maybe i am not the first to say this, but wasnt she just calling him (Dolivar) a yendi as an insult? as for missing deliberately, ....well has anyone read Sethra Lavode yet? i think its been out a little while....does that give us any more info from her past? Scott Schultz <scott at cjhunter.com> wrote: >"Dolivar was tortured and expelled." >"I share the guilt here, too, as does Sethra. Sethra was supposed to >hamstring the yendi, but she missed-deliberately." >That would explain it I think. I'm not saying you're wrong. This passage has always struck me as lacking much in the way of context. Just what does it explain? Is Sethra's involvement with Vlad really about feeling guilty for something that happened to his original soul-bearer over 200,000 years ago? What does it refer to? Here's the entire passage (courtesy of Drageara book search): "I was there, Vlad, when Kieron was backed into a corner by an ex-Dragon named Dolivar, who had been Kieron's brother before he shamed himself and the whole tribe. Dolivar was tortured and expelled. I share the guilt there, too, as does Sethra. Sethra was supposed to hamstring the yendi, but she missed-deliberately. I saw, but I didn't say anything. Perhaps that makes me responsible for my brother's death, later. I don't know..." Nothing here explains what it was that Dolivar did or what part Sethra actually had. Sethra was supposed to hamstring a yendi (the animal, presumably) and deliberately failed. What does that have to do with anything that would involve Dolivar shaming the Dragon tribe to the point that they would torture him and expel him? Some sort of ritual that was disrupted or ended in failure? For unknown reasons, Aliera's original soul-bearer (do we know the name?) chose to let Dolivar be disgraced and cast out rather than reveal Sethra's duplicity. Aliera wonders if that makes her complicit in Kieron's death by treachery later on, due to setting in motion the events that led to Dolivar's expulsion and later founding of the Jhereg. I don't know. Maybe to Dragaeran's, who accept reincarnation as a fact, a soul is a single person regardless of what body/personality it currently happens to be. Maybe that would make Sethra feel compelled to protect Vlad as a way of discharging a debt of honor to Dolivar. It just doesn't sit all that well with me, though. I'm not sure I'd like it much if I was in Vlad's shoes. "All this time, you haven't appreciated me for who I am, you've appreciated me for who I was..." Meh. It might be right, but I don't like it. If Sethra's going to feel guilty about Vlad, then I'd prefer it to be about something relating to him rather than something relating to the last person to bear his soul. Never mind that it raises the question of how Sethra knew about Vlad in the first place. It's apparent that she's been looking out for him since he was a child, unbeknownst to him. What first brought him to her attention? It may be right, but it leaves everything as murky as it always was. --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Sports - Sign up for Fantasy Baseball.