[Dragaera] Vallista, Phoenix, and Mario (minor Dzur spoilers)

[Jose Marquez]

Scott Crain wrote:
> Finally, Mario.  In FHYA, he's a young (and beautiful) Jhereg assassin; another five hundred years later, he's a friendly old man at 2500 years.  I cannot, in good conscience, link these two in my head, which is why I defy Steve's statement that there are no more people masquerading as other people out there.  -I- think Kragar IS Mario, instead of just his contact; Aliera acts towards Kragar the way she does in order to preserve his cover, while Morrolan just doesn't know -- and perhaps inadvertently helped Kragar set up the cover by 'kicking him out'.  Or whatever.  The Mario Vlad meets in Valabar's is, I think, the 'public face' Kragar uses, perhaps keeping in close psychic contact with him during meets and the like.  Granted, I may be wrong; I probably am.  But really, it is -such- an elegant setup...
>   

My take is this: Mario is a skilled assassin that managed, by being in 
the right place at the right time, to figure out how to get around the 
Orb and assassinate the Emperor. He wasn't really supposed to succeed; 
the fact that he did made him a legend. Because he is a good assassin, 
he is able to get in and out of places undetected (or at least 
unremarked), based in my mind on a great facility with disguise, perhaps 
even sorcery-aided. For a public meeting with another assassin who, 
Aliera notwithstanding, he has no reason to trust, I would presume he'd 
make damned sure he'd be in disguise. Disguised as an elderly Dragaeran 
who nobody would suspect is the famous Mario.

My alternate theory is that it took Mario most of a lifetime (1500 - 
2000 years) to return to Dragaera from wherever he was actually 
teleported by Sethra at the end of FHYA, assuming that he is *not* in 
disguise. I think it makes far more sense for him to be in disguise and 
to be as honest in his reactions in Dzur as we saw in FHYA, where he 
doesn't recognize the terms "Organization" or "Bitch Patrol", terms 
Kragar would know. I know this is even thinner conjecture, but if Mario 
*were* Kragar, there would have been no reason for him pretend not to 
know what the "Organization" or "Bitch Patrol" are, two things that Vlad 
notices enough to mention.

Jose

-- 
Jose Marquez             | There are 10 types of people in
jhereg69 at earthlink.net   | the world: those who understand
http://www.hackwater.com | binary, and those who don't.