Dragaera

Multiple emporers in a reign, revisited

Tue Mar 14 14:48:31 PST 2006

On Tue, 14 Mar 2006 Gaertk at aol.com wrote:

> Philip Hart <philiph at slac.stanford.edu> writes:
>
> > We should consider a point about the end of _FHYA_ I was
> > neglecting: the deal to cover Tortaalik's abdication did not
> > envisage a substitute Phoenix.  As best I recall, there was no
> > particular need for a Dragon emperor at the time, just a competent
> > one.  Yet the options discussed by Aerich and Adron do not include
> > setting a reasonable Phoenix on the throne.
>
> Remember that this deal was written by Adron

Was it?  I figured Sethra was in on it.

> who was Willing To Bet His Life that the Cycle had already turned.

But surely Sethra wasn't interested in seeing a war over this.
Adron wasn't interested in seeing a war - he (says he) wanted the
Empire to be goverened in a strong coherent way.  If another
Phoenix was an option, we would likely at least some small
mention of the possibility of avoiding what people could
already sense was likely to be an epochal conflict. The deal
in particular was an affront on its face - a more palatable would
likely have been considered.  If by Aerich if no one else.

> He did not believe that another Phoenix would improve matters any.

Is there any reason but a view of him as entirely overtaken
by ambition to think that?


I think either Paarfi is deliberately obscuring this scenario
or it just doesn't apply.  In the former situation we have
to imagine his readers saying to themselves, "Gya, the real
tragedy here is that everybody was too dumb to suggest the
obvious compromise - Sethra, Adron, Aerich, Aliera, Pel."
I can hear Morrolan ribbing Aliera about it regularly.