A thing I love about The Witness for the Dead: I love how sincere and earnest Thara Celehar is.
I can enjoy a funny and snarky narrator very much, it’s entertaining, but seeing a character being so earnest, deep down to their core, feels refreshing in a very relaxing way. It feels like coming home: finally I speak the same language as the character. I can take his thoughts at face value (more, rather than less). He can of course still be wrong about himself or others, but he always means what he thinks.
As someone who’s pretty earnest myself I appreciate that very much in Thara.
Self-indulgent Goblin Emperor fanfic I’m never going to write
I don’t know the time frame, somewhere between 6-10 years after TGE
Maia has children now, including an heir
Out at Bakhoree, Sheveän is furious
Why is she so angry now all of a sudden? IDK, maybe Idra has been engaged to a Goblin Princess, maybe she finds out that Ino and/or Mireän is being forced to go to university instead of making a good match, idk, but she’s fuming
And, well, Idra was brainwashed by Edrehasivar, so he’s out until she can fix that, but her two younger daughters are just as she left them, right?
It’s not like they’ve grown up or changed at all since she last saw them, right? (After all, Sheveän has this habit of not really seeing people as people)
ID: 4 images, digital sketches in a cartoony style of csethiro ceredin and maia drazhar from the goblin emperor. 1) csethiro on maia’s arm, both of them wearing finery. she is several inches shorter than him and she’s muttering out of the corner of her mouth, “and that’s the dach'osmer who had the incidentwith the chair last year.” maia is looking off in the distance with a haunted expression, muttering “yikes” back. 2) both of them dancing together. csethiro is seen from behind, looking up at maia. she’s saying, “she just stepped on his foot I saw it.” maia is laughing, eyes closed, saying, “I can’t look.” 3) maia and csethiro standing next to each other. maia has his arms behind his back and he’s bent slightly at the waist, leaning towards csethiro, a wry expression on his face. he’s saying, “…you were just looking at his sword the whole time weren’t you.” csethiro is looking pointedly away from him, attempting to look serious, but with a smile tugging at her lips. she says, “shut up.” 4) csethiro and maia sat at a table facing each other, right hands clasped in preparation for arm wrestling. maia says, “promise you won’t let me win just because I’m the emperor?” csethiro says, “i promise. i give you my word as a swordswoman.” maia replies, “good. because I’d know. you will obviously win.” csethiro looks determined and maia is smiling eagerly. deret beshelar hovers in the background, his arms crossed, the words “not proper” scrawled by him. he looks very disapprovingly at them, face flushed. end ID.
His Imperial Serenity Edrehasivar VII Drazhar, 209th Emperor of the Elflands, Bridge Builder and Rider of Horses His Grandfather Bought Him As A Pretty Paltry Apology for Not Being Around To Help Him or His Dead Mom
ID: a digital colored portrait of maia drazhar from the goblin emperor. he is a young goblin-elven man with gray skin, gray eyes, and long curly dark hair. he has a long face, long nose, and full lips. he is wearing white furs over white finery, and a silver circlet with a pale opalescent gem set in the center. he wears several drop earrings with gems, and a set of blue tashin sticks in his hair. his hair is half-pulled up, threaded with gems. he looks off to the side with a neutral expression. end ID
I didn’t realize that katherineaddison.com had disappeared. And thus so the map of the Ethuveraz that was on it. I would love to know how long before the book was published that she drew this map, as several of the names have changed, there is at least one important location missing and there are at least two cities marked which aren’t mentioned in the book. Fascinating! I adore that she tinkered with the names, (and like the finished product much better.) But I wanted the map for reference, so I cleaned it up to correct the names.
Csevet keeps offering to resign every time Maia is unhappy and I just. Honey do you know what Maia would do if he lost you because Maia certainly doesn’t.
Self-indulgent Goblin Emperor fanfic I’m never going to write
I don’t know the time frame, somewhere between 6-10 years after TGE
Maia has children now, including an heir
Out at Bakhoree, Sheveän is furious
Why is she so angry now all of a sudden? IDK, maybe Idra has been engaged to a Goblin Princess, maybe she finds out that Ino and/or Mireän is being forced to go to university instead of making a good match, idk, but she’s fuming
And, well, Idra was brainwashed by Edrehasivar, so he’s out until she can fix that, but her two younger daughters are just as she left them, right?
It’s not like they’ve grown up or changed at all since she last saw them, right? (After all, Sheveän has this habit of not really seeing people as people)
“But we,” with a sudden access of ferocity and the plural to include Cala, “are your first Nohecharei.”
There are too many characters in this book that I love. This is why I’m not allowed to read. Deret Beshelar and Cala Athmaza. Nohecharei to Edrehasivar VII.
