: Now, I would like to draw attention to the emphasis placed upon the term
: bodyguards. The word is in quotation marks. Could that indicate that his
: bodyguards are, in fact, battleroids themselves? Maybe this could be what
: Strauss is referring to as ironic (just as much as his subsequent
: statement, anyways).
: Could MIDA have implanted battleroids as his bodyguards, or perhaps he is
: using them in accordance with the rules set forth by the United
: Interplanetary League? Am I looking too deep into what was most likely an
: innocuous statement? Probably.
A couple of possibilities come to mind: the first is that Strauss calls them 'bodyguards' because, battleroids or not, guarding the body is not their only or primary function. Maybe they're actually part of a UESC hit squad using the ceremony as cover for dirty work or something.
The second and IMO more likely is that Strauss is merely emphasizing that Buendia had bodyguards, as part of the same train of thought which runs through the rest of his journal entry: that Buendia's lofty speech painting the Marathon as "the grandest achievement mankind has ever conceived ... for the purpose of peace and the preservation of the human race" is completely disconnected from the social and political realities of the day.
