[Dragaera] Alexx's Jhegaala thoughts

Sat Jul 26 19:04:14 PDT 2008

 In the course of taking notes for my Dragaera Timeline, I made lots of
interesting observations.  These start with fairly obvious things, but
move into serious criticism and fan-wank territory near the end.  Oh, and
I hope to have an updated draft of the Timeline up sometime this weekend.
 Obviously, massive spoilers:

 This story commences very soon after Phoenix.  Vlad says "A few weeks
ago, I'd been married. A few weeks before that, happily married" (Ja 23).
 This is clearly an understatement, as by the end of  _Phoenix_ his
marriage had already been unhappy for at least eleven weeks.  Possibly
more accurate is Vlad's statement that "Two months ago" he still had
Kragar's services (on day seven of this story, Ja 43).  That leaves about
27 days, or 5 Dragaeran weeks, between the end of _Phoenix_ and Vlad's
arrival on Mount Saestara.  We know he spent one week of that time at
Lake Szurke visiting Noish-Pa (Ja 12).  The rest of it would have been
spent walking to and from there.

 The reasons for the difference in where you threaten a Dragaeran and an
Easterner with a knife -- Back of the neck vs. throat -- are actually
pretty obvious when you think about it.  It is much more difficult to
sever a spine then it is to slit a throat.  If you cut an Easterner's
throat, he'll die in a minute or two, but if you chop at the back of his
neck, there's a good chance the blow will glance off bone and do no
lasting damage.  While much of this remains true in a Dragaeran context,
much is also different.  A Dragaeran can use his few seconds of
consciousness to psychically contact a friend or physicker, or maybe even
teleport to one if he's skilled enough.  Even if he passes out, there's a
good chance he'll get medical help fast enough to survive, or failing
that, get revivified from the dead.  Contrariwise, if a Dragaeran's spine
is severed, then they are dead dead dead with no hope of coming back. 
And while severing   a spine is still non-trivial, a Dragaeran can expect
to be threatened by someone with a very sharp knife, and who has studied
his spinal anatomy.

 Vlad's constant denials that witches can summon demons rings a little
hollow.  We know that at least one demon was present in Fenario between
at least 204 PI (_Brokedown Palace_, page 28) and 218 PI (BP 218, 263). 
Given that, perhaps his relatives *did* summon demons.  Possibly even the
same one that fathered Brigitta (who is widely speculated to have been
Cawti's mother).

 A crack? Inchay's inn has mill workers in it on page 33.  Two later
references (125, 261-262) claim that mill workers do not frequent that
establishment.

 Vlad assumes throughout that the Coven is not a wholly-owned subsidiary
of the Guild.  I don't see much independent support for believing this. 
Although there is a lot of Witchcraft going on in this story, almost all
of it seems designed to benefit the Guild (save for the killing of
Chayoor).  While there may have originally been a three-legged stool,
it's already wobbly by the time Vlad arrives.  It seems to me that the
story makes more sense if you assume that the Coven is a wholly owned
subsidiary of the Guild at this time.  Or at least firmly under Chayoor's
dominance.   Vlad states that "the Guild had managed to discover at least
some of the leaders of the Coven" (Ja 293).  While this makes sense, Vlad
seems to be speculating here; we didn't see him discover any facts about
this.  Vlad says that the Coven killed the Merss family (294), but
emotionally identified Chayoor as responsible ("child-killing bastard"
276).
 Vlad must not only have deduced this connection, he must also have
convinced the Count of it, in some offstage scene.  Otherwise, why would
Vlad expect -- correctly -- that the Count would react to what looks like
an attempted-murder-by-witchcraft by arresting Chayoor?  Though that does
beg the question of why the Count didn't immediately arrest Chayoor over
the murder of Zollie, once he knew of the connection.  Perhaps he planned
to do a full investigation, but Vlad wasn't willing to wait for that and
sped matters up.
 Vlad thinks Zollie was not killed by witchcraft, because it was too
un-subtle (286-287).  But we know that the entire Merss family was killed
by witchcraft on Chayoor's orders.  There's no reason why he wouldn't
also order Zollie's death by witchcraft.  We know they are capable of
killing in that manner, as that's how they kill Chayoor.  The Coven
remains safe (at least temporarily) due to their secrecy.  The only
outsider who knows their identity is both the one who ordered the crime,
and the authority in charge of investigating it.  Killing Chayoor was
risky, but if Vlad had not interfered, they might well have maintained
their secrecy through the ensuing investigation.
 Vlad thinks Tereza was killed because she could have implicated the Guild
(Ja 259).  I'm not sure why, since it's not clear to me that she had any
incriminating knowledge in the first place.  And she did *say* she was
leaving Burz for Fenario City (Ja 56).  It would be amusing if Vlad ran
across her during his year of recovery.  If it was important that Tereza
not be allowed to talk, why would Orbahn have been left alive?

