, ⁓ but dismissed it when the Palatine girl seized my hand. ⁓ You come see the primitives. The vilicus is going to have them dance for us. I shot Valka a besieged expression, but the doctor only looked glassily back at me, that hard-edged smile catching in me like fish hooks. There is a competition happening between these two women and an ownership on Hadrian's part that Anais feels that is infringing upon.
Drew: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, this is the loudest it's been on the page. It is like megaphone loud right here, right? I mean, this is glare and then the like, haha, let's go come check this out. Like ⁓ like, this not even subtle at this point. Like there's something going on here and she is liking Volca. ⁓ She feels by Volca. Like very obviously so, yeah. ⁓
Devil’s Rest Book Club: 100%. But that's where we end chapter 50 and move on to chapter 51 familiar. we get, maybe we get some more information on that in this chapter. Spoiler alert. Hadrian begins the chapter as he is tutoring the Mataros, specifically Dorian at this moment ⁓ Jadion. So they're having a conversation in Jadion. and only they're talking about Colossus in particular, his story where he was, ⁓ he had The. gladiatorics, amore of Mira. He's recounting that story to Dorian in Jadian as he is drawing with charcoal, a portrait of Dorian in a gladiator outfit. Dorian's like, ⁓ that's super good. Like, where did you learn drawing? Like where, like in Jadian, he's talking to him and Hayden's like, I took up drawing because my dad said, Sim goggles weren't holy pointing it.
Drew: It's... Yeah.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Anais who's over in the corner wearing like playing sword art online basically and saying that you know this hobby is better it's a it's a holier hobby and Gibson agreed that it's more of a classical passion than pure escapism.
Drew: Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's this moment also where turns to Hadrian and Hadrian comments on how she's intentionally bending over in front of him or something. He ⁓ away and is shy about it. Remember, Hadrian's ethic around women is that he's not a fan of this kind of thing, but ⁓ sort of continues to happen here. Again, they... ⁓
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Yeah. as Dorian asked her to come look at this picture.
Drew: Yeah, yeah, yeah, And they, you know, they once again start going at him about like whether or not he's gonna go back to Colossus or anything, like you should be a gladiator. And he is sort of a little bit more open about the fact he's like, guys, like... I, if I go back, I'm gonna have to fight my friends. My friends are the Myrmidons. And I think it's what I used to make this like ⁓ like, won't be that way for long, which is like crazy ⁓ She, she, she.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: But she catches herself. She does recognize after the fact very quickly that she made a mistake. But yeah, she does say that, yeah, they're probably going to die soon.
Drew: Yes, yeah, it's still messed up. know, Adrian is, to expand upon the fact that ⁓ ⁓ not a fan ⁓ Colossus. He sort of mentions maybe that Volca's view has influenced view of Colossus. He's just very critical of it. ⁓ And Anais ⁓ is happy. is mentioned. She must we talk about ⁓ the She's clearly jealous of her. It's built upon from the previous situation. And ⁓ as they're ⁓ it starts ⁓ dawn on that... Valka is here temporarily, as a reminder. She is visiting because of the seasons flooding the ruins at Caligula, right? And so eventually these are gonna go down and they'll return. And it sort of occurs to Adrian in this moment that, oh, this is a, like, my crush is gonna leave. It becomes a big issue. Go ahead.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Yeah. Dorian in particular begins a line of dialogue. It's like, wait, they don't have the Colossus and the Demarchi. Hadrian doesn't know that I answered this because he's not really read up on culture and how it's kind of different over there. Anais brings up the fact that they're machine worshipers, are heretics. Gileam calls her a witch who gave herself to the machine. She's not human anymore. And Dorian is clearly different feeling differently than her. Cause Anais is really animosity, ⁓ ⁓ with her or frustrated with her. Clearly we can see on the page and with the that we have, ⁓ she is And Hadrian, we're a picture now that Hadrian is specifically a pet ⁓ for Anais Mataro. Dorian doesn't feel this way. He has a lover. that he hangs out with. ⁓ there's a potential for him down the line too, but like there's something going on here with Hadrian and ⁓ they are intended to be ⁓ up for one another. Whether it's to what we do not know, but we know that Anais, Anais's father has put Hadrian, ⁓ like Anais the keys to the cage. She is, Hadrian's her pet, not Dorian's pet. kind of Dorian's pet, but not really Dorian's pet, really Anais' pet. she's pissed that another woman is ⁓ that because that's not the way it's meant to be. She's to getting everything her way. I did want to, ⁓ go
Drew: Dorian, ⁓ is twisting the knife all over the in this conversation. like, yeah, Volka's great dude. She's gorgeous, don't you think? Yeah, and like, ⁓ it's just like, bro. Putting Adrian in this terrible position. Number one, ⁓ I don't get the sense he even.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: She's hot, man.
