The Tainted Cup

Anagosa “Ana” Dolabra is the caustic deuteragonist of The Tainted Cup. Ana is prickly and often has an odd affect, engaging in such behaviors as button-holing visitors so that she can quiz them for hours about minute details of their lives or eating raw meat. Ana, whose brilliant deductive reasoning makes her an uncannily masterful detective, seeks mental stimulation while avoiding sensory stimulation. To this end, she habitually wears a blindfold, so that visual cues do not distract of overwhelm her. When she needs to think intensely on a problem, she will remove as many sensory inputs as possible, sometimes shutting herself into a small, dark chest. At the end of the novel, Din learns that this odd behavior is not due to any magical augmentations that Ana has undergone, but rather due to her innate extreme sensitivity to sensory inputs.

Ana holds an Immunis rank—the middle rank of Khanum’s military system—in the Iudex department of the Iyalets, the department designed to pursue justice for human crimes (as opposed to the carnage committed by titans). Ana is part of the Sazi ethnic group and reads the Sazi language, something that aids her investigation into the Haza family. Ana is a celebrated investigator, though her strange and often rude behavior makes Din find it easy to believe that Ana has been sent to the unimportant town of Daretana as punishment. Later, he learns that this was merely a ploy that Ana and her mysterious superiors concocted to get at the corruption in Talagray. Ana alludes to previous battles with the Hazas and implies that her supposedly dead previous assistant is still alive, though the details are never revealed.

Ana is a relatively static character in the text; any changes in the way she is portrayed come instead from Din’s increased understanding of his boss. Despite her propensity to be sharp, Ana indicates that she truly cares for Din and serves as a mentor to him through the novel. She possesses a flair for the dramatic, as displayed in several scenes that mimic the detective fiction trope in which all subjects are assembled so that the detective can give her speech about the result of the case.

Tazi Miljin is a captain in the Iudex who serves as Tuwey Uhad’s assistant investigator. Miljin has no mental augmentations, and, relatedly, he takes part in The Idealization of the Past, but does have several physical augmentations that make him intensely strong and physically large (though not to the same dramatic degree as cracklers, who are so large and strong that they need to be given additional bone structures to support their weight). Miljin served in the Legion prior to his promotion to the Iudex, which he received because he was a war hero, though the details of his heroism or accomplishments are not laid out in the text. However, he finds both the praise he receives for his earlier war record and the complex nature of victory in the Iudex to be wearying.

Miljin becomes a trusted ally to Din and Ana after they determine he was not present at the Haza party where the dappleglass bloom struck—and thus is not receiving Haza patronage. Miljin serves as a mentor to Din, teaching Din swordplay and giving Din his highly valuable sword at the end of the novel. Miljin claims that he won’t need the weapon himself; he intends to return to a simpler life as a Legionnaire, where his primary task will be to fight leviathans, not figure out human motives for crime and struggle to deliver justice amidst the rampant corruption of Talagray.

Kephus Strovi is a love interest for Din in the novel. As a captain in the Legion, Strovi works at the sea wall to battle approaching leviathans, though he sometimes serves as assistant to Commander-Prificto Vashta, an important responsibility, particularly once Vashta is promoted to seneschal of Talagray. Strovi is young, handsome, and cheerful; this good nature leads Din to be unaware, for a good portion of the text, that Strovi is flirting with him. Once Din realizes that Strovi’s kindness and familiarity toward him is not mere politeness, but rather romantic interest, the two enter a brief romance. Ultimately, however, Strovi decides to continue serving at Talagray, feeling duty bound to work where he is most needed.

Strovi comes from a gentry family, though he is hesitant to talk about this and does not leverage his privilege for personal benefit, as indicated by his choice to continue serving in dangerous Talagray. He volunteers to be on the team that fires the “titan-killer” ballast, a dangerous job—though he is only mildly injured after being thrown from the firing platform during the blast. His gentry origins explain his total lack of augmentations; augmentations decrease fertility, so gentry, who stress the important of lineage, commonly do not get many augmentations.

Tuwey Uhad is the lead investigator of the Talagray investigative team. Ana eventually determines that Uhad is also a collaborator in the poisoning plot. Uhad is an Immunis in the Iudex, putting him at equivalent rank to Anna and in the same Iyalet department. Uhad is an engraver, like Din; however, having served for many years in violent, corrupt Talagray, Uhad has developed side effects from his magical abilities, which highlights The Idealization of the Past: He has episodes during which he feels controlled by his intense memories. He warns that this will happen to Din one day, too, and advises avoiding all sensory input when it does. Taking his own advice, Uhad lives an ascetic life.

Though Uhad is open about his disdain for corruption, the murderous depth of this hatred is revealed when Uhad admits complicity in poisoning Kaygi Haza and Commander Blas, as revenge for the Oypat crisis. Though Uhad himself is not Oypati (unlike Jolgalgan, for whom this revenge was more personal), Uhad is so zealously opposed to corruption that he has adopted vigilantism to amend what he feels is an ignored injustice. Elderly and feeble, Uhad claims to look forward to his retirement after this case is resolved. However, it turns out that his plans to retire to the Inner Empire were really a ruse: His true intention was to continue killing members of the powerful Haza clan, whom he sees as representative of the widespread corruption among the gentry.