[Dragaera] random thoughts on recent (or not) Texts

[Philip Hart]

Following some threads backwards and forwards, had some idle thoughts ...

0. In _Dzur_, Vlad comments on several occasions that he touches LT's hilt 
accidentally and is suddenly calm or confident.  This doesn't seem to be 
the case in _Iorich_, I think - though of course he could simply have 
internalized her influence or not feel like commenting on it.  The 
incidents where he fails to confront the assassin in Perisil's (I bet 
SKZB privately calls him "Parsley", though maybe that's French or German 
talking) office and draws on Khaavren come to mind.

1. Vlad's voice in the Tag chapter seems tighter, clearer, more vivid than 
in _Yendi_, though perhaps that's an effect of him driving the plot more 
than in the earlier Text, or perhaps related to having an excellent 
foil/patsy in Piro.  I have a sense of SKZB's prose being more or less 
uniformly excellent from _Jhereg_ and _TRIH_ on, but of course that's too 
simplistic.

2. Dragaeran has a common way of expressing gender, "gya" or no "gya"; 
Vlad deduces someone's talking about a woman too many times for this to be 
some substituted word-play on the translator's part.  Maybe Paarfi's just 
old-fashioned.

3. I don't have a good sense of Norathar.  She's really not ready to be 
Warlord - I don't see her having the authority, to say nothing of the 
experience, to do that.  She needs to go fight in some battles and lead 
in several more.

4. Was Baritt bonded to PF?  I can't come up with a sensible reason 
why he hid the fact he had a GW, unless perhaps he didn't win the 
struggle for control, but somehow retained partial use of it.  Does the 
apparent fact that Aliera is in communication with PF soon after 
_Dragon_ differ from Vlad's experience with LT due to PF having woken 
up long ago, and the other GW-wielders asking Vlad about it being due to 
their having acquired long-created weapons?

5. I can imagine Vlad thinking back on his narration of Tag, with its 
theme of "I lie sometimes", when he says he lies sometimes in, ack, can't 
recall which of _Y_, _Dragon_, _Dzur_, or _Iorich_ I saw this in - ok, 
Amazon search says _Io_, pg. 299, "I'd been lying.  I do that sometimes."
Maybe this is a reference to some classical play.

6. By _Iorich_ Vlad seems to have forgotten about the memory issues that 
were so central in _Dragon_ and _Dzur_.

7. In one of the above-mentioned Texts, Vlad tells Loiosh what's going on 
"for a change".  Hmm, I've got the sense that I've complained about this 
before.

8. Why does the empire license brothels beyond checking for STDs and 
health code issues, stuff nobody would want to go visit Vlad's Valentines 
to avoid paying for.  (I wonder incidentally if he has a sideline in 
unpasteurized cheeses and the like.)  Maybe in search of violence? 
Somehow I think that would have come up - what seems likeliest to me is 
cross-house sex.  That fits Piro and Ibronka seeing a Tsalmoth.

9. Apropos, notice Vlad saying "Tiassa are almost as unpredictable as 
Tsalmoth, and Dzur [etc...]" to Omlo.  Of course Garland was a Tsalmoth, 
and Grita a Dzur/Tsalmoth...

10.  Of course the Dzur seem relatively likely (Grita, Mellar, Ibronka, 
Shant) to get into these situations, perhaps just because of the stigma.

11. Tsalmoth too? (Iatha, Garland).  Maybe we'll learn more in _Tsalmoth_, 
whenever we get it.

12. Again apropos, miscegenation is also important in _Y_ - it's the 
attack used to take out Norathar's parents.  And of course the SiG looks 
like an Athyra, part of the evidence for my "Yendi are cuckoos" theory.

13. It's interesting how many texts address the short period around 
_Yendi_ - Tag and the flash-forward in _Dragon_ seem to be about then. 
It's of course the time of one of the most important events in his 
eventful life, his being killed by, falling in love with, and marrying 
Cawti.  I see the Timeline has a few empty years before that, at the 
expense of some explaining away apparently contradictory comments from 
Vlad, an effort I'm all in favor of since it makes Vlad older and makes 
room for the various things we only have allusions to and which surely 
didn't happen every day.  Vlad going to a fair amount of trouble on the 
off-chance that he'll need a favor from Whitecrest Manor some day is 
pretty striking and fits a lot better in a timeline with him well settled 
in to running a territory.

14. I hadn't thought of this before, but when they meet in _Iorich_, 
pg 151, Kragar stares at Vlad and is probably horrified to see that he 
has visibly aged in just a few years.  K worked closely with Vlad from 
around 237 to 244 PI, and this is about 8 years later, so on the one hand 
he's used to the idea, on the other seeing the changes (not for the 
better) all at once must be distressing.  The moment is very well handled 
in the Text.

15. I can't see how Kragar could have met Mario 90 years ago through 
Aliera, who was partly living in a staff at the time.  And Aliera had very 
little time to introduce them in the few days between Mario's first and 
second attempts on Tortaalik.  Wild speculation - Aliera got Kragar fired 
pre-interregnum, this is considered hilarious in certain Jhereg circles, 
Mario hears and decides Kragar must be interesting, or can tell him 
stories of his briefly beloved.  I have to say that Kragar's a pretty 
awful direct contact - if you want Mario, you go look for Kragar how? - 
but indirectly an excellent one given his information network.

16. The very ending of _Tiassa_ - Vlad reacting strongly to Khaavren 
mentioning Cawti, then taking Sara's hand in the strange family group 
the three seem to have formed and not being rejected - is striking. 
Naively one would think this demonstration of his continuing ties to 
another woman (and their son) would be reason to avoid a relationship 
with him.  But perhaps to her it shows Vlad is capable of deep 
attachments, fearless - generally worth committing to, and perhaps he 
senses or guesses or hopes that's the case.