Drew: do this like weird locker room talk or anything like that but it's also in front of Anais which puts everyone in a weird position and just makes it awkward because I guess Dory is completely socially inept about this or something. It's just just to mess with it. Yeah one of the two.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: that or he's intentionally doing it to his sister. One of the two. Adrian just like spit takes, ⁓ He also indicates in his conversations that on the sly, he's been going to her room look at ruins and talk and whatever. ⁓ he mentions that, you ⁓ yeah, she's a brilliant zinologist. Did you know she's been to the tomb of Simi in the red on Judeca? Like she's been to Judeca. clearly Hadrian does not want her to know that she's been hanging out with, um,
Drew: Yeah.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: with Valka as much as she has. So Hadrian's now getting keyed in on the idea that Anais is upset at the fact that he has a close relationship with Valka. ⁓ she just says, I don't even know what you see in her. An off-worlder like that. And he's like, I'm an off-worlder too, your ladyship. Dorian just in his own world is like, ⁓ you think they'll let me fight, you think dad will let me fight in Colosso? And Anais has an idea. She's like,
Drew: You
Devil’s Rest Book Club: You should teach us to fight. Hadrian's like, wait, don't you have somebody who's been teaching you since you were young? It's like, yeah, but he's not that good. he was for them, teaching them languages and kind of a semi-scholius tutor. ⁓ He has now been pigeonholed into also being their Felix, ⁓ like being their combat instructor as well.
Drew: Right, he sort of gets cornered by a social convention here. It seems like he's like, I don't think it's appropriate for me to refuse a palentine their request in this circumstance because of his position. And so he is sort of asked something that he can't refuse and it's up having to actually do this, which is, it feels like something he does not want to do, frankly.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Yeah. And they also mentioned like their, their sword master's not that good. Um, we need a better one. And we cut in this scene to Dorian complaining, but why do we have to train outside? have to imagine, it's worse training in, in Emesh than it is in, um, Delos for instance, just because of temperate weather or whatever. But Hadrian's a very disciplined person. he.
Drew: Yeah, yeah.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: He trained without shoes for like the better part of 20 years every single day in sword fighting. And that's how he became so good as he is and it has allowed him to survive. And not to mention the fact that he also trained in E-mesh in the same conditions that they're training in. conditions theoretically than when he was training as a Mermedon. And moment that these Mataro kids are out there, they're complaining.
Drew: Yeah, they're soft. Especially Dorian, which is just like, just like kind of, ⁓ ⁓ being so whiny drives me crazy. And he's being of rough with them. Like he's just like, listen guys, like this is what has to done you want to be good at this.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: This is the guy who had the salesman head in his hand.
Drew: And ⁓ Hadrian also comments on the fact that they actually are poorly trained. So they weren't like just... why? their swordmaster is actually ⁓ not that good. you know, Adrian starts explaining like, you need to be, if you're going to be in Colossus, listen, dude, like it's, you're going to be in these conditions. And Dorian says like the most obnoxious thing I've I've read in this book so far, which is that the gladiators suits are water cooled, which is just like, off the page is so disgusting to me ⁓ this kid is trying to get out of harsh training because he's gonna be in this perfectly like comfortable suit killing ⁓ like just it's so ⁓
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Yeah. to a guy who had to fight gladiators in these water-cooled suits, right? Like on top of it too, I don't know.
Drew: Right, yeah, it's just deeply upsetting.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: He also mentions the idea that maybe was better than I thought. Maybe is one of the best. mean, this guy's bad. Clearly, these kids are not good. ⁓ The that he's ever seen ⁓ in of the Palitin class. ⁓ But also flips it on us. Maybe Felix is really, really damn good. And so he gets to impart not only wisdom that he gained from Felix, but he also from... his time in Colossus. He also makes note that Dorian has had this like ability to be ambidextrous, which is a pain because not only like if you pick a side and you have like a dominant hand, then you only have to learn what's one set of footwork. But if you're ambidextrous, you have to learn both sides. ⁓ And a very interesting thing because theoretically it's going to be harder at the beginning, but longer term, it would be ⁓ more beneficial be ambidextrous. ⁓ But it's It's frustrating from Hadrian's perspective that he has to spend double the amount of time trying to train this kid.
Drew: for those that ⁓ no... ⁓ no combat sports experience or anything like this. kind of like both sides things actually matters. I trained jiu jitsu for years and wrestled for several years and most of my ability is doing things on a specific That's very normal and so ⁓ you end up with a lopsided, can give your opponent advantage by the fact that you do things in a particular way routinely. So is an investment but there is an actual advantage to being able to switch and get out of people's comfort zones and stuff.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: After an hour of them training, Gilliam Voss enters into their training yard. Also, like they're training on like grass and Hadrian's got bare feet on this grass. So their training conditions are like way better than the freaking Mermadon's ones. Gilliam greets them and then like looks at Hadrian and is like, wait, like he keeps seeing him. Like this new villain ⁓ keeps him. like, what are you doing here? And why are you waving swords at the young masters or whatever? And he's like, Hey, reverence. Like he's being very polite. He said, they've asked me to instruct them on fencing, but you know, I'll, I'll leave if you want me to. And the kids are like, no, no, no, of course not. has come to pick them up, ⁓ presumably for lesson or for something prayer related or whatever. but in doing he pulls Hadrian aside and says like, what is it that you're doing here? So Gilliam's being an inquisitorial like figure. He's not a, an official inquisitor on behalf of the Chantry, but he is doing his part as an advisor to the court in buffering the, the Mataro house to Hadrian because Gilliam also does not does not understand the full way to the situation because Hadrian is hiding from the Chantry and it's dangerous for the Mataro's to let the Chantry in.
