[Dragaera] The Desecrator [spoilers]

[Maximilian Wilson]

On Thu, Mar 3, 2011 at 12:45 PM, Scott Schultz <scott at cjhunter.com> wrote:
> My only (small) quibble with the story is that the very first mention of
> Telnan anywhere is an off-hand remark about Great Weapons, where Sethra
> mentions along the lines of "then there's Telnan who doesn't even know he
> has a Great Weapon...". This was in Dragon, I believe, so Dzur was a bit
> later on.
>
> If this is Telnan's "introduction" to Nightslayer then he'd have to be
> completely ignorant about Great Weapons in order to fail to realize the
> nature of Nightslayer. Then again, he does seem like he might be the sort
> who could say "Oh, I guess I never really thought about it" and make it
> sound plausible.

I believe you're thinking of this (Issola, p41):

I nodded. "The Great Weapons were created to destroy the gods, but now
they're being used to defend the gods. Cute."
"Yes. We who carry the Great Weapons are the appointed of the
gods--even of those of us who, like Zungaron--"
"Who?"
"Never mind. Even those of us who only have one by accident and have
not the least clue what it is for, or what to do with it. [snip]"

I don't see anything in the story which is incompatible with this
information, if we take Sethra at face value and assume that the
"accident" was Zungaron's original acquisition of Nightslayer and not
its recovery in this story (which was very much not an accident).
Zungaron has no idea what to do with Nightslayer, he just likes to
randomly kill people with it. I'll bear this in mind next time I
re-read /Dzur/. He's not annoyed because he's being denied a heroic
death, he's being annoyed because he doesn't get to kill anyone. :)

-Max

-- 
Be pretty if you are,
Be witty if you can,
But be cheerful if it kills you.

If you're so evil, eat this kitten!