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

[Philip Hart]

On Tue, 19 Apr 2011, Scott Schultz wrote:

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>>>> Maybe the tiassa is Paarfi's source.
>>
>>> I doubt it acted as a source for Paarfi, like an oracle or some such.
>>> More likely it gave him literary insight that  he might not have had
>>> without its influence.
>
>> Beyond Occam, why?  It was present, or had access to the people involved,
> and seems to have
>> some agency, and certainly can read and write people's brains.  Maybe it's
> like a GW and
>> contains someone's soul.  More likely, as is claimed by its maker, it has a
> good chunk of a god in it.
>
> I think Occam is a pretty good reason, given that it dispenses with
> unverifiable speculation. You can speculate about what effect a piece of a
> God has in its composition, but unfounded speculation is all it is. The
> effects of the Tiassa when it is in proximity to an artist are facts,
> insofar as any of the story can be said to be factual.

These "facts" are I think entirely speculative.

> Devera tells us in not so many words that artists who own the Tiassa become
> masters of their craft.

Does she?  And does she say it's the tiassa (note the lowercase) at work? 
And does she say it's not due to information in the tiassa?

> Paarfi  IS an acknowledged master of his craft.

Acknowledged by who?  He's popular, certainly.


> His acquisition of the Tiassa almost certainly corresponds with his rise 
> to fame as an author.

It's naively hundreds of years.

> This is entirely consistent with Devera's description of Chuvin and
> Pindua's seemingly passive stewardships of the Tiassa. I don't see the need
> to invent other active uses of the Tiassa by its owner without some evidence
> showing those uses.

It provides a simple solution to a difficult problem - how does Paarfi 
know what he writes about?  It's acute wrt Vlad, who's likely dead at the 
time Paarfi's writing (in the simplest scenario).


> In fact, there's this - Thanks to Devera, the Silver Tiassa is not pursuing
> a strictly linear path through time. Since Paarfi has stewardship  of the
> Tiassa before Vlad becomes its steward

I think this is wrong.

> Paarfi could NOT have used any
> stored knowledge in the Tiassa to describe the events in Special Tasks.

A chunk of a god wouldn't, presumably, be so constrained, if there were a 
constraint.

> (Note that said essence is primarily symbolic.

Pure question-begging.