Dragaera

Random thoughts and musings--SPOILERS

Thu Jul 25 11:28:18 PDT 2002

Steve Simmons <scs at di.org> writes:
> 
> Claire Rojstaczer writes:
> 
> > My question about Great Weapons is, if they're getting created all 
> > the time, or even occasionally, ala Vlad and Godslayer, how can 
> > anyone say that there are seventeen of them?

I see no reason to think they're created all the time.  Ditto
run-of-the-mill Morganti weapons, [which is interesting] / [although
it is less certain] given how easily Vlad et al seem to procure them.
I don't think it is at all clear whether anyone still knows how to
make Morganti weapons.
 
> Here's my pure conjecture, backed by little or nothing from the text
> of the various novels:
> 
> The Serioli invented the Great Weapons to be used against the Gods.
> These were made some time after the expelling of the Jenoine, but before
> the founding of the Empire.
-snip-

That's my guess, too.
 
> The Gods aligned with the Dragaereans to defend themselves against the
> Great Weapons.  

If "themselves" means just the Gods, then I agree, but if you meant
the Gods *and* Dragaerans, then I disagree:  It doesn't appear to me
that the Serioli directly wielded the GWs against Dragaerans.

> After some struggle, the Serioli lost and the weapons
> were taken from them.  The Gods, unable to destroy them (or able to
> destroy all but 17), put them into the hands of the Dragaereans.

Maybe they were reluctant to destroy them, recognizing that although a
threat to themselves, the GWs are also a considerable threat against
the Jenoine.  Certainly, they appear to recognize that now.

Plus, I guess I should say that "Lords of Judgment" is apparently more
appropriate than "Gods".

Below are my DbS notes for the first two chapters of _Issola_.  
Naturally, there are (potentially) spoilers for everything published
up through that point.

(I'm impressed by how much information was imparted and yet many prior
questions remain and many new questions were raised.  I included ch1
here just because.)

- tky


















pp11-26. ch1: "Adapting Behavior to Environment"

[Teldra finds & sleeps with Vlad]

** p14 ** [Vlad jokes about Teldra getting forward/intimate with him]
  {and by the end, they *are* intimately involved}
** p17 ** "Sethra {er, Timmer? (_Orca_)} had said something about--`Loiosh?'"
** p18 ** [new finger explanation] "sorceror tried to eviscerate me"

pp27-42. ch2: "Being a Good Listener"

[Sethra gives a history lesson] {however, I found it hard to follow:
she appears to relate events by grouping them into related motivations,
violating causal/chronological order to do so}

** p30 ** [Sethra] "vampire # superfluous"
** p34 ** {new event?  new account of event we've already seen?}
  "Morrolan in his Great Hall defending me [Vlad] from the Sorceress in Green"
  {I tend to think "defense" is physical or magical, rather than verbal}
** pp34-35 ** [Sethra about gods; implies they gain strength from belief]
  "Is their power acquired only because there are those who worship them?
  Is their power, in fact, imaginary?  There are no simple answers"
  {Remember Bolk in _Brokedown Palace_!}
  {creatures' power in Frank & Brian Herbert's _Man of Two Worlds_
  is in fact the power of i(d)magination.}
** p35 ** [Sethra does not fully understand simultaneous manifestation]
  "I don't understand entirely how it works; I am neither god nor demon.
  [(The Necromancer is a demon, but don't try to control her!)]
  # this one skill implies many others {namely?}.
  # Some of the younger ones have been taught by some of the older ones;
  I was once offered godhood.  But [w]hence came the oldest of the gods [?]"
** p36 ** [chronology] {*what* about the name "Demon Goddess"?}
  [The dragon, dzur, jhereg, and Serioli were produced by Nature.
  Easterners came from who knows where.
  Jenoine came afterwards, from who knows elsewhere.
  Jenoine performed genetic experiments on all: Easterners --> Dragaerans.
  Verra is of yet another species and was a servant of the Jenoine.]
  {RASFW: "servant" = "demon"?}
  "her you call the Demon Goddess.  That name--but never mind that now."
** {how much did the Jenoine experiment on or modify *themselves*?}
** {inconsistency: _Jhereg_, ch9; p80 in _The Book of Jhereg_}
  [Aliera] "Not all [Jenoine] were destroyed #
  They had other interests besides genetics.
  One of them was the study of Chaos.
  [... boom!]  #  Great Sea of Amorphia, a few new gods, # no more Jenoine."
  [Aliera offended by idea: Dragaeran = Easterner original genetic stock]
** {inconsistency: _Phoenix_, pp107-108 of Lesson 8 (pp103-118)}
  [Morrolan]
  "Some [gods] are actually Jenoine {really?} who survived the Creation of the
  Great Sea of Chaos.  Others are servants {ok} of theirs who managed to
  adapt when it occurred and use its energy,
  either while it was happening or in the millennia that followed."
  [Aliera] "Some # are simply wizards who have become immortal {?},
  and acquired the power to exist on more than one plane at the same time."
** [back to _Issola_] p37 ** [big bang, fate of original Jenoine on Dragaera]
  "# it is clear that it was Verra, and a few others, # who
  unleashed upon the world that which we call sorcery, who
  themselves became the first of those we know as gods, and who
  destroyed all of the Jenoine who then lived on this world."
  {"sorcery" -- literally, no magic at all before, e.g. no witchcraft?}

