"Scott Schultz" <scott at cjhunter.com> Sent by: dragaera-bounces at dragaera.info 11/14/05 09:46 AM To "'Dragaera'" <dragaera at dragaera.info> cc Subject RE: How will House Phoenix arise from the ashes? >Well, yes, I shan't deny the validity of that. I was trying to avoid being >simply contrary and asking "Where is the textex that Zerika I was a Reborn >Phoenix?" There isn't any, making the question moot because it leaves the >discussion in the exact state it was in previously. Well, not entirely. It establishes that the question of her status is entirely open for debate; which is in stark contrast to the comment "Zerika is *not* a reborn Phoenix" which is what I was objecting to. Now, if you want to say that "I don't think she was, because..." or "This evidence makes me suspect she was not..." you'll ellicit an entirely different reaction, and we'll probably get some good discussion out of it. >If you want to get logical about it and you won't accept the premises that >"the Houses were born at the founding of the Empire" I believe that Sethra has some comments in Issola that say that even AFTER the Empire was founded, the tribes didn't really start thinking about themselves as "houses" until some time after this (like even 2 or 3 cycles). Paarfi has some comments in PotD that even hint that the Dragaerans didn't even recognize that they had an empire until about 4 cycles into it, when they "..suddenly realized it had been an Empire all along..." The bottom line on this point is that while the transition from "tribes" to "houses" was a fairly gradual process, as was the transition from "nomadic bands of Dragaerans" to "Empire". And while it is entirely possible that both events happened in conjunction with one another, there's too much time (tens of thousands of years, by my count) unaccounted for to know if the two events ("founding the empire" and "becoming proper houses") are really connected in any significant way. They are only "contemporary to each other" when viewed from hundreds of thousands of years in the future. >Something to keep in mind though - The end of the Great Cycle and the >appearance of the Reborn Phoenix was not an event related to the death and >rebirth of House Phoenix. It was an event related to the death and rebirth >of The Empire. Given that, I can't see how Zerika I could possibly be a >Reborn Phoenix. She was simply First. Hmm... Interesting distinction here. Did the cycle of decay and rebirth of the Phoenix begin with the start of the Empire, or the start of the cycle itself? I guess we don't really know this for sure... But I think my personal view is that this is a mystical aspect of the cycle, rather than any transitory human influence. A Phoenix is a mystical creature (at least in our culture) so at least this explanation makes a certain amount of sense, even if it is unsubstantiated. Majikjon