[Dragaera] Is Kelly foolish?

[Scott Schultz]

There's another factor here, in regards to lifting up Easterners - spending 100 years to train to be a competent sorcerer is nothing at all to a Dragaeran, but it's more than a lifetime for most Easterners. It may be that Easterners simply don't have the lifespan required to train in anything more than the simplest schools of sorcery. Hence, you'll never see an Eastern Wizard. (Though Laszlo appears to have figured out a way around that problem.)

Vlad's own mastery of sorcery is pretty basic. He likes to pretend that the only real benefit it's brought to his life is that he always knows what time it is. (Which, now that I think about it, is sort of an interesting irony given that the Gods never seem to know what time it is without consulting the Cycle.) I suppose that if he had to drink his wine warm or empty his chamberpot that he might feel differently.

This raises the point I was making, though. Sorcery offers him a few comforts and conveniences, but it didn't alter his circumstances appreciably. He was still a kid working in a restaurant and, later, running a restaurant in South Adrilankha. If every Easterner could sorcerously make his life more comfortable, it would not change the fact that they were Easterners in South Adrilankha. Their lives would be pretty much the same as they are now. Vlad's circumstances improved as a result of his joining the Organization and achieving a certain amount of respect and notoriety thereby. Sorcery had little to no influence on his lot in life.

The Kelly's of the world would not be made any happier if every one of their constituents were taught the basics of sorcery. Never mind that Vlad is pretty sharp as far as these things go but he still has only the most basic understanding of the science of sorcery. There's no way to say that everyone would be as competent as Vlad or would have the basic skillset at all. Vlad also likes to pretend that sorcery is a matter of arithmetic: A + B = C. Maybe that's how his teacher presented it to him, since he was just giving basics to some kid to earn a few orbs. (One wonders what sort of teacher was willing to teach an Easterner kid, and a Jherg at that.) Savn's training appeared to be quite different from that school of thought, which is to be expected given that he was training to be a healer, but it shows that there's probably more to sorcery once you get past gross physical effects and into areas where fine control is required.

In other words, teaching Easterners and Teckla sorcery doesn't imply that their daily lives are going to change appreciably. House Teckla and "House Easterner" have their places and that's that. Individuals such as Vlad and Paresh might change their circumstances but the House as a whole has its place in the Empire and nothing really ever changes that. Vlad has all of these powerful Dragaeran friends, some of whom are quite progressive in their attitudes towards him and Cawti. Their attitudes towards Easterners as a group, though, are pretty much the same as everyone else.

IMO, educating the Easterners to do magic isn't going to change that in any meaningful way or make the Easterners any happier to be the downtrodden underclass who can whisk away the contents of their chamberpots instead of emptying them into the sewers. South Adrilankha might smell sweeter (or at least less foul, once you get away from the tanneries) but otherwise it will be no different than it is today.