 Speaking of shaky stool-legs, there's another character who is
conspicuous by his absence: an heir to Count Saekeresh.  While there
might be one offstage, there is no mention in the text of a Countess or a
son.  There is mention that the Count uses prostitutes, which suggests
(weakly) that he has no current wife, nor is he actively seeking one. 
Eighty-Three is very old by Eastern standards.  What happens to Burz --
and the mill -- if he dies with no heir?  Or if he does have an heir, who
is it, and how will they handle things differently?  What does the Guild
think about this situation?  Perhaps the reason they think it likely that
the King would send an investigator is that the King inherits the
property in the absence of an heir.  Is this what protects the Count from
the Guild?  Is Chayoor consolidating power in order to be able to deal
with the Count's eventual successor from a position of strength?

 The King, by the way, is probably still Miklos.  He'd be about 46 years old.

 How did the Jhereg locate Vlad?  Three possibilities that I see:
* Removing his Gold Phoenix stone, even for a few moments, was enough to
get a fix on him.  This would imply that Gold Phoenix stone has a much
smaller radius of effect than Black (which protects Vlad even when resting
on his pillow).  On my next reread, I must watch for evidence about this,
one way or the other.  I don't care for this answer, as it makes Vlad seem
to be an idiot for leaving such an opening.
* They found him via witchcraft while he performed his Working.  I liked
this idea for a while, but after re-examining how Vlad pulled a similar
trick in _Jhereg_, it seems less likely.  That ritual took multiple highly
skilled witches a long time to perform, whereas Vlad was only vulnerable
for "an hour" (Ja 82).  On the other hand, it's possible that someone else
could refine the ritual Vlad came up with to be more efficient.  At the
very least, however, I believe that they must have been alerted that the
window of opportunity was open by the removal of the gold stone;
witchcraft just doesn't seem to operate on such an immediate basis.  [And
how would the Jhereg even think of such a ritual?  That part's easy.  Any
assassin researching Vlad would have talked to Daymar under some pretense
or other, and I find it entirely plausible that he would talk at length
about this "fascinating problem in interdisciplinary magic" that he once
had to solve.]
* Vlad believes that Orbahn (and thus both Guild and Coven?) can't contact
the Jhereg (Ja 239).  Given how many things he's been wrong about in the
course of this story, he could easily be wrong about this as well. When
some local witch got Vlad's name out of his head, she got a lot more also.
At minimum, she got some knowledge about Vlad's amulet.  It's not
implausible that she also got some information on *why* he wears it. 
Since the Coven/Guild clearly fears Vlad, they might well try to summon
that which Vlad himself fears, to counter him.  I find this possibility
the most satisfying of the three.

