Ashitaka will probably end up with the nickname Monseuir Machin, which more or less means 'Mister Thingie', since nobody can pronounce his actual name. But he's reliable, dependable, and he does his work well; people like him and accept his oddities, for the most part. Though they keep assuming he's Chinese.

His outright honesty and lack of any sort of pokerface do mean he gets teased a little, but it's largely in good fun.

For the most part, people trust Ashitaka, and it means they let him in on various secrets, thoughts and random feelings, because they find him easy to talk to (they also comment that his French is very good for a Chinaman...) They talk about the queen (who most of the guard think very little off), the king (who is often called 'the clockmaker' as a mocking nickname), the children ('the little brats'), and that strange man who keeps coming in and out of the castle. A few posted soldiers have noted François Gamain's irregular patterns, being requested by the royal family to come, and then leaving very abruptly. It annoys many of the soldiers, because they have to break formation to let him in and out. "If he were to fall and crack his head open on his hurry out of the tower," one soldier confides, "I wouldn't be too broken up about it."