Katsa, upon returning home, confronts Po about his mindreading powers.  He counters that he’s not a mindreader, he’s a super mindreader.

“No, Katsa. Listen. I sense people. Think of it as my night vision, Katsa, or the eyes in the back of my head you’ve accused me of having. I sense people when they’re near me, thinking and feeling and moving around, their bodies, their physical energy. It is only – ” He swallowed. “It is only when they’re thinking about me that I also sense their thoughts.”

Because, apparently, that makes it all better.

At least Katsa calls that for the bullshit it is.

Po keeps trying to argue that only reading some of her thoughts somehow makes it all better.

He also says that only a few people know about his true powers, and everyone else thinks he’s just got a fighting grace, so Katsa thinks she’ll just solve that problem right now and blab to everyone.

“If you do,” Po said, “you’ll take away any freedom I have. You’ll ruin my life.”

…how?

What, exactly, will be ruined by everyone knowing?  Because from where I’m sitting, the only that will ruin is the “freedom” he has to run around reading people’s thoughts with impunity.  When you have a luxury that you’re not supposed to have in the first place and that gets taken away, it’s called “fair,” not “ruining.”

Having to act on the same level as everyone else instead of your own special level is not “ruining.”

*coughcoughMensRighstActivistscough*

Katsa runs off to her room, where her maid knows immediately that she’s having boy trouble.

“I’ve disobeyed the king,” she said. “He’ll be very angry with me.”

“Yes?” Helda said. “But that doesn’t account for the pain in your eyes. That will be the doing of one of your young men.”

…dafuq am I even looking at?

“If the king is angry with you,” Helda said, “and if you’re having trouble with one of your young men, then we’ll make you especially beautiful for the evening. You’ll wear your red dress.”

…

… …

Granted, dressing for effect can have an impact in a lot of situations, but I’m pretty sure it takes more consideration and direct intention than just “be pretty.”

Raffin comes by to visit, and they chat about the events of the past few days before turning to Po and his secret magic.  Raffin is on Po’s side and tries to rationalize things.

“His mother knew he’d only be used as a tool, if the truth came out. Imagine the uses of a child who can sense reactions to the things he says, or who knows what someone’s doing on the other side of a wall. Imagine his uses when his father is the king.

Wait.  So.  This entire argument rests on the fact that Po would be…asked to do things?

“Oh my god, he might actually be asked to take up some responsibility for the safeguarding of his kingdom instead of just lazying about like a useless lump, sucking up tax money so he can travel for pleasure!  The horror!”

His mother knew he wouldn’t be able to relate with people or form friendships, because no one would trust him. No one would want anything to do with him. Think about it, Katsa. Think about what that would be like.”

Well, they said the same thing about Katsa, and look how many friends she has.

Raffin seems to think that’s a valid excuse, though, and carries blithely on with telling her that Po plans to leave court.  Then he says he’ll send Po up to talk to her about it, even though Katsa says she doesn’t want to see him.  Like, he literally just ignores her wishes without a word, all based on the idea that it’s okay to lie about your powers because if people knew they might actually make you stop slacking off.

Po comes up and they start chatting about how she figured it out and Po just goes from bad to worse.

And that did not absolve him. He had taken her thoughts without telling her, and he had wanted to tell her, and that did not begin to absolve him.

“I couldn’t tell you, Katsa, not possibly,” he said, and she swung around to face him.

“Stop it! Stop that! Stop responding to my thoughts!”

“I won’t hide it from you, Katsa! I won’t hide it anymore!”

Right, because what you want is so important here, Po.

Great Mother Russia, the least – and I mean the absolute least – you could do right now is not antagonize the woman by verbally replying to her thoughts when you know that bothers her, but sure, go on about how your life is just so hard.

Po once again tries to excuse things by pointing out that he can only read some of her thoughts, somehow missing the point that THAT’S STILL REALLY FUCKING CREEPY.  She is saying “I’m bothered by the fact that you’re invading thoughts I meant to be private” and he’s responding as if she said “I don’t want you do know when I think dirty thoughts about Raffin and Bann getting it on.”  He’s responding to an argument she isn’t making and ignoring the thing that actually is bothering her.