 Vlad's jhereg are attacked "When they grabbed you, Boss. As soon as they
grabbed you-" (Ja 180).  How to pull off such precise timing?  Psychic
communication of some sort, presumably.  The way most clearly available
to the villagers is that between a witch and a familiar.  Vlad spends
much of this story sending his jhereg to spy on people unnoticed -- while
neither he nor the jhereg ever noticed the small birds and cats which
must have been spying on Vlad.  This is how the witch who read his mind
must have known when to strike.
 This may also explain Vlad's failure to  notice Dahni following him (Ja
153); maybe Dahni got his information in a more indirect manner.  He
might be a witch himself, and have had his familiar follow Vlad.  He
might have hired a witch to do the job.  Heck, he might even be working
with the Coven -- a man whose loyalties are split two ways might add a
third.  Then again, Vlad was not hiding his movements; simply listening
to local gossip might suffice to "follow" him.

 Dahni calls Vlad "Lord Taltos" (Ja 129).  Who told him that name?  Vlad
appears to notice, but doesn't explicitly say so anywhere in the text. 
It's not clear whether Dahni dropped the name as a deliberate threat, or
whether it was accidental.  By this time Vlad knows that the Guild (and
presumably the Coven) know his real name, so he may think Dahni may be
working with them (which, perhaps, he is).  Dahni later claims he didn't
learn Vlad's real name from the Count (Ja 152).
 Vlad says "Dahni said that talking to me in the dark like that would give
him an edge." (Ja 199).  What Dahni *actually* said was, "I saw you
heading out there.  I thought it might give me an edge." (Ja 153).  Dahni
makes no explicit mention of darkness, or of Vlad's poor night vision
(unless it was lost somewhere in the chain of recollections and
translations between the event and the text).  Why doesn't Vlad mention
Dahni's use of his real name at this juncture?
 The more I think about it, the more I think that Dahni was collaborating
with the Guild and Coven.  This would explain all his knowledge about
Vlad, as well as his connection with the Jhereg assassin. His account of
Vlad's initial impact on Burz (Ja 151) sounds like he got it either
directly from Orbahn, or from someone else who Orbahn was in confidence
with.  I say this not because of its accuracy, but due to the slant of
its *in*accuracies.
 Let's talk a bit about Orbahn.  Practically everything the man says -- to
anyone -- is a lie.  He lies to Vlad when he says he doesn't know the
Merss family (Ja 35, 50) and when he says that he isn't "involved" in the
town very much (Ja 50).  He lies to Dahni (or whoever Dahni heard it
from) when he says that Vlad "...immediately found the representative of
the Guild..." when in fact Orbahn approached Vlad; and again when he says
Vlad "...as much as told him to his face you were going to break up the
Guild" (Ja 151). And he lies to the Guild about  what happened when he
attacked Loiosh, leading them to believe "your familiars are no more" (Ja
181) -- when it sounds from Loiosh's account as if he got away clean (Ja
180). (Tereza may well have believed that her target was dead, since
Rocza was apparently at least wounded. Ja 179.)
 Orbahn and Dahni both seem willing to work with anyone, and say whatever
they think will make them look best, regardless of truth or loyalty. 
Orbahn does seem more skilled at this behavior than Dahni, though.  Vlad
even thinks that Orbahn might see through Vlad's ruse (Ja 267).

 The Count clearly has a strong sense of personal honor.  Given his
reaction when Vlad shows up post-torture, he clearly hadn't expected or
condoned such... vigorous questioning.  Vlad expected him to react that
way, so it can't have been much of a surprise to the Guild either.  Which
makes it seem rather odd that they would choose to carry out that
questioning inside the Count's own paper mill, where he might be expected
to find out about it.  On the other hand, they clearly would have wanted
Vlad held somewhere both secure and soundproof, and a place the size of
Burz probably doesn't have may of those.

