On Tue, 18 Nov 2003, Philip Hart wrote: >On Tue, 18 Nov 2003, David Silberstein wrote: > >> On Tue, 18 Nov 2003, Philip Hart wrote: >> >> >Ok, thanks. I'm going to suppose that Dimma needed something to call >> >her and just made that up - or rather that the title is just >> >conventional and used for this particular purpose only (Sethra can't >> >enter unless announced, no one without a title can be announced, >> >so...) >> > >> >> Err, why do have this wish for Sethra to be a commoner? Not that >> there's anything wrong with being a commoner, but Sethra is, after >> all, rather uncommon. >Yeah, that's my point, she's sui generis, outside the system, ... >No noble title makes sense. Nobility derives from the emperor (or >the empire, I guess Aerich would say). What could the emperor give >Sethra? (Well, she has a link to the Orb and is hence a citizen so >maybe I'm just being ornery). I nearly think you are. I would argue that just because "nobility derives from the empire" (which itself is something I would quibble with) does not mean that Sethra is not noble. I agree that, like the Lords of Judgement, or Demons, or whatever, Sethra is indeed outside the system. But that does not mean that the system will not try to define how it relates to her, and how she relates to it. Consider: She lives on Dzur Mountain, and defends it against all attackers. Therefore, she is at least a land-owner. She wields considerable military power in her own right, as well as doing so on behalf of the Empire. Given that she is a Power, and lives in the Empire, the Empire will, almost certainly at some point, have conferred upon her an honorary title and peerage. The nobility comes from the Empire recognizing Sethra's right to own Dzur Mountain, and her services to the Empire, rather than from Sethra herself. It's not her fault that she's been made a Baroness. > >I'm thinking Sethra doesn't consider herself as a noble (or maybe >even as noble.) > Well, I can't disagree with that. A noble is, after all, a *Peer* of the Realm. I think Sethra thinks of herself rather more highly than *that*. Or at least as being something other.