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

[Philip Hart]

On Wed, 20 Apr 2011, Steve Rapaport wrote:

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>>>>>> Maybe the tiassa is Paarfi's source.

>>>> 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. 
>>>> [... GW ... god ...]

> no. no no no.  i would lose my suspension of disbelief entirely if the 
> tiassa also happened to have the power to silently gossip, or to shoot 
> sock boomerangs from its wings, or to transform into a dinosaur, 
> regardless of how many Goddess body parts it includes.

Note that I pointed out I'm not asking it to do anything except what we 
know it can do plus what we know other similar artifacts with people 
in them can do.

>  Its function is described three times, once by Devera, twice by Vlad.

Basically you've got Vlad speculating, someone reporting Vlad's 
speculation, and Vlad reporting someone else's speculation that doesn't 
actually directly say this.


> Ooh yes, and in the cycle poem.

Well...

> One failing Zelazny had was how his last five books of Amber ended up 
> expanding the gizmo power of all the gizmos to the point where the 
> people became irrelevant.  it ended up being gadget wars in the last few 
> amber books, and though Corwin's tale was sublime, Merlin's got boring. 
> Mr. Brust has carefully and deftly avoided crossing that line, and i 
> hope he continues this way.

I agree in theory, but seriously, LT is a shapeshifting spell-breaking 
insta-healing linked-to-other-GW crawling god-hating 
eat-your-soul-via-your-spell thing.  Telnan's sword wields itself. 
Presumably GWs turn souls into power as Paarfi hints.  It's pretty 
gadgetesque already.

Anyway I'm happy with the tiassa-subconscious-that's-it view, I'd just 
like a little clear evidence before filing it away, esp. if it can be used 
to simplify other issues by easy extension.