 A digression here.  I found reading _Jhegaala_ for the first time
immensely frustrating.    Vlad deliberately withholds important
information from the reader on at least ten different occasions.  The
first few are subtle, or have semi-plausible reasons, but by the second
half of the book, they become quite blatant and without excuse -- nor any
obvious motive for him to be so evasive.  The first big questions of the
story are raised within the first 67 pages: Why do people react to the
name Merss as if it were a threat? And why were the Merss farmers killed?
 While these questions seem closely related, neither is really answered. 
Vlad's one "explanation" is as follows: "The Merss family, after all, had
been, years and years ago, their [the Coven's] enemies, and now a man
they couldn't touch or investigate with witchcraft was about to make
contact with them. They didn't know what I had in mind, but it couldn't
be good, and so they acted." (Ja 294).  While this is probably true as
far as it goes, it is, to say the least, woefully inadequate as a motive
for mass murder.
 On one level, I believe that Brust just lost control of the plot, and had
Vlad keep information close to his vest to hide this fact.  I was
predisposed to think so by the plot failings of the previous book,
_Dzur_. There, two important characters swapped names halfway through,
and Vlad successfully made a deal with the Demon, despite having no
apparent way to deliver what he was offering.  When the plot of
_Jhegaala_ appeared to have even larger holes in it, I was greatly
disappointed.  I set about to patch them to the best of my ability -- but
I resent having to put so much work in to uncover/construct what should
be straightforward narrative details.  As James Nicoll once said, "I
don't mind hidden depths but I insist that there be a surface."  Steven
used to sign himself PJF, but it seems as if he has forgotten those
principles.  This saddens me.
 That said, I *did* still want to find the answers to those two big
questions, despite my frustration at not being given them up front.  On
my second reading, while taking preliminary notes for The Dragaera
Timeline, I also took note of all the places where I had questions about
the plot, or where there were intriguing nuggets of data that might
answer some questions.  There were a *lot* of these.  Taking Noish-Pa's
advice to not be distracted by shadows, I pared them away one by one,
resulting in the earlier paragraphs of this missive.  I eventually
arrived at a possible story structure that I found to be a more
satisfying explanation of events.  For simplicity's sake, I will state it
as if it were fact, though it is all highly speculative.

