Funny / The Goblin Emperor

• Maia briefly gets sarcastic with Csethiro, the first time he's done anything but awkwardly try to reach out to her. Her reaction? "She looked as if a cushion had bitten her."
• While the circumstances are grim, Sheveän and Chavar's coup attempt being foiled by a fourteen-year-old child asking logical questions and their subsequent panic at the uncooperation of one of their key players is pretty funny. By the time rescuers arrive Idra's already taken control of the guards.
• After Sheveän and Chavar's failed coup turns out to be enabled by one of Maia's own guards, Maia's staff, including Csevet, understandably are concerned if Maia still trusts them. In a double moment of heartwarming and funny, Maia assures Csevet that he's certain Csevet is loyal, because if Csevet had been in on the coup, it would have been better planned.
• Also after Sheveän's failed coup, Csethiro writes a note to Maia saying she's glad he's okay. She adds:
  We knew Sheveän was an idiot, but we had no idea she would go so far in her idiocy. We regret extremely that we cannot challenge her to a duel & prove her worthlessness upon her carcase, but we are told that dueling is barbaric & unbefitting a lady & in any event Sheveän would not know how.
• After Dazhis' betrayal, Maia needs a new bodyguard, so the Adremaza brings the new candidate, introducing them with a male honorific. When Maia points out that the bodyguard, Kiru, is clearly female, she mutters, "I told you he'd notice." So apparently the maza higher ups were hoping that Maia just wouldn't realize that one of his bodyguards was a woman, the bodyguard that would be with him for the rest of his life?
  • When Beshelar objects that a female nohecharo would see Maia in his nightshirt, Maia dryly notes that she can join the club of Sheveän and Chavar.
• Maia's dry sense of humor in dealing with the craziness of his new life.
  Cala: (waking him up from a night terror) Serenity?
  Maia: In truth, it is an ironic title.
• Telimezh's reaction after Maia insists that he sleep on his decision to resign:
  It took Telimezh a moment, but he managed to bow and say, “Serenity,” and leave the room without walking into the door, although that was at least partly because Beshelar nudged him away from it.
• Dachensol Habrobar's extended hypothetical on the usefulness of backups.
  If you are careless and you are walking in the Duchess Pashavel Gardens and perhaps you are tossing your signet idly from hand to hand, though it is not what we recommend, Serenity. And as you toss it—oops!—there it goes into the ornamental pond and before you can even think to wade in after it, there it is eaten by an ornamental carp, which the Pashavada import at great expense from somewhere in the west and how they keep them alive we often wonder. So you come to us in despair and embarrassment, and yet all is not lost, for we have kept the type.

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