Picking these back up now that we can add some stuff from later in the books into the mix.
Avery definitely isn't an incompetent person. He just doesn't deal at all well with inactivity, when he's actually given something to do and/or challenged in any way he's more than likely to rise to the occasion admirably. He definitely does have so much toxic stuff to work through
And Calcutta is really not helping in this regard. He's such a people person who wants to fit in and get on with others. Add to that the pressure of trying to better his social standing in a place where society has largely agreed that the idler you are, the higher-quality you are, and that "natives" should be doing everything anyway. All that adds extra pressure on him to be idle, which makes him feel worse, which brings more of his worst qualities to the fore...
I can tell you for a fact that I do not know the eye colours of any of the people I actually hate.
You mean you don't spend a lot of time looking into them for as long as you're able, as Avery apparently does? XD
He does try to play it off as having very little else to do, but that's just not true!
Exactly. We know he spends a lot of time with Mir Aziz, and that he's got a lot in common with Sameer and will eventually realize that and grow closer to him too. But Blake is the guy he spends time thinking about.
I get the sense that Blake was never exactly an extrovert,
Which I very much agree with. To me, it's telling that he "swears like an Irish sailor" or whatever when he's drunk--that strikes me as classic "introvert who wants to get along but doesn't know how to calibrate drinking and human interaction in social events and overdoes it."
Every time he's shoved back he just sulks for half a second, and then immediately goes running after Blake again. It's just adorable, really. XD
Every time Blake thinks he's finally succeeded, nope, there's Avery again, like the Energizer Bunny...
I can't imagine him getting on very well with either authority or power structures, and definitely can't imagine him being on board with the whole colonialism angle, but I can imagine him being extremely close to the men underneath him.
I agree, this would be fascinating to see. At Sleeman's dinner party he says something about "would have agreed once" with the planters' opinions on colonial rule and the Indians' need of it. And that makes sense, he came to India from the bottom of the heap of European social hierarchy and now here's his chance to not be at the bottom anymore. It's a dynamic that's still at play today, unfortunately, so not at all surprising to find it back then. But as you say, I think he'd absolutely feel closer to and more commonality with the men beneath him than the Company bigwigs, and that's where the colonialism angle loses him.
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Date: 2021-02-18 03:02 pm (UTC)Avery definitely isn't an incompetent person. He just doesn't deal at all well with inactivity, when he's actually given something to do and/or challenged in any way he's more than likely to rise to the occasion admirably. He definitely does have so much toxic stuff to work through
And Calcutta is really not helping in this regard. He's such a people person who wants to fit in and get on with others. Add to that the pressure of trying to better his social standing in a place where society has largely agreed that the idler you are, the higher-quality you are, and that "natives" should be doing everything anyway. All that adds extra pressure on him to be idle, which makes him feel worse, which brings more of his worst qualities to the fore...
I can tell you for a fact that I do not know the eye colours of any of the people I actually hate.
You mean you don't spend a lot of time looking into them for as long as you're able, as Avery apparently does? XD
He does try to play it off as having very little else to do, but that's just not true!
Exactly. We know he spends a lot of time with Mir Aziz, and that he's got a lot in common with Sameer and will eventually realize that and grow closer to him too. But Blake is the guy he spends time thinking about.
I get the sense that Blake was never exactly an extrovert,
Which I very much agree with. To me, it's telling that he "swears like an Irish sailor" or whatever when he's drunk--that strikes me as classic "introvert who wants to get along but doesn't know how to calibrate drinking and human interaction in social events and overdoes it."
Every time he's shoved back he just sulks for half a second, and then immediately goes running after Blake again. It's just adorable, really. XD
Every time Blake thinks he's finally succeeded, nope, there's Avery again, like the Energizer Bunny...
I can't imagine him getting on very well with either authority or power structures, and definitely can't imagine him being on board with the whole colonialism angle, but I can imagine him being extremely close to the men underneath him.
I agree, this would be fascinating to see. At Sleeman's dinner party he says something about "would have agreed once" with the planters' opinions on colonial rule and the Indians' need of it. And that makes sense, he came to India from the bottom of the heap of European social hierarchy and now here's his chance to not be at the bottom anymore. It's a dynamic that's still at play today, unfortunately, so not at all surprising to find it back then. But as you say, I think he'd absolutely feel closer to and more commonality with the men beneath him than the Company bigwigs, and that's where the colonialism angle loses him.