> Sethra's real skill is that she knows how to handle people from each > of the 17 Dragaeran Houses. Not that I doubt she has mad people skills, given her skills track record, but we haven't seen her interact much with non-Dzurs or Dragons (of which she shares some facial characteristics), have we? In fact, if you believe Paarfi, she does a bad job with Phoenixes - her embassy to Tortaalik is presented in such a manner as to nearly insure he will turn her down. She could have led with "I have a plan under which Adron will resign his Heirship." She might have followed with "Aliera will not be the Heir in his place." Note that this lends some marginal credence to my Sethra- offed-Tortaalik-and-framed-Mario theory (which I should note deals with two points in _FHYA_ which make me a bit queasy - Sethra's being stupid enough to explain, even sotto voce, how to kill the Emperor, and her allowing this info to be published. My less speculative explanations for these points being that as even Homer nods, Sethra screws up; and that she knows this feature of the Orb was fixed in the Paths.) > She has a bit of trouble with Easterners, though. She seems to handle Vlad very well, except I think for the beginning of _Taltos_, where perhaps she was pretending (not in the Paarfian sense) to be ignorant of Eastern mores as part of Kiera's cover strategy.