[Dragaera] Verra and the Paths of the Dead

[Scott Schultz]

Spoiler space for Taltos and for Dolivar
















>..or  maybe it's the other way around -- he was deliberately reincarnated
>as an Easterner for this life, so he could help out in the Paths this one
>important time.  Or because Verra intuited it would be helpful.

I believe this to be the case, though I don't believe it had anything to do 
with saving Morollan's life.

The biggest problem I have with the business of the blood being Vlad's 
instead of Verra's is that it implies many levels of deception on the part 
of Verra and possibly Sethra for no particularly good reason. The "don't 
come back" threat to Vlad was real, regardless of whether it was his blood 
or his metaphysical makeup that allowed him to leave. The Lords of Judgement 
just had to imprison him until he fell asleep and that would be that. Aliera 
could leave but she couldn't stay. (Devera appears unusual in this regard.) 
If Vlad's blood was enough, or even Aliera's, then Verra could have been 
much more direct about how to save Morrolan. As far as Verra was concerned 
right then, Morollan was a dead man whose soul would soon be standing facing 
its Judgement.

I dunno. I can see why the speculation arises but I have a difficult time 
with speculations that hinge on supposing that some major plot points in 
previous stories were, in fact, lies without any evidence to support that 
assertion.

As for Dolivar being deliberately incarnated as an Easterner, I believe that 
to be true. Sethra has said that she feels that she, Kieron, Dolivar, and 
Aliera-that-was were all marked out by the Gods even at the foundation of 
the Empire. My feeling (no evidence to support it) is that Dolivar's "karmic 
burden" was unique such that it allowed him to be reincarnated as an 
Easterner. His soul was kept in storage all of this time because the Lords 
of Judgement know that no matter how much they hate Godslayer, they will 
eventually need an agent to wield it. That agent is an Easterner; someone 
with the soul of a Dragaeran and raised to venerate the Gods and to respect 
Dragaerans yet hate them enough to take action that a true Dragaeran would 
hesitate to take. When his purpose is served, he dies naturally in short 
order if he isn't killed as a part of his function and Godslayer is disposed 
of.

I think that if Vlad ever accepts the invitation to remember his past lives 
that he'll discover that he only has the one. If Verra took Vlad's blood, 
then I'd expect it has something to do with a story we haven't been told 
yet, rather than it being something that invalidates part of a story we 
already know.