[Dragaera] Phoenix, Dzur, blood
Philip Hart
philiph at slac.stanford.edu
Sun Dec 9 13:23:02 PST 2007
It wasn't clear to me from the recent POTD/vial of blood discussion
that we're all on the same, umm, page about the relevant passages in
the Texts. Some recapping follows.
On pg 157 of _Dzur_, Vlad tells Ricard that he once "got into a jam,
and called on [Verra]", and she [made him think she?] brought him to
her Halls, where she cut his hand and put some of his blood in a vial.
This presumably is a new description of events in _Phoenix_.
In Lesson One of _P_, Vlad is attacked by Verra-arranged something or
other (hence the undoubted irony of "got in a jam") and has a chat with
her. On pgs 103/104 (ppb) there is a bit of an incident in _Dragon_
which interestingly enough is involved iirc in the memory shenanigans
there.
Then on pg 112 Vlad (annoyed by the mess he has made at Verra's behest)
cuts his palm, tosses some blood through one of Morrolan's windows,
and steps into Verra's realm. She tells him he's dripping blood on
her floor, then they discuss the war and Kelly's actions. She notes
that "the blood" of revolutionaries feeds the revolution and sends
Vlad back. Vlad uses "by the blood on Verra's floor" as an oath.
Well, another thing to note is that Vlad's "blood was running down
Spellbreaker", which then comes to life and heals him. Seems kind
of symbolic, esp. if what actually happened was that Verra cut Vlad
and inserted a false memory of his having done so himself as a
sacrifice.
Finally, at the end of the novel, Aibynn drums Vlad and Aliera out
of yet another jam into Verra's place. She says she's sorry about
events and he says, "You bloody well should be" (pg 233). [Note in
passing the late king's "good blood price" on pg 217.]
Note also that Loiosh was present in each of the three encounters
above as well as the one in the POTD in _Taltos_, which predates
them. Apparently (and surprisingly to me) both Vlad and Loiosh
got brainwashed _twice_.
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