[Dragaera] *slaps head about Tukko* *AGYAR SPOILERS*

[Jerry Friedman]

--- On Tue, 10/14/08, Philip Hart <philiph at slac.stanford.edu> wrote:
> Also I don't
> exactly recall if there is a differentiation between
> "vampire" and 
> "undead".  Certainly the Necromancer is the
> latter but I don't think
> the former.  Loraan never offers to drink Vlad's blood
> - never 
> threatens to drink from Savn - and L&V don't think
> of him in those terms that I recall.

In addition to what other people have said, there's
this from /Athyra/, Chapter 6:

"Loraan, of course.  I mean, Baron Smallcliff.  He is a
necromancer.  Moreover, he is undead himself, which
proves that he is a skilled necromancer, if I hadn't
known it before."

"Undead?  You want me to believe His Lordship is a
vampire?"

"A vampire?  Hmmm.  Maybe.  Do you know of any cases of
mysterious death, blood drained, all that?"

Apparently being a vampire is only one of the
possibilities for the undead (or so Vlad believes).

Why does being undead prove he's a skilled necromancer?
Maybe because otherwise, Blackwand would have destroyed
his soul.

On a lighter note, here's a suspicious quotation from
Chapter 3:

"The important thing isn't how he survived; the
important thing is what he knows.  Aye, what he knows,
and what he's doing about it."

Vlad doesn't normally say "Aye".  Could there be a
connection to /Hamlet/?  I searched through it for
"Ay", "Aye", and "eye" and nothing jumped out.
There are no incidences of "what he knows".

(I did finally figure out one reason /Hamlet/ is
appropriate, though.  Mark, maybe you could title
that "Shard" section "The Hamlet of Smallcliff", if
we find enough of the allusions to warrant a section
title.)

Jerry Friedman