Drew: Yeah.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: on what's happening here, because theoretically that would mean the death of Hadrian or even more people.
Drew: What's interesting about this is, people that are, paranoid ⁓ tend find out because sort of intuitively and they're like sort of seeking like the weirdness ⁓ and Gilliam is and maybe for like wrong ⁓ but he has the intuition that something is off. about the situation doesn't make sense. He's commenting, he's like, listen, I first saw you in ⁓ bottom slave ⁓ level the Colosseum, ⁓ and are now tutoring the children ⁓ the Count Emesh. is something about this situation that is not making... ⁓ not making sense. Other people are of like casually accepting it, but Gilliam is just like, this is not adding up. Like what is, what are you doing? What is wrong?
Devil’s Rest Book Club: which Hadrian sort of postulates or why Gilliam could be this way or ⁓ concerned about this situation. And he gives a few potential reasons. One interesting one ⁓ that he's protecting the Palatine class, even though he is the of the impropriety of the Palatine class. He sort of calls that the hypocrisy of like ⁓ the that it is inappropriate ⁓ for to be having this much favor. ⁓ and everything should be done the right way the fact that this is an intus who ⁓ all social standards of the empire ⁓ not exist. but he's very polite. ⁓ this is a, a different Hadrian. He's explaining him, like, look, I wouldn't be here I didn't want to be here. ⁓ I really don't have a choice. and Gilliam still buffers against him and says, hey, you're being too familiar with these kids. Like, don't be improper with them. And Hadrian immediately is like, proper? ⁓ sorry. you think that I've done anything touched a nice the wrong way, I assure you I have no intention of doing so. ⁓ we know based on earlier in the chapters, like, that's exactly what she wants. But ⁓ Gilliam ⁓ does not want that.
Drew: Hehehehehe
Devil’s Rest Book Club: And then we wanted to read page 351 in particular.
Drew: 351 was this commentary of kind what you were saying is, what was Gilliam to them or they to Gilliam? Was this court puritanism only that? The protection of palatine blood from the lowborn humanity Gilliam perceived me to be. He was palatine but marked by his affliction ⁓ as less than a homunculus in many ways. Often I found that outsiders cling hardest to those labels that are denied them. ⁓ weak men are the most aggressive and unskilled ones allowed us to boast. ⁓ was palatine, ⁓ the fact that ⁓ thought I was not was important to him. ⁓ was ⁓ and little more. sort of this, thought it was interesting and worth reading because ⁓ this... ⁓
Devil’s Rest Book Club: ⁓ so I can we pause there? I want to it's different in this portion of it just slightly at the end, which gives some more clarity. ⁓ Gilliam was not Palatine, not truly. And so the fact that he thought that I was not was important to him. Situated as he was at the perimeter of that highest caste, placed there by his defects, he had appointed himself its gatekeeper and raged against any he perceived as assaulting its walls.
Drew: ⁓ yeah. Go ahead. Yeah, yeah, is actually better. Rocco good, I'm really glad he did this. It's interesting it sort of speaks to, we've had some about this previously, but ⁓ there's this sort inferiority feeling that people can sometimes have, and so they ⁓ require this sort reinforcement ⁓ they feel consistently they're right on the edge of something, or ⁓ because they feel insecure. status is on the table to be challenged, right? ⁓ so ⁓ sort of feels this instinctual need to like reassert the boundary because frankly the boundary falls, he's fallen far. You know, like he's got so much to lose. And even though got a point here, like to try to reinforce, like he is onto something that is genuinely going on, it may be reinforced by this like sort of need to reset the social. structure because he's that gatekeeper like Rockio says. He's got maintain the status because it's very important to him.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: want to take a moment to think about Gilliam's mindset here for a little bit. Clearly, he is written as a villain on the page. He's a barrier to our narrator and our hero, ⁓ I guess our POV in most of the cases. outside of perspective of Gilliam, we don't really get much context in how intices are thought about or treated in society. This is the first intice that we've met. We know that they are like... I don't know, there is a shame that becomes somebody like this, but honestly, Gilliam has done nothing wrong. It's his mom that decided to try and have a child outside of the confines of the high college. So Gilliam is a product of his parentage and his parents sinning, anything that he did inherently. So is he not kind of... also doing this because only way that he remains in his position is to be the safeguard. ⁓ Despite the fact that the system is like
Drew: Mmm.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: violently against him. Does that make sense?
Drew: Yeah, it's interesting. Yeah, it's like he almost has to, he to be like a valuable instrument in order to like keep himself because that's the thing that like, yeah, yeah. It's also interesting, like you could imagine, this is not on the page, but it's sort of ⁓ interesting to ⁓ about. Be to think about if...
Devil’s Rest Book Club: That's right.
