[Dragaera] Vlad's passivity

[Philip Hart]

On Sat, 18 Oct 2008, Jerry Friedman wrote:

> --- On Thu, 10/16/08, Philip Hart <philiph at slac.stanford.edu> wrote:
>
> On Thu, 16 Oct 2008, Jerry Friedman wrote:
>
>>> The way I read it, the murder of Reins and the attempts
>>> on Vlad's life reveal that Vlad's in danger from Loraan,
>>> so he decides he'll have to kill Loraan sooner or later.
>>> Then for reasons I don't understand, he decides it should
>>> be sooner.
>
>> Vlad doesn't have anything to do with his life at the moment.
>> And he's likely to be killed at any time the Jhereg find him.
>> So there's not much to be gained by waiting.
>
> I see a lot to gain.  Loraan won't be quite so prepared
> if he doesn't know Vlad's in the area.

How is Vlad going to get into the area without Loraan knowing it?


>  In particular, Ishtvan and his knife probably won't be around.

Sure, he'll be pursuing Vlad as he walks away from the area.


>  Also, Vlad can have time to plan in relative safety and time to 
> amass whatever he needs.

He needs a GW and a bazooka.  That or lots of luck and a destiny,
which he already has.


> (Loraan can also do that, but he's probably done a lot already
> and reached the point of diminishing returns.)

Who knows?  Maybe he set a desultory trap but once Vlad walks away
he'll pull out all the stops.  Permanent teleport blocks, for example.

>
> Most important, Vlad can get help.

How?

> I imagine Aliera would be interested in getting revenge on Loraan.

Why would she care?  Loraan didn't know it was her soul, presumably.
And what was he going to do with her soul otherwise that Aliera
would thank him for - put it in an animated corpse?


> Morrolan might also be interested in finishing the job
> and preventing Loraan from getting revenge on /him/.

I would guess that Morrolan, having killed Loraan once,
considers himself satisfied.


> (We don't see any sign that Vlad thinks about warning
> Morrolan.  He could ask Savn to send a letter by the
> Imperial Post, maybe.)

If I'm Loraan, the second thing I'd do when Vlad splits
is to call in all the villagers and threaten/torture/mindprobe
them.  Vlad has I think left pretty solid clues that Savn's
family has interacted with him - if he goes now, they get
eaten or worse.

(Incidentally, I sort of doubt M reads mail from Teckla.  Maybe
if the return address is Vlad Taltos, Wilderness.)


> Even Sethra might be interested.

If Sethra cares, why doesn't she know?  (Ditto Aliera et al.)
Loraan hasn't I suspect made any efforts to disguise the fact
that he's still around (in whatever sense that is).  It's been
a few years and nobody bothered to tell A, M, or S that L, who's
a leading Athyra and as you note of interest to them, managed
to survive a pretty high-profile attack?


Anyway, my point was that walking away means quite likely giving
up on attacking Loraan, because Vlad has no future.  The Jhereg
are going to kill him, or a bandit will, or some root he trips over,
or some other mess he wanders into.  He's already running from
one formidable foe - the evil of the day is sufficient.