(urth) The ending of Soldier of Arete

[thalassocrat at nym.hush.com]

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.