Drew: One had an intest, right? So like his mom, for example. You can imagine, you know, already the Palantine class had this very distant relationship with their children, but if your child became the sort of like the visual representation of your shame because you decided to do this, almost like the intest gets some of it, but you get it as well, right? Because you participated in this. I could almost imagine that being going from not even just uninvolved parents to ⁓ cruelty in some sense. It'd really interesting to if that out in this way ⁓ where... He's not just created by the way that society treats him, but maybe by the way his parents treated him, or his mom treated him, because of being the object of this shameful thing. it's interesting. Gilliam's a really fascinating character. one the characters in this book, actually. ⁓ He really jumps off page for me.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Yeah. Hadrian mentions to him that like, look, dude, if I could be on the first ship at a system, I would, but you're your count. Bailey and Matar was the one that wants me here. And Gilliam's like, well, count Matar doesn't do everything a hundred percent right. Like he's the everybody else in court may accept you, but I won't. And explain why you were in the bottom of the freaking. Like, why were you going to see the Sielson? Cause this is, this is a crucial point too. If Gilliam's.
Drew: Yeah.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: A member of the Chantry. And we already have seen the fact that one, there was a Chantry. He was involved in getting the Cielcen on planet. We already have had other indications as well that the Chantry are a buffer against the Cielcen in the world. With Eusebia talking about the fact that like she's very hawkish against the Cielcen ⁓ earlier in book. These two forces diametrically opposed. ⁓ The Chantry and Cielcen. And they're very suspicious of anything Cielson related because it's heresy So Gilliam is doing his job here when he's asking Hadrian about you were going to see the Sealson. And Hadrian even mentions on the page that, ⁓ know what, he's kind of right. Like there's no answer that I could adequately give him that satisfy this. Me just to the Sealson at all is going to get me accused of being a spy for the enemy. And there's nothing can really do to rectify that. ⁓
Drew: This is sort of what I mean as well by the sort of like the sort of paranoid ⁓ because he's... he is questioning the situation, he's wrong about the accusation in some sense because the weirdness about the situation with Adrian and DC Ellison... operative part is not that he went and talked to the DC Elson. The weirdness comes in in truth with how he got out of that situation by the Count giving him this position and letting him off the hook because but is fixated on that because it's weird. And so there's an interesting here where Gilliam is ⁓ on to the that something suspicious here, but he's fixated on the wrong part of it. ⁓ So there's. there's truth, but it's inaccurate identification of what's wrong. is sort of what I mean by like. the paranoid instinct gets onto something, but is not always right about the particular thing that they are getting onto. It's not actually, it's unproductive to lie to folks like these, if you can help, because you're going to trip up on one of these things, they're gonna pick up and you're going to end up getting caught, because they have this innate sense for it, but the details are typically wrong because they just, make ⁓ about things you can't possibly know, right? So it's interesting.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: He mentions that like you even going to see the creatures is a incredibly grievous Grievous sin one of the twelve and what could you possibly learn from the beast and Hadrian's like well, you know It might be worth trying to understand the only other space-faring race that exists in the galaxy and he's like heresy heresy How dare you? is the only one meant for the galaxy. It's like I wanted to go to see with eyes unclouded I
Drew: Yeah.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: the eyes and clouded because I think this is a direct reference and if it is it's also fantastic to Ashitaka in Princess Mononoke. So Hadrian sees himself potentially and he's already indicated this earlier in the book, like he wants to understand ⁓ in general, but ⁓ Cielcen in particular, he already speaks their language. He wants to understand the way that they think, ⁓ way that they do things and the way that they interact. He wants to see with eyes unclouded. Ashitaka Princess Mononoke ⁓ is young prince who gets exiled from his land because he gets cursed. he doesn't want that curse to spread to his village. And he travels all the way across the country ⁓ then is basically in between these forest spirits ⁓ against industrialized man. And he ⁓ there ⁓ see with eyes unglotted. That's his destiny, according to ⁓ fates, whenever they ⁓ bones or whatever. ⁓ that's his whole thing is to like bridge the gap between ⁓ man and where they're doing things right and where they're doing things wrong. and nature and where it's doing things right and where it's doing things wrong. Hadrian wants to be put in that position kind of with the Sielson. He wants to understand the way that they're thinking. He wants to end the war. He wants to ⁓ out ways which he could maybe there's a, maybe the right situation, ⁓ he could solve this long problem.
Drew: Hmm.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: only people were to sit down and talk and discuss ⁓ eyes unclouded, which means ⁓ chantry, no Cielson somewhere in between, right? He wants to be the in between.
Drew: Yeah.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: And he's also trying to explain to, to get Williams, like what what the FD mean eyes and clouded. What do mean? You know, he's just cannot give up the idea that this is all blasphemy. Gilliam's like, there's nobody who could challenge ⁓ mankind space, period, full stop. ⁓ And there's a ship in orbit that is from the war that is replacing soldiers and fixing itself. And he was like, well, what do you think about that? ⁓ What's up in there? Gilliam's like, I.
