The ending of Soldier of Arete

Joel and Rachel Wilhelm · 03 Feb 2007, 14:24 · from 2007-February.txt.gz

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From: eleysium at gmail.com (Joel and Rachel Wilhelm)
Date: Sat, 3 Feb 2007 09:24:36 -0500
Subject: (urth) The ending of Soldier of Arete
In-Reply-To: <mailman.1.1170317178.10910.urth-urth.net at lists.urth.net>
References: <mailman.1.1170317178.10910.urth-urth.net at lists.urth.net>
Message-ID: <50479CED-1197-44FF-9C81-6718BCF9C365 at gmail.com>

Latro is depressed about the slaughter of the helots by the Spartans,  
not by Pasicrates.

Joel



> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> On Tue, 30 Jan 2007 04:20:44 +1100 Tom Foster
> <tbfoster at ntlworld.com> wrote:
>> A long-time lurker writes, though I have posted several times
>> before in the past...
>>
>> I've been re-reading the first two Latro novels in preparation for
>
>> 'Soldier of Sidon', and have just finished 'Arete'. I remember
>> finding the ending confusing on first reading several years ago,
>> and had hoped it would be a bit clearer to me this time round,
>> having read many posts in the urth archives, and some Robert
>> Graves and Herodotus. However, I still don't really understand
>> what happens, event-by-event so to speak (though much of the rest
>> of the events of the two books as much clearer this time round,
>> mainly thanks to past posts on this list).
>
> The ending is pretty confusing. I posted my interpretation a few
> weeks ago - should be in the archives, fwiw.
>
> On Polos: Pasicrates is pederastically infatuated with him and has
> molested him at least once in the past. Polos now says that he'll
> try to be Pasicrates' lover if he'll just let go of his anger at
> Latro. This is .... icky.
>
> On Latro's depression: I've never understood why Pasicrates is the
> cause of this, either.
>

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