 Vlad spends much of this narrative withholding information from the
reader, and occasionally outright lying -- in order to protect his
family.
 What family is that, you say?  I thought they were all dead, you say? 
Nope.  Though Vlad tried to hide all the clues he could, he was narrating
to a linear recording device, and didn't have the luxury of carefully
editing his words later.  So while he does refuse to tell us the recent
history of his family as recounted by Father Noij (Ja 71), certain facts
slip through.  While interrogating the unnamed witch woman, Vlad says of
part of the Merss family, "I thought they had only left ten or fifteen
years ago." And she replies, " Oh, them. I don't think they were witches.
The just left because, well, because having the name Merss isn't easy
around here. I think they went to the City." (Ja 137).  And Zollie also
said, "Unless you mean the cousins; they moved away some years ago. I
don't know where, but probably to Fenario. The city, I mean." (Ja 58). 
So part of the Merss family moved away between about 229 and 234 PI. 
Vlad doesn't explicitly talk about them beyond these (accidental?)
references, but at the end of the story he heads to Fenario City, where
these cousins allegedly are.
 Vaski also may be referencing these cousins when he says, "There were
[other Merss] once; they've moved away to get away from -- from things."
(Ja 72).  What "things" were these?
 Something Important happened around the time these cousins left town.  I
still don't know exactly what it was, but it had both a public and a
secret aspect.  Publicly, the Guild became enemies of the Merss family. 
This becomes widely enough known that almost no one will talk about them,
for fear of angering the Guild (Ja 58).  The Guild encourages the
peasantry to believe that the Merss are evil witches, and have nothing to
do with them.  Although Vlad doesn't speak to anyone who actually does
believes that, at least two people claim that others believe it (Ja 70,
151).
 While the Guild hated the Merss family, they also clearly feared them (Ja
44).  The Merss family had some sort of ability to harm the Guild, though
they appear never to have exercised it.  Most likely, given the
corruption of the Guild, this power is in the form of a Big Secret that
the Guild doesn't want known.  (It's conceivable that their Big Secret
actually *is* some sort of powerful Black Magic or demon summoning
ability, but I doubt it.)  I think the Merss family learned something
10-15 years ago, and the Guild doesn't want it known.  Whatever this Big
Secret is, it probably involves some sort of illegal profit, since the
Guild is paranoid about the King discovering it.  The Guild are worried
about a traitor in their midst, who would sell them out to the King (Ja
188).
 Having figured out this much, I had an epiphany.  Maybe the significant
question wasn't "Why were the Merss farmers killed?" Maybe the *real*
question is, "Why were the Merss farmers *left alive* -- until Vlad
appeared?"  One presumes that the Guild didn't coincidentally acquire the
ability to do the killing at the same time Vlad happened to show up.  So
why didn't they use it earlier?  Because any such mass killing would lead
to an investigation, and such an investigation would eventually lead to
the Merss cousins in Fenario City -- who also know the Big Secret.  The
separation between the two branches of the family lets them each act as
the other's backup.
 The Guild only act when they think the Secret is about to come out
anyways.  They think Vlad has come to Burz on a mission from the King,
specifically in order to find the Big Secret, and that that is why he is
seeking the Merss farmers.  Given how poorly they've treated the Merss
family over the past few decades, they have no reason to think that the
Merss won't cooperate with an investigation.  So they have no choice but
to act, and act fast.  They need to kill all the Merss, as fast as
possible.  Not just the locals, but the ones in Fenario City as well. 
While they can't kill the city cousins immediately, if they can do it
fast enough, then their Secret may remain safe.  This is why Vlad is so
concerned both with killing the Guild and Coven leaders as fast as
possible, but in getting to Fenario City as soon as he can after that. 
His cousins are almost certainly in danger.
 Whatever this Big Secret is, it remains dangerous to know, even with the
leaders of the Burz Coven and Guild dead.  It's entirely possible that
the Merss cousins partook in the illegal profit, and would be implicated
as well if the secret came out.  And so, Vlad does his best to leave the
cousins and their Secret entirely out of his narrative.  Although he
generally exhibits extraordinary trust for "The Box" (he's already
narrated at least three books to it), that trust doesn't quite stretch to
cover his Fenarian cousins.  His lack of understanding the way things
work in Fenario has already gotten seven of his kin murdered; he's going
to be extra cautious about the few remaining survivors.  By the time he
narrates _Jhegaala_, he may have heard that the owner of "The Box" has
been traveling around asking other people to talk into the box about Vlad
(_Athyra_); Vlad would then preemptively narrate _Jhegaala_ in order to
*prevent* any such investigation in Fenario, but he would bend the
narrative to avoid drawing attention to the aspects he wished hidden. 
[So how did Vlad first meet the man with "The Box", and why does he trust
him?  My guess is that they were introduced by Sethra Lavode, which also
helps explain where parts of the _Orca_ narrative came from.]
 Does Vlad actually know the Big Secret himself?  I think he does, and
that he learned it from Zollie, very shortly before Zollie was murdered. 
Naturally, Vlad doesn't tell us of this conversation, instead inventing a
scene of maudlin drunkenness (Ja 102-103).  But the next day, speaking to
Eelie, she says, "You talked to him last night" (Ja 119), and Vlad
doesn't deny it.  Alternatively (or additionally, if each had only part
of the puzzle), he may have had an unrevealed conversation with Tereza. 
That would explain why Vlad thinks the Guild had to kill her.  For that
matter, Vlad probably got some pieces of the Secret from the questions he
was asked under torture.
 I hope Vlad got to meet some of his family and talk to them.  Maybe one
day he'll even feel safe enough to tell us about it.

Alexx

Opinions expressed are my own and not necessarily those of my employers.
alexx at panixSPAMBL@CK.com                http://www.panix.com/~alexx
"You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake."
  --Jeannette Rankin