Drew: Yeah.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: I hear you speak their evil tongue, their vile tongue. like, I don't speak very well. And he's actually being truthful here because he speaks like a kid. Gilliam basically leaves him saying, stay away from them kids. Stay away from them kids, you creep. And saunters off. then Hadrian ⁓ calls back hey, Gilliam. And he thinks about five things to say. All of it was intus related. And he's like, ⁓ it's not a good idea. It's like, don't assume you knew. Like, I don't know, I guess trying to call out the fact that he's Palatine and you're not, like he's trying to dig at him a little bit, but man, kind of a lame way to leave the situation. I think Hadrian thinks it was cooler than it was, but it didn't strike me as very cool coming off the page as we end chapter 51.
Drew: It's a real call out, know, Gilliam is off on some stuff, he's making assumptions and stuff like that, you He's sniffing up the right tree, yeah, for sure,
Devil’s Rest Book Club: He's pretty darn close. He's pretty darn close. Yeah. doesn't know how close he is, but he sees pretty darn close. But we begin ⁓ chapter little talks. says, yeah, I didn't think about Gillian very much after that. And he still continued to be the tutor and the trainer, for the counts kids, right? Like he's.
Drew: ⁓ give... Just completely disregard it. just... ⁓
Devil’s Rest Book Club: I mean, he really doesn't have say, right? He does not have a say. If the Mataro kids want him there, if Bailey and Mataro wants him there, he has to be there. Gilliam doesn't understand that, but Hadrian does.
Drew: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: ⁓ he is prepping them specifically for an ambassadorial trip from the principalities of JAD. so it's pertinent that he continued ⁓ ⁓ them in Jadian language and custom and all this sort of stuff, which is interesting because Hadrian himself has never met somebody from JAD before, but he's heard so much about them. ⁓ get some ⁓ building that ⁓ principalities of JAD were once part of the Imperium. but they rebelled against the throne at 9,000 years ago and won their freedom and their genetic destiny. they, they, we know that they have, they have removed themselves from the cycle of the high college to some degree. And in doing so have been able to create clone armies that they use to fight and battle. And Hadrian even mentions like, and this is Hadrian, the product of eugenics mentioning this. Let's keep that in mind.
Drew: Yeah. Yep.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: that they embrace eugenics to the nth degree. So this is in ⁓ nation of the Superman, Ubermensch like to the highest degree while also being this interesting. We already know that they wear masks at court. We know that they are inherited. We find out here that they're inheritors of the Mediterranean. ⁓ Rocchio has said, like, imagine Persians and Italians together made a society ⁓ swordsmen. ⁓ there you have the
Drew: It's so cool.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: ⁓ The Jattians.
Drew: They have these like ⁓ legendary sword masters called like, how do you pronounce this? My skill away?
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Myskeloi Myskelos is the individual Myskeloi for the multiple
Drew: It sounds like a Jedi or something, it just sounds sick, right? Like, I it's cool. Super cool.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Yeah, so a myscily as a reminder for anybody from the is of the legendary swords masters of Jad drawn exclusively from the Iali cast credited with superhuman speed and skill. So not only are these like ⁓ supermen, these are super swordsmen as So like they breed these superheroes. and then teach them the best ways of the sword. mentions the fact that he and Valka have been spending more time together. And fact that she's the first person that had like gotten this tiny little glimpse into who ⁓ Hadrian is, not Hadrian Gibson, and she had not cast him out, which is giving him even reason outside of the... shared mutual interests or the academic side of things and ⁓ that they have to go and hang out with her. ⁓ He would often go to her door and then like knock on it and then they would go walk around the halls because they can't go out of the castle together. She can, but he cannot.
Drew: There is a... So there's a line that I was really interesting, which was that she had seen me and she had not despised me. There's this idea in a particular therapeutic modality that is interesting, it's called Gestalt Therapy, but the idea is like that what is sort of healing for people is genuine contact with other human beings. And what that is, is this idea that... When we interface with other people, there is sort of like a little of a performance that is not genuine that is going on between the two people. know, someone's about something, so they hide a thing or they behave in a way or they mask something with humor. They're hiding part of themselves with ⁓ some strategy protect themselves emotionally. And therefore that prevents from making actual contact with other human beings and people. do this to protect themselves emotionally essentially. But if do that then you don't get genuine connection with people, right? You don't actually get to feel like you have real friends because no one actually sees you because you are hiding underneath all of the stuff you're doing. It feels like to me ⁓ part of happened here with this line and over the course of ⁓ their relationship they continue to talk is that ⁓ Hadrian is able to show part of like the real person Hadrian. ⁓ and it isn't met with like from his father. Like he gets to show a passion for this thing ⁓ he's not criticized in the room for that's inappropriate or this is blasphemy or you're like. bad ⁓ or something like that. He ⁓ with ⁓ person who sees ⁓ in a genuine way and because that, she doesn't of it. She actually kind of agrees in a lot of ways. So he gets to have a real connection. in a really profound way and share in that interest with another person. it's really is that he gets to his guard down so that he gets to actually connect because he's not criticized while his guard is down.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: This doesn't help him in his like down badness for sure. He goes to her room again and ⁓ knocks at the door and is like, Hey, Dr. Andara, Dr. Andara, welcome. ⁓ keeps tapping at it a few times. ⁓ you would think that like after two or three times you'd have the propriety to just leave, ⁓ Just go back to your room. Hadrian does not. ⁓
Drew: Right, yeah.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Turns the knob and finds out that it's not locked in like steps into the room. It says Valka Valka. And he sort of on the page gives us an explanation. there's somebody Brown out, know, ⁓ have been so regular. you know, who knows if they left the door unlocked or maybe she left it that way. Of course I'm going to come in and make sure that she's okay. ⁓ It's he needed an excuse to go outside. but he. ⁓ decides to go in to the room and even in the low light, yeah, the room is completely messy. And the moment he's like, this girl that I thought is the first, is this first time inside of the room.
