On Tue, 4 Nov 2003, Iain E. Davis wrote: >At 03:27 PM 11/4/2003, you wrote: >>On Tue, Nov 04, 2003 at 12:48:56PM -0800, David Silberstein >><davids at kithrup.com> wrote: >> > Still "trouble", in the military, usually means death, or possibly >> > forced retirement from the army itself. Assuming he didn't do >> > something that the military would deem deserving of execution, >> > incompetence alone would probably just get him cashiered. >> > >> > No matter what his fuckup was, expulsion from House Dragon >> > itself is very, very unusual. >> >>Cowardice would do it. > >That's what I was thinking. Or at least perceived cowardice. >Definitions of cowardice may vary. But cowardice in the face of the enemy is a capital offence, according to Sethra. He wouldn't have been expelled, but rather executed. And for that matter, Kragar has never seemed exactly cowardly to me. Unambitious, yes, but not cowardly. >To be honest I can't picture Kana as Kragar, or vice-versa. But >that's purely by gut-feeling, I can't support with any evidence. :) > Well, since I have no evidence for my theory, not even gut-feeling, you could very well be entirely correct. They seem to have very different personalities - as I mentioned, Kragar appears to be unusually unambitious - but again, that could be due to narrative unreliability, and also the changed circumstances. >I actually wonder if Kragar did something along the lines of "disobeyed >orders to save his unit's lives", ending up in the position of being >officially expelled, but unofficially thanked, as it were. :) > That is in the class of scenarios that I could see resulting in his being cashiered from that particular army, but not expelled from the House.