[Dragaera] Dzur reactions (SPOILERS, dammit)

[Kate Nepveu]

On 8/8/06, Johne Cook <johne.cook at gmail.com> wrote:

Ack, what's the list's spoiler policy? Do I need blank lines?

Just to be safe, since these are huge spoilers:

REALLY BIG SPOILERS














SPOILERS NEXT

> Bloodless climaxes may be all the rage in diplomacy, but I was sort of
> yearning for something... else.

Aww, see, that's what I love about it. In the last book about a
war-like House, _Dragon_, Vlad's desparately trying to *become* a
Dragon--and is deeply unhappy and unsuited for it.

Here, he learns about the Dzur, and then deliberately chooses *not* to
act as  a Dzur, because he _isn't_. In fact, he does not personally
kill a single person in this book, which I believe must be a
first--Lady Teldra does, and he orders a killing, but Vlad himself
doesn't kill anyone.

It shows how far he's come, and that's really important.

Other things accomplished: finding out about Vlad Norathar, seeing the
influence of Lady Teldra, even before she's woken up, seeing Mario,
meeting the Lavode-in-training.

So I'm good with what we've got, because I love the treatment of his
relationship to the Dzur so much. I did expect, as I said in my
review, that a lot of people might have the "move it along, already"
reaction, and that's not unreasonable.  Personally, I'm beginning to
wonder if the impossible situation with the Organization is going to
take most of the rest of the series to resolve--once that's gone, the
threat level to Vlad goes *way* down, after all--interspersed with the
"Vlad goes East" book and whatever is going on with Verra. I'm just
speculating, of course.

In sum: character development makes me happy.

-- 
Kate Nepveu
kate.nepveu at gmail.com