How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
The half-time contained a thirty-second advert for honeyed nougats. Within the hour, several free-lance marketing analysts reported a spike-surge of nougat sales, beginning three minutes after the advert. That single advertisement had repaid its sponsor one hundred times over. Such was the stuff of dreams—at least for those unwholesomely fixated on the marketing arts. (Prologue.13)
This is the little bit of manipulation that kicks off the whole spy plot: an advertisement that works a little too well. But after all, this is what ads are all about—getting people to do something that you want them to do. Only, thanks to technology, this sort of manipulation can become virtually mind control.
Quote #2
The rabbit touched its nose. "I will be the soul of discretion. I always know much more than I reveal. But you three really should improve your performances. Mr. So-German is just an out-of-date stereotype. And you, senora, the work of impressionist art reveals nothing and everything. Who might have a special interest in the San Diego bio labs? Who indeed? And as for you—" Rabbit looked at Vaz. "That's a fine Colombian accent you're hiding." (1.41)
Manipulation is very closely related to "Language and Communication." Only when you're manipulating someone, you're trying to communicate something not quite true (or not quite the whole truth). So when Braun, Mitsuri, and Vaz meet Rabbit, they leave some clues so that Rabbit mistakes them for South American ex-drug lords. But it's still pretty funny that Rabbit accuses Braun of being stereotypically German, when, in fact, Braun was just being himself (1.51). In this case, it seems like Rabbit is like one of those guys who so mistrusts other people that he'll think you're lying even when you're telling the whole truth.
Quote #3
"Anything you do in this class will be a favor for the others here. I hope you'll stay, help them. Rework your poem with some student's visuals. They can learn from you—and you can learn the skills that will make the world a more comfortable place for you."
Robert gave her a little smile. There would always be cretins like Louise Chumlig. (6.46-7)
As we've learned in Chapter 4, Louise Chumlig is more than she appears. We've already seen that she's working with Rabbit, who has particular interest in Robert (4.131). So when Louise tells Juan that he should collaborate with someone who is good with words (6.12); and then tells Robert that he would be doing the students a favor by staying—well, it seems like she's very subtly manipulating them to work together. How subtly? So subtly that Robert still thinks of her a cretin.
Quote #4
Of course, what Günberk and Keiko saw was the easy part. The hard part was what Alfred was hiding beneath Plan Rabbit. When this magnificent intrusion/inspection was complete, there would be no evidence of his research program. Working as the trusted leader of the operation, Alfred was confident that he could accomplish that much. The triumph would be to leave credible evidence that would point bird-dog Günberk somewhere far across the world—and leave Alfred's operation intact in San Diego. Failing that, Alfred would have to rebuild his research setup—and his security—at second-rate sites. He could lose a year or two of development time. (9.4)
If you want to manipulate people, it helps if no one takes you seriously (like Robert and Louise Chumlig above) or if you are trusted by the people you want to manipulate. In Alfred's case, we see that he's trusted—heck, Braun brings the whole problem to his attention (1.1). And we also see here what the end goal of this manipulation is: he wants to get other spies off his back. Does any character in this book manipulate people just for fun?
Quote #5
"I'll contact him like the gentle cloud of coincidence that I am. If the Americans identify him, he will be a perfect red herring. Your EU and Japanese friends would be too cowardly to go for this. You, I think, have more courage. So I'm here to give you a heads-up. Cover me on this." (9.40)
If there's any character who manipulates purely for the fun/the challenge, it would be Rabbit. Here Rabbit is explaining how he's going to use Sharif as a go-between so no one knows that he's talking to Robert. Although Rabbit is explaining this part of the plan to Vaz, notice how many people are on the outside of this plan: Braun and Mitsuri and the Americans, too. So Rabbit is like Vaz—he keeps secrets even from the people he's working with.
