[Dragaera] Here Be a Jhegaala Spoiler

[Tim Owen]

>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?
 
I had assumed Vlad was referring to never having asked Cawti about how she felt about rivers after which he began to once again feel sorry for himself, and then beagn to weep uncontrollably for awhile.  Having just gone through a an awful break-up (somewhat still in the middle actually) that's probably what I'd do.  I know I'm generalizing from example here, but...

--- On Tue, 7/15/08, Philip Hart <philiph at slac.stanford.edu> wrote:

From: Philip Hart <philiph at slac.stanford.edu>
Subject: Re: [Dragaera] Here Be a Jhegaala Spoiler
To: dragaera at lists.dragaera.info
Date: Tuesday, July 15, 2008, 8:44 AM

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?
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