He then goes on to argue that lying to her was the only way to be friends with her and tries to use that to excuse his behavior.

What would you have done differently, Katsa, if this were your Grace and your secret? Hidden yourself in a hole and dared to burden no one with your grievous friendship? I will have friends, Katsa. I will have a life, even though I carry this burden.“

That…really doesn’t make you sound any better, Po.  You just said your friendship is a burden, but because of your own desires, you’re going to sneak that burden on people without their knowledge.

And besides, I can’t stop pointing this out, but YOU HAVEN’T TRIED ANYTHING ELSE.

Okay, here’s the main problem with this whole line.  We know there are other mindreaders in the world.  We also know that Katsa hates them, and that Katsa’s hatred of them is considered unusual, either in fact or in intensity.  But we were never told what everyone else’s opinion of them was.  So then Po shows up, and suddenly Katsa’s reaction is the only thing that matters, and it’s being taken as standard, even though at the start we were told it wasn’t.

There are other mindreaders, and yet in this whole conversation about Po’s life, none of them get a mention.  We’re not told if they live friendless lives, universally feared and avoided, if their example set off Po’s mother’s fears.  Instead, everything in this conversation revolves around the Katsa/Po dynamic.  And the fact that Po doesn’t want to have an actual job, because that would be such a bummer.

Then they talk about how Po’s grace helps his fighting, because he can sense what moves people are about to make, and that’s how they could pass off his magic as fighting magic.  They chat more about the details of his grace and Katsa gets less ragey over it.

Po says he’s going to Monsea, because even though everyone says the king is the soul and picture of goodness, he still gets the heeby-jeebies, and also his aunt the queen doesn’t seem like a “locked herself away and grieve” type.  He asks Katsa to come with him, but she’s conflicted on the matter.

For all the rage I have at Po over this clusterfuck of pisspoor excuses, Katsa’s reaction has been pretty good.  I do like her confusion and the way her thoughts kind of stutter when she realizes that he can read them as she thinks them.

A steward interrupts them and says that Katsa has been summoned by the king.  Katsa gets all twitterpated, worried that the king will “make her angry,” until Po points out that she literally is untouchable, because apparently Katsa just never realized that before.  Somehow.

When she gets to the throne room, she sees Randa has lined up all his guards there and included some archers for good measure.

This one, he’d assembled all wrong. Too few archers, and too many of these clumsy, armored, lumbering men who would trip all over each other if they tried to attack her. Tall, broad men who could shield her easily from an arrow’s flight. And armed, all of them armed with swords, and each with a dagger in his opposite belt, swords and daggers she might as well be carrying on her own person, so easily could she snatch them from their owners. And the king himself raised high on a platform, a long blue carpet leading straight to him like a pathway to direct the flight of her blade.

If a fight erupted in this room, it would be a massacre.

Way to suck out all the tension, book.  How are we supposed to feel anything in this scene if we already know that Katsa is in absolutely no danger at all?

And after explaining all this to us in narration, Katsa proceeds to explain the exact same thing again in speech to her uncle.  Why did you make me read that twice in the same chapter, book?

After calmly explaining to the king how easy it would be to kill him in a flash, Katsa decides not to do it, because then Raffin would have to arrest her as his father’s killer and she’d either be arrested or on the run and that would be sad.

Tears came to her eyes. Mercy was more frightening than murder, because it was harder, and Randa didn’t deserve it. And even though she wanted what the voice wanted, she didn’t think she had the courage for it.

Again.  This isn’t a character arc.  This is an idea for a character arc, but since Katsa HAS NEVER ACTED CONTRARY TO THIS CONCEPT, it doesn’t count as something new.  She’s been letting people go unscathed left and right since the book opened.  This can’t count as a change in her character when it’s just more of the same.

She announces that she’s leaving, and just like that she’s free of all that drama about being her uncle’s lapdog.  Wow.  What an anticlimactic end to that entire subplot.