Felix Eisen <felixeisen at yahoo.com> Sent by: dragaera-bounces at dragaera.info 06/13/06 08:48 AM To dragaera at dragaera.info cc Subject Sethra Lavode Sethra Lavode Spoiler Space (which is to say, for nearly every book out there): 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 > Okay, there. > > Sethra Lavode can: > > Eat food. > Breathe (still necessary for talking out loud). > Walk, etc. > > Not saying she -has- to, but she -can-. She's vampiric undead; she says so. So. While "breathing" implies respiration, which is not in itself necessary for speech, I'll accept this term as close enough. > While we know that she DOES have cold hands, Sethra-as-Kiera does not have a sub-normal body temperature; we know, however, that she >takes a great amount of care in keeping Kiera as separate and individual as she can. I believe that among these individual aspects is the >necessary altering of Kiera's -apparent- body temperature. Whether this is a matter of blood-flow control (cold feet/hands in us Easterners >are the result of a lack of full blood flow) or a matter of a spell -- something I doubt, since it'd show up like a spotlight on an >individual we know isn't one to make a show of herself -- it is clearly something that Sethra -does- do. How much is truth, and how much is illusion? Is Sethra actually making her hands warm, or just making them *seem* warm? > Sethra, as herself, has no need of such rigid self-control; she is Sethra, and the Empire simply has to accept her as she is. > > Can she shapechange? Possibly; probably, even. I think that, in the centuries she's used Kiera, she's become skilled enough in more >ordinary vehicles of disguise (posture, mannerisms, and grooming) so that those very few who have the chance to see both (regal, powerful, >undead Dzur) Sethra and (warm, friendly, thieving Jhereg) Kiera simply have a problem thinking of one as being the other -- even >potentially. Sethra is noted by Vlad to be "Tall for a Dragaeran", and Kiera is noted to be "small Dragaeran female form" (/Jhereg/, ch 4.) So there is apparently some significant difference in their heights. I find it hard to see how this could really be accomplished without invoking some aspect of shape-changing ability... Unless she simply keeps Kiera's body in a cooler somewhere in Dzur Mountain, and "inhabits" it when needed. Since reading /Orca/ I've been very curious how Sethra was apparently able to leave Dzur Mountain as Kiera during the events of /Taltos/ while Sethra herself was "unable to leave Dzur Mountain at this time" (where it is implied she's about to do battle with a Jenoine). Is this perhaps a crack? Or possible due to the way in which Kiera manifests? > Sethra also admits to Vlad that nobody's really gotten to work with her as closely as he has, so ... I guess they all need to work on >their disguises, eh? Kiera tells Vlad not only that very few people have known both of her personae well enough to make any kind of connection, but also that so far as she knows, he's the only one to have figured it out. Aliera may just be keeping her mouth shut, but it always seemed to me that Sethra and Aliera were never as close as Sethra and Vlad or Sethra and Morrolan. > However, for the purposes of Kiera, it's pretty clear that Sethra already knows a hell of a lot more than anybody else. Re-reading Jhereg recently, I was amused by the scene where Vlad tells Sethra about Mellar (after having told Kiera about it already) and him wondering "How did Sethra find out so much about this?" It's amusing the things you pick up when reviewing these books. SKZB was dangling the secret in front of our faces at every opportunity from the very beginning. Ah, hindsight. Majikjon