[Dragaera] Vlads blood

[Jerry Friedman]

--- On Mon, 5/19/08, Mark Mandel <cracksandshards at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: Mark Mandel <cracksandshards at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Dragaera] Vlads blood
> To: "Jon Lincicum" <lincicum at comcast.net>
> Cc: dragaera at dragaera.info
> Date: Monday, May 19, 2008, 10:29 PM
> OK, this looks like the time to throw in my personal WAG.
> Citations and
> sources are left as an exercise for the reader as a
> convenience for the
> tired writer.

Heh.
 
[snip things I agree with]

> 3. Although Dragaerans are bigger and stronger than
> Easterners, and live
> fifty times as long, every Dragaeran is constrained by the
> genes of gya's
> House (or House(s), in the case of crossbreeds) and
> *cannot* act otherwise.
> This implies that Dragaerans are LESS than human in some
> real and important sense.

Unless we're constrained by our genes somehow.  More to the
point, I don't see any evidence of constraint.  The House
we know best is the Dragon, and obviously Dragons can't
scheme, lie, cheat, or steal, unless it would lead to Cool
Stuff.

> 4. The Vladiad is to comprise* nineteen books: *Taltos*
> (#4), *The Final
> Contract *(#19), and one for each of the Houses. Each of
> what we might call
> "the House books" has centered around the title
> House, or a member or
> members of it; and in each, Vlad has learned or acquired
> some characteristics of that House. 
...
> In *Athyra* Savn reminds Vlad of what he'd said
> about Athyra's attitude toward other people, and Vlad
> realizes with some
> shame that that's how he's been using Savn. And so on.

The /Athyra/ example shows that Vlad can, instead of learning
characteristics of the House, recognize them in himself and
reject them.  I'd say he /confronts/ characteristics of each
House.

Is being willing to sacrifice oneself for one's country a
characteristic of Phoenixes?  (Early in their careers.)

> * or "to consist of", but not "to be
> comprised of". No way, no how.

I do myself the honor of praising without reservation the
statement that you have just made.
 
> 5. There is reason to think that Vlad may also have divine
> blood: that his
> mother (whom his father spoke of seldom and called
> "that witch") may have been Verra.

Hm.

> 6. As has been pointed out upthread, Vlad has done a
> helluvalot more than
> any Easterner before him (and most Dragaerans).

Any Easterner we know of.  There are 200,000 years of history,
of which we know almost none even in the Empire.  Maybe somebody
in Catalonio came up with Special and General Relativity, wrote
and composed operas that would change Vlad's mind about music,
and killed three Jenoine with plain steel.
 
> 7. I suspect that Vlad is becoming something MORE than
> human (in either
> sense of human):
>  * an Easterner who is the sum of (original/Easterner/true)
> humanness PLUS
> all the Dragaeran House capabilities PLUS something of
> divinity, rather than
> either
>  * unaugmented human, like normal Easterners, 

Noting in answer to Frieda's question that at least some normal
Easterners can do witchcraft, but compared to us they're
probably augmented.

> or
> * human + lifespan + size + House genes MINUS flexibility
> and full
> capacity, like Dragaerans

Or just a run-of-the-mill god?

Jerry Friedman