the amount of people sleeping on solentine is honestly criminal
He reminds me so much of Augustine!
The same "our family has corpses in our closets" backstory, the same "I will do terrible things for the sake of my family" vibe, the same "I am a monster but I am a loyal monster on a leash".
And the same bond between him and *redacted*! I want to know what stupid things they got up to together (they knew each other since they were kids, they must have), I want to know how they work together, I want them quarrel and have more territorial disputed because Identity Papers is probably my favourite scene in the entire book, I want to know whether his view of MC changed, I want to know what he thinks about Everard motives, I want him to teach *redacted 2* his family fighting style.
The whole "it would be easier if it was sexual, there would be only my heart leveraged and not my family" "for the record, you don't give me enough credit, I would take great care of your heart" has me in a chokehold.
I think they’re best friends. Like this is genuinely bff behavior!! They’re the same age, grew up together, and they’ve got so much banter!! I think Maggie is blinded by her own feelings about Ramand, so she is interpreting their conversations differently than an unbiased narrator would.
Oh, they are absolutely as much best friends as either of them is capable of/willing to have, and that's why it's so heartbreaking to find out the bromance has been badly broken in the Future That Wasn't. Their friendship gives hidden depths and dimensions to the characters (Solentine is capable of forming close relationships and trust with people outside of his bio family, Ramond is capable of forming and keeping friendship; staying close, respecting and trusting someone outside of his chain of command, who, while allied, works independent of his wishes, so there's a hope for his relationship with Maggie).
MmmNot to mention the teasing! The banter! The "you're making stupid fucking decisions and I'll tell you so. Explicitly and Loudly. As many times as necessary. But I'll help you regardless".
I am
I don't think Maggie is interpreting their own relationship badly? She does genuinely view them as friends and allies but friendship and allyship work differently in modern civilians than nobility in Kaer Toren, and she does know that. They are friends, share secrets they share with few, show some vulnerabilities to each other and rely on each other but their agendas don't always align. They will do things that will make the others life difficult if they seem it necessary for the prosperity of people under their command.
When their banter in that scene she's just more focused on calculating the pros and cons and hidden caveats of the propositions and later having a breakdown over her family.
What I think Maggie, however, does is view their friendship through the lense of their future betrayal and subsequent harsh breakup. We, as readers, don't know exactly how it came to be, but we optimistically assume that it would happen only in extreme circumstances (what reader wants a bromance to fall apart permanently), meanwhile for Maggie it's the most plausible course of action which the world will try to reinsert.
