[Dragaera] _Iorich_ plot criticism (spoilers!)

[Miguel Aja]

I might have missed or misremembered something, but I thought in the end
what got Aliera released was an accusation of conspiracy against the Jhereg,
for suggesting her arrest. That would be backed by the testimony of the Orb.
Pains were also taken for the Jhereg representative not to be able to walk
in and interfere with this, right?

Given than the Orb is unquestionably truthful, it had to be the Jhereg's
machinations that got her in jail.

I suppose there is still room for the Empress knowing better and avoiding
the Orb being interrogated and revealing otherwise by just dropping the
whole thing off, of course.

Cheers,
Miguel

2010/1/18 Alexx Kay <alexx at panix.com>

>
>
> > /Phoenix/ is all about what happens when Verra makes a bad decision to
> > start a war with Greenaere, IIRC for political reasons. /Iorich/ is
> > all about what happens when Zerika makes a bad decision to essentially
> > frame Aliera, again for political reasons. In neither is Vlad
> > particularly strategically brilliant in piecing together WHY things
> > are happening, but at least in /Iorich/ his final, tactical, deduction
> > makes up for it. If you want to draw a moral from either it would
> > probably be that power corrupts, and that goddesses and empresses
> > don't stop to count the cost when they're in the mood to sacrifice
> > some pawns. (Or at least, not in the Dragaeran Empire they don't.)
>
> Funny you should bring up _Phoenix_.  I just reread the section in
> _Iorich_ where Zerika talks about human sacrifice.  I (and most of us
> apparently) had at first assumed that the main thrust of that discussion
> was meant to be "sometimes people have to be sacrificed".  But shortly
> before being interrupted, she says that the practice of human sacrifice
> was stopped specifically because the gods didn't like it.  Maybe it was
> actually *Verra's* idea to arrest Aliera.  It wouldn't be the first time
> she'd made a poor-in-hindsight piece of political interference.
>
>