[Dragaera] Sethra Suppositional Speculation and Suspicions Symposium

[Jonathan Carey]

Alright.  Over the years (hence the synopsis) I have come to what I
believe to be a good guess as to what makes Sethra tic:

Sethra is particularly annoyed by people trying to explain what makes her tick.

So, here we go--time to annoy a vampire:

This was brought on by reading Tiassa and The Desecrator back to back,
mixed with an increasing suspicion throughout the books that Sethra is
not at all what she seems. Heh.

The remark that Vlad makes set me off, as I'm sure it did many of you:

"Now, about that mystical significance."
"Vlad, I was kidding about that."
"No you weren't.  You had that look that you have when you're telling
the truth in a way you hope won't be believed."

Sethra has said many things in that tone; Vlad has to have seen it
frequently in order to become familiar with it enough to identify it
readily.  It helps that he likely has the same strategy when using the
truth as an apparent red herring.

Juxtapose that with her remarks in the Desecrator, when Telnan asks
what she's up to or something -- and Sethra replies with something to
the effect of "I'm trying to bring about the downfall of the Gods".

I think she was doing the exact same thing there; but Telnan has just
met Sethra, and so is too new to her to know when she's (not) lying.

I think Sethra exists, at least to herself, as a means of
over-throwing the Gods.  However, the Jenoine are a bigger threat; so
there is a wary truce until all the doors to Dragaera are closed. That
doesn't mean, however, that Sethra can't put the pieces in place in
the meantime for when she wants to make her move. Still, Sethra has
made no bones about mistrusting the Gods, and Gods certainly don't
trust her.  Neither party has a particularly high opinion of the
other; though they do recognize the other's usefulness in certain
situations despite the fact that they are contemptuous of each other's
skills and abilities.

There are more GW's connected to Sethra than any other person; it
can't be an accident that she knows a so much about them; and it
starts to look more than simple academic interest when she literally
is playing matchmaker with one after the other.

Sethra has Iceflame which is probably the strongest of the GW's (if
you were a collector, wouldn't you save the best for yourself? --being
aware that the matches have already been made of course).  Moreover, I
would not be at ALL surprised to find that it is her OWN soul that is
the soul of Iceflame.

Morrolan got Blackwand from Sethra.
Telnan got Nightslayer due to a mission from Sethra.
I cannot currently recall the specifics, but I know that Sethra was
very involved in the revelation of Pathfinder.
Vlad was an extremely unusual recruit for the mission which he
performed; it cannot have been by chance that he was linked with
Spellbreaker, and finally with the Morganti weapon.

I think Sethra is able in one way or another, to see the resonances
between the GWs and the souls of those who are destined to become
their wielders.  Furthermore, I believe that she realizes that, if
those two components are put in close proximity to the other, even if
someone is well aware of the resonance between the two, and is also
immensely powerful and wishes to prevent their being joined, it would
still be next to impossible to keep the wielder from finding the
weapon, and/or the weapon from finding the wielder.  Is this a form of
destiny? Be he Jenoine or no, I don't think it would be very easy to
stop apparently innocuous circumstances from occurring with the effect
that the two linked souls become bonded physically as well.

Next, it can't be random happenstance that Sethra seems to be creating
a whole bloody army of GWs and their wielders.  And it can't be a
coincidence that she is playing a key part in the lives of each
wielder (and who knows, maybe the souls that inhabit the GWs as well)
and specifically a key part in the actions that bring those two souls
together; in such a way that the GWs and their wielders would think
twice, thrice, before acting against Sethra's interests.  They are
indebted to her; frightened of her somewhat, but always in awe of her.

I think that Sethra regards the Gods as a lesser order of oppressors;
the Jenoine are the masters, the Gods their ex-servants, but all are
interlopers and trespassers on Dragaera, and she wishes to be rid of
all of their interfering influences.  I think Sethra is connected
intimately with the Seas of Chaos, the presence of Flux (oops, I meant
to say Amorphia) on the planet itself.  It could be that Dragaera is
the last place that Jehovah "made".  The "walls" of Heaven and Earth
being advanced further and further until only a small pocket of Flux
existed and the shell of the planet is not so much to keep the magma
of the planet's core IN as much as it is an oddly-inverted wall to
keep the amorphia OUT of the rest of the created universe.  So
originally, Jehovah in _TRIH_ was an individual--a fortress in person
form against the randomizing assault of the Flux.  He built outwards,
and created Heaven.  He built outwards and created Earth.  He built
outwards and created the universe.  Until eventually the chaos outside
was in a smaller "area" than the fortress inside.  And he just kept
building, like he was playing a cosmic game of "Go" against Chaos.
And eventually he had captured all the territory possible except for a
small pocket which could not be captured.  This localization of chaos
was then manifested as a planet.  But like a light from behind a
closed door leaks through into another room, so does the raw chaos
that is contained by the walls of Dragaera, there is a small leakage
of Flux onto Dragaera--the only known source of naturally occurring
raw amorphia.  It's kind of like the opposite of that crazy person who
lived in a shack in California in the H2G2.  His home, he said, was
the only sane place left on the planet, which he referred to as "The
Asylum".

