Recent Developments

[Ada]

Darn! Missed the vote. (Yes, I'm mostly trying to increase my post count. ) *offers some fair-trade Lindt chocolate* (too bad there isn't any really)

[makito]

Wow.....goodness.

Basically everything I was feeling about Reyes and also things I never really thought about before but make total and complete sense.

[Calluna Vulgaris]

Hah.

The possibility of doing a audio-book style recording of one or more episodes (here: http://www.shadowunit.org/smf/index.php?topic=577.0) and the fact that I'm still getting a kick out of being here, and the fact that I have a great many other things I ought to be doing instead all have me rereading closely from the beginning.  The first time, I read fairly attentively (I'm not a quick or thorough reader, which is why I reread everything I like so much) for overall impressions, and enjoyed.  Now I'm reading for how those overall impressions are created, paragraph by paragraph.  I'm also looking for clues to speech habits, etc..

And I hit this paragraph, which would have made me cackle, except that there are people right outside my "office" who would have come looking for the source of the hacking, wheezing noises.  It belongs in this thread, I think:

Usually she could figure out how she was doing in an interview. In that one, all she could tell was that Reyes could have written a policies and procedures manual for Daphne Worth by the time it was over.

[makito]

Usually she could figure out how she was doing in an interview. In that one, all she could tell was that Reyes could have written a policies and procedures manual for Daphne Worth by the time it was over.

Yep, that's pretty much Stephen. I can just see poor Daphne, rambling about one thing or another, possibly with sweaty palms, all awkward and trying not to sound -toooo- eager for the job. And Reyes just sitting there, "Mhm. And what about this?"

[Felicia1066]

Reyes is definitely a compellingly interesting character to me. Maybe it's different not having read Refining Fire in real time, or having read it before all the livejournal stuff, but I never saw him as cold and unforgivable, the way a lot of posts here from June last year seemed to express.

Yes, Reyes made an appalling decision in leaving Chaz where he was at age thirteen, there's no doubt about that. Potential gamma or not, he was still a kid. But I never got the impression that Reyes didn't care, or that it was an easy decision for him. Above all, I'd say it's weighed incredibly heavy on his conscience since actually getting to know Chaz. It's the classic "Can you sacrifice one person to save hundreds?" dilemma - it's one thing to say that you could when it's an abstract 'one person', and something completely different when it's someone you know and care about. But Reyes can't go back to change anything, so he has to live with what he did (or didn't do) for the rest of his life.


From Lucky Day:

Hafidha stared. "Oh. He told her it was her problem. And she believed him. But is that kind of guilt enough to trigger conversion?"

Reyes started the engine. "Obviously, you've never been a Catholic."


He may be lapsed, but he was still raised Catholic, and I very much doubt that the upbringing/conditioning has just gone away. I see his talk with Falkner in Refining Fire as a substitute confession - except she's not going to absolve him with a few Hail Marys, and he knows it, and that's the penalty he's placed on himself.

Reyes is in a very unenviable position where Chaz is concerned. If he's wrong, then he has to live with having left an innocent young boy in a hellish position, a boy he's grown to care about. But if he's right and Chaz turns into a gamma, not only will he himself lose someone he cares about in a horrible way, but everyone in his team will suffer terribly from the loss as well, while Reyes will be the one who brought that pain on them by bringing Chaz into the team. I think that's a big part of the reason he's never been easy with Chaz. He doesn't want to be right, but he doesn't want to be wrong either.