[Dragaera] An extraordinarily convenient disease...

[Davdi Silverrock]

On Sat, 3 Mar 2007 15:08 +0000 (GMT Standard Time), John Dallman wrote:

>  (Davdi Silverrock) wrote:
>
> > A further pararectal speculation:  Perhaps the reason that Vlad's
> > father was so adamant in trying to become, and be, a Dragaeran, was
> > because his soul's previous reincarnation was, in fact, a Dragaeran
> > (perhaps even someone we've met because Paarfi wrote about him/her?),

I've been wondering, if Vlad's father has the soul of someone that
Paarfi wrote about, who it might be.  Presumably some sort of a
villain, probably someone very proud of him/herself, and would thus
probably find being an Easterner all the more humiliating.

One notion that I find amusing is that Vlad's father is perhaps the
reincarnation of Skinter e'Terics.

> Gene Wolfe might write something that worked like that: it's reminiscent
> of some of the more outre theories of _The Book Of The New Sun_. SKZB
> doesn't seem quite so preoccupied with his own cleverness and deviousness.

To the left, SKZB is a huge Gene Wolfe fanboy.  See also:

  http://skzbrust.livejournal.com/15979.html

  http://skzbrust.livejournal.com/13830.html?thread=401414#t401414

> > and he (a) somehow came to realize this, and (b) felt it was therefore
> > necessary for himself to try and "recapture" his Dragaeranness by
> > whatever means, and (c) he might thus indeed not resist death in the
> > hopes that his next incarnation would in fact be a Dragaeran.
>
> If he believed this, wouldn't either his father or his son be likely to
> have an inkling of it?
>

Yet would this necessarily be something that he would feel any need to
divulge?  Noish-pa wouldn't invade his privacy, and Vlad himself
doesn't like his father enough to actually find out why he thinks what
he thinks.


As long as I'm still writing about Vlad's father, I just want to gripe
about inconsistencies between /Jhereg/ and /Taltos/: In /Jhereg/,
Vlad's father hires a Left Hand Sorceress to tutor Vlad & and a tutor
in Dragaeran swordsmanship, and forbids Vlad witchcraft and Eastern
fencing; Vlad perversely learns witchcraft and fencing in reaction to
this.  In /Taltos/, Vlad's grandfather teaches Vlad bits of witchcraft
and fencing from a very young age; Vlad's father hires a male Jhegaala
to tutor Vlad in sorcery, and the Dragaeran sword tutor, in reaction
to Vlad's learning Eastern things, and specifically does not forbid
Noish-pa teaching the Eastern subjects, apparently hoping that Vlad
will somehow spontaneously come to appreciate Dragaearan culture.