On Fri, 20 Jun 2003, Casey Rousseau wrote: > Jag wrote: > [snip] > > be, or maybe the social structure was to new and delicate then to try to > > figure out where to fit in such people. Either way, I'm sure that the > [snip] > > Consider for a moment a Dragon-Jhereg half-breed during a Phoenix > Reign. Should s/he be accorded the social standing of a Dragon (High) > or a Jhereg (Low). What about if it was during a Vallista reign? > > I wonder how much the "unacceptance of half-breeds" that we see in the > books is a product of where we are in the Cycle (Phoenix reign > throughout). Since the only truly "open" Houses are Jhereg, which is at > the bottom of the wheel, and Teckla, which is descending and has a > _long_ time to wait for their next reign, it may be that half-breeds are > simply being assigned the social status of members of these two houses. On the one hand, I like your theory - on the other, I like three competing ones: (1) a simple spell is available to prevent conception, so being a half-breed means your folks were half-wits, esp. post- interregnum; and (2) since each House has genes from different animals interbreeding is a bit like bestiality. The latter idea isn't consistent with the cross- House courting we see in e.g. _TPG_ - but maybe that's just Paarfi being naughty and showing incipient anti-House tendencies - I have trouble believing that cross-House sex would be acceptable when cross-breeding isn't (and in fact in _TPotD_ we get a hint that the former isn't couth under normal circumstances.) Speculating further, since Yendis can't be identified as such, the masked scene in _TPG_ between Pel and a Dragon might be an indication that (3) the social rule is related to what we'd call racism - the Other doesn't look like you. I'd thus bet that there are a lot of Yendi genes loose in the other Houses and v.v. This might explain some of the disgust for Yendis (they're cuckoos, they're impure), and provide a mechanism that keeps them indistinguishable...