On Thu, 6 Mar 2003, James Griffin wrote:
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>Spoiler Warning: these questions assume fairly complete knowlege of
>most of the Vlad books.
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>Keep going,
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>Now that Vlad seems to (so to speak) have become part of a Great
>Weapon, what is his life-span? (simply assuming Lady T protecting
>against all other types of death)
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>Morrollan and Aliera seem too young to be considered comparably,
>likewise Sethra Y. , and Sethra L. is already undead hence moot-
Sethra Lavode has been undead only for a few thousand years or so
(which is the human equivalent of being alive since the founding of
the Egyptian First Dynasty, and becoming undead in 1900). We don't
know if she lived for most of the timespan of the Empire because she's
a top-level Enchantress, because she's of Dzur Mountain, or because
she's the bearer of Iceflame, or all of the above.
Sethra Younger is not the bearer of any Great Weapon that I can recall
(she only had Hidden-Pathfinder for a few months or years, way too
short an amount of time to tell).
Note that the Sorceress in Green is also unusually long-lived, and we
don't know why.
Or in other words: Vlad may live for a normal Easterner lifespan, for
another ~700 years, or indefinitely. We don't know. I wonder if
Steve knows?
>Baritt (the only comparable one I can think of right now) was
>assassinated ("Permanently"- Yendi), but how well was he linked to
>Pathfinder- what I mean is, would he have aged and died naturally, or
>not?
Aliera seems to think that Pathfinder was destined to come to her;
indeed, that it had been trying to find *her*.
I note that the Orb failing to protect an Emperor was seen as a sign
that the Cycle had turned. Analogously, *if* Baritt was the secret
bearer of Pathfinder, its failing to protect him may have been because
it thought that Aliera was a more fitting bearer, for whatever reason.
In other words, Aliera's resurrection may have precipitated Baritt's
death (once Aliera was alive again, Pathfinder no longer protected
Baritt). This may have been the case even if Baritt was not the
bearer of Pathfinder.
>however,
>Verra implies (Issola) that Blackwand "might well have done more
>than that," indicating that even though it might seemed as if
>Morrollan would have been killed permanently, it didn't necessarily
>follow. (E.G. Blackwand might have still preserved his soul somehow
>beyond the three day limit, or even revivified him on its (her?)
>own.) This raises doubts about Baritt-
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>Was Baritt not protected in that way? or did he "de-link" with
>Pathfinder to hide it in that Morganti greatsword? (Dragon)
An argument against Baritt being the secret bearer of Pathfinder is
that bearers are allegedly chosen by the gods. If he was so chosen,
why would he keep it secret? I therefore suspect that he was using
Pathfinder's powers indirectly, and may not have known exactly why
this one Greatsword had such power, just that the power was there,
and could be tapped if he used certain sorcerous methods.
>In Dragon, it didn't seem as if Baritt had been assassinated- I don't
>recall exactly. Is it assumed (by House Dragon) that he did die
>naturally?
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In _Dragon_, Vlad asks something like "How did he die?" and Morrolan
answers something like "You don't need to know, and if I told you,
then I'd have to kill you", and mentions something about the Dragon
Council. I assume the Dragon Council wanted to keep the cause of
Baritt's death under wraps for a while, and Morrolan decided that the
reasons for keeping mum which were valid during the course of "Dragon"
were no longer valid by the time of "Yendi" (when he discloses the
fact of the assassination). Or something like that; maybe he was
just getting back at Vlad for being secretive about the stuff that
Vlad put in his arm.