#spoilers make me feel so bad for hilmes

[innerchorus]

I wonder a lot about Shapur's parents and Hilmes's mother. What kind of person was the previous queen? I headcanon Hilmes might sport a special kind of grudge towards Tahamenay for “seducing” his father, because he loved his mother a lot and well... he loved his father too and is/was unable to see his father doing any wrong aka betraying his mother so kid!Hilmes subconsciously transferred the blame onto Tahamenay and it stuck. (A parallel with Zandeh, if I say so! Both having huge amounts of faith in their fathers and thus being unable to see fault in them) (I can't say I blame Hilmes, even knowing what I know of novel spoilers Osroes was still a far superior father to Hilmes than Andragoras was to Arslan, imho) And I wonder when Shapur took the lordship of his lands, presumably when his father died? I wonder if Shapur admired his father at first, only for it to be shattered when the whole debacle with Isfan went down? I wonder a lot about Isfan's mother too. Gah, so many questions!!

Yes, so many questions! I wonder about these kinds of things a lot, too. I wish we were give more details about these family dynamics. Tanaka must have decided that they didn't have enough relevance / direct influence on the plot for it to be worth expanding on. It sucks that (as far as I'm aware) we don't even have a name for Hilmes's mother? She seems to exist within the story only as "Osroes's wife." I want to know how she felt about [insert spoiler here].

At least Arakawa drew her for us:

I wish Tanaka had made more space for women in the story. Even the royal family tree included with Book 2 only includes the males.

Hilmes's mother died long before Tahamenay was brought back to Ecbatana, and given that context it's not quite so glaringly odd that Hilmes never seems to think of her (he's unlikely to remember her that well, and he's too busy being bitter about events that happened after her death). She was never actually queen, either; Gotarzes was still Shah at that point. A little snippet of info from Book 1, Chapter 2 (iii) : 'During his time as crown prince, Osroes had taken a wife at eighteen and by the following year had sired a son. After that, his wife passed away from illness, and he had never officially named a queen, preferring to maintain a bachelor’s lifestyle.'

Hilmes most definitely hates Tahamenay, though, referring to her as a 'witch who had seduced both his father and his uncle'.

Anyway, there was definitely love between Osroes and his wife. I hope we get to see a little bit more of their relationship illustrated by flashback later on.

There's definitely a bit of a theme with regards to characters either acknowledging their father's flaws or failing to accept them. I wrote some meta on this topic a while ago about Zandeh and Alfarid. As for Shapur, I’m sure he never looked at his parents the same way after he had to go and rescue Isfan. I assume the most common way to inherit land/titles is for them to pass to a designated heir when the holder dies, so it probably happened that way for Shapur. Or else his father could have stepped down due to illness or infirmity, I suppose. I like that when Shapur got called to Ecbatana to serve there as a military commander, Isfan was given the responsibility for his lands.

I would have loved to hear more about Isfan’s mother, too. I wonder whether Shapur had much contact with her, knowing that Isfan was his younger brother?

I wonder about Zandeh’s mother / Kharlan’s wife, too. Did she know what Kharlan knew before Atropatene? Does she ever get to see Zandeh again after he rides off to serve Hilmes? And what about Sam, did he have a wife and children?

Also I just have to mention how much I hate the fact that Tanaka, glossing over events in Pars during the timeskip between Parts 1 and 2, mentions all sorts of interesting stories that emerged, including one about ‘strange events entangled with the daughter of Hodir, Lord of Kashan Fortress’ and then never elaborates. I get the impression these stories may have varying levels of truth to them, but I want to know what happened and it’s not specified!

(There is also a mention of a travelling merchant who came all the way from Serica to pay a visit to Daryun... do you think he brought a message from Shinrian?)