[Dragaera] A Crack. ( Teckla-SL )

[Jon_Lincicum at stream.com]

"Maximilian Wilson" <wilson.max at gmail.com> 
Sent by: dragaera-bounces at dragaera.info
08/24/06 12:20 AM

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Re: [Dragaera] A Crack. ( Teckla-SL )




>On 8/23/06, tom sausman <inuyashadontask at netscape.net> wrote:
>> >  I.e. the altered story is probably an old, old lie
>> > that he's been telling himself for hundreds of years.
>>
>>     How could it be a lie? We have four accounts Aerich, Paresh, 
Paarfi,
>> and Vlad. Aren't we always told that if something is repeated it is
>> usally imporant? I still I am confused of why people mistrust the
>> accounts of Paarfi, afterall is it really Mr. Brust telling the story?
>> Another reason isn't it the job/ duty of a historian to relate the 
facts?
>
>We have two accounts, Paresh->Vlad and Aerich(?)->Paarfi. The accounts
>conflict, hence someone is inaccurate or lying. This is part of why
>people mistrust Paarfi, although it's more complex. A historian's duty
>is to relate facts, but Paarfi is in some ways more like a writer of
>romance novels (or Alexander Dumas) in that he will stretch facts to
>make a good story. He doesn't admit this openly, but his publisher
>does in IIRC the foreword to FYA.

We have unreliability from both directions on this tale. Some facts to 
consider:

1) Paresh's own tale to Vlad is filtered both through his own memory, and 
also though Vlad's retelling of it. Perhaps Vlad misunderstood some of the 
innuendo in what Paresh actually said, and inserted some of his own 
assumptions? 

2) Paresh *was* trying to impress Vlad, and certainly could have been 
guilty of a bit of self-promotion and exaggeration in telling his own 
story to make a stronger impression. After all, how bad would he feel 
about fudging a few facts when he's trying to save the world by converting 
others to his cause? Since he honestly believes "his people" are 
oppressed, does it really matter to him if some of the actual oppression 
he describes didn't actually happen quite the way he says it did? Since 
the "spirit" of the story is true (from his point of few) the actual facts 
become irrelevent. 

3) Paresh may or may not have contributed to Paarfi's "research" for the 
stories at all. Certainly, their encounter might have been contained in 
notes Aerich left behind, or in communications he made to others 
"off-stage" during his journey to South Mountain, or in a personal diary 
recovered from his body after his death, or by interviewing his shade in 
the PotD, or half a dozen other ways.

4) Paarfi, if he did interview Paresh directly, is not likely to have 
really believed a mere Teckla could use sorcery to the extent that he 
describes in his telling of the event... And many of the other details of 
Paarfi's telling are likely to be colored by his house prejudice as well.

5) Certainly, Paarfi takes dramatic license where appropriate. In some 
cases, this might mean inflating the importance of some events to make 
them more dramatic--but given Paarfi's desire to seem like a "historian" 
it will also involve cases where he needs to deflate some events to make 
them *less* dramatic... Which may be the case during the Paresh encounter, 
since while it was very important to our good Teckla revolutionary, it is 
merely a sidenote in Aerich's grand adventure to rescue his friend.

Majikjon