> I, for one, would be very much interested in "seeing" Khaavren > again now that > he is so much older. Has he changed at all from the person he > was when we > first meet him, or is he exactly the same? I agree. I recall the references to "Papa Cat," and his tantrums in Orca, but we're only hearing about the Phoenix Guards in the Taltos series, not really meeting them... And Vlad *sees* Khaavren in *Phoenix.* (or is that *Teckla*?) There's a Teckla in *Teckla* who has a run-in with Aerich (or is that *Phoenix*? The timelines are so close I melt the two together). Also, in one of those volumes, Vlad refers to Paarfi's "histories" (quote marks Vlad's). It's interesting to notice when the 4PG's show up on Steven's radar later in the Taltos series. (I've already hunted thru *Athyra* & *TPG* for the other stuff in this email -- I'm not up to hunting through 2 more this am). *** SEE DUMAS SPOILER AT THE END OF THIS EMAIL*** > I can't remember if it is explicitly stated in the books - what > "age" is a > Dragaeran when they are considered an adult? For us, it's > generally age 18 > (although I've always thought it stupid that anyone could believe someone > wakes up one day and is an "adult" just because they are a > certain age. I > prefer to think of a range. I think that most humans become > adults somewhere > between 18 and 25.) TPG P 150 -- Aerich refers to the age of 80 as the age at which the Lyorn house considers an individual mature. Athyra P 6-- when Savn meets Vlad: "It was odd, looking at someone who would grow old and die while you were still young." Savn also refers to being 20 when he "filled the bucket," which is when the adolescents in his town become apprentices. I can't recall exactly when in Athyra Savn mentions his age, but I think he was around 50. It looks like they're still children until they're 20, and then adolescent till 50, fully mature at 80. > So how do the extra years affect Dragaerans mindset??? Or perhaps it > doesn't, and they still live life as if they had a shorter lifespan as > Easterners do (an interesting idea since many fantasy writers > have explored > the concept of logevity and/or immortality and its affect upon > the race to > which it is granted). "You get what everyone gets. You get a lifetime." -- Death Dragaerans really don't seem to reflect on how long their lives are, but rather, how strangely short Easterners' lives are. Their lives are only long by comparison to Easterners; it seems normal to them. I wonder how Sethra thinks. I don't know if it would really be possible for a human of our lifespan to grasp the amount of time she's been alive, or what her mindset would be like after all those years. IMO, any human would only grasp the ideas that are relevant to his understanding, and filter out the stuff w/ which he couldn't empathize. I find it very hard to believe that a being could accept a third millenium as more of the same. Nikki S P O I L E R S P O I L E R DUMAS SPOILER I have a horrible fear that the Paarfi series will be true to the Dumas series in knocking the heroes off. I bawled like a little girl when I saw the demise of the four Musketeers in *Man in the Iron Mask;* I'd be even more crushed to lose Khaavren et al.