--- Philip Hart <philiph at slac.stanford.edu> wrote: > > > On Mon, 22 Mar 2004, Sean Whalen wrote: > > > [re Tortaalik. Radical snippage] > > > Allistar wants to get rid of him by forcing him to > step down (in favor > > of Noima or Allistar). > > Textev? Well, there isn't a description exactly matching this. In _The Phoenix Guards_ there's no scene where all the plots are exactly described and all the actions explained. In fact, I'm pretty sure that some of the information given is the result of editing mistakes or changes in the plot from one draft to another. I think my interpretation is very probable only if there can be multiple Emperors per reign. If not, then Allistar just wanted to become Noima's lover and use her influence for his own ends. However, this leaves him vulnerable to being exposed (and his attentions weren't exactly secret) and risking execution or banishment. In any other story it would be almost taken for granted that he wanted to marry the Queen, remove the King and take over. Only because of the question of one to one match-up between Emperors and reigns would this not be something Illista and Allistar would try for. I've argued before that there can be more than one Emperor per reign (and that there is only one Phoenix Reign per cycle, almost always taken by a decadent Phoenix). It makes sense Tortaalik's sister tried to kill him with poison to become Empress (and did it ninety years into his reign), not that he would be comatose. It makes sense that Tortaalik's reign began the Second Great Cycle. If these things couldn't be true, then Kana and Illista are sadly unobservant about how long Zerika must reign and are following an impossible path. > Note I'm not arguing that the interpretation you're > presenting is entirely > inconsistent with the Texts - but I don't see what > problems it solves for > which simpler answers are available. I can understand that. It just seems to me that taken together the solutions I believe in and have described for the past week or so are more consistent than anything else. Each one may seem somewhat unsupported by itself, but each comes together with the others into something believable. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Finance Tax Center - File online. File on time. http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html