Drew: It's a mess.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: This girl's like really messy and it kind of bothers me a lot because Kedron is very clean, very disciplined, very organized. The fact that Valka is not at all. He ⁓ mentions he was forced to reevaluate the doctor to remind myself that at one end of my private affections ⁓ was person and at the other end, the dream of one, which is a very, very interesting way to talk about the fact that we put expectations on other people, especially in ⁓ romantic
Drew: Yeah. Yeah.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: that like unspoken, unrealized expectations of people that will buffer against reality pretty calm.
Drew: ⁓ know, think we ⁓ I a lot of us have this about like, like this perfect or something like that. that we're going to be in a relationship with. And you get into a relationship with someone and they're like a person and flawed in all of the ways that people are. And I think, you if you carry that fantasy into relationship, you are like doomed to be disappointed by the human being that's in front of you. And I really appreciate this because, you know, could paint this picture of Volka as this hyper-assertive, intelligent ⁓ You could very easily make this person appear flawless. Giving ⁓ this ⁓ something she's kind of messy. ⁓ Pretty messy. ⁓
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Pretty pretty messy. As a messy person, she's pretty messy.
Drew: she gets and like maybe like she just like doesn't organize things and stuff gets scattered everywhere and she doesn't it's It humanizes this character because it gives this character like a genuine like flaw and it's a makes this person feel real. Frankly, this it makes this person feel like more than a character. You know, like if there nothing wrong with this person ⁓ and she just badass lady buck the system or whatever, she wouldn't feel real ⁓ in the way that does because she has this. I also just appreciate that our character has to grapple with something a flaw of something that he cares about ⁓ to observe and ⁓ start gradually digest and accept that.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: I'll say this. a lot of ⁓ discourse like, the in Sunnitor aren't as good. Hadrian's so amazing and such the best character or whatever. But all the other characters suck. Anybody who thinks that is not reading enough, reading enough into what is going on here. ⁓ We've gotten a re in three chapters, we've gotten a really interesting picture of Valka. She ⁓ ⁓ ⁓ ⁓ doctor. is a
Drew: Yeah, yeah.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Xenologist to study or somebody who studies? Zenos she has theories that are alternative to the the mainstream is brusque and independent. She's also extremely messy ⁓ is thoughtful and funny and all this different stuff and we've gotten that in three chapters of the book and we've you know These are two puzzle pieces that ain't fit together. So they're not ⁓ not together right now So don't know how, and Gillian Vos, like you mentioned before, I don't know. Anybody who thinks that the other side characters that aren't named Hadrian Marlowe in this series are not well written have not actually spent the time reading what is actually written on the page. Go read it again.
Drew: Yeah, slow down. Yeah, slow down. I agree. And that's partly a criticism of myself, frankly, because I didn't read... I read too fast, actually, the first time I read this. And I don't know why, but think that with slower read and a closer eye, there's more depth here than I think it's given for. I agree. ⁓
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Same. Partially my fault, I kept saying, hey, when are gonna finish that freaking book? Hurry up. Because I was done months before you, but it's fine. So he's entering the room, he's like, Baka, ⁓ Hello? ⁓ then finally he sees her like kind of like getting dressed or whatever disheveled. And she's like, Adrian, how do you get in here? He's like, the door was locked. I didn't know if you'd left it that way or if it was the power. You know, they really ought to do something about this. You know, the ⁓ diplomatic apartments and if these doors are coming and locked and it's gonna be a bad deal ⁓ She's like well, it's fortunate that I've got a young man like you bursting into my room to defend me ⁓ is so funny ⁓ she's digging at him right here. It's like dude. Come on ⁓
Drew: I thought Hadrian was dead in this moment. fact that she says it this way, she's crazy into this guy. This is insane. As he's walking in, he's trying to...
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Yeah
Drew: say like hello and she's not responding like bro you're a crazy person you're like walking into her room and ⁓ and she just makes a joke about it and she just lets it go which is super cool i i it yeah it speaks to her character that she's able to it for a age ran at least ⁓
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Yeah. give, I'll give Hadrian some credit. It sounded like they had planned to meet up at this time. So it's, he's not completely unexpected at this time inside of her room. While she's disheveled, you find out that she's hung over, right? Like essentially she's been drinking or something like that. Like her eyes had been a scant and then she notices Hadrian, is interesting. Let's, I want to go back there and see if there's anything that we can pick up.
