Davdi Silverrock wrote: >On 1/1/06, Jon Lincicum <lincicum at comcast.net> wrote: > >>Yes, certainly that's the kind of work that Vlad delegated to >>Kragar--AFTER he decided to let Kragar be his chief lieutenant. >> >>But given Vlad's penchant for careful preparation in regards to setting >>up an assassination (done in the early days BEFORE Kragar was working >>for him), it seems unusual that he wouldn't take the time to do the same >>sort of work up on Kragar--detective story conventions aside. >> >> > >I dunno - I don't think Vlad became careful until after making a few >mistakes (like his first hit, where he used Loiosh explicitly, and had >to clear out of town for a while). He did start out pretty young, >after all. He even described himself as being like a young Dzur, >brash and reckless. Certainly, killing his own boss in order to >advance was pretty brash and reckless. > > > [cite] It's hard for me to pin down the point at which I stopped considering myself to be someone's enforcer who sometimes did "work" and started considering myself a freelance assassin...Certainly those around me began to think of me that way before it occurred to me, but I don't think my own thinking changed until I had developed professional habits and a good approach to the job. Once again, it's unclear just when this occurred, but I was certainly functioning like a professional by the time I finished my seventh job--assassinating a little turd named Raiet. [/cite] This quote from Taltos seems to say that Vlad had developed his professional habits BEFORE taking on his own area... and this is confirmed later when Vlad talks about his fact-checking the information he was given by Feet about Raiet. No mention of Kragar throughout this section, and it was before Vlad had his own area, so I would say it appears he had pretty good habits established by then. >I think it likely that Kragar must have done something that >demonstrated to Vlad that he (Kragar) was loyal above and beyond the >usual sort of Jhereg loyalty. > > I do not dispute that there is ample space in what we don't know about Vlad to provide the possibility that Kragar performed some great action, or series of actions that instlled undying trust by Vlad... But if this is the case it would seem somewhat odd to me that he's never mentioned it when talking about Kragar. >One of my pararectal notions is that it was Kragar who told Vlad how a >less-than-thorough interrogation under the Orb could be... >sidestepped, as it were. And that Kragar might have helped ensure >that less-than-thorough interrogation by passing a few well-aimed >bribes from Vlad to the Jhereg interrogators > >Although perhaps that may have been Kiera, now that I think about it. > > Interesting concept. This strikes me as the kind of thing Vlad might even be clever enouigh to come up with on his own, also. >Good point. Still, Kiera might well have told Vlad that he could >trust Kragar, without necessarily divulging Kragar's background (or >not divulging his *true* background; see Speculation:Kragar). > > > We know that Vlad *likes* Kiera, but do we have any clue on how much he *trusts* Kiera? At least before the events in /Orca/? (Or even after? ;-) ) Majikjon