Gen's rude to the captain of the guard because he is rude to everyone.
Relius is a special case. He is the only one, aside from Irene herself, who has done something really deliberately horrible to Gen, and he did it without permission. Gen and Irene have clearly come to some terms with their mutual past; Gen and Relius obviously have not, and do not until midway through KoA.
Relius knows that Gen is rude to everyone, so he knows that Gen's politeness towards him is very deliberate. Relius knows what he himself has done to Gen, and so he knows what Gen's deliberate reason is. Being polite to Relius quite effectively emphasizes three things:
1) That Gen remembers, and wants Relius to remember, what Relius did to him.
2) That Gen hasn't said anything about it to anyone. Or rather more importantly, hasn't said anything yet.
3) That Gen is in the position to be scrupulously polite to his former torturer, and that this puts Relius in very bad position. Not only does Gen hold Relius's life in his hands, but he has a very good reason (so Relius, the eternally suspicious, sees) to extinguish it.
I expect that would give anyone tummy butterflies.
(Was this just subtext that I read or was it actually said out loud in the book? That Relius Did Something more than Attolia asked him to when Gen was a prisoner in Attolia. I have no books w/me to check. At any rate, that is my theory, from Relius In Prison And Recovery--after all, there must be something that Relius is amazed to get forgiveness for.)
Relius is a special case. He is the only one, aside from Irene herself, who has done something really deliberately horrible to Gen, and he did it without permission. Gen and Irene have clearly come to some terms with their mutual past; Gen and Relius obviously have not, and do not until midway through KoA.
Relius knows that Gen is rude to everyone, so he knows that Gen's politeness towards him is very deliberate. Relius knows what he himself has done to Gen, and so he knows what Gen's deliberate reason is. Being polite to Relius quite effectively emphasizes three things:
1) That Gen remembers, and wants Relius to remember, what Relius did to him.
2) That Gen hasn't said anything about it to anyone. Or rather more importantly, hasn't said anything yet.
3) That Gen is in the position to be scrupulously polite to his former torturer, and that this puts Relius in very bad position. Not only does Gen hold Relius's life in his hands, but he has a very good reason (so Relius, the eternally suspicious, sees) to extinguish it.
I expect that would give anyone tummy butterflies.
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... Or something like that. I can't check right now, but I'm pretty sure that that was the line.
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