On Sun, 16 Mar 2003, Philip Hart wrote: >Top of page 259 - Sethra is talking about what the Jenoine will do >when the Orb returns. She says however "when the Orb is gone" - >further stating that certain illusions will go with it. Is she perhaps implying that the Gods are in fact *using* the Orb to maintain those illusions? Perhaps the transfer-of-control from Gods to Zerika will disrupt that usage? Hmm. Pehaps I should be using the singular rather than the plural; and it's only that Serioli-God who is using the Orb. Which might also explain why sorcery improves so greatly; he's the Divine equivalent of a sorcerous kernel hacker, and Verra doesn't know about all the little tweaks and improvements he made to the code. > >Bottom of page 260 - Sethra has cast cards to determine when Zerika >et al. will head north. Sounds like witchcraft to me Vlad consults a card-reading oracle in "Teckla", I believe. I think divination is cross-discipline. >Chapter 6 - we learned in the preceding chapter that Arra has been >able to forsee raids. [...] How is it that Blackchapel is taken >unawares? Perhaps manipulation by tDG? In "Issola", Lady Teldra mentions that the ones who carried out a massacre (that Morrolan retaliated for with his own massacre) were followers of Tri'nagore. Divine interference, perhaps, but probably not Verra. > >Page 329 - Deathgate Falls. Zerika says that Kieron was "[T]he first >human to pass this way". A pun on "pass by" and "pass away"? I >assume it means his was the first body tossed over. I'm pretty sure it's stated somewhere that Kieron entered that Paths alive. > >Bottom of page 349 - StY expresses a wish to learn a great deal from >The Necromancer, whom she has just named. I wonder if she does so... > My notion is that the Necromancer performs that first revivification, or Sethra-t-Y does so with the aid of the Necromancer, and thus introduces that process into the current sorcerous toolkit. >Bottom of page 392 - "Zerika the Fourth". Maybe we knew her title >already, but I was surprised. It takes some chutzpah to name one's >child after the cofounder of the empire... > Hmm. I think that very much depends on the culture involved, and the person. Most cultures consider naming a child after a great person to be honoring that person, not arrogantly assuming that the child will be as great. Many Muslims are named Muhammed, and many Jews are named Moses. Many Hispanic Christians are named "Jesus", but I suppose that's the example that you were thinking of - most non-Hispanic christians would consider naming a child "Jesus" to be arrogant, or so I assume from the dearth of occurences of that name among non-Hispanics. But neglecting that one, consider the commoness of "Peter", "Paul", "Mary", "Joseph", etc. And finally: You're named after an ancient Macedonean king, and I'm named after an ancient Hebrew king. You think our parents were being arrogant? Sometimes a name is just a name...