Dragaera

Illegal Elder Sorcery

Sun Oct 27 07:00:43 PST 2002

--- FelixEisen at aol.com wrote:
> davids at kithrup.com writes:
>> The more I think about it, the more it seems to me
>> that Vlad's interrogation under the Orb was
probably >> scripted such as to let him walk.
> [...] Vlad is clearly a successful player of the 
> verbal game that Steve Perry calls 'fugue' -- the 
> art of saying something, but having something else 
> understood.  It is in such doublespeak that 'truth' 
> gets twisted, bent, but never quite mutilated or 
> broken.  The Iorich, I expect, are not the experts 
> that the Issola are in doublespeak, and they clearly
> underestimated a lowly Easterner Jhereg Baronet in 
> regards to that game.

I agree with most of Felix's reasoning, but with
David's conclusion.  Vlad is definitely good at
playing with words; look at his report to Kiera of his
next-to-last conversation with Timmer in _Orca_.  ("I
mean, you speak Jhereg -- You know what we were
talking about, or, rather, _not_ talking about. . .
.") (p. 268).  It's also true, as Felix comments in a
section I've omitted, that under modern trial
procedure or anything like it it's easy to get away
with evasive answers or those that are merely
literally true.  And I think that Dragaera probably
has something like modern trial procedure, because
Vlad comments in _Jhereg_ that the Empire foregoes the
niceties when someone is killed with a Morganti weapon
-- which implies that there are niceties in other
cases.

Vlad, however, isn't a lawyer (Brust uses "advocate").
 Furthermore, he tells Teldra in _Issola_ that he
didn't have an advocate with him when he was
questioned under the Orb in connection with his former
employers.  Here's where my disagreement with Felix
comes in.  A good trial lawyer can deal with evasive
answers and half-truths.  (In the example of
Tajichatn's "committing suicide" or "killing himself,"
one follow-up is to ask why Vlad thinks that -- what
he observed that led him to that conclusion -- and
then to follow up on the response, and so on.  It's
easy to answer questions evasively taken one at a
time; it's hard to do it when the questioner is
actively probing for weaknesses and contradictions.) 
The reason a witness can sometimes get away with
evasion on the stand is that there's usually another
good trial lawyer trying to protect him.  

So why *did* Vlad get away with it?  It's possible
that SKZB just thinks a smart, glib layperson can
generally outsmart a good lawyer on the witness stand.
 If so, I disagree.  It can happen once in a while,
and it's possible that Vlad was just lucky; but, if
so, he doesn't know how lucky he was.  It's also
possible that, whatever SKZB may think of real
lawyers, the Iorich just aren't that good at
crossexamination.  I think that's unlikely.  Each
House is very good at the specific thing it does.  The
Dragons are good warriors; the Jhereg are good
criminals; the Issola are good diplomats.  Why would
the Iorich be bad lawyers?

I prefer the explanation that the Empire just wasn't
looking very hard for the killer.  Sure, the Jhereg
was a Duke; when a Duke dies, the Empire looks into
it.  
But, then, the Duke was a Jhereg, and the Empire
really doesn't care about the Jhereg killing each
other.  So long as Vlad danced reasonably well and
kept up appearances, they were willing to let him go. 
"Scripted," as David puts it, might be a little
strong.  But it may well have been perfectly obvious
to everyone involved that a little more questioning
would have pinned Vlad down.  It was certainly obvious
to the Empress that he was being evasive, as she
commented in _Phoenix_.

-- Greg

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