[Dragaera] [Orca spoiler] Rereading Taltos...

[Steve Rapaport]

Hey, I just re-read Taltos and Jhereg.  Steve is *not* just making this
stuff up as he goes along.

Orca spoiler mentions here.

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I was amazed, especially in Taltos, at the number of clear hints at Kiera's
identity.  Not only was Steve planning this from the start, he left clues
for us.  Loiosh wonders if he's met Sethra before, Vlad notices that Kiera's
eyes are really old (twice), Kiera shows up in Ferenc's coincidentally
knowing stuff that only Sethra should know, (and Vlad later realizes that
her presence there was no coincidence, but doesn't follow through on why she
knows all that...)

And Kiera's voice is described as low and velvety, just a couple pages
before Sethra's is described as low and silky.

Also, going through those two books again it becomes clearer in retrospect
just how much the young Vlad depends on Kiera, and how closely she's
watching and guiding him.  She really is the mom he never had, not just a
friend who drops by a lot.   Sethra is taking more than a passing interest
in this young soul, and she obviously knows who he has been, right from the
start.

Sethra's later remark (in Issola, I think) about how what Vlad has been
"trained for" starts to make a lot more sense now too.   What strikes me now
is that when I read Taltos and Jhereg the first time, I'd never had the
impression that Kiera was manipulating young Vlad's life.  She just seems to
drop by once in a while. Rereading it now, she seems to be pretty much in
total control at the start.  I expect Vlad goes through a similar
re-evaluation at some point, or will.






-- 
\Steve