[Dragaera] Tiassa -- Chapter the Sixth vs Epilogue -- spoiler

[Scott Schultz]

One of the really interesting things about Tiassa is that we are finally
afforded some small insight into the extent of creative license that Paarfi
is willing to take as far as the accuracy of his historical romances.
Chapter the Sixth of Special Tasks and the Epilogue are not two unrelated
events. They are two different versions of the same event; essentially the
Vladiad's version of the Fenarr story as told from the various points of
view that we've seen it told from.

At first, I was willing to write off Chapter the Sixth entirely. The problem
with that idea is that Paarfi knows too much about Vlad and his tricks and
his fighting style for it to be entirely fabricated. Someone, perhaps Vlad
himself, described that fight to Paarfi well enough for Paarfi to write a
semi-accurate description of it.

Once Lady Saruchan's relatives exit the Owl's Feet, the true accounting of
the events of that day end as well.  It's always possible that Vlad is
actually the unreliable narrator here, but there's no good reason to believe
that Vlad would lie about a basically inconsequential event while Paarfi
would tell the truth.

The question, then, is "Why the discrepancy?"

Is Paarfi simply being compact in his narrative? Has he been misled by
whatever or whoever is his source? The same source that gave a highly
accurate description of Count Szurke and his novel manner of dueling?

There's no way to know, of course. It may be that Paarfi prefers the
entertaining version, that gets the gist correct without getting all of the
details correct. It may be that Paarfi's sources lied to him or covered up
the details for their own purposes. 

It's very interesting that Paarfi has the important particulars of the
discussion between Vlad and Khaavren basically correct, albeit dressed up
with his typical poetic license. The only details really missing are the
presence of Savn and the revelation of Lady Teldra. It suggests that
Paarfi's source is an eyewitness. Since there are three Dragaerans present,
it could be any one of them, though I still tend to think that Khaavren
would have little or no interest in assisting Paarfi in documenting his life
the way he has done.

If Paarfi doesn't know about Lady Teldra (as opposed to leaving her out of
the story because he just prefers to do that) then I'd count that as
evidence that the source is someone with a reason to keep that detail
obscured. Khaavren would not seem to have any particular reason to do so.
Savn is a bit of a question mark, but it's questionable to me whether he
would even understand the concept of a Great Weapon, let alone understand
the importance of Godslayer; especially given his recovering mental state.
As far as Khaavren knew, Godslayer was just a really strong morganti weapon.
He would have no reason to hide the fact that a nefarious Eastern ex-hit man
was carrying an illegal weapon around.

It's a weak chain of arguments, but it leaves me believing that Lady
Saruchan is the most likely source for whatever research Paarfi did into the
events of Special Tasks, at least insofar as they directly involve Count
Szurke. It's an open question whether she deliberately misled him or he
wrote the events as he did because he just liked it that way. 

However, given the manner in which Lady Saruchan herself is portrayed, I
have a feeling that she misled Paarfi and gave herself a more flattering
role in the true events at the Owl's Feet while she was at it. I suspect
that one of the benefits of being an Issola is that you just naturally know
how to spin a good yarn when the need arises.

Of course, one possible interpretation of the overlap between Chapter the
Sixth and Epilogue is that Chapter the Sixth is entirely fabricated and it
never happened at all. There's some merit to the notion. Paarfi spends some
few words describing the fight between Vlad and Sara's relatives, even
saying "It appeared to be a duplicate of the fight by the river"
(paraphrased) until Khaavren joined on Vlad's side. 

(On an unrelated note, this really reminded me strongly of a scene in
Zelazny's  _A Night in the Lonesome October_ when Jack is facing the Openers
alone, and the Count drops out of nowhere, claps him on the shoulder and
says "I stand with him, to Close you out." Not suggesting they're related at
all, just that the spirit of the one scene evoked the other for me.)

It's possible that the fight at the Owl's Feet is literally a recreation of
the fight at the River, transplanted to that establishment either for the
entertainment value or for the purpose of obscuring the fact that the only
true events in that chapter are the passages referring to the corresponding
passages narrated by Vlad in Epilogue.

Per usual, attempting to get to the bottom of Paarfi's research is wont to
raise more questions than it answers.