#Translator Zeiat

[homosekularnost]

ancillary mercy (i stole the joke from here)

[demani-dusk]

I don't know anything about Translation State yet and yes I am reblogging every Imperial Radch post I can as preparation for reading it, but I'm very excited because I love Translator Zeiat a lot and a thing I might sort have picked up is that we'll be getting more to do with her whole deal.

I love Translator Zeiat less as I love as character and more as a narrative device, sorry Zeiat, although I do find her hysterical. I love how she underlines themes around identity and categorization by breaking down the way we talk about these things into absurdities.

The most obvious part of the book where she's doing this is when she's explaining about cakes and how if she separates the cakes with fruits from the cake without fruit they're different, but if she mixes them together then they're all the same again. She can add a counter and call it cake and then it's cake too! At this point, it's fairly apparent she's talking about people and how there are different kinds of humans. And in this case, that's what she means to talk about. Or rather, she is talking about how words work in general and it's very apparent this insight is most helpful when talking about categorizing people.

But like, what else has she got going on? She accepts Breq deciding that she's Zeiat and not Dlique. By the end of Ancillary Mercy we don't really know how translators work or how correct Breq may have been, but it works out because Zeiat is so very happy she's Zeiat and not Dlique. This is very Gender to me, the way arbitrarily being called something different causes Zeiat to behave differently and she's so Happy about it. She talks about how if she were to go home everyone would call her Dlique and she wouldn't like it. It's also a fun scifi way to raise the question to the reader, what does it mean to be one thing and not another? By forcing the reader to try to figure out what is going on with the translators' identities, we have to just, think about how identity works. And it's a theme for the series. Sick!

Fish sauce is a condiment, not a drink. That fish is for looking at, not for eating. Have you noticed that these fish cakes are entirely the same on the inside but the other fish have very complicated insides? All I'm saying is, what's the difference between a citizen and a noncitizen? One of them is Civilized and the other isn't.

And my favorite is Zeiat finding Breq in the infirmary and re-introducing herself and saying she'll miss the old fleet captain. This must be a new fleet captain, because the old fleet captain had two legs! All of these scenes are so so funny to me, but this is very interesting to say to Breq imo, the last ancillary of a dead troop carrier. How different is it for Zeiat to call her a new person than for people who know her history to think of her as "Breq," and not "Justice of Toren?" I guess I also love this because I similarly love the way Breq's story in Ancillary Justice plays with mathematical identity in a fun scifi way while the whole series plays with gender identity in a different kind of fun scifi way, and both of these are part of a commentary on identity and empire in the real world. It's good scifi! !!!

[injustice-of-toren]

I read Translation State a while ago and the Ancillary trilogy a while before, but I've been thinking: was I supposed to know when Zeiat showed up after Dlique's death that they were the same person?

I feel like knowing that would have made the whole Zeiat getting a commemorative funeral medal with Dlique's name on it a lot funnier.

So here's a poll:

[shiroikabocha]

you know that trope where Character A observes Character B eat an oyster and it is a Horny Scene (TM)?

I choose to believe that Translator Zeiat eating the oyster during their trip to Athoek is the moment that Sphene finally says to itself: well I can’t NOT fuck her.

[laceandsteelgirl]

translator zeiat. im am rotating her in my mind. she is spinning SO FAST. you understand.

[shychick-52]

Imagine one of Breq's Mercy of Kalr lieutenants singing her signature song 'My heart is a fish / Hiding in the water-grass'. And Translator Zeiat's like "Goodness, is it really?? May I see?"

Breq: It's only a song, Translator. Besides, you've already eaten a whole platter of fish-shaped cakes and a bottle of fish sauce. And it is not considered proper to eat anyone's heart.

Zeiat: *pouts*

@annleckie

[thereisnocorrectanswer]

I love translator Zeiat. I love how weird she is by Radchaai standards. I love her attempts to explain the differences between Presger and Human concepts and what might be understood by whom. I love her love for fish sauce. I love that she's so all in for the egg song and all in all excited for things. I love her ideas about identity (though I don't understand them very much)

[rjalker]

Translator Dlique/Zeiat, her jaw unhinged.

Laios, jealous, impressed, and fascinated.

Data somewhere out of frame intrigued and waiting to tell them about all of the species he knows of that can unhinge their jaws

[ID: A very simple black and white digital drawing with an uneven black border, showing Laois from Dungeon Meshi in the background standing with mouth agape and starry eyed, his hands on his face, staring towards the foreground, where, mostly offscreen, we can see Translator Dlique/Zeiat's unhinged lower jaw as she prepares to eat a large fish she holds above her. End ID.]

when I actually read Dungeon Meshi I'll write fun 3-way crossover fics. Data and Laios deserve better friends and I think they'd like Translator Dlique/Zeiat

[klinefelterrible]

So who was male in imperial radch trilogy?

Let’s hear those theories!

[awkward-underscore-butterfly]

Fish-shaped cakes. Translator Zeiat would be delighted. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiyaki

(Someone has probably made this connection before but I was trawling wikipedia for unrelated research and immediately though of Zeiat)

(also I mixed up Dlique and Zeiat and had to edit this. Clearly it’s time to reread the books again)

[fromankyra]

zeiat has a good point about eggs, i think

[klinefelterrible]

This is Sphene x Zeiat moment

[klinefelterrible]

[therearenolimitsonthehams]

have i read the imperial radch trilogy as well as provenance and translation state? yes. do i have any FUCKING idea what is up with the presger translators? no i do not

[words-and-threads]

New favorite character! Translator Zeiat (probably) is peak gremlin and I am here for it.