  {wording intentionally ambiguous?
  how do we reconcile this account with the _Jhereg_ & _Phoenix_ quotes above?
  + "The first of those we know": Perhaps there were gods we don't know about,
    e.g. prior to the existence of sorcery?
  + There are no Jenoine gods?  Or, some Jenoine who were not on Dragaera
    were nonetheless affected and became gods?}

  {ambiguous words in movies and TV tangents:
  + "Memento": for a while I wished the line "Sammi Jankis was a con man"
    had been delivered ambiguously to make "Sammi Jankis was a con, man"
    a feasible interpretation.
  + "The Conversation": piecing phrases together is key.
  + On "Babylon 5", I wondered if an instance of the word "born" was actually
    "borne", but JMS explicitly shot my theory down.}
** pp37-38 ** [Sethra relays a confusing chronology of 4 events]
  {1} "I cannot, in my own mind, imagine the cataclysm of the
  moment when [the Great Sea] came into being,
  that instant when for the first time the Unknowable took form."
  "What happens when the Unknowable takes form?
  One answers is, it ceases to be unknowable.
  As soon as there was a Sea of Amorphia, there had, sooner or later,
  {2} to be a Goddess [Verra] to codify and define the Elder Sorcery
  that could manipulate it;
  {3} and a Serioli named Cly!ng Fr'ngtha that made the Elder Sorcery tangible
  # in objects blurring the distinction between animate and inanimate;
  {4} and a [Dragaeran Zerika] to craft an Orb
  that would make this power subject to any mind #
  it is a power such as exists [apparently] nowhere else # in any universe,
  for there is more than one, as the Necromancer has demonstrated."

  {Consider also a 5th event, {5} creation of the Dragaeran Empire.
  In what order and over what time scale did these 5 events occur?
  I would guess it took Verra at least a few millennia to do {2},
  roughly at the same time "new" gods were still coming into existence
  (see _Phoenix_ quote above).
  Then, the Serioli got increasing resentful and did {3},
  including Great Weapons.
  Some time(s?) later (?), {5} and {4} happen in some order.}
** p39 ** [Sethra explains the Serioli's resentment]
  "they resent us both {Easterners and Dragaerans, I presume}
  # But above all, they resent the gods [... , ...]  who #
  inspired Kieron the Conqueror # and # led Zerika to create the Orb"
** p40 ** [Sethra explains part of the Serioli counter-attack]
  "[they] crafted those half-living, half-inanimate artifacts called
  the Great Weapons, each of which is, in one way or another,
  obviously or not, directed against the gods."
** {inconsistency: _Dragon_, p36 in ch2 (pp29-41)}
  [Kragar] "# they say [... b]ack before the beginning of the Empire
  they [Morganti] were invented by a Serioli smith
  to make war so horrible no one would fight anymore.
  # it worked. # Among the Serioli."
  {RASFW discussed: "among" means what --
  Serioli vs Serioli, Serioli vs others, others vs Serioli?}
  {What of Sethra's remarks on p37 about {event {3}}?}
** [backtracking] pp38-39 ** [Sethra explains what the gods do with souls]
  "[they] protect us from the Jenoine [.]  The place we call the
  Paths of the Dead sits # both in and out of our world #
  [They] sift souls as a Serioli sifts for gold in a mountain stream. #
  [Some] have skills that might someday be useful,
  and those are held # or reincarnated # A few study for the
  Godhood themselves, and a tiny number are sent out once more, as Undead.
  [including Sethra]"
  {Are "study for Godhood" and "Undead" supposed to be roughly exclusive?
  Sethra was offered Godhood, but is not a god or demon.  So, did she
  + Not study Godhood?
  + Study Godhood, but stop partway through, choosing instead to be Undead?
  + Something else?}
** p32, p35, p40 ** [Sethra describes how fearsome the Jenoine are]

  "I fear what we are facing is rather more powerful than a god."

  "Jenoine, for all their talents and skills, cannot be in 2 places at once."

  "almost perfect natural immunity to the disruptive effects of amorphia."
  "[can] resist even powerful Morganti weapons"
  "[But] Great Weapons are the only reliable way to kill Jenoine"
** p35 ** {what does the expression "to beg the question" mean?
  I seem to recall being told that it is often misused.}
** {I've decided I don't agree that irony or "irony" are overused in _Issola_;
  they appear a lot in the other books, too, where Vlad calls irony an old
  friend, and on p40, Sethra agrees Vlad was "always good with irony #
  even in the days before the Empire I remember that about you".
** p41 ** [Sethra explains the grand scheme of things]
  "We who carry the Great Weapons are the appointed of the gods
  # we must look out for each other
  # The gods hate our weapons and need us who wield them;
  the Jenoine fear our weapons and hate the gods.
  # I # am here, watching the Great Weapons, observing the Jenoine,
  listening to the gods, and trying to see that nothing upsets the balance.
  # I think we were all, even then, [while creating the Empire in past lives,]
  marked out by the gods."
** [Zungaroon has a Great Weapon] "only by accident and [has] not
  the least clue what it is for, or what to do with it".
** {Morrolan is conspicuously absent as one of those listed as being
  important around the time the Empire was created.  Is he the
  reincarnation of someone important from back then?}
** p42 ** [Sethra of Trout, presumably a god] "knows the motives of the gods"
** {p67 of _Athyra_, ch5 (pp60-76): "Trout" and "Naro, the Lady Who Sleeps" }