On Friday, June 7, 2002, at 05:32 PM, Gregory Rapawy wrote: > --- "Michael S. Schiffer" <mss2 at attbi.com> wrote: > [of Cawti in _Teckla_] >> Half her conversations with Vlad come across as her >> ignoring (or rather, willfully choosing to ignore) >> the physical reality of the Cycle and the raw power >> at the disposal of the Empire and the noble Houses, > >> not to mention her own personal experience with >> Imperial politics (or at least with people who are >> involved in Imperial politics). > > Well, they certainly do come across that way, and that > is certainly how Vlad feels and how many others feel. > I wonder if this is one of the places that we really > do need to take Vlad's perceptions with a grain (or a > shaker) of salt, though. One of the first things you learn in lit class in college is that sometimes you have to decide if the narrator is trustworthy or not. I really like Vlad but I don't entirely trust him sometimes, I know there are things he's not saying, glossing over or outright lying about. Teckla is one of those books where you have decide how truthful he really is being. > > Many historical and current cultures and regimes have > made and now make extravagant claims about how their > particular structure is (1) an inevitable consequence > of physical reality or other natural law; (2) too > well-entrenched ever to be shaken; (3) supported by > overwhelming force too great to exist. At any given > point in time these claims may appear from an internal > (or even a contemporaneous external) perspective to be > true, and then may either suddenly or gradually come > to be not true. Rome? The United States? These seem to be two good examples off the top of my head. > > Vlad's perception of the Empire as something too big > to fight realistically, rather than as merely a very > big thing that would be difficult and dangerous to > fight, could be explained by (1) his desire (having a > comfortable position in the system) not to fight it; > (2) his reliance on sources of information friendly to > the established order of things (Aliera, Morrolan, > Verra, the Jhereg, maybe Sethra -- her allegiances are > complicated, though); (3) his temperament (Virt's > comment in _Dragon_ that Vlad is a tactician and not a > strategist, or Sethra's in _Issola_ that Vlad really > isn't comfortable with root causes, which two > observations come to a similar thing). > Hmmm...sounds reasonable. > It might be, of course, that the author does view the > Cycle as a simple and unalterable physical reality, as > Vlad almost describes it in _Taltos_ (though even Vlad > says that a sufficiently strong person could move the > Cycle -- and that raises the question: what kind of > strength, and how much of it?). I sort of doubt it, > though. God like strength, probably. The Cycle does seem simplistic, at least on one level but then again, sometimes that's the way it is is the best answer of all. > It seems more likely to me that Vlad's > conviction of the utter unreasonableness of Cawti's > position is a combination of these sorts of things and > as well of his predisposition at the time to think > that Cawti is being utterly unreasonable. > Ummm....yep -:) > -- Greg > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Yahoo! - Official partner of 2002 FIFA World Cup > http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com > > -------- Read The World at the Edge of Time, my new book! http://homepage.mac.com/christurkel