Dragaera

The Magic Box

Sat Jan 7 18:44:44 PST 2006

K Kuhn wrote:

>Scott Schultz wrote:
>  
>
>> 
>>Now, you can speculate that Paarfi is nothing more than a shill and that
>>Sethra does the actual writing (Think _Without A Clue_, the film whose
>>premise was that Watson was the actual detective and that "Holmes" was
>>actually an actor hired as a front man. Rather like _Remington Steele_, now
>>that I think about it.) but I think the textev at this point supports the
>>existence of an actual person answering to the name "Paarfi of Roundwood".
>>
>>    
>>
>
>How hard would it be to come up with a fake identity that's from an
>aristocratic House?  On the one hand, you'd think with Dragaeran's long
>lifespans, they'd know an awful lot of relatives - kinda along the lines
>of knowing who your second cousins twice removed are, because you've
>been seeing them at great-great-grandpa's birthday parties, and they're
>aristocratic and concerned about making sure kids marry only within the
>House.  So would people get suspicious if they couldn't figure out who
>someone was related to?  On the other hand, Khaavren quite obviously
>didn't know of all the courtier Tiassa who might be a useful connection
>if he needed some Tiassa help - and I'd think a Countess would be fairly
>important.  Anyone have any idea how big the various aristocratic Houses
>are (with the easy exception of the current Phoenix)? 
>
It isn't necessary for Paarfi himself, or his house or origins to be an 
invention for Philip's theory to work. He's only really saying that 
Paarfi is being *used* by Sethra, not that he *is* Sethra.

At least, that's the impression I got when I typed it up for the wiki.

At the same time, given the size of the Empire, and the relatively low 
technology level and population density, it's not inconceivable that 
someone could pull off a fairly convincing imposter routine. I seem to 
recall Pel doing that sort of thing on a couple of occasions. I mean, 
it's not like the Empire keeps a DNA database of all its citizens.

Majikjon