Lois McMaster Bujold Fans discussion

OK, she deserves her own topic. So what is Ista's problem? Does she have PTSD? Does she have PTSD as a result of the family curse, or is it even more than that? Why is she so unable to relate to her children?

Ista did not know about the curse before she had both of her children. Perhaps her inability to relate to her children comes from her guilty feeling of bringing them to the world with that burden. Someone should have given Ista a good shake and tell her that taking all the guilt is as big a sin as taking all the credit.

I suspect Ista suffers from clinical depression or some similar illness. This isn't something that she would be able to just shake off or recover from. Her tears, her restlessness, her inability to sleep some nights, her sudden destruction of the tapestry they had worked for so long on, her feelings of helplessness, her tears, her anger at the gods....

She has lost her husband, their dear friend under unhappy and distressing circumstances (I won't go into details), she married into the curse as a young girl, she bore two children into the curse.

Part of the problem with Ista is that people don't understand her. She is treated as a madwoman when she is not. Caz points out that her conversations would seem very strange and crazy really to people who aren't as intelligent as Ista or who don't have a common frame of reference.

Good points. It's too easy for someone who doesn't have depression to tell Ista she should just "snap out of it" or "think of the children"... She literally CANNOT control the way she feels (the darkness of depression, the darkness of the curse). There has been no one who has been able to even understand that she isn't crazy until Caz, at a certain point confirms that he has seen ghosts, too.

Oh, it was just a sort of a cry of helplessness. I know (from personal experience) that reasoning with people who suffer from depression does not work. I tried and failed. But that is a completely different story.

I was just thinking about the farewell scene between her and Arhys, and how much relief she got then. But the Curse was then lifted already. And so was whatever she suffered from additionally.

So, no, I don't actually think it would work, pointing out that it was not only her fault, that she was blinded with fear for her children, that she was not able to think straight, that her children need her under the Curse even more, that she could make a difference if she would return in their lives.
Nothing anybody would say would make any difference, until the Curse (and its companions) laid upon her.

Now, I love Ista in PoS, but... There are some things about her that annoy me.
Like when she is contemplating the ill fortune of the saint of Rauma, and thinks: "Thus do the gods reward Their servants." Yet she knows perfectly well how limited the gods are in influencing the world of humans. Without an open door, they cannot enter. She herself did not get her second sight back till she let herself to, in spite of the fact that she was already god-touched at the time.
She is so angry all the time.
Also, to go back to the subject from the earlier discussion on this topic - her relation to her children - she gravely resents Ias and Arvol for keeping her in darkness regarding the Curse for two years (and absolutely rightfully she resents them for this), but never admits that she did the exact same thing to her own children. That was unfair exactly same.
At the same time, she is so eaten up with guilt for what she did and did not, regarding Arvol's death.

I think the way Bujold describes Ista at the beginning of POS is amazing... Her tension, the way that she feels like she has to either scream or run or do SOMETHING... but she's still trapped by her past even though she's free from the curse, and she doesn't know what to do with her needs, yet. She hasn't learned how to be herself.

Kiri wrote: "...but she's still trapped by her past even though she's free from the curse, and she doesn't know what to do with her needs, yet. She hasn't learned how to be herself..."

I was thinking of this too. And also of the way the people around her don't seem to see who she is anymore, just who they expect her to be....

there was a line that I can't recall exactly, but it was about enemies (or guards?) relaxing their guard sometimes, but people who love you never doing that... It must be so frustrating to wake up and want to live and do something, but have everyone around you treat you like you are still asleep.

I love that when she gets away from her "keepers" she is able to really wake up and become someone "real" again...

And she was always feeling compelled to be nice to them, because they were older, and she was (mostly *giggle*) a polite person, and because she knew that they (mostly *frown*) loved her and acted as they thought it was for her good. But then in the end, when they arrive triumphantly, believing that they would have her their way again. The way she was able to dismiss them, always politely, but firmly, as she should have done it from the start - that was the point when the last shreds of the Curse were lifted from her, by closure of what she felt was her greatest sin, and what kept her locked more efficiently than any guard could.

vorbore wrote: "...The way she was able to dismiss them, always politely, but firmly, as she should have done it from the start - that was the point when the last shreds of the Curse were lifted from her, by closure of what she felt was her greatest sin, and what kept her locked more efficiently than any guard could. ..."

brava!
exactly!
wonderful :-)

YES. The most amazing plot development of POS is the transformation of Ista from the trapped, desperate woman who doesn't know what to do, to the self-aware, confident capable woman of the end. She accepts and embraces her god-touched status, and she doesn't even hesitate to accept that she might be loved by someone.