Davdi Silverrock wrote: >Continuing with this pararectal conceit, I find myself wondering what >her thoughts were on being given a commission to assassinate someone >named "Taltos". Did she wonder if it was a sign that Vlad was >unkillable? Did she have some half-hope that he would prove to be a >similar support of political change in Dragaera that Bolk was in >Fenario? Might that have been part of why she found herself attracted > > Or maybe it's just a name. If a special forces assassin happened to be handed the name of a terrorist leader whose last name was "Goodman", would the assassin refuse to carry out the assignment, just because the person was a :"good man"? Just because someone is named "Taltos" doesn't mean that they *are* a Taltos, any more than a person with the last name "Bear" is a large furry creature who swims in mountain streams and likes to eat salmon. If Cawti even took notice of Vlad's last name, she probably just assumed that he'd picked that name out for himself when his family moved to Adrilankha. (Which may, indeed, be what happened. Noish-Pa might have thought that was a fitting patronymic for his family when he took the wife and kids and moved out west. Especially if Nosih-Pa has been living under an assumed name, which I suspect may be the case.) This brings up the point of Vlads baronetcy. Did it exist before Vlad's father bought it? According to the conversation with Paresh in /Teckla/, Vlad says it's a "real place with 2 or 3 families living there." "Taltos" sure seems like an unusual name for a Dragaeran to give to a region, which makes me suspect that the region was named after Vlad (or rather, after his father) rather than vice versa. >to him when the assassination attempt failed? Might that further have >been why she was so disappointed by his complete political apathy (and >indeed, antipathy), not too long after they married? > >Oh, well. Just some random maunderings. > > I think Cawti knew what she was getting into with Vlad. That one conversation they have in /Yendi/ when Vlad takes her to the party at Castle Black lays out pretty clearly where Vlad stands on things. I'd like to point out, that at *that* point, Cawti herself didn't appear to be especially *politically* active, either. That came later. On a tangent, to me, the fact that Cawti was an assassin and not very politically motivated prior to meeting Kelly makes me think that if she really *is* the author of /Brokedown Palace/, she doesn't write it until after Vlad had left home. (Maybe that's one of the things she's been doing during Vlad's absence?) Majikjon