--- Gaertk at aol.com wrote: > In a message dated 2/29/2004 2:34:13 AM Eastern > Standard Time, "Bryan Newell" <bryann at bryann.net> > writes: > > > But don't read this email unless you've read all > the > > Dragaeran novels, as there are spoilers for most > of them > > below. > > > > > > 1. Why hasn't any action been taken against Paarfi > by the > > Empire for publishing to the masses how to defeat > the Orb? > > Do you really believe that it's trivially easy to > summon > unimaginable amounts of sorcerous power without > using the Orb > or purple stones or anything? And I'm sure it's > just > coincidence that this happened at the same time > Adron lost > control of his huge Elder Sorcery spell. > Yes. The Orb uses Elder Sorcery itself. It has to summon (and direct) power for thousands of people at a time. It's certainly a great achievement in craft, but it would be beyond anyone's power if summoning energy from the Sea of Chaos were very difficult. Just like a citizen who uses the orb finds it easy to summon power from it, the Orb can easily get that power from the Sea of Chaos. The same general rules apply to the two forms of sorcery, since one is merely a subset of the other. Summoning power is easy, the difficult part is creating a complex spell with it. I remember in one book, Vlad explains that the easiest sorcerous maneuver is to grab some power and direct it towards an opponent (but this is also the easiest to counter). Also, the purple stones seem to form around the Great Sea of Chaos relatively often. Just having one in your possession for a while can give a person insight into Elder Sorcery. Since it was legal to possess these for many thousands of years in the Empire, they shouldn't be so rare that the Empress would be blase about a method for weakening her power being spread that makes use of them. Why would Adron have lost control of the spell at that time unless Tortaalik had already been killed with the Orb inert? It wasn't a coincidence; his spell's failure occurred because of the success of Mario's attack on the Orb (through the Elder sorceress's magic). > > > 7. Who is Sethra referring to on page 198 of > "Issola": "I > > am the only Lavode left. Well, there's one other, > but he > > isn't ready yet." > > First guess: VN. Of course, Sethra is trying to > conceal this > person's identity, so she may have said "gya" > instead of "he" > which allows other possibilities (T, SiG). > Well, the only information given about "gya" in the books (which is also almost the only information about the grammar of the language the characters are actually speaking) is that it is used when the sex of the person referred to is unknown to the speaker. Sethra knows who she's talking about, so she wouldn't use the word. This is exactly the same as in many languages here on Earth (this would be similar to those who use "one" or "they" in English to stand for an unknown or general person). __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Get better spam protection with Yahoo! Mail. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools