Last time, Metaleyes the teletubby is great. So great.

Metaleyes asks about her good friend Giddon’s estate. It is totally an estate, Katsa says obliviously. Metaleyes asks if she’s thought what she’ll say when he asks for her hand in marriage?

Thingy the what now? says Katsa, then managed to scrape her exploded head together enough to explain Giddon totally does not and would never be in love with her.

Po shook his head, and his laugh began to rumble from his chest. “Katsa, how can you be so blind? He’s completely smitten. Don’t you see how jealous he is? Don’t you remember how he reacted when I scratched your face?”

That actually makes his behavior seem somewhat better, as being in love with her gives him a potentially non-douchebag reason for overreacting to that, because people who are in love can overreact to injuries because they just care about the person a whole lot, instead of because they think they get to decide what she does with her time or how she looks. People in love can more easily get the excuse that they’re just being irrational as opposed to dickheads. Plus, contrary to Katsa’s and the book’s opinion, head injuries are serious business!

Katsa doesn’t like the idea and just keeps denying it, so Metaleyes is just like, kay whatever but maybe think up how you’d respond to this totally impossible situation anyway, just in case.

I’ll have to ice my shoulder, as usual

THEY DO NOT HAVE REFRIGERATION, BOOK. THEY DO NOT HAVE ICE ON DEMAND. ICE WOULD NOT BE THE STANDARD WAY TO DEAL WITH INJURIES AND THEY WOULD NOT MENTION IT CASUALLY OR USE IT CONSTANTLY.

Katsa, of course, immediately runs to Ragamuffin to demand if Giddy loves her. Well no shit, Ragamuffin says.

“Kat.” He sat back from his book. “I thought you knew. I don’t see how you could not. He makes
himself your escort every time the king’s business takes you away from the city. He always sits beside
you at dinner.”

Huh, that is an amusing bit in retrospect. She makes a big deal that she’s always sitting with guys who want to marry her…and indeed, Giddon was on her other side.

That said, if Giddy’s been listening to all her speeches about how she’s never going to marry, you’d think he’d be doing a bit better at the whole courtship business.

Katsa paced to the table again, clutching her hair. “Oh, this is dreadful. Whatever shall I do?”
“If he asks you to marry him, you’ll say no. You’ll tell him it’s nothing to do with him. You’ll tell him you’re determined not to marry, that you don’t wish children; whatever you need to say so he understands it’s nothing to do with him.”

That seems a little abrupt.

I mean, sure, if Katsa’s not interested in him she shouldn’t feel any obligation to pretend she is. But it seemed before her major issue with getting married was the belief she was getting forced on people who were terrified of even being in her general vicinity. And I can’t imagine she’s kept her mouth shut about her baby hating, so apparently that isn’t a dealbreaker for Giddy either (obviously a point to discuss in case he thinks she’d make an exception for his particular spawn, but still). And maybe being told that when he says stuff about not being an ogre to people it was advice given to try to help her and not glee at the chance to criticize him would change her feeling somewhat.

And it’s not like she’s rejecting him because she knows she loves Metaleyes, because she obviously has no idea she’s crushing on Metaleyes or that he’s interested back.

Also, if Ragamuffin knew her well enough to know this is her best response, why hasn’t he taken Giddy aside a while ago to break the news more gently?

Katsa then says that she wouldn’t marry Giddy to save her or Ragamuffin’s life, which is better than girls getting coerced into sex but I’m still confused why she hates the guy so much all of a sudden. He remarks on how amazingly unperceptive she is, and a terrible thought strikes her:

“You’re not in love with me, are you?”
He stared at her for a moment, speechless. Then he burst into laughter. Bann laughed, too, though he tried valiantly to hide it behind his hand. Katsa was too relieved to be offended.
“All right, all right,” she said, “I suppose I deserve that.”

It’s amusing, but it all just feels off. She’s just found out someone she had no idea was in love with her was in love with her, her question isn’t implying she thinks he is but just that she has no idea and wants to clear things up, so why make fun of her for it? This is probably the best she’s dealt with emotional stuff so far.

