Dragaera

Kragar (was: A thought concerning Skinter's future...)

David Silberstein davids at kithrup.com
Wed Nov 5 00:13:32 PST 2003

On Tue, 4 Nov 2003, Mark A Mandel wrote:

> Vlad -- in his own report, of course -- uses this episode later to
>make a point to Kragar about being unable to escape one's House
>heritage, saying something like, "You acted like a Dragon.  The only
>reason a Jhereg will disobey his boss is to kill him, not to save
>him." 
>

[Book search, supplemented with the book itself:]

  /Jhereg/, chap. 14

  "To save my life, you had to disobey my orders.  That isn't
   a Jhereg thing to do at all.the only time a Jhereg will
   disobey orders is when he's planning to kill his boss.  
   But a Dragon, Kragar, a Dragon will sometimes find that the
   that the only way to fulfill his commander's wishes is to
   violate his commands, and do what has to be done, and risk
   court-martial if he has to."

Somehow, I think that's Vlad being unreliable, perhaps for the sake of
simplification.  We've seen that Dragaerans can be a lot more complex
than he gives them credit for with the above, and the idea that all
Dragons would value loyalty over strict obedience, and a Jhereg never
would, strikes me as being inconsistent with that sort of complexity. 

But then, this was in the first book, and we know Steve was still
working things out.