[Dragaera] Is Kelly foolish?

[Louis Eastman]

>
> ________________________________
>
> From: Louis Eastman almagaiz at gmail.com
>
> (And Adron says in Chapter 33 (I think) of FHYA that he, unlike
> Tortaalik, would
> use the Orb in the battle.)
>
> > Also, Kana can't use sorcery against the Empire when he's rebelling.
> Adron
> > used at least Pre-Empire sorcery, but I can't confirm if he had regular
> > sorcery or not.
>
> There's a hint in Ch. 33: when the Orb is disabled and the Emperor is
> killed,
> Adron is described as feeling the same thing as Tazendra, Roila Lavode, and
> the
> other sorcerers around.  I'd imagine that having or not having a link
> to the Orb
> would make a difference to those feelings.
>
> Yes, after the interregnum, people had to be loyal to the Empire to get a
> link.
> But I don't see any reason to think disloyalty breaks the link once it's
> made.
> No one ever mentions that possibility in FHYA, LoCB, SL, or /Phoenix/, or
> anywhere else that I remember.  And I still think Loraan's conversation
> with
> Habil is clear.  They both expect he can use the Orb while betraying the
> Empire.
>

My point would be that A) why isn't their link severable if he has one, and
B) that aside, if whomever holds the Orb can fry the mind of whomever is
linked to the Orb, Tortie would've cooked his brain like Valabar's fish. So
either Adron didn't have a link, and sensed something was wrong via his
spell, or that he had a link and Tortaalik passed up an opportunity to crush
him, which I doubt he would've done. Again, we have to doubt everything
Paarfi says- for all we know he and his men did lose their link.

>
> > Additionally, Dragon tells us a lot about combat sorcery, that most
> battles
> > rely on each side's sorcerers preventing the other side from using it on
> > them, and throwing whatever else they can into the fray. It's also
> mentioned
> > that generally you can expect a Dragonlord to know a few offensive spells
> to
> > use in battle. The book explicitly says that without the other side
> > stalemating each other you get devastation. I doubt any of Kelly's
> > revolutionaries are sorcerously adept as a Dragon would be.
>
> I doubt it too, but for all we know, a not especially effective sorcerous
> defense might be enough for the advantage of numbers to tell.
>
> As things went, the insurgents were winning, and it was apparently the Orca
> that
> decided things--sailors let the troops land, and the Orca were the ones
> mowing
> people down (as far as Vlad knows).  So sorcery didn't seem to have much to
> do
> with it.
>
> What we don't know is why/how they were winning. Were they simply swarming
with numbers? Did the Guard get caught off Guard? Did they have the aid of
trained fighters? I think the most likely reason is that Zerika hesitated to
crush them and if the sailors hadn't changed sides, the Cycle would've
changed and Norathar would've crushed them. All that aside, Zerika wasn't
willing to use the Orb. If she had, battle over, game Imperium.