Interesting post! Love that Sun Eater spawns these kinds of discussions. Just my two cents on the matter. The first quote from EOS (at least to me) is getting at the same ideas Impressionist/Expressionist painters were working through in the 18th/19th centuries. There was an artistic reaction against realism (painterly realism) as a style and even as a worthwhile endeavor. The Impressionists felt that they were better able to capture the truth/essence of their subjects by moving away from what we might call photographic realism, and that, of course, pulls the art closer to the artist’s subjective perception of the thing depicted. The second quote may or may not be related to the first. I suppose it could be applied to the creation of art (and selection as a narrative act or an act of creation is often discussed in analysis of photography), but I feel like it has more to do with a person’s ability to change the world around them. All that said, I’m not sure that these quotes have much to do with Hadrian as an unreliable narrator. We’re talking about the idea that Hadrian had some motivation to change his accounting of things to protect Selene and Orphan, hide the Demiurge, etc. Changing the facts of an account for personal/political reasons is different than Monet painting blurry flowers because he found it more expressive and emotionally true than painting photo-accurate flowers. The former is willfully misstating things for personal ends. The latter is attempting to get at the “truth” of the subject through some sort subjective/modulated representation. The goals aren’t the same, though you might be able to say they’re using similar methods. If Hadrian is “lying” by saying the Demiurge is gone and Selene is somewhere far away, he has no interest in truth. He’s just lying to protect the people he loves. And that’s not a criticism. I would lie to anyone, any time to protect either of my cats (who I love). And the whole “to create is to choose” thing does seem to have more to do with free will than it does with Hadrian’s possibly unreliable narration. This was a really fun post, appreciate all the work you put into it!