Reposting my response to an accidentally-private reply on-list, with permission. On Sun, Aug 03, 2003 at 12:13:21PM -0400, Alexx S Kay <alexx at TheWorld.com> wrote: > > Well. > > > > That was fun. > > > > [SPOILERS below] > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > [snip] > > > If this is the case, > > then we can take as implied that Dragaerans and Easterners can > > interbreed, which has interesting implications regarding Zerika, > > Laslzo, and the prior speculation. > Hardly. There's huge amounts of historical (and fictional) precedent > for a ruler to have a consort for the sole purpose of providing genetic > continuity, and that role is only ocassionally, by happy coincidence, > filled by the same person who has the role of "lover". My use of implies was meant to be weak rather than strong -- that is, the possibility is implied but does not provide certainty. > > * Sethra the Younger and Morrolan have discussed invading the > > east. This strikes me as significant for the future, though not > > necessarily for the third volume. > In a sense, it's already *been* significant. This matter was of > central import to the plot of _Yendi_, and has been referenced in > several other Vlad books as well. True, but the significant portion of this element would be Morrolan's involvement, and points to an invasion of the East coinciding with Morrolan's desire to lay some smackdown on that village that he wants to feed to Verra. We know that Verra gets her meal well before _Yendi_. > > * Morrolan's floating castle is quite probably held up by, as > > Vlad surmised, a rune wrought in the features of the terrain > > below it that continually tells the castle "Don't fall down." > Well, maybe. But TLoCB gives us another possibility: It's held up by > 714 chanting witches. Presumably he has a lot more than that, working > in shifts. Which would go some way towards explaining why Morrolan's > circle of witches, so often mentioned in passing, have never become > foreground as a plot device in any of the Vlad books; they're all too > busy keeping the castle floating. I was operating under the impression that the "rune" would be Arra's way of making the levitation permanent. She suggests that with enough witches, she can make it permanent. > > * Interesting and unusual twist regarding Piro's choice of > > romantic partners. I wonder where it's going? > About a third of the way through, I suspected this would happen, and by > halfway through, I was sure. As in the Dumas model, the Viscount's love > life is not well-omened. It did make me appreciate, from an authorial > point of view, how cleverly Brust and Paarfi established the necessary > setup for this. Since I haven't yet read the Dumas works in this case, could you elaborate a little on this element in Dumas? -- Matthew Hunter (matthew at infodancer.org) Public Key: http://matthew.infodancer.org/public_key.txt Homepage: http://matthew.infodancer.org/index.jsp Politics: http://www.triggerfinger.org/index.jsp