[Dragaera] Vlad

[Howard Brazee]

On 2/5/2010 2:46 PM, Konrad Gaertner wrote:
> J C wrote:
>    
>> Vlad is talking about killing people, without euphemism or
>> dissembling, to a recording device.
>>
>> To say that this flies in the face of all of his acquired reflexes is
>> to understate the point rather a little.
>>      
> We're told in _Athyra_ "he was able to convince me no one would hear
> about it."
>    

Which I don't believe unless the convincing was done by magic.    Also, 
Vlad's behavior and thoughts don't match what he would be doing - unless 
by magic he was able to forget about that box.    But most 1st person 
novels don't really make sense that a real person is telling that story 
like that.

But, as with the Dragaeran long life spans, it isn't in the books to 
make sense - it's in the book (IMHO), to be fun.   Steve appears to be 
having fun with it, and I certainly have fun with it.

>    
>> "Writing" one's memoirs is very much the act of a person in advanced
>> age---in this case age being relative to the time of one's death as
>> opposed to the time of birth.  Vlad is presumably going to die very
>> soon, or is at least feeling a little maudlin.
>>      
> We're told in _Dragon_ that Vlad narrated _Taltos_ right after the
> events happened.
>
>    
Yep, it is obvious that the narrative isn't written after the action of 
the 18 books.