[Dragaera] Vlad's passivity--getting long

[Alexx Kay]

Jerry Friedman:
> --- On Sun, 10/19/08, Philip Hart <philiph at slac.stanford.edu> wrote:
>> 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:

> And what could his plan possibly be?  If Blackwand
> failed, how can he hope to succeed?

I posit that Blackwand did *not* fail.  Although Vlad did not understand
this at the time of _Taltos_, he learned later that Morrolan is quite
capable of preventing BW from destroying souls in combat.

>> I would guess that Morrolan, having killed Loraan once,
>> considers himself satisfied.
>
> Maybe not if Loraan is a threat (although maybe).  And
> wouldn't it be frustrating to kill somebody and see him
> reappear?  If you're a Dragonlord.

Well, see the end of _Yendi_.  Aliera kills TSiG, then revivifies her. 
Sethra inflicts a punishment on StY that, while subjectively arduous, only
keeps her away from court for a week.  Dragons do insist on defeating
their enemies decisively, but they don't seem to require that decisiveness
to be permanent.

(I wonder if Lord Fornia got revivified?)

> The interaction has just been with Savn when Vlad first
> says "Leaving?  No, it's probably too late for that."
> (Chapter 3.)  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.
>
> Why does Vlad say it's too late?  That's what I don't
> understand.

I still hold that it's a point of honor with him.  He promised Reins
safety from retribution, and he feels responsible.

> Morrolan and Aliera must be as
> famous as Kobe Bryant and Madonna.  Why doesn't
> their celebrity ever rate a mention?  And after
> /Taltos/, more so after /Phoenix/, even more after
> /Issola/, Vlad must be pretty famous too.  Are the
> events of /Taltos/ and /Issola/ secret?
>
> Of course the "psapparazzi" wouldn't dare take
> psiprints of any of these three without permission,

We haven't heard of anything like a First Amendment in the Empire.  And I
*think* we haven't heard of any 'respectable' newspapers.  Kelly's people
produce pamphlets about the news, and there's the underground newspaper in
_Orca_.  But neither of those seem to expect that they have any legal
standing whatsoever.  Given what we've seen of the culture, I daresay that
the response of 'celebrities' to scandal is likely to be, not lawsuits,
but, at best, duels; at worst, hiring thugs to burn down the press and
beat up/kill the owner.

> 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!"

Ric might conceivably have heard that Vlad got awarded an Imperial Title. 
But I'm pretty sure the ceremony didn't specify what, precisely, he got it
*for* :-)  And I expect that the events of _Issola_ are as Top Secret as
it is possible to make them.

>> 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?
>
> That's a very interesting question, which I'd been
> wondering about from a slightly different point of
> view.  M. might think Loraan's heirs would be
> interested in revenge and might want to keep an eye
> on who moves into his manor and keep.  All three might
> have various ways of knowing.  If they do know, they
> might be safe (certainly Sethra) or think it beneath
> their dignity to worry, but why haven't they warned
> Vlad?  He doesn't have a GW.  And Loraan might very
> well want revenge on Vlad and want Spellbreaker back
> (as we find out he does).

By the end of _Taltos_, M, A, and S all owe Vlad a big favor, but they're
not exactly 'friends' yet.  And even after they become friends, Vlad is
still surprised by Aliera's revivification of TSiG.  It's quite possible
that they revivified Loraan themselves, and just neglected to tell Vlad
about it since it was a matter of 'standard procedure' in conflicts among
the nobility.  (Of course, that raises the question of how/when he became
undead...)

Alexx

"That is not dead which wears the rhino's hide,
 And with strange numbness even Dukes get fried."
      -- Franz Joder von Joderhuebel