[Dragaera] _Iorich_ random brief comments (spoilers!)

[Philip Hart]

On Thu, 4 Feb 2010, Jerry Friedman wrote:

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> Some random brief comments:
>
>> Pg. 15: Fill in the blank.  I wonder if we're meant to be
>> able to guess what comment Vlad answers - something like,
>> "Easterners with jheregs are !$!#$@#$%s" I guess.
> ...
>
> Or just "@*&^ your mother, you son of a whore" or "Eat
> #$(% and die."  Or as one of Hemingway's heroes put it,
> "Unprint thyself".

My point was that the theme of the intro is, "Learn from your mistakes", 
more or less, and Vlad says it in reply to the comment.  This is more like 
something you could imagine Noish-pa saying than early angry Vlad.


> Pg. 26 - "Given what the ugly thing is famous for" - what's this?
> I imagine that the symbolism of looking over one's shoulder involves not
> forgetting about the past, that is, working for justice.
> ...
>
> Speaking of the above, these suppressed facts are
> usually sexual (in real conversation), right?  I suspect
> the snout has some use in mating, and the iorich's turning
> it toward its own hindquarters brings up incongruous
> thoughts.

Hmm, interesting.

>
>> Pg. 113/4 In Dragaeran "Hawk" is something like "raptor", of
>> which there are various sorts named in Fenarian.  It's odd
>> to have a house named after something vague.
>
> Maybe the original Hawks got genes from more than one
> species.

I would naively guess that the difference in genes among various members 
of a - well, it's actually totally not clear if we're talking order here 
or genus or what.  There are 50 hawk species, maybe Vlad said, this is 
what your great-grandfather would call a sparrowhawk (or a grey goshawk 
or whatever).


>
> Pg. 116 - "I've asked myself the same question" - I'm still asking that...
>
> They're too well protected and they're watching for it?

Aliera, Sethra (or the Necromancer), and Vlad could find and eliminate 
them all in an afternoon, I should think.  Not to mention Mario.


> Their replacements will just have more reason to kill Vlad?

Would they know it was him?  Anyway, the idea would be to create enough 
disruption that the Jhereg would take a few decades to reorganize.
Vlad would leave a few faked clues causing dissension among the 
lieutenants.


> It appears to take a /lot/ of killing to discourage the Jhereg--for 
> instance, they're willing to start a Dragon-Jhereg war when they're at 
> the bottom of the Cycle.

True, but it's hard to stop a war if the other guy doesn't want to.  I 
still think the organization can let Vlad go without damage (esp. compared 
to the damage he can do them).  The next council formed after Vlad dies 
peacefully in his bed at age three score and ten will just ____ on the rep 
of the old council.