“My dear Katsa,” Raffin said, “Giddon is so very handsome, are you sure you won’t reconsider?”
Raffin and Bann clutched their stomachs and guffawed.

…So, does no one like Giddy? Because earlier he seemed one of their buddies.

Later, a council meeting, where Katsa makes sure to sit away from Giddy, and we find out that according to their spies the guy earlier was telling the truth and those kings weren’t involved. Aside from the fact that people other than kings can order things – surely they of all people would know that, what with their secret council that exists to bypass or outright oppose their king – there’s just the narrative issue that we’ve now spent a great deal of time on finding out that what they already suspected and were then told is true. What was the point? They could have skipped all that and just jumped to saying what their spies found.

“He’s said they blindfolded him,” Po said, “and drugged him. He’s said he was on a boat for a long time, and their land travel was shorter in comparison, which suggests his captors took him east by boat from Lienid, possibly to one of the southern Sunderan ports. And then up through the forests to Murgon City. He’s said that when he heard them speak, he believed their accents to be southern.”
“It does suggest Sunder, and Murgon,” Giddon said.
But it didn’t make sense. None of the kings had reason, but Murgon even less. Murgon worked for others, and his sole motivation was money.

But it makes perfect sense: THEY HIRED HIM TO DO THE KIDNAPPING, DUMBFUCKS. So why would the idea he was kidnapped by the people you figured kidnapped him not make sense? If they’re going through the trouble of using Murgon to avoid direct blame, it’s not a shock that they didn’t use their own people to do it. All this is telling you is that they covered their tracks as you should have assumed, it’s not new and confusing information.

They list off the kings they now know it can’t be, which leaves only Murgon (or, you know, someone who just isn’t a king…). Wait, says Metaleyes, you missed a king. What about that Leck guy?

“A king with a reputation for kindness to injured animals and lost children,” Giddon said, “come out of his isolation to kidnap his wife’s aging father? A bit unlikely, don’t you think?”
“We’ve made inquiries and uncovered nothing,” Oll said. “King Leck is a peace-loving man.

Yeah, but he doesn’t sound like someone with much of a spine.

I mean, I’m all for kindness to animals and the less annoying variants of children. But you kind of have more to do if you’re king than running around trying to get good Samaritan hits by buying children icecream. The fact this is what he focuses on suggests an inability to prioritize. And I notice no one adds “but also a reputation for swift justice against lawbreakers” or anything.

So, from the sounds of it, he’d be my first guess for a place that isn’t strongly run – if you want to avoid the oversight of a king, he sounds like a good bet. I’d expect his lords to be doing whatever they feel like by now, plus any non-blueblood with aspirations should have an easier time there. And if he’s spending all his days feeding orphaned baby birds, then if his kingdom is being run with anything resembling order, I’d expect it to be by someone else, who, being an unknown, might have any kind of motivation. Maybe the queen is secretly evil and wants to start a war between her husband’s kingdom and her birthplace, or maybe she wants to start a war with someone else and will use Teaprince as the excuse. Or maybe the person who’s really in control is lying about her dramatic sorrow over Teaprince, because really, it’s feudal times, it’s not like anyone’s verifying information here and they are a particularly isolated kingdom.

Anyway, point is, they’re sure it can’t be Leck, and since apparently no one but kings ever does anything, that leaves only Murgon.

Katsa has a solution!

Couldn’t we find one of Murgon’s people? I could make him talk.”

Oh hai there torturing-people-is-fine subplot, I hadn’t missed you.

Oll, head torturer, points out that she can’t possibly do that…because the guy would be able to identify her. Giddy, in what looks like retroactively setting him up for her rejection, says that she could always kill the guy afterward, and Katsa’s upset because torturing a random person just because you suspect their king did something is fine, but killing? Monstrous.

No one points out that if their only issue is identification, they could always send someone other than Katsa, it’s not like her suggestion really requires she torture the person herself.