Quote #6
Miri hesitated. In fact, all the really successful suggestions had been due to the little girl. Maybe the "little girl" persona was covering something. Miri started a query replicating out through everyone and everything that might provide identity clues. But even if the kid were really ten years old, it wouldn't prove anything. Some fifth graders were scary. (10.35)
Miri is smart and paranoid enough to worry that someone might be manipulating her. (Here, the "little girl" was almost certainly Rabbit, planting in Miri's head the idea to get someone to interview her granddad. Someone like, say, Zulfikar Sharif.) Even though Miri follows up on that idea, sending out queries to see who that little girl was, she soon discards that thought. For extra irony: Miri wonders if she's being manipulated at the same time as she's planning to manipulate Sharif.
Quote #7
Then, for almost two seconds, she was wearing a civilian business suit with an old-fashioned ID lanyard. The ID bore a familiar seal and the letters DHS. Robert knew what that meant. It was all he could do not to flinch back. She can't know everything! He wondered if Alice and Bob were silently coordinating all the scary signs, conspiring to panic him into confession. Somehow, he didn't think Bob was that adept. (16.50)
In this case, Robert is correct: no one is trying to manipulate him. Or rather, his son and daughter-in-law aren't. Everyone else is trying to manipulate Robert, but not these two. In fact, Alice and Bob might be the only characters here who aren't involved in manipulating others or being manipulated. Is that true? And if so, how does that affect our reading of them?
Quote #8
Günberk Braun and Keiko Mitsuri: They were top officers in their respective services. Vaz had tracked these two since their college days. He knew more about them than they would ever guess. That was one of the benefits of being very old and very well connected. In a sense, he had guided them into their intel careers, though neither they nor their organizations suspected the fact. They weren't traitors to the EU or Japan, but Alfred understood them so well that he could subtly guide them. (17.1)
In Chapter 1, we've seen that Alfred has a secret plan and needs to manipulate the other intelligence agents. But it's only in Chapter 17 that we hear this part: that in some way, he's the one whose been manipulating their entire careers. Although we never hear what "In a sense" means when it comes to guiding them into their careers. Mostly what we see is that Alfred can get Braun and Mitsuri to go along with his plan, sometimes by making it seem like it's their plan. Does he ever fail with them?
Quote #9
It hesitated, and said offhandedly to Robert, "Oh, don't let the cylinders go untreated. Just drop them onto the lower tray."
Robert didn't move.
"I mean it!" said the Stranger, something like a serious tone creeping into its voice. It flailed about—more dramatic dying, or looking for an explanation? "If the bugs are disease vectors, you're at ground zero! The lower tray will send them to an incinerator, all safe and tidy."
Miri shook her head. "No. That's an alternate path to the UP/Ex launcher."
"Look at my pdf, you fool. The map."
"I looked at my map, the one I cached this afternoon." Miri's smile was triumphant.
There was a two-second lag. Then the creature turned and looked almost straight at Miri. "I hate you, Miri Gu." (28.39-45)
There's a lot of manipulation going on during the library riot/UCSD biotech lab break-in, but we wanted to zero in on this moment. First, because we enjoy Rabbit's attempt to manipulate the Gus into giving him the flies (that he thinks are part of the mind control experiment—which is itself a manipulation of Alfred's). Notice how his manipulation requires him to be "offhanded" and then give them a serious lie and then point them to his (lying) map. Second, we enjoy—nay, love—how Miri defeats his manipulation simply by having access to a better, more truthful map that she prepared before the adventure. Third, we love Rabbit's response to being thwarted. You see that "two-second lag"? Rabbit is not used to people avoiding his manipulations, so he takes a while to process that info.
Quote #10
"I suppose the best evidence the cops think you're innocent is that they let you return to India."
"Indeed so, though sometimes I wonder if I'm not just a fish on a very long line." (35.6-7)
Sure, Miri is manipulated into contacting Sharif, but she's also interested in manipulating Sharif. Sharif is one of the few people (along with Alice and Bob, maybe) who isn't doing any manipulating of his own. But at least at this end point, Sharif realizes that, even if he's innocent, he might be part of a larger manipulation. (Which is probably true: remember, when Bob interviews Robert after the whole mess, Eve Mallory comments that they want Robert running loose (33.29)—probably so that he can be contacted by someone they actually want to catch.)