But back to Sethra and Dzur Mountain.  I think that Dzur Mountain was
made out of Chaos.  Cf. _Issola_ when Vlad and Teldra finally make it
out of the room and "I turned my attention to the landscape, and
eventually thought of Dzur Mountain.  There was nothing there that
actually looked like Dzur Mountain, mind you, but--"

Furthermore, I think that Sethra herself might be formed of Amorphia
in some way or another.  It explains Kiera and a number of other
things.  But I think the description of the landscape as being
"created" out of natural elements, like we were playing in a very
sophisticated dungeon generator reminds Vlad of DM for a reason.
Because Dzur Mountain is fabricated.  The "known" ear might be the
least chaotic thing about the whole place, since presumably someone
had to fabricate it in order for it to be known to be fabricated.

Sethra is undead; moreover, she is a vampire.  Loraan was also undead;
but I believe he would be called a Lich.  Since we don't know how a
vampire is formed, we can't speculate.  We don't know if being a
vampire is a necessary part of being undead; or vice versa; so we
don't know how she died and was "resurrected".

But if Dzur Mountain is created out of Amorphia, perhaps being a giant
piece of solidified, contained chaos like Vlad had in Issola? then
that means that Sethra becoming, at some point, one with the rock of
Dzur Mountain, means that she is able to exist within Chaos without
disintegrating.  Which is interesting indeed.  In fact, I wouldn't be
surprised to find out that that is one of the conditions for being a
God.  A God, after all, is a symbol; an idea.  And ideas cannot be
killed.  Which makes me wonder: what is Sethra a symbol for?  I think
the soul of Dragaera, just like Earth has Gaia.  Dragaera, like the
GWs that wander its surface, eventually "woke up".

(An aside: "Heh. I'm a jhereg, Boss.  The being hasn't been spawned
that could put a glamour on me."  Jhereg as a creature is immensely
practical; they see things as they really are.  The good, the bad, and
ugly.)

The alternative to Dzur Mountain being made out of Amorphia is that it
is made somewhat innocuously out of Necrophia.  If the river in
_Issola_ required a five foot high piece of trellanstone to control,
then the Greater and Lesser Seas would require significantly more; and
if my theory of Dragaera being the last exit out of Eden is correct,
it would make sense that something as large as a mountain would be
required to control a whole sea or two.  It makes even more sense when
you consider "Necrophia", as in "Necromancy", the study of planar
magic and the control of pathways in and out of those planes.  It
would make sense that Dragaera is impregnated with natural deposits of
Trellanstone.  What else other than a substance that controls chaos
would be appropriate for the walls of a jail where the sole inmate is
the plane of chaos?  And of course the indigenous species of Dragaera
are able to create things like GW's, ie, things that work
necromantically.

I think the Jenoine were experimenting with genetic splicing augmented
by controlled applications of Flux. The same way Leviathan was turned
from a beautiful woman to a monster; only trying to create a
controlled process out of it.  And according to Awesome's Razor, were
trying to come up with the coolest hybrid.   ie, Centaurs are NOTHING.
 Imagine a Dragonman.

I started to wonder if Jenoine aren't a remnant of humanity--a
particular faction with one goal in mind:  the curing of the
corrupting influence of the Flux on their bodies.  Them being the
"hell's angels" from TRIH doesn't make sense; they're too...limited in
my opinion.  If they werent uniform in appearance as a species, then
I'd be much more willing to entertain that notion.  Perhaps the
experiments they were attempting were to undo the effects of Chaos
that they released from some Great Superweapon that tore the fabric of
creation during one of their wars and allowed Flux to leak through
(Again, assuming that "humans" are much more techno-magically advanced
at this point in time, which is borne out by Sethra's artifact
collection); just enough to turn their genes into something that
created some sort of fish-beast?  That would explain why there were
experimenting with Flux-augmented genetic mutations; if I were trying
to get back to normal, I'd probably be intrigued by the notion of
giving myself a bit of an edge when I returned; or if I was stuck with
the fact that I could never be human again (but was able to change
form suing), I'd certainly investigate what the most kickass form
would be, and see if I could create a process to establish it.

To explain, here's my proposed timeline:

TRIH
(Universe creates "jail" where Chaos is the inmate)
Agyar
Cowboy Feng's
(many years pass)
(Humanity becomes super advanced technologically, and FINALLY
discovers how to utilize magic in a reliable manner, hence
"technomagically advanced")
(Superweapon punctures space-time, allows Flux to enter reality.
Either before or after this, humanoids colonize (or are seeded by the
Jenoine onto) Dragaera)
(begin dragaera timeline as found on cracks and shards etc)

This might be the most rambling of my emails yet for which I apologize.

Jon