very important question about Ivan His Booke

[boxofdelights]

"Do you have a lot of cousins?" Tej asked, leaning over his shoulder. "Or just a lot of one cousin?"
He laughed at that last. "Both, actually. On my father's side, there's only my cousin Miles-- not exactly a cousin, our grandmothers were sisters. That part of the family got pretty thinned out during Mad Yuri's War[...]"

Does Ivan not consider Mark his cousin? Why not?

Comments

[amaebi]

I haven't reread recently, but wasn't Ivan always kind of squeamish about Mark? Do we ever see them really interact, once Mark's installed and respectableish?

[wcg]

My first thought is that Aunt Cordelia is going to give Ivan a big attitude adjustment if she ever hears about this conversation.

My second is that Barrayaran kinship may follow different rules. After all, I have a number of people I consider cousins who are descended from my grandmother's sisters. These are second cousins, since we share great-grandparents in common, rather than first cousins. So there might be some Barrayaran cultural custom of only calling first-cousins "cousins."

But to return to your main point, whatever degree of kinship Ivan shares with Miles, he also shares with Mark. That is inescapable. His mother would be very disappointed by this oversight.

[jinian]

I think he does not. Ivan has never been very accepting of Mark, they didn't grow up together, and he's not really thinking it through right then. I agree with Bill that Cordelia would have something to say to Ivan about this, though.