[Dragaera] Dragaeran reincarnation

[Maximilian Wilson]

On 5/22/07, Howard Brazee <howard at brazee.net> wrote:
>
> On Earth, people who believe in reincarnation seem odd to me - if I
> can't remember anything about my past life or if I didn't have any past
> life - then there is no real difference.
>

Wow, nice move! We're back on topic.

We do know a couple things about Dragaeran reincarnation:

1.) It's possible (with Sethra's help) to recover some memories of past
lives. Some vestigial memories appear to remain, at least at a gut level
(Vlad recognizing Kieron, or at least Aliera said he had).

2.) Some personalities traits remain consistent. Aliera has always, "through
the millenia," been just a "little bit quicker" than Vlad--you could dismiss
that as a stylistic flourish, but Sethra confirms that Vlad has always been
"good with irony."

If not for the memory bit this would simply raise interesting questions
about identity (is someone who's very much like me equivalent to me? Would I
mind if he married my girlfriend?), but it seems clear that Vlad is still
Dolivar and always has been, even if he's forgotten a lot of his past in the
same way that I've forgotten everything about high school--but I'm still the
same person.

-Max

-- 
Be pretty if you are, be witty if you can,
But be cheerful if it kills you.

Everything in Windows is very simple, but the simplest thing is difficult.
    -Clausewitz