>From: Steve Simmons <scs at di.org> >To: Dragaera Mailing List <dragaera at dragaera.info> >Subject: An observation on Cawti, Vlad and the movement >Date: Sun, 1 Sep 2002 14:03:22 -0400 > >An observation on Cawti, Vlad and the movement: > >In TECKLA (which is placed only briefly after JHEREG), Cawti is full >wrapped up in the movement. This always seemed odd to me (and Vlad), >as he has no idea how she got from being the apparently apolitical >woman we see in JHEREG to what she is in TECKLA. > >But there's a clue back further. Shortly after Vlad and Cawti meet in >YENDI, Cawti refers to 'our people.' She and Vlad have a very brief >discussion of it, and then the plot moves on. I came away from that >scene with the impression that Vlad didn't care much for Cawtis way of >thinking on the topic and that Cawti detected that. > >It's not much of a reed to build on . . . but here's what I think happend >both on paper and off-scene. > >A couple, hot in the flush of first passion, is not going to focus on >things they deeply disagree with. Cawti mentions 'our people' to Vlad >a couple of times, gets a negative response, and sets the topic aside >for a while. Vlad, the observant fellow that he is, lets it pass >completely out of his mind. > >But Cawti silently continues with the movement in her spare time, from >YENDI through JHEREG. She becomes more and more deeply convinced the >movement is correct, and knowing the difficulty of the gap between >she and Vlad, does not bring it up. Finally, the first murder in >TECKLA radicalizes her enough that she commits fully to the movement. > >But now she's stuck. She despises what she was before, and what Vlad >still is. She *knows* she's right, with the full arrogance of the newly >converted, and has forgotten that it was a long journey from what she >was to what she believes now. So whenever she talks to Vlad about it, >that arrogance is in full view. She knows she's right, it's perfectly >obvious she right, why can't he see it? Her opinion of her former >occupation is not far from the surface, either. It further antagonizes >the discussions. > >Ultimately it ends where we see it several books later. Separation, anger, >and non-communication to a degree that I consider . . . well, not criminal >(which I originally wrote) but far beyond the bounds of what's right. >I'm avoiding spoilers for ORCA and later here, but you probably know >what I mean. Thank you! This is part of what I was trying to say before but I failed miserably. Maybe I should leave it up to other people to state my opinion >from now on. *grin* _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com