Half-baking with Lise - Dragaera edition
So as all y'all know, I tend to gather a lot of half-baked ideas in text documents that never see the light of blog -- because they don't come to any sort of conclusive point, or I'm just not happy with them. Occasionally I put them all in a post and air them.
I was going to do that here, but fuck, there are a lot of them. So let's break it down by category.
Here, have some Dragaera-related ones.
From the first run of Cracks in the Orb - who traded Hearts. Regrettably, I don't have a full list of these for the subsequent runs. Heck, this isn't even a full list for the first run, I don't think.
- Bryara (wired_lizard) chose Rollondar, canonically enough (perhaps because Fornia was too busy winning the wargame by sitting on his ass defending high-Glory locations--like he would do) and they exchanged hearts. (Then Adron, being Adron, chose that moment to be all, "Oh, beeteedubs, Dad is dead. You should probably do that whole comforting thing now").
- I think Noima and Morvyn exchanged Hearts? it was complicated. There was something having to do with Unnyara promising she would stand down from trying to push the Cycle if Morvyn got married. And something about how Noima said it was okay for Erna and Morvyn to continue schtupping until they got married. Oh, fun.
- Seodra and the Empress exchanged Hearts! I did not see that coming. But then, Seodra did find out that Cherova was really Kivran, so I think that helped. I told EB that, yes, that was a totally valid way for Seodra to become a Duchess--she can totally have Normir's Meadow.
- G'aereth decided he really did need a beard, and accepted Dradia's proposal, and they exchanged Hearts.
- I think Leodex and Esaline exchanged hearts. Neither exchanged their real ones!
- Thalela and Jehan exchanged Hearts, and then ran off to be scandalous cross-House lovers and traveling minstrels together!
--
From a file titled headcanon, dated October 18th, 2012
So this is a list of my personal, oft-fannish beliefs about Dragaera. Some of them are pairings, some of them are theories, some of them are merely personality points. A couple of them even go contrary to things where Steve has said, "No, that's not the way things are," but I've clung to them because I find them interesting. What unites them all is their common disproven/unproven nature.
I totally have skyknyt to blame for some of these.
1) Sethra/Dolivar. Or Sethra/Vlad, or Kiera/Vlad.
When we first learn all about Vlad being the reincarnation of Dolivar, we learn that, 250,000 years earlier, Sethra basically kept Kieron from killing Dolivar when he defected from the budding House Dragon and made his own House (with hookers, and blackjack. Quite literally!) And of course Kiera is basically responsible for Vlad being Vlad and not some random Easterner getting his butt kicked by Orca toughs.
So it's clear there's some fondness there--or at least Sethra sees some value in Vlad. Brust has been equally clear that there's nothing romantic about it.
Buuuuuut I'm a fangirl, so I hold out hope.
(Previously I might have also made the argument that Vlad doesn't seem much for getting it on with Dragaerans, but, whoops, now we canonically have Saruchka, his Issola lover as of Tiassa).
Of course, as Skye points out, "Kiera is that hot teenager you meet when you're 12--ineffably cool and sexy. Sethra is... the flesh thin mask of a timeless, virtually unknowable god." So you know which variation of this pairing is most appealing to me.
... you do, right? 'Cause I don't.
2) The epic bromance of Vlad and Kragar. I stop short of saying that I want to ship Vlad/Kragar, because, let's be honest, I'm happy with Vlad being the Straightest Straight Guy who Ever Straighted. But I do squee over their every interaction. Dzur was a beautiful book in this regard--"Hey, Boss, I missed you so much I built you a secret tunnel to sneak in through!"
Plus, damn, but I am dying to know more about Kragar. Fifteen some-odd books so far, Steve, and nothing about the backstory of our favorite disappearing ex-Dragon reluctant Jhereg mob boss?
