[Dragaera] A crack? ( Jhereg)

[Scott]

>                  I think this is a spoiler? 

I don't think I'd worry about a minor bit of business from the very first
novel. If you haven't read Jhereg, then you probably aren't on the mailing
list in the first place. *heh*

>But on page 146 of Jhereg 
>in "The Book of Jhereg" Aliera and Kiera have meant before! Normally I 
>wouldn't mind but she was happy to see Kiera, a Jhereg. Have we known 


It's a mystery. My personal theory (for which there is no text evidence
whatsoever) is that Kiera brought Aliera and Mario back together after
Aliera returned from the Paths of the Dead.

As for Aliera liking only nobles (and for all we know, Kiera is technically
as much a noble as Vlad is) I think that one of the things that we've
learned is that the discrimination inherent in the system isn't nearly as
prevalent as it first appears. It's a kind of lazy man's bigotry. While
Morollan, Aliera, and Sethra are about as far from typical as you can get,
Vlad's experiences with many other Dragaerans has shown that they are able
to overcome their default bigotry if they're given a reason to spend the
effort getting to know you. It even seems that there are plenty of them,
though it seems to primarily be the distracted types like Aybinn or the
librarian in _Dzur_, who simply don't care enough about the "standard
bigotry" to spend the energy practicing it.

In Aliera's case specifically, she likes who she likes and woe betide the
fool who decides to preach to her about who she decides to socialize with;
no matter how much she might agree with them in principle. It also seems
that the women of the Vladiverse all belong to some sort of secret club;
regardless of rank or privelege. I wouldn't be too surprised if Steve
himself tends to think of womenkind as being some sort of inscrutable secret
society. *heh*