Drew: Yes.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Where is it? She was dressed in this moment. Her eyes were closed, but Hadrian doesn't know if she's asleep or whatever. It seems like she's hungover or drunk. She needs water. She goes to get it. ⁓ has barged in on a hungover woman in her apartments and still manages to end up staying there for an extended period of time. So props to him, ⁓ but ⁓
Drew: You
Devil’s Rest Book Club: If she didn't like him at all, then it would be a very, very bad situation. So he, he apologizes, recognizing his error of his ways. And she says that she'll let it go. And they immediately start talking about what interests them, which is these, you know, the CLCN or like the, the Zeno language stuff. So he mentions, have you ever seen CLCN Udari Tano? I patted myself down. Remember belatedly that I had neither a pen nor journal with me.
Drew: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: There were some examples mixed in with the portraits and landscapes and illuminated quotations that were my custom. And she like is still hungover. She's like, come again. It's like, they're writing. Do you have a, and then she immediately pulls out a pen because she's an academic, it at, throws at him and he catches it without thinking and then sits on the edge of the couch and then begins, you know, finding finds a loose sheet of paper and like, Hey, can I write on this? And, you. So this is a very fun scene. This scene would be in the movie, I think of, you know, Hadrian pushing a boundary, but also them discussing like the language, him drawing, you getting a picture of who Valka is outside of, you know, just cool, badass chick.
Drew: Yeah, yeah.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: She, mentions their age difference here. She's older than him. The Tavrosi in particular do have some sort of genetic modification similar to the way the palatines do, but not exactly the same and by Hadrian's not as good. ⁓ But she be like, we don't get an indication at this moment of how much older she is than him, but she could like, she doesn't look that ⁓ much older than but she could be like 50, 60, 100 and he's, What? 24? So he's a kid to her. He's a kid to her. And so I get this feeling that she kind of looks at him like a kid. His is amusing. She's impressed with him when he can come up with all these different put the two and two together that took other people decades to figure out. But ⁓ is. strikes me this moment that she doesn't see him as necessarily the way that sees her.
Drew: 23, 24. Yeah. Hmm. Maybe so. I would say, you know, the... sort of being amused by his excitement about stuff gives me like the vibe of like... ⁓ share this interest so it's not completely the same, but it gives me the vibe of like me ⁓ getting explaining ⁓ the of a book I'm reading to my wife and she's like quietly smiling at me like because she's like amused that I'm excited about something but like...
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Does that make sense? Yeah.
Drew: doesn't really, yeah, yeah, I know, yeah, I know. What would we do without him, right? So that's the sort of vibe I get is like she's just sort of like amused by Adrian and like him just getting really into and excited about the thing. It's a, it suggests, you know, like maybe a little distance, but like she likes Adrian clearly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Yeah, she enjoys spending time with him for sure.
Drew: He asks her why she was sitting in the dark and then she mentions the tides retreat, which is interesting connection, right? ⁓ that imply she's upset that she might be leaving soon? I don't know if that's connection there, or if she's ⁓ skipping past changing the to something else. I actually don't ⁓ quite know.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Yeah. It's, it's hard to read her in the situation why she would be by your estimation drinking because of that. ⁓ man, cannot wait. this sucks being here. Or is it.
Drew: Yeah. Yeah.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: man, I'm leaving behind something that I care about. It's, probably a mixture of both. don't really get an indication. ⁓ it's explicitly, but Hadrian does like get worried of like, when are you going to come back or whatever? and she mentions that, you know, like I'll, I'll be back some time and then back, you know, she'll be down this cycle. so, but soon is not necessarily as soon as
Drew: Yeah, yeah.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: It means on other places she mentions. it's probably both. It's probably complex. And then she catches him staring at her as she's slamming back this
Drew: And he...
Devil’s Rest Book Club: She mentions that she gets headaches that it's really, really nothing. And he's like, can I get you anything? He's like, in my apartment, ⁓ out. Come on, dude. She's like, it's my place. Chill out. And then ⁓ when he catches her saying you're staring and he apologizes.
Drew: It's great.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: And then, you know, he just is caught in her beauty or whatever, and he's trying to talk, but he really can't. wondering what information to let out, whether it's, you know, the chantry. Like he's, holding back a little bit. but he can't because he can't tell her literally any of who she is. ⁓ She can see Hadrian Gibson for now. ⁓ and she's gotten a little peek into Hadrian Marlowe, but he wants to in this moment. just tell her everything. But he also knows that he's in the council apartments and presumably they have no privacy. So he can't really do anything about it. So he flips the subject and asks if she likes it on Emesh. And she's like, ⁓ things are pretty different here than where I'm from. And he's like, well, okay, do you want to go back home? She's like, shit, no, Zeno's are over here. Why would I want to go back home? Like I... I studied the zinology for a reason. Like I got to go where the zinous are. And we get an interesting thing here specifically that like zinous in the Tavrosi Demarchi are treated as equals, like as part of the equals. So we have sentient beings that are like, I don't know if you'd call them domesticated, but integrated in society way more than we've seen any of the zinous integrated here, which there's some short story action or some continued sun interaction.
Drew: Yeah.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: available right there. What did the Zenos and Tavros act like?
