[Dragaera] Vlad's passivity--second half

[Jerry Friedman]

--- On Tue, 10/21/08, Philip Hart <philiph at slac.stanford.edu> wrote:
> > Anyway, Aliera has often demonstrated that she'll
> fight
> > over nothing.  I feel sure she would fight someone who
> > used her soul as experimental equipment and refused to
> > stop when he was offered compensation for it.
> 
> She might be of the he's-already-been-killed-over-this
> persuasion too.

Maybe, but she seems to really like fighting.

What you and others seem to be thinking of is Aliera's
revivifying the SiG.  That strikes me as very different.
Aliera has three reasons: "'We'd killed her, hadn't
we?  That was enough humiliation.  Besides, the
Empress is a friend of hers.'

"'Oh, great,' I said.  'So now she--'

"'She won't do anything, Vlad.  There isn't anything
she /can/ do.  When we revivified her we did a
mind-probe [...]"  (/Yendi/, Chapter 17).

For the first reason, I see far more humiliation
in killing someone and revivifying her--if you
hadn't done the revivification, she'd be dead.  If
someone has his own way of coming back, it's much
less of a defeat.

The second presumably doesn't apply, though I
suppose L. could have powerful connections.

For the third, Vlad and Aliera both see a possibility
that a person who's been killed will want revenge,
and Aliera takes steps to forestall it.  We don't
know of anything being done to Loraan.  At this
point, killing him might be a logical step.

Also, from A's point of view, what L. did to her
is much worse than what the SiG did.  The surprising
thing is /Norathar/ thinks Aliera did the right thing.
But that's not directly relevant to whether Aliera
would help Vlad.  It may be indirectly, bearing on
how Dragons think.

> > wouldn't it be frustrating to kill somebody and
> see him
> > reappear?  If you're a Dragonlord.
> 
> Where does Vlad say there's nothing deadlier than
> touching
> another's GW?  _Issola_?  My operating assumption is
> that
> M didn't morgantize L on purpose because it was a
> single-combat break-in.

Could be, but Vlad would be foolish to operate on
that assumption when he can find out.  This is one
of the reasons he should talk to Morrolan.

> >> 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.
> >
> > The interaction has just been with Savn when Vlad
> > first says "Leaving?  No, it's probably too late
> for that." (Chapter 3.)
> 
> Hasn't Vlad already done the bit with the stone
> already?

He's given Savn the stone (Chapter 1), but he hasn't
cast the spell on Maener and Paener yet (Chapter 4).

> > Although he has told Savn that Loraan is
> > undead, and Loraan might kill Savn if he finds out he
> > knows that (to speculate without evidence).  But until
> > later in the book, Vlad hasn't shown a whole lot
> > of concern with innocent bystanders.
> 
> How is that?  Is it consistent with _Jhegaala_?

I think so.  He resolves to get revenge for his
relatives, despite the probability that innocent
bystanders will get killed.
 
...

> >  Morrolan and Aliera must be as famous 
> > as Kobe Bryant and Madonna.  Why doesn't their
> celebrity ever rate a  mention?
> 
> They don't spend any time around anyone who cares, or
> who would be vulgar enough to discuss the issue?

Morrolan doesn't vet his guests at CB.  He had no
way of knowing, for example, that Mellar wasn't
writing an article for /Lifestyles of the Rich
and Ostentatious/.

> > but still, I'd expect something.  Vlad meets Ric
> > in /Dzur/: "Greetings, my lord Count!  I hear
> > you've saved the Empire twice since I saw you
> > last!"
> 
> Vlad should be famous among Easterners - those who
> don't
> think saving the Empire at the time of _Phoenix_, which
> is all Ric should know about, was a bad idea.

In fact, a waiter at Valabar's knew something about
him some unspecified time before /Dzur/ (Chapter 11,
beginning).  So I should say I'd expect more.
...
 
> >> If Sethra cares, why doesn't she know?  (Ditto
> Aliera
> >> et al.) [...]
> >
> > That's a very interesting question [...]
> 
> Maybe the answer is that they all figure L knows he'll
> be chopped into small undead slivers then killed if
> he messes with V.

Could be, though in that case they figure wrong. 

> >> 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.
> >
> > To me that's a reason not to take on a foe you can
> > walk or teleport away from.
> 
> You're not Vlad any more than I am, though.  Vlad's
> a guy who spends
> years tramping around miserably in the wilderness because
> he won't
> risk or accept getting trivial help from his friends the
> highly-
> skilled doctor, the best wizard in the empire, and on and
> on.

I'm not sure what you mean by this.  Vlad has been
perfectly willing to get help from them, in /Phoenix/,
for example.  At the time /Athyra/ takes place, he's
not willing to hide out at Castle Black because "You
know I won't do that to Morrolan"  (/Jhegaala/,
Chapter 12).  I assume he meets a repetition of
/Jhereg/, though how the Organization will figure out
he's there, unless he does peasant dances at the
party, I don't know.  But I see no reason to think
Morrolan's not allowed to help him kill Loraan.

Jerry Friedman