Day 29: Only missed one day. Not too bad. Figured should celebrate finally finding a book to read. Getting close to half way through ‘The Goblin Emperor’ by Katherine Addison after seeing some fan art of it and I wanted to draw Oshet right away.
the goblin emperor is about being kind - it’s about choosing kindness at every opportunity because you weren’t shown enough of it and now you have the power to, you’re going to be better- dobetter
the goblin emperor is about breaking cycles. it’s about recognising you’ve been caught in a near endless ouroboros of pain and neglect and power trips and recognising how easy it is for you to follow down that same path and how desperately you want to do better
the goblin emperor is realising that power is only worth a damn if you are willing to let it flow, let it circulate, if you release some of your breath so that others may breathe too. (why shouldn’t your sister study the stars?)
the goblin emperor is hearing that a river is too fast, too dangerous, too high - that your ideas are too ‘forward-thinking’, too naive, too dangerous - and knowing that may not always be the case
the goblin emperor is about finally enjoying a shared meal after years of torment with family members excited to get to know you, about a flower finally being allowed to flourish after years of drought and dark and a heavy boot’s stomp
Rereading Witness for the Dead, and it’s striking how much more modern the world feels when you get away from the milieu of the Court.
Up there it’s all ceremony and courtly intrigue and arranged marriages and fancy clothes, down here it’s shitty apartments, canned sardines, streetcars, and verismo opera.
Re-reading The Goblin Emperor and I just. The way Maia’s abuse colors every interaction he has? The persistent guilt and fear and the assumption that everyone is mad at him all the time (which to be fair is not a far off assumption to make in his position) is really hitting hard this time around. Like when Csevet is like “hey where did you get these really specific diagrams of that one bridge” and Maia is just overwhelmed with guilt and has to tell himself over and over again that he didn’t do anything wrong. Or when Beshelar is like “hey that one dude who keeps sending you party invitations while you’re holding court isn’t actually your friend” but Maia is convinced that Beshelar doesn’t like him so instead of taking it as the concerned caution it is he snaps back and basically tells him to leave him the fuck alone.
It’s a really well done exploration of the way emotional abuse messes you up psychologically but it also makes Maia’s courage stand out so much more. He knows (thinks) he is hated. He knows (thinks) none of his decisions will make anyone happy. But he stays on the throne. He makes the decisions he feels are right. And he’s miserable, but he’s also not catering to the approval of others because he knows (thinks) he doesn’t have it and will never have it and that frees him in some ways while also being horribly tragic because people do like him!!! He does have some support!!! But he can’t see that. And so he never falls into the trap of trying to cater to it.
Like that one scene where he is mediating a land dispute or something and he knows he can’t pick a side so he’s like “fuck this, I can’t make everyone happy so I’m going to make sure no one is happy” and basically throws out all the proposals for splitting up the land that were all super biased in one group’s direction and splits the land up fairly so that everyone gets some but not all of what they wanted.
He knows he can’t make decisions that will make people happy. Not because he doesn’t want to, but because it is beyond his power and ability and popularity. So he makes the decisions that are fair, and just, and that he can live with.
IT’S THE WHOLE DEAL WITH THE BRIDGE!!!!!!!
He KNOWS it’s not a popular proposal with the eastern nobility. He KNOWS he’s going to be laughed at if he champions it. But what does he say??? “Of all our subjects, they are not the ones who need our help.”
And Csevet is all like, “It is not a sentiment we expected from an emperor.”
“We cannot help that,” Maia said, wearily.
“Serenity, we did not mean–”
“No, but others are bound to make the same observation, and they will say what you do not. They will say it is our mother’s Barizheise influence and deplore it. But it does not change that we must do what we think right.”
It does not change that we must do what we think right.
Maia can’t please his nobility, so he doesn’t try. They don’t like him, and a lot of them will never like him, simply for the fact that he looks like his mother. But just as he can’t change his heritage, he can’t help who he is, and he can’t not make the decisions he thinks are right.
I think an important aspect of the books is that Maia is not necessarily a reliable narrator. He doesn’t really know how to read people who aren’t Setheris. Like. The degree to which Beshelar dislikes him I think is very much filtered through Maia’s embarrassment and Beshelar’s own awkwardness at their first meeting. And I think that comes into play a lot when he makes decisions, because yes, he wants people’s perception of him to be good, but he also knows (thinks) that he’s fighting an uphill battle on that front and some days he just runs out of fucks to give about other people’s already negative opinion and does whatever. And I think that’s a good thing. Proves there’s still a grumpy teenager somewhere under white robes and crown.
“is he COURTING me?” thinks thara celehar in astonishment about the guy who brought him on a date to the family teashop in order to introduce him to his mother