An aside: Sometimes, the things that frustrate me most about Dragaera is the wealth of things we know surrounding versus a handful of ANNOYING MYSTERIES that have been there for the whole entire fucking series. Like, I end up explaining large swaths of the books to Bernie as part of our writing efforts, and sometimes questions come up that I realize, "Huh, we still don't know that." So, for example, he asks me, "What does is mean that Sethra Lavode is undead? Is anyone else undead?" WHO KNOWS.
So I definitely look for this pairing, if only for an outlet for them to have MOAR AWSUM INTERACTIONS. Unfortunately, it doesn't happen very often. The most common pairing seems to be Vlad/Morrolan, which. Ugh. I'll read, but I don't find it terribly believable.
3) A bunch of hunches and speculations about the Lavodes, elder sorcery, and the Jenoine. This is a theory I only really started thinking up in writing the Lavode character in Cracks. Not really knowing what the Lavodes are, except a crack team of spellswords commanded by Sethra, I kind of had to improvise, so that when dear Dradia and Sethra sat down for klava, I could figure out what they were talking about.
I started from what we know:
- Sethra definitely has apprentices who aren't Lavodes (i.e. Sethra the Younger). So Lavodes are not merely Sethra's apprentices.
- All the ones we ever meet in depth (Gyorg, Tazendra, Telnan/Zungaron) are Dzurlords.
- We know Sethra is Dzur Mountain, in some real sense, and that Dzur Mountain has wards to prevent the Jenoine from entering the world.
- It's apparently important that the Lavodes are apart from the chain of command of the Warlord, Imperial Army, etc
- Sethra, and assumably her Lavodes, take a very... different view of elder sorcery than the rest of the Empire. In Sethra Lavode, we see Sethra checking the wards of Dzur Mountain with an artifact that uses elder sorcery. We also, arguably, see Tazendra burn down Illista with something that looks a loooooot like amorphia. (Also the only thing that would have been possible at that moment in the book, since Orb-sorcery was knocked out at that time).
- The aforementioned loss of Orb-sorcery in Sethra Lavode was caused, in fact, by a Jenoine entering the world.
Also, I speculate that Tazendra actually started experimenting with elder sorcery fairly early on in the Romances, probably between TPG and FHYA--and that that is probably what brought her to Sethra's attention. We have all these little details--she explodes something in the barony of Daavya; it becomes much much quicker for her to make flash-stones; and, when she wakes up after having been teleported away from Adron's Disaster, she makes a comment about how this reminded her of the event where she blew something up in Daavya.
So I think what's actually happening here is that the Lavodes--as representatives (perhaps even direct descendants) of Sethra--live outside the power structure of the empire because they have to do things that are outlawed in the Empire.
Like use elder sorcery.
Which is apparently Jenoine kryptonite.
4) Seodra = The Sorceress in Green. I know, I know. Steve has said, "no one is anyone else." But I wonder if this is so small an example that it might have flown under the radar. I mean, neither of these are exactly major characters.
Let's review the facts:
- The Sorceress in Green: as reported by Vlad, a Yendi who passes herself off as an Athyra. Older than an average Dragaeran, but not nearly as old as Sethra (several tens of thousands of years, I believe). Was the "unknown Athyra" in the plot to discredit Norathar e'Lanya's family as the Dragon Heirs and put someone malleable in as Emperor, with a Warlord who would be a-okay with invading the East. Interestingly, turned down a position at court in the 17th Athyra reign.
- Seodra: as reported by Paarfi, an Athyra who was the Court Wizard in the 17th Athyra Reign. Was involved in a complex (Yendi-complex?) plot in The Phoenix Guards that involved Kathana e'Marish'Chala's murder of the Marquis of Pepperfield (an e'Lanya), leaving contested land along the Eastern border, setting Khaavren and the Marquis' son Uttrik against each other, and various machinations to undermine the Emperor. Her eventual goal was to make sure the e'Lanyas controlled the Pepperfields, but we're never told why. (I have a theory in Cracks, but I very much doubt it's canonical ;) )
Admittedly, what Seodra is doing in late Athyra/early Phoenix reigns seems at cross-purposes with what the Sorceress in Green is doing. But if we're supposing a Yendi is involved, all bets are off as to simple, logical plots.
