On 1/9/06, Jon_Lincicum at stream.com <Jon_Lincicum at stream.com> wrote: > > I just recently re-read /Issola/, and it's interesting to re-visit the > part with Vlad/Teldra talking to Verra in her halls. > > "I refuse to allow you to be a useless boil on the hindquarters of the > world." (or some such.) > > But there's also Sethra's comments at the end of the second chapter about > how Vlad has always been "Happier being just used as a tool, and not given > explanations, no matter how much you ask for them." That seems pretty > appropriate to this discussion. > Hm. And Kiera would have more knowledge of just how much Vlad has been used as a tool (by the Jhereg, for those various assassinations). And yet, I think Sethra's wrong, above. In fact, I think she has neglected to take into account that (a) people can change, and (b) Easterners, having shorter lives, when they do change, change much faster than the Dragaerans that she's more used to dealing with. And Vlad has definitely been changing in the past few years of his exile. And, really, he *wasn't* happy about being used as a tool without his knowledge. I was thinking about that chapter in /Issola/ as well, recently - Vlad is *very* pissy with Sethra, at the start there. Speculating about that scene, perhaps he felt a bit betrayed by someone he thought he could trust. That is, sitting in Dzur Mountain, as he had been those (relatively few) years before when he first met Sethra, it may have occurred to him that his button-man Quion might have been discovered to have been thinking of skipping out with a chunk of gold by Kiera, and that's how *that* particular manipulation was set up. So Vlad ranted at Sethra a bit when he remembered that/deduced that. Perhaps. Or, heck, maybe he figured that Kiera "conspired" with Quion on the embezzlement (with any reservations Quion might have had having been removed by Morrolan's idea-implantation). At any rate, definitely a reason to be pissy.