The magus enjoys his exile. Irene and Relius find trust. Eugenides destroys some perfectly good drapes. Discussion points: different perspectives on Gen, who gets a first name, Sophos, scythes, and murder.
Eugenides drugs a sweet old lady to escape his curfew then suffers through a family reunion. We cover Erondites family vibes, Emily Wilson’s new translation of The Odyssey . Gen’s questionable health, how the loving power of friendship saves the day, and Attolia’s opinions on Costis.
In chapter 10, Eugenides defeats Erondites for good (or does he?) and looks very nice in his wife's pajamas. Discussion points: whether or not something's a twist if you know it's coming, the therapeutic value of issuing pardons, lethium (not lithium), smooth shooting, cloth of gold, and goats.
Teleus and co. are freed from a death sentence. We touch on sovereignty, power dynamics, the god of drama, emasculation, fear naps, public perception, and cherry picking.
Eugenides bleeds all over the nice linens. Our crack team (featuring special guest Meghan) discusses whiskey, fainting, mood killers, and becoming a beefcake.
Gen commits triple murder and Costis realigns his life goals. Also on our agenda: solidarity for the useless and unwed, marching into hell, gender politics, divine retribution, and some very bad dogs.
Costis tries to clear his conscience. Meanwhile, we get into oracles, tipping, unexpected empathy, and marital games of chicken.
As our characters barrel through twenty scenes in this mammoth of a chapter, we discuss intrigue, godliness, justice, queerbaiting (?) and what these people are getting up to in the dark. Has anyone seen Sophos recently?
The attendants play pranks. Gen gets a lecture. Noelle has a definitely wrong idea about what nuns get up to in their spare time. Also on the docket: middle school, Undercover Boss, meaningful eye contact, and Costis the Awesomely Beautiful.
As Costis struggles through his first day in the incongruous dream sequence that is somehow now his life, we discuss the logistics of the Queen’s Guard, swords versus guns, fake jokes (real jokes??) and the Queen of Attolia’s never-before-seen sense of humor.
While Gen and Irene's negotiation goes, quite literally, over Costis's head, we discuss palace secrets, sneaky power, emotionally significant ink pots, and how Gen and Irene are kind of like your parents.
Costis starts to realize just what a piece of work Gen really is and clearly Gen’s reign is going super well. Chip joins us again, and we wonder: just what are all these people doing in the prologue? What’s the right way to pronounce all these new names? Is Attolia secretly jacked?
In the grand finale of The Queen of Attolia, our hero sacrifices a goat and we end up with more questions about the gods than when we started. Also featuring: Gen's humility (or lack thereof), mushy romance, the psychological impact of violence, and how hard it can be to say "I love you."
Chloe breaks an amphora, Kamet can't swim, Eugenides doesn't know how to talk to his fiancée, and Irene is skipping church. Treaty negotiations are going great. Also featuring: a brand new river, Beauty and the Beast, divine agendas, ambiguous feelings, and callbacks (forwards?) from Thick As Thieves.
While Eddis and Attolia bond over driving the Mede army from their shores, Eugenides has another nap and realizes that his happy ending may be more complicated than he'd thought. Discussion points: gender, paragraph breaks, passive aggression, and the power of love.
Attolia finally shows Nahuseresh she’s a BAMF and we consider getting matching tattoos of this moment. As Eddis and Attolia combine forces to oust the Mede we discuss Attolia’s hatred for Eddis, the pitfalls of gendered thinking, and the nature of gifts. And just where IS this book’s climax, anyway?
Attolia makes a life-altering decision. Nahurseresh does some murder. The Minister of War gets a concussion. Meanwhile, Noelle is a dumbass who can't remember what happens in this book and we heroically resist laughing at the word "titular."
While Nahuseresh has his moment in the sun, Gen’s night goes from great to less great and Attolia’s priorities drastically realign. We discuss POV shifts, Eddisian self-sacrifice, and all of Megan’s sneaky little hints. Also, after we finished recording we found an answer to the question we couldn’t figure out here—we think the chamberlain WAS looking for the Minister of War because he didn’t know the Minister of War was already with them, in disguise. Thoughts?
Eugenides and Attolia take a romantic boat ride while we discuss water imagery, lesbian merging but with Byzantine straights (?), bluffing, power dynamics, and Hannibal Buress.
Gen accomplishes the first part of his mission and we analyze just why exactly he was able to pull it off, touching on the topics of deception, perception, feudalism, and agrarian economies. All according to plan …
While sneaking Sally– uh, we mean Eugenides, through the alley, we discuss moist men, Kill Bill sirens, wooden cannons, point of view, and whether or not anybody but Gen actually knows what the hell is going on.
In this chapter, Irene’s tragic backstory is finally unlocked and we discuss mothers, jewelry, isolation, and how to completely and totally annihilate your enemies. You know, just girly things.
What will decide the outcome of this war? Queens and kings? The gods? Sheer dumb luck? A dude who just wants to smooch a very scary lady? Find out here!
As Gen starts sword fighting again we discuss the Attolian court’s hot gossip and fashion choices, and our lesbian agenda comes out in a Freudian slip. Did you see what Eddis was wearing last week??
Our heroes have a nice picnic while civilization crumbles around them and we discuss picnics, the Magus being shifty, gendered deities, and Attolia's obvious denial. Irene SMASH.
Sounis’s navy goes up in flames, but the second cart of the series appears! We discuss Attolia’s connection to the Mede, the pluralization of cannon, and a side of Gen we’ve never seen before as we continue to gush about our fave themes of (you know it!) performance and the political vs the personal.
It's time to put on our war pants. In this episode, Chip's here to do two things: read our intro and f-ck with our renewed resolution not to swear. We also discuss strategy, martyrdom, trousers, and the emotionally cathartic value of boat-burning.
Gen hid in a temple and all he got was this lousy message. We wonder about the size of Eddis’s library, discuss the layout of temples, and speculate about the lives of non-royal thieves in Eddis.
We discuss war, Nahuseresh, conspiracies, and an intriguing new character called Kamet, but Gen doesn't know about any of it because he is in bed. Cold out today, isn't it?
As Gen starts to recover we discuss disability and Gen’s unsupervised childhood, and we wonder whether Gen would Vine if he lived in modern times.
