I've been poking around in _TPG_ and noticed two things I'd missed before: Shortly after we meet Tazendra, she has a brief duel with a Hawklord. He puts up a pretty meagre defense. I don't in retrospect understand how T could bother with one wimpy Hawklord. Later we see her provoke a Dragon whom she doesn't deign to fight alone by asking him to find a few friends. On pg 30 there's a quibble about forts and fortresses which I hadn't noticed is a clever crude joke. This follows a paragraph in which it seems to be implied that there can be more than one Emperor per reign. Also, for comparison, Khaavren is 95 when he meets Aerich et al. He seems to be entirely adult at this point, while his son at a somewhat older age (I think) still seems adolescent. I would have thought that people have to grow up faster during the Interregnum. Perhaps a consequence of character or the relative wealth and protectiveness of their parents...