Be warned there be Spoilers ahead for the following books: The Phoenix Guards The Paths of the Dead The Lord of Castle Black Sethra Lavode Brokedown Palace Jhereg Taltos Phoenix Athyra Orca Issola * * * * * * * * * * * spoiler space * * * * * * * * * * * * Ten On-Topic Topics ----------------------------- 1. In Sethra Lavode, Laszlo cannot use witchcraft due to the influence of Tri'nagore, and yet Arra (and the circle of witches) manage to cast a spell on Morrolan and/or Blackwand that enables Morrolan to kill Tri'nagore. With Tri'nagore's death, Laszlo regains the use of witchcraft. How did Arra manage to use witchcraft while Laszlo could not? 2. Verra is slain (or, perhaps more accurately, "banished" from the East) in Brokedown Palace. Why can she still manifest in the Empire (see Issola)? Is the Empire a different "plane of existence" than the East? Tri'nagore is also slain in the East, and yet there seems to be little doubt that he is banished from the Empire as well as the East. Does this imply that Dzur Mountain and the Lesser Sea of Chaos (the two places Verra manifests in Issola) are on different planes of existence than the rest of the world of Dragaera? 3. It seems that the physical Cycle is somehow tied to the Empire. There is even the hint that the Cycle is older than the Empire (POTD 193). And yet, in Issola, Sethra mentions that there were 31 tribes that came together to form the Empire, of which presumably only 17 still exist. Further, it appears the Jhereg were a late addition to this list, being formed during Kieron's lifetime by Dolivar (BOJ 82), mostly from ex-Dragons. If the Cycle is older than the Empire, why are there only 17 houses on it, and why are the Jhereg one of them? 4. In The Lord of Castle Black, pg 391, Verra asserts that Morrolan will one day use the oldest of the magical arts (elder sorcery?). Her sister claims he has not the bloodlines to do this, and Verra replies, "we shall see". In Taltos, Vlad is given a vial of (Verra's?) blood, which he then uses to rescue Morrolan from the Paths of the Dead (by infusing it into his blood). Is this perhaps what Verra was hinting at? 5. Re: the recent discussion about how Vlad healed his arm at the end of Issola. I noticed on a recent reread of Phoenix that when Vlad cuts his hand to gain entrance to Verra's Halls, Spellbreaker heals the cut spontaneously. I would also submit that "putting itself back together" (with Vlad's assistance?) at the end of Issola qualifies as a healing of sorts. I wonder if it could heal Svan. 6. In Jhereg, after meeting Rocza, Morrolan tells Vlad he did not think a witch could have two familiars. Vlad goes on to argue that Rocza is not actually his familiar, but back to Morrolan: Had he forgotten about Awtla and Sireng? Or does that indicate that one of them was not Laszlo's familiar? 7. I am nearly convinced that the narrator of Athyra is none other than Svan himself. First off, it does appear to be narrated, not told from the 3rd person. Consider the beginning of chapter 1, where it says, "The next thing to happen, which was really the first for our purposes..." The "our" here suggests the story is being narrated. Second, the only two characters whose thoughts we are directly privy to are Svan himself, and Rocza. Svan seems to have a special relationship with Rocza (see Orca when Loiosh is hurt), and is being trained as a witch by Vlad. If Svan is the narrator, that implies he does eventually recover, and perhaps gets to know Rocza fairly well (well enough to quote her thoughts/memories). Does Rocza eventually become Svan's familiar? If you want some really off-the-wall speculation, consider: Can a Teckla become a Lavode? 8. On the longevity of Easterners: Zerika's Eastern lover is named Laszlo in the Paarfiad, and she also tells Vlad in Phoenix that her Eastern lover's name "is" (note the tense) Laszlo. If this is the same Easterner, he is very long lived indeed. On the other hand, Morrolan's head of the circle in the Paarfiad is Arra--who, we are told, has been granted longevity by Verra--and yet by the time of Issola, that role is filled by Surill (pg 24 of the paperback). Of course, this could be the same person (Chaz/Tukko, anyone?) 9. This one is probably too obvious, but: I believe Kiera is the sole narrator of Orca. First, everything Vlad says is narrated as if he were telling it to Kiera "after the fact". Second, Kiera tells us things that Vlad doesn't know (the conversations/letters with Cawti, the 1st conversation with Loftis (when Vlad is "figuring it out" he mentions that she glossed over parts of that conversation when she recounted it to him)). This, along with #7, suggests that at least four people have access to the "magic box" that allows communication with Steven Brust: Vlad, Kiera, Svan and Paarfi. I don't know how Brokedown Palace fits in with all this. 10. It has been suggested that Paarfi is a mouthpiece for Sethra. In one of my emails to Steven Brust concerning the geography of Dragaera, he responded to something I quoted from Paarfi by saying, "Pel is wrong. Sort of." The passage we were discussing was clearly narrated by Paarfi (it was a description of the location of Newmarket relative to Dragaera City early in TPG), not directly attributable to Pel. This seems to suggest that at least portions of Paarfi's tale were supplied by Pel, not Sethra. Or maybe Pel is Sethra's mouthpiece, and Paarfi is Pel's. As always, my intent was to come up with 17 of these (I've been working on this email for the last two weeks), but due to the recent outcry against the List's reticence, I am submitting this early. Bryan