On Tue, 10 Jun 2003, Mark A Mandel wrote: > On Mon, 9 Jun 2003, Gomi no Sensei wrote: > > #I miss Sticks (cries). > > Seconded. (sniff) Some random "thoughts": Was Melestav granted a purple robe? Vlad seemed to forgive him; Dante wouldn't. Is the Cycle the Wheel of Karma in some sense? Anybody read Lord of Light lately? Do some souls get tried in different Houses until they click? Could that be part of Kragar's problem - his soul isn't really Dragon? (I'm thinking of d'Artagnan saying, "I do not have the uniform, but I have the soul. My heart is Musketeer..." [My literal Dragaerean translation >from chapter 5 of _T3M_.]) So if a guy really pisses you off, can you kill him, then trace his soul's reappearance and etc? SKZB's universe seems to be fundamentally benevolent. There is reincarnation and a nice (if you're Dragaeran) Uebergod running things. Except for the occasional Morganti killing the worst things that have happened to Vlad have been a rough interrogation, Sticks's loss, and his no-hard-feelings break-up with Cawti. Except for _Teckla_, one might class the Vladiad more as a comedy than a tragedy. Vlad doesn't have a tragic flaw, anyway. If I had written _Issola_ it would probably have ended with Sethra and Co. dead, Adrilankha laid to waste, and Vlad left to fend for himself (say with L.T.) against a landscape of Jenoine. Of course _Five Hundred Years After_ is in fact a tragedy, but in my view Adron got what he more or less deserved and everyone else survived, so it wasn't a bummer. Those of us who are Joss Whedon fans have gotten used to the equivalent of Kragar being killed off randomly with catastrophic consequences... - Philip