[Dragaera] Here Be a Jhegaala Spoiler

[Philip Hart]

On Tue, 15 Jul 2008, Scott Schultz wrote:

>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jon Lincicum" <lincicum at comcast.net>
>
>> Philip Hart wrote:
>>>>> 0
>>>>> 1
>>>>> 2
>>>>> 3
>>>>> 4
>>>>> 5
>>>>> 6
>>>>> 7
>>>>> 8
>>>>> 9
>>>>> a
>>>>> b
>>>>> c
>>>>> d
>>>>> e
>>>>> f
>>>>> g
>>>>> 
>> My take: There is no spell for invisibility. Vlad is flat-out lying to the 
>> count and his men, because he wants to see the Jhereg assassin covered in 
>> Nesiffa powder, which no doubt has some annoying quality (itch-powder, for 
>> example) and this is Vlad's way of making the assassin's life miserable. 
>> It's such a petty prank, tho, that the Count and his men wouldn't have 
>> bothered with it unless Vlad had given them a compelling reason.
>
> While I wouldn't put that past him, there's also the bit earlier in the book 
> where Vlad complains to Loiosh that they've run out of Nesiffa powder, with 
> no explanation of what it is, other than possibly a Witchcraft supply of some 
> kind. This seems to be the justification for Vlad wanting to carry it around.

The Text is consistent, but the reader asking why we've never seen Vlad
holding a handful of Nesiffa powder might say it's a consistent lie.
Why would Vlad lie?  Perhaps because his act of taking off the gold
Phoenix stone was entirely irrational (as opposed to taking off the black
stone to do a spell, which was only 99% irrational), and telling the 
story so that he had at least done _some_ planning for the possible 
consequences (using horses as detectors, as if Loiosh wasn't perfectly 
capable of noticing a teleport) preserves a tiny shred of dignity.


Incidentally, early in the book Vlad says he left his dignity 
somewhere by the river - what in the world was that about?
Is that his way of saying he tripped, landed in the dirt,
and got laughed at by Loiosh?