Drew: have like a bar and they like play the flute, the space flute or something like that, like a mazai's licentia. This another connection point between her and Hadrian, like where, like know Hadrian wants to go out in the universe and you know explore and he doesn't to go back home, right? And it sounds like she's very similar, right? Her mission and her calling is out in the universe, not ⁓ on Tavros, ⁓ So it's connection point for them.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: This is the port in the story that we had brought it up early in the, in the episode about background on how Tavros is a, is a society works with each person having an equal weight of their own share of the vote. she also, ⁓ they twist, they, they continue talking about the, bring it back to the umand and how the umand's language develops and all this different stuff. ⁓ And compares the umand songs to.
Drew: Yeah.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: A little better than what the ancient dolphins had. just to note the dolphins. I don't know if you've, ⁓ did you read, ⁓ hitchhikers guide to the galaxy or see the movie.
Drew: I haven't. I've seen the movie but I don't recall any of the details. I've got it on my shelf. I need to read it.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: I mean, dolphins are an apt comparison in this case because they in ⁓ similar way. And it's indicating that ⁓ are pretty, like pretty, pretty intelligent. They're not dogs. Like dolphins are very smart. ⁓
Drew: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think they were previously compared to whales, right? Like, they're implied to be in tubs.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Yeah, that sounded like whale song and elephants previously, right? ⁓ This is another checkbox in the, okay, these are more intelligent than we're them out to be, even though they communicate a bit differently. But specifically, I do wonder if the dolphins are a reference to Hitchhiker's Guide. Probably not, but.
Drew: Right, right. Yeah, yeah. I agree. Mm. ⁓ interesting section that I thought was worth reading that as she starts to about the dolphins, she starts off, that's a fair comparison. They're cleverer than dolphins, perhaps only because they can use tools. ⁓ Do you ⁓ And she talking. ⁓ Adrian says, you ever someone speak of something that consumes them? that lights them up from the foundations of their soul. Velka spoke with such fervency that I forgot myself for a time. animosity she felt toward me upon our first meeting seemed to have mostly evaporated, ⁓ into hesitant respect for me ⁓ for my situation. ⁓ I, ⁓ feared her. ⁓ feared what she represented and that I cared for what she thought of me. ⁓ feared the secrets I was made to carry, my name, my blood. I that she would think me false, my respect for her ⁓ work. It's almost like he's staring at her amuse now and admiring her. and the idea of just watching someone you care about be swept up in they're excited about life ⁓ it's joyful seeing someone experience that. This is ⁓ it feels me ⁓ to be truly, love ⁓ is maybe the word, it's to just truly appreciate a person to just be like. ⁓ energized by them excited about life or something like that. It's an experience. Just, their connection just very good. It's just very, very good. ⁓ buy, their is really, really good on the page.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Yeah, genuine.
Drew: just really appreciate it he to flip ⁓ storming someone's room unannounced to dinner so ⁓ job adrienne's smooth ⁓ smooth criminal
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Yeah, impressive. I think to your point, is love that is, mean, you could do that for a friend to being excited for them, but it's different when it's a romantic love, right? Like there's a, there's a, there's a calling to a pulling on the heartstrings that happens ⁓ when that is genuine, that is different than me being excited for you being excited about something that I don't necessarily share the same interest.
Drew: I agree. Yeah. Yeah. something that's sort of brilliant too about the way this is described, you know, like where she starts to talk about something and is excited about it and it sort of fades into his internal admiration for ⁓ That's almost exactly what it feels like when you're experiencing it. Like, you know what I Because like you, because you, like as you're experience... No, but you can start to, you can start to feel ⁓ that rise up in you as they start to...
Devil’s Rest Book Club: Yes. Yes. Because you won't be able to remember what it actually is, but you can remember the way you felt.
Drew: It's exactly how it feels. ⁓ how, it's just because Rockio's been in love. I don't know if he was ⁓ in at the time of writing this, but it feels like exactly what it's like to be to somebody you love talk about something they're passionate about. it's ⁓ just very written. I really like this section.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: I am excited. So end up going out to eat ⁓ and he it into dinner ⁓ and only does he turn it into dinner at the very end of it after they've eaten. ⁓ And love the pitchy tone when he asks her out to dinner too, cause it's like, ⁓ you to out to dinner with ⁓ me? very, ⁓ like get a ⁓ very side of Hadrian in this, in this portion of the book. but also a promise that they'd speak again tomorrow. So this is the beginning of something, right? This is.
Drew: Yeah.
Devil’s Rest Book Club: If we look at the meta narrative of what we've seen so far. should expect some tension going forward in the future because I'm not use is not gonna like what's here on this page right she ⁓ lays to hatred and is trying so hard to get him to at her boobs. And hatred only wants to hang out with vodka like only wants to hang out with vodka so.
Drew: Yeah. talk about tentacles and aliens. Yeah, yeah. ⁓
Devil’s Rest Book Club: And many many more things but that's where we will end our episode today Thank you for joining us for another episode of the devil's dress book club and we will continue on always forward And we will see you folks next time
Drew: And always down. See you folks.
