On Fri, 7 Mar 2003, David Silberstein wrote:
> On Thu, 6 Mar 2003, James Griffin wrote:
>
> 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).
Carp: I don't believe this is anything like established by the canon -
maybe Paarfi thinks this, but I maintain that the quality of evidence
needed to reach such a conclusion is missing.
> 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?
This is the basis for one of my too-oft-repeated snarks about Issola -
Vlad is becoming too powerful to be interesting in non-comic-book
scenarios.
> >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?
An argument for weak linkage: a linked Baritt (if not dumb) could have
used Pathfinder for doing things like, say, finding pieces of missing
Great Weapons, or locating people interested in assassinating him,
or finding juicy hunks of trellanstone...
We could use an explanation of why Baritt was so shy in the first place -
having a Great Weapon seems to be an honor, and presumably he wasn't
hiding anything from Sethra. No, presumably Sethra didn't know, given
the events of _Dragon_, and the gods didn't know either, which is odd.
And were there repercussions among the Jhereg hierarchy from Baritt's
death? Vlad doesn't mention any that I recall.
While I'm snarking, why didn't the Left Hander who took out Morrolan in
_Jhereg_ put a "No Resurrecting" spell on him instead of just teleporting
his body into the Greater Sea, or directly above it if one prefers? Ok,
she doesn't know she'll get tracked down by Pathfinder, but given that
Sethra/the Necromancer are buddies of M. (or v.v.) why take a chance?
And while throwing out random threads, what was Baritt up to during the
Interregnum? If he could hold off armies during Orbed times, he seems
likely to have been able to stomp all over Easterners/petty barons/etc.
during the Orbless period. And where was he during the events of _FHYA_?
And isn't taking out the leading Dragon a job for the Jhereg's leading
worker? In the absence of Mario, would that be Istvaan (sp? AFB)? He's
assigned to take out Vlad, perhaps the #1 priority of the House. Note
however that he isn't involved in _Jhereg_ when Mellar was #1. And how
come he has an Eastern (I suspect Fenarian) name? I assume the Dagger/
Sword didn't do Baritt, as again we'd know, from Cawti or as blowback in
_Yendi_.
Also I'm confused about something in _Dragon_ - doesn't Morrolan tell Vlad
he expects the sword to be stolen by a Jhereg, although no self-respecting
Dragonlord (except maybe M.) would hire one, especially so it seems to me
for a matter involving House politics?
- Philip