On Mon, 24 Feb 2003, John Klein wrote: > On Thu, 20 Feb 2003, Philip Hart wrote: > > @> > > If one assume that Sethra is telling a minimal truth in her reply, > @> > > all we've really found out is that whoever gave the vial to Sethra > @> > > (as Sethra? or as Kiera?) was female. We don't even know if the > @> > > giver of the vial was the donor of the blood. Given who Aliera > @> > > really is, it's quite possible that the blood is Alieras or Deveras. > @> > @> > I had not considered Aleira. Interesting thought; however, being the > @> > offspring of a god(dess) does not necessarily make one a god. > @> > @> I asked why Vlad couldn't have given Aliera's blood to Morrolan perhaps a > @> month ago - I think the counterargument was that Aliera's blood qualifies > @> her to leave but, uhh, sorry, I forget what it was (how does one look up > @> past posts?) and otherwise _Taltos_ wouldn't make sense. > > Might just be that Aliera didn't consider transfusing her blood into > Morrolan. Remember, when sorcery is used for everything, including > medicine, stuff like blood transfusion becomes much less important. Vlad > did think of transfusion, but I don't believe he was aware that she was > goddess-spawn at that point. (AFB at the moment, can't check.) So, > basically, if everybody had clued Vlad in to what was going on, he > wouldn't have had to almost kill himself inventing his summoning > ritual. (Thus beginning the long-running trend of Vlad almost getting > killed because he doesn't know what's going on, except when he's almost > getting killed because he knows exactly what's going on.) I think Vlad does not know about Aliera's parentage at this point - he's surprised in _Phoenix_ by Aliera referring to Veera as 'mom'. But obviously A has something going for her that allows her to leave - there's a Significant Look between mother and daughter in _Taltos_ which Vlad notices. Ok, so Vlad's under pressure and goes with his first idea. But Morrolan could have thought of this, or Aliera, or Veera for that matter. More evidence for my Vlad-has-to-be-smarter snark. Re the Sethra-grooming-Vlad thread, it seems to me that nobody would train a mortal by sending him along Vlad's path unless Veera was walking behind him all his life, which would be cheating.