On Apr 11, 2005 3:38 PM, Philip Hart <philiph at slac.stanford.edu> wrote: > > Hard to see anyone thinking that Morrolan (esp. at the time) would make a > good Emperor. > Well, assuming we've read the Paths of the Dead, Zerika was quite young and with little knowledge when Sethra sent her after the orb. I've no doubt that Sethra could have properly groomed Morrolan for the role as well, if necessary. And again, this question plays off of what we believe - Vlad's recounting of Morrolan's story of events or Paarfi's? In Taltos, Morrolan notes "If I could have used sorcery, I would have." (Quoting Taltos from memory here, so my phrasing could well be off.) However, Paarfi's telling would give us a Morrolan with no knowledge of sorcery... Back on the issues of Vlad's version, when are we assuming Morrolan was born? (Or do we know specifically?) I've gotten the idea from somewhere (Paarfi?) that he was born during the interregnum, which leads one to wonder how he could possibly have any working knowledge of sorcery. Are we talking Elder Sorcery here? And that doesn't seem right, either. There's a conversation between Vlad and Morrolan (in Jhereg) discussing Morrolan's "hobby" of pre-Empire sorcery. When asked how long he's been studying it, Morrolan replies that it's been "rather an interest of mine for a hundred years or so." Which doesn't seem like long enough for him to have known it then, even though I'm not exactly sure how far out the events of the Vlad stories are from the beginning of Zerika's reign. Ah, but the many joys of speculation!