On Sun, Aug 18, 2002 at 05:06:27PM -0400, Rick Castello <rick at 404.978.org> wrote: > Further consider: Noish-Pa told Vlad in _Jhereg_ that he could > teach him nothing else of witchcraft, and to increase his > abilities as a witch, Vlad would need to get a familiar. > > If we consider Noish-Pa to be an accomplished witch of great > skill who has taught Vlad everything he can (and we take it as > fact that Vlad has actually *learned* all that Noish-Pa has > taught him of witchcraft), then I think it's fair to say that > Vlad is an accomplished witch. While I agree that Vlad is an accomplished witch, we can't assume that he is on an equal level with Noish-pa just because Noish-pa says he can't teach him anything else. In effect, that statement means that Vlad has finished his apprenticeship as a witch, and has to complete his initiation (obtain a familiar) and go out on his own. There are two ways to take this -- as a journeyman period, prior to becoming a master witch, or as a graduation straight to master witch. Since Vlad is offered a half-interest in Noish-pa's shop, I think we can discard the journeyman possibility. However, being a "master witch" doesn't make him equal to Noish-pa. Neither of them are students or children, and that is most likely all that that comment refers to. Vlad needs to gain experience on his own to mature in witchcraft. -- Matthew Hunter (matthew at infodancer.org) Homepage: http://matthew.infodancer.org/index.jsp Public Key: http://matthew.infodancer.org/public_key.txt