Marathe & Steeply: everything reduces to politics — the Troy reading — "Everything reduces itself to politics for…"

Marathe's compulsive political hermeneutic, and the theme's method in miniature: the Trojan War was not about Helen but about the Dardanelles tolls, "for commerce," love merely "the excuse." Steeply's jab — "Everything reduces itself to politics for you guys" — is accurate and is the point: to the Separatist mind every sentimental story (including Tine's grand love) is a screen over a territorial or commercial grievance, exactly as the Reconfiguration is a "gift" over an extortion.