On 1/4/06, Maximilian Wilson <wilson.max at gmail.com> wrote: > On 1/4/06, Jon Lincicum <lincicum at comcast.net> wrote: > > 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? ;-) ) > > The fact that she appears in /Orca/, i.e. that Vlad gave her his > location is spite of the Jhereg al-Hiraba against him, is telling. I > can't actually think of where she appears outside of /Jhereg/ except > for the scene in /Yendi/ where she's doing Sethra's dirty work; does > he mention her among the goodbyes at the end of /Phoenix/? Amazon "search inside" (of /The Book of Taltos/, containing /Taltos/ and /Phoenix/) says, near the end (indeed, last reference to her in the book): "Oh, and Kragar, say good-bye to Kiera the Thief for me. Tell her I still owe her. On the other hand, I expect she can find me when she wants to." However, I see that you've forgotten that /Tatlos/ is also filled with references to Kiera. Including that she obtained burglary tools for Vlad and trained him in their use. > I certainly do get the impression that Vlad trusts her, for reasons he doesn't > entirely understand. > Kiera got him started in the Organization. She's given him a lot of time and support, starting when he was very very young, and I don't think she's really asked for a whole lot in return. Kinda like his grandfather has, now that I think of it. And I'm pretty sure she's never overtly lied to him, although I think she's lied indirectly by implication (I'm thinking of her "promise" to revenge him if Morrolan kills him). Psychologically, I think it entirely makes sense that he trusts her completely, despite not knowing a whole lot about her or her background. And I think a similar argument could be made about why Vlad might trust Kragar: When they started out, Vlad didn't know much about researching backgrounds, but while he worked with Kragar, Kragar proved himself to be reliable (and unambitious). Once Vlad moved up in the Organization, I think he could well have continued to think "Kragar is reliable (and unambitious)", and not felt any need to go poking into Kragar's deep background. On the other hand, it also works if Vlad did do the research at one point, and stopped when he hit the first layer of cover story (assuming that there is indeed a cover story). Or maybe he dug until he felt satisfied that he knew everything he needed to know. I guess my point is that it can be made to work any of the above ways because people aren't 100% consistent. Vlad certainly isn't.