> > ... although Hal emerges from Falstaff's underworld with a sense of life > and of the common man, his greatest political gain is the flexibility that > he has acquired as sidekick to the playful Falstaff. Unlike his grave > father or his rigid, humorless brother Prince John, Hal knows how to > improvise, how to stay alert to the world around him, and - as we see in > his manipulation of soldiers and ambassadors in Henry V - how to be what > others need him to be. > > http://www.newyorker.com/critics/theatre/ :-) And they each have a deep, if ambivalent, relationship with their deity. I think that the major difference (well, besides social station) is that Vlad doesn't have any PowerLust, and Hal, though he sometimes equivocates, clearly does. He complains about being King, but there's no way he'd ever give it up. Vlad, on the other hand, walked away from a considerable amount of power, albeit under some duress. I think there's no question that, should Vlad's desires have pointed him in such a direction, he might have been the first Easterner on the Jhereg Council (which is as close as "King" as the setting probably allows him). Alexx Opinions expressed are my own and not necessarily those of my employers. alexx at carolingiaSPAMBL@CK.org http://www.panix.com/~alexx "CJE's LitCrit Rule of Thumb #12: Any story that needs a diagram to explain it needs a decent editor far more."