Something that we readers of Paarfi must keep in mind is that Paarfi makes stuff up. For example, in /The Paths of the Dead/, when Piro and Kytraan meet Tazendra, it's this hugely dramatic moment where they can't see who is challenging them because of the sunglare - except that because the sun is directly in their faces and is *behind* her, it must follow that Tazendra can easily make out who she is addressing, and of course, she knows who Kytraan is; why would she challenge him as if he was some stranger? Thinking along these lines caused me to wonder if our entire picture of Tazendra has been horribly skewed by Paarfi because he wanted a "comic relief" hero character. This seems more probable in the books FHYA and later - as a young woman, she might have been that naive, but after *five centuries*, her remaining that immature seems highly improbable. And to some extent, Paarfi undermines his protrayal of her as a naif with the scene in Gyorg Lavode's room, or for that matter, writing about her when she is a Lavode herself. So it seems quite likely to me that if Tazendra ever *did* talk like that, it was perforce out of playfulness, or in a deeply ironic mode, because it amused her, and because she knew quite well what the stereotype of the Dzur Hero is, and deliberately played up to that at times (even while usually being quite seriously prepared to follow through, because she *is* a Dzur, after all). So if there *was* a challenge at Dzur Mountain, for example, I can well see it as Tazendra feeling less than entirely serious. Thus, when she sees Kytraan and Piro, she recognizes Kytraan and decides to see if she can startle him. She bellows out "Hey, you! There's two of you and only one of me! Wanna fight?" And Kytraan answers "Tazendra! You nearly had me going there. Anything new happen?" And Tazendra comes back with "Hi Kytraan! You and that cute Tiassa are the newest things around. Aren't you going to introduce me?" Or something like that, assuming a challenge even happened at all. Of course, we will probably never know, unless there's a book written by Sethra Lavode, or by Khaavren, or perhaps even by Piro, about that time period. Anyway, it gives a potentially new perspective to keep in mind when reading some of the more painfully naive lines Paarfi gives Tazendra, especially in the later books. I mean, really now.