[Dragaera] Jhegaala *Spoilers*

[Jon Lincicum]

Okay. Just finished (My copy only arrived from Amazon yesterday) so 
here's some remarks below the space.

(BTW: I'd really like to thank everyone for being considerate with the 
use of unrevealing subject lines and using spoiler space at the top of 
messages. For the last few days this has been much appreciated by me, 
and I hope to encourage everyone to keep this up for the benefit of 
those who are not yet finished reading the story. Thank you one and all.)

Bryan Newell wrote:
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> Either Steve got confused, or Vlad missed a big clue that something was
> amiss:  when Vlad first meets Dahni, Dahni refers to him as "Lord Taltos"
> and Vlad doesn't bat an eye (page 129).  At this point in the story, Vlad
> thinks only the Guild and "whatever witch or witches had pulled it from my
> mind" (page 122) know his true identity.  Contrast with Vlad's reaction on
> page 187 when he finds out yet another person knows his true identity.
>   
At this point, Vlad doesn't know who Dahni is really working for. The 
way I read it, Vlad assumes (incorrectly) that Dahni is representing the 
Guild. He already suspects the Guild had the Merss family killed--so his 
immediate reaction to this revelation is "Turn and walk away." This 
seems to have not been a simple slip-up on Dahni's part, since two 
sentences earlier he had called him "Lord Merss". Dahni dropped the 
Taltos name quite deliberately.

Later on, Vlad may have either forgotten the comment, and its 
significance, or if you want to give Vlad more credit, he was simply 
unsure of how much the Count and the Guild were really cooperating with 
one another. Perhaps the Guild told the Count, and the Count told Dahni?

Of course, we find out later that the real reason Dahni knows his name 
is likely the Jhereg assassin told him.

My belief is that this was a deliberate clue for the reader on the part 
of SKZB.
> Why Rocza's sudden affection/protectiveness towards Vlad?  Is it related to
> Cawti's pregnancy?  And why does Vlad say that discovering she was
> affectionate towards him was "agreeably disappointing" (page 217)?
>   
I think the idea that this had anything to do with Cawti's pregnancy may 
be a bit of a stretch. I see this development as just being the fact 
that ever since /Jhereg/, Cawti had been a bit closer to Rocza than Vlad 
was, and now that Cawti wasn't around anymore, Vlad was only just 
starting to take greater notice of Rocza. This relationship has 
certainly blossomed by the time we get to the events of /Athyra/.

> "What's time to a kethna?  Sorry, private joke."  Did anyone here get this
> joke?
>   

Ever see a pig who was impatient to get on with his function in life? 
Sat watching the clock, counting down the hours, waiting for the big 
event? That's how I read this line, anyway. Kethna exist to be eaten. If 
that's your lot in life, you're not going to sit watching the clock all 
day.

On a side note, I laughed quite heartily at the "Pig Eatin's" 
references. If someone is so inclined, I'm certain we could go through 
the list archives for some of Chica's posts about a year ago, and pin 
down the exact date those chapters were originally written. Or not.
 
Good read. I find it quite amusing that the one Dragaeran character in 
the entire story (the assassin) only ever appears offstage. That's 
certainly a first for a Vlad novel.

Majikjon