On 1/9/06, Jon_Lincicum at stream.com <Jon_Lincicum at stream.com> wrote: > > > I've always gotten the impression that the Jhereg heir was just the one > with so much money and power that no one else could touch him... Not so > much a matter of "buying a high enough title" as it is a matter of having > a title; then using assassination, fear, money, intimidation, and other > nasty mafia-style tactics to rise to the top of the heap and stay there. I think it's debateable. The Organization appears to be distinct from the aristocratic hierarchy. It could just as easily be that the Jhereg Heir is mostly a figurehead who is allowed to do whatever he wants, except with the restriction that the Jhereg Council is not made unhappy by what he does, and the Organization is thus able to do whatever it pleases, even when the Heir becomes the Emperor. In other words, the Jhereg aristocracy always defers to the Organization in matters pertaining to the Organization. But I could be wrong, and perhaps the Empire becomes the biggest Jhereg area of all when the Cycle turns that way, and the Emperor is synonymous with the head of the Jhereg Council at that time. Or maybe it's even worked both ways in different Cycles.