Mark A. Mandel wrote: > > Not necessarily. I was thinking today about detective novel tropes. The > hero(ine) has > - the sidekick, > - the friend on the force or elsewhere in power, > - and various other people with special knowledge or abilities to call > on. > > Kragar is the sidekick, for as long as Vlad is a boss in the Organization, > as well as having resources. I don't know that Vlad HAD the resources to > look into K's past, before K was working for him. That's the kind of work > that he DELEGATES to K. Hm - has anyone on the list ever speculated that Kragar is House of the Dragon's deep-cover agent, intended to keep an eye on the Jhereg? We know that there have been some Dragon-Jhereg wars in the past, where the Jhereg gave a respectable account of themselves as far as assassinating prominent Dragons go. If you take the view that the Dragon's 'honor' relies on going up against someone and winning [1], it would seem likely that they like to know what they're up against before having to design tactics to fight - and Kragar's peculiar talent at being overlooked could be quite useful. [2] Also, the Jhereg were founded by a Dragon, and Draghaera is a world where tribal stereotypes are genetic, rather than cultural - you're not going to find a straightforward Yendi, or a Dzur who couldn't care less about his reputation, etc. So theoretically, Dragon and Jhereg goals shouldn't be that far apart, although what is considered acceptable means would differ. Like, perhaps Dolivar's crime wasn't that he was sneaky, but that he used his sneakiness to take advantage of people's weakness [3]. Karen [1] Presumably there needs to be at least a chance that it's a fair fight - Aliera gave Vlad the name of the Dragon who beat him up because she knew that Vlad couldn't fight back. OTOH, given the talk about Aliera and Morrolan slaughtering Easterners who had no chance of hurting them, their version of a fair fight might be along the lines of an officer who thinks insurgents should form up in a nice exposed position with machine guns so he can shoot them with air support, long-range artillery, and tanks, otherwise they're not brave like he is. [2] For a completely off-the-wall speculation, what if the invisibility is based on a link to the Orb, and the reason Vlad remembers Kragar enough to think of him when he needs a right-hand man, is because he's an Easterner and not that much of a sorceror? Be interesting to know if Kelly's Easterners don't have the problem noticing Kragar that Draghaerans do. [3] As an example of what I'm thinking, in Pratchett's "The Fifth Elephant" "...I didn't know we did this sort of thing!" "You use spies all the time, dear,' said Sybil "I do not!" "Well, what about people like Foul Ole Ron and No Way Jose and Cumbling Michael?' "That is not spying, that is not spying! That's just 'information received' We couldn't do the job if we didn't know what's happening on the street!" So, House of the Dragon doesn't spy, they just want to know what's happening elsewhere so they can do the job. The House of the Jhereg does spy and takes advantage of people's weaknesses (all the stuff that gets outlawed because people won't stop doing it themselves) to win. Ie, a Dragon wouldn't take advantage of a weakness for s'yang stones to blackmail someone - a Jhereg (and by extension Dolivar) would if it's the easiest way to do it. Karen