How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
The cheese Salata made and the kids she reared to send to market were the interest she was still paying on that debt, fixed so that it could never be paid off. And under that ancient contract neither she nor descendants could leave the land until it was. (5.76)
The Emperor likes keeping poor people down. He makes peasants buy their own land at an unaffordable rate and keep paying that debt for years—and years—to come.
Quote #2
How long, Tilja wondered, since those ditches had first been cut and the land made fertile? Centuries, she guessed. Again, just as she had in the little warded room in Ellion's house, she felt the size and weight and age of the empire. All those generations of toilers coming out of their shabby huts morning after morning to spend their days turning the selfsame water hoists, the ropes and buckets wearing out and being replaced, the men and women growing old and dying, never having left these fields, and their children taking up he toil to live the selfsame dismal, empty lives. Standing there, she could feel the Empire around her, above her, below her, before her in time and after, a vast, vague oppression, like a fever dream as huge as the universe. (7.8)
While staring out at the fields, Tilja thinks that most peasants have always had the same menial tasks to do for generations. The debt system of the Empire has kept them virtually enslaved, and there's no possibility of freedom on the horizon for themselves or their families.
Quote #3
"But the Emperors never want it to get about that's how it is, because the only way they can run things is if everybody more or less believes the Emperor's all-powerful, whereas fact is he's only just about in control of it all." (9.84)
The Emperor puts a ton of precautions in place—including outlawing magic if you don't work for him—so that he can control all the magic in the Empire. He wants to appear all-powerful, but that's just a publicity stunt—he doesn't have as much control as he pretends.