[Dragaera] The New Palace

[Philip Hart]

On Wed, 2 Jun 2010, Jerry Friedman wrote:

> ----- Original Message ----
>
> From: Philip Hart <philiph at slac.stanford.edu>
>
>> I don't want to argue at all strenuously about this, since it doesn't 
>> matter to me, but trying to argue away bows and arrows seems to get us 
>> caught up in hacks.  A spell that can indiscriminately break horn bows 
>> (wooden crossbows) can kill soldiers (destroy supply wagons).  Any 
>> field that can stop javelins or spears can stop swords.
>
> Why not have the spell break strings instead of horn (or yew or osage 
> orange or spiny orange) bows?  Maybe the bow-breaking spell doesn't work 
> on people.  Maybe the wood-breaking spell depends on the bowyer's or 
> soldier's intention to use the object as a weapon, so it doesn't work on 
> supply wagons (unless the driver tries to run someone over).  Maybe the 
> force field is disrupted by continued application of force on the 
> weapon, or by sufficient steel, or by the swordsman's hand.  Maybe the 
> air elementals can stop javelins and arrows but refuse to work on swords 
> wielded by someone with his or her feet on terra firma (or on the floor 
> of a floating castle).  There can always be an explanation.

These are all in my view hacks, esp. in view of what we have seen about 
sorcery in the Texts.  No armor makes sense - a mind-reading spell that 
works on inanimate object doesn't.  Maybe witchcraft, if it were made 
industrial, would be able to make the fine distinctions you need, but one 
still would have to come up with a reason why the hair-string-breaking 
spell doesn't work on blood vessel walls.

Note I'm using "hack" in the sense of, "Somthing that might work once, or 
briefly, but can't be expected to maintain value [here, explanatory power] 
in the real world".

Thanks for introducing me to "bowyer" by the way.  I see in wikiing it 
that the best bows in the 1500s could shoot an arrow around 800 m.


> Anyway, it seems to me there are science-fiction and even stories where 
> you can use arguments like that and some where you can't.  Steven's 
> stories strike me as the second kind.  He does justify some Cool Stuff, 
> but he's made it clear that all the justification he needs is Coolness.

Hence why I don't care about this.  (Though I do think the above 
overstates the claimed lack of interest in consistent worldbuilding 
in Dragaera.  Recall the conversation on the list about the effect of 
the Enclouding on agriculture - on the one hand the Cycle knows that 
plants can live on orange light, on the other there would be less light 
overall and less orange too - but e.g. no subsequent comment in Paarfi 
about sorcerous improvements in fertilizer.  Not having bows and arrows 
however seems a bit different to me - less organic to the world.)