And of course no one suggests that, if we’re going to be killing people and Katsa already proved capable of taking out the entire guard of his castle, she could just ask Murgle directly and then kill him.

I mean, we’re established the guy’s scum, haven’t we? In fact, from the sounds of it he’s worse than the two fighting kings, and both of them are apparently into slaughtering peasants for copper pieces. While one can make an argument regarding the relative morality of the death penalty for murderers, I don’t think there’s much of an argument against killing someone who’s going to commit mass murder again in the future. So why beat up the person just following orders?

Anyway, Ragamuffin says it’s not worth the info for Murgle to learn she’s looking, and Giddy again raises what’s honestly a valid point – why not just make Metaleyes do it? Murgle won’t learn anything new to find out that the prince of the kingdom he pissed off is pissed off.

“It’s because Murgon can’t know that Po knows Murgon is involved,” she said. “How would Po explain that knowledge, without incriminating us?”

That’s stupid and you’re stupid for thinking it.

For one, Metaleyes is not going to be explaining anything to anyone, he’s going to be torturing a person to answer his questions. Murgle will not be getting any answers of his own.

For another, why couldn’t Metaleyes just guess is was Murgle, who apparently is always behind this shit and went on to act suspicious as fuck when Teaprince disappeared?

For a third, you can’t be incriminated for anything if the other person committed the crime first! Murgle can’t admit you stole from him without admitting what it is you took, so it’s not like he can afford to start anything over this. Sure, he could get you in trouble if he let Pandaman know, but he won’t because as far as he knows, Pandaman approved it, so his only hope is to pretend he had no idea what was in his dungeon.

Giddy, sadly, does not respond with any valid point but just says the same thing would apply to Katsa doing the questioning. I thought he meant “why doesn’t Metaleyes do it and then kill the guy as makes sense when you’re not Katsa of the inconsistent morals” but apparently not.

Ragamuffin finally says that okay, enough wandering filler, bored now.

Grandfather Tealiff is safe, and we’ve seen no sign from Murgon or from anyone else that he’s being targeted again.

There was no sign he was targeted before, though, so I don’t see why that means jack.

They start chatting about other news.

Oll began to speak then of a Westeran village that had met a Nanderan raiding party with a pair of catapults, given to them by a Westeran lord who was friend to the Council. The Nanderan raiders had fled, thinking they were being attacked by an army. There was laughter at the table, and Oll began another story

I don’t even know where to begin. I seriously don’t.

I mean, there’s definitely historical issues here, but the real core problem is just the view that basic social structures are optional, that you deserve praise every time you hold back from taking a hammer to a puppy.

Who made those catapults? It wasn’t the fucking lord, you know. What paid for them? Why, the work of the villagers. What exactly did he give up when he “gives” them to the people who pay him to protect them so they can farm in peace? Why is this being talked about like it’s proof the council people are more moral than the rest instead of that they’re a bunch of sociopathic cowards who have to be pushed into even acting in their own best interest?

You might as well ask why they can’t just kill a murdering king. You might as well ask why is it so important Katsa’s of noble blood, because really, the answer’s all the same. There’s no awareness here that nobles and commoners are the same fucking people, that it’s not like nobles are some separate breed who just deserve our money and support by dint of existing, that any time they do less than murder us for sport we should thank them for it because it’s an act of, well, nobility on their part to do so.

This isn’t Wither, sure. I don’t look at this and wonder what happens when the author ends up on a jury. But I certainly wonder how they vote. The surface of this is looks like your standard unexamined liberal girl-power thing, but the underlying assumption of the world if that if you’re a king or a lord, you’re a real person, and if you’re not, if you’re a member of the majority of the population, well, you’re just a stage piece. It’s wrong to hurt you for no reason at all, but Katsa thinks it’ll help a real person, she’ll torture you.

Katsa doesn’t care about any of this, of course. She just contemplates how hot and not vain and did she mention hot Metaleyes is, and we end.