> > These things are "built-in" to each member of that House. > They aren't > > merely social constructs. They're an essential trait the members of > > that House are born with to a greater or lesser extent. > > My current understanding of the texts does not support such > an assertion, but I'm prepared to be shown otherwise. Hmmm... I'm not sure they can be shown directly. If nothing else, these conversations are a way of highlighting just how little we actually know about Dragaeran society at-large. Let's try this - Some of the House traits, such as courage and ferocity, can potentially be taught by society. Other traits, though, are traits that cannot be learned. The cleverness of the Tiassa, the subtlety of the Yendi, the sorcerous skill of the Athyra. All the schooling and conditioning in the world won't help if you don't already have the capacity. These are all traits that those Houses are pre-disposed to. You can do all the PR you want about how clever the Tiassa are. If the reality consistently failed to match up with the legend then the legend would eventually fade or become a joke. This is clearly not the case. People take a Tiassa's cleverness for granted. We see this repeatedly in the Paarfiad (granted it's not the most unbiased of accounts) where our heroes get into a fix and, rather than panicing, they say "Well, what then, we have a Tiassa with us don't we? He'll figure a way out of it." and Khaavren nearly always manages. It's not because he was taught to be clever or because he's exceptional for his House or because society expects him to be clever and therefore sees cleverness where it doesn't actually exist. It's just that, being born a Tiassa, he has an innate wit, curiosity and an ability to put two and two together to make five. The Tiassa don't have a monopoly on those traits but they have them as a pre-disposition where the other Houses have them simply as a matter of luck. Ditto for the Yendi and the Athyra. Yendi are not known simply for their plotting. They're known for their subtlety and the complexity of their plots. If that legendary subtlety was merely a legend, then the number of failed and painfully obvious Yendi plots would eventually overcome the legend. Likewise, if the Athyra were simply of average skill at sorcery, even a store of secret knowledge wouldn't keep the rest of Dragaera from eventually catching up with them. Instead, we see that even in modern times an Athyra sorceror is respected and feared as one of the more powerful and dangerous beings around. When mention is made of a sorceror becoming a god, it's nearly always with the qualification that it's an Athyra sorceror we're talking about. Heck, we can even look at the Issola. A great deal of Issola temperament is based upon years of conditioning and training. Even so, those of House Issola are super-humanly polite and affable. If it was only a matter of social mores, then there ought to be a lot of abberations and drop-outs. There ought to be Issola warlords and Issola warriors. The legend of the vaunted Issola courtesy would become attached to the Diplomatic Corp. or the Butler School instead of the race as a whole.