Also notable: Seodra is the only villain in the Khaavren Romances who doesn't die a violent death. As far as we know, Seodra just died in prison.
It seems to me, given all this information, that Seodra might have just been a disguise that the Sorceress in Green put on.
5) Adron as high-functioning autistic/Asperger's. This is something that largely came out of discussions with Skye. It also found its way into Cracks!
I'm finding it hard to explain, but... he just has always struck me as this nerdy guy, more concerned with theory than realities, who doesn't understand social cues. He's supposed to be this brilliant tactician, but I feel like the orderliness of the militaristic Dragon culture allows him to be that; in less organized circumstances, like the Imperial Court, he clearly has trouble understanding people's motivations and working with them.
I mean. We're talking about a guy who--even though, had he only been patient, would have been Emperor some day!--decided to use elder sorcery to push the Cycle*. With disastrous consequences! (Although I'm one of those Adron defenders who wonders why Mario shouldn't take just as much as responsibility for what happened).
*We had originally added, in our conversations, "without even talking to anyone about it." But re-reading FHYA recently, I realized he explains his logic to Aerich quite thoroughly... and then, when he finds out Aliera has been arrested, utterly ignores it, because he's so goddamn pissed off.
We're talking about a guy who apparently schtupped a goddess. And no one else, if his befuddled state in TPG, when he gets news of Aliera's birth, is to be believed.
Some of my favorite Adron-as-Asperger's moments in include:
When Khaavren et al arrive at Eastmanswatch in TPG, and he immediately jumps to the conclusion that they are here to arrest him (because apparently Tortaalik would send four of his guards to the opposite end of the Empire to arrest Adron for the sin of talking to his wife). "Are you here to arrest me. Very well, I'll go peacefully. Let me go get my weapon." (Or something like that)
(actually, funny observation: there are two times in TPG and FHYA where Adron erroneously thinks Khaavren has come to arrest him. Before, of course, Khaavren does come to arrest him for real, at which point it's too late).
When asked by one of his officers how long they must hold off the Imperial Army while he prepares the spell to attack the Orb. "You must hold them off as long as possible. How could your task be anything else?"
On receiving the letter supposedly from Calvor of Drem about the dedication ceremony (secretly sent by Pel to discourage him from attending), he rants at Molric adorably, where "Stuff!" seems to be the harshest word he can think of to show his displeasure.
Of course, the "As everyone knows, I never dabble" quote is the most telling :)
--
To paraphrase cristovau, more half-bakery anon.
I was going to do that here, but fuck, there are a lot of them. So let's break it down by category.
Here, have some Dragaera-related ones.
From the first run of Cracks in the Orb - who traded Hearts. Regrettably, I don't have a full list of these for the subsequent runs. Heck, this isn't even a full list for the first run, I don't think.
- Bryara (wired_lizard) chose Rollondar, canonically enough (perhaps because Fornia was too busy winning the wargame by sitting on his ass defending high-Glory locations--like he would do) and they exchanged hearts. (Then Adron, being Adron, chose that moment to be all, "Oh, beeteedubs, Dad is dead. You should probably do that whole comforting thing now").
- I think Noima and Morvyn exchanged Hearts? it was complicated. There was something having to do with Unnyara promising she would stand down from trying to push the Cycle if Morvyn got married. And something about how Noima said it was okay for Erna and Morvyn to continue schtupping until they got married. Oh, fun.
- Seodra and the Empress exchanged Hearts! I did not see that coming. But then, Seodra did find out that Cherova was really Kivran, so I think that helped. I told EB that, yes, that was a totally valid way for Seodra to become a Duchess--she can totally have Normir's Meadow.
- G'aereth decided he really did need a beard, and accepted Dradia's proposal, and they exchanged Hearts.
- I think Leodex and Esaline exchanged hearts. Neither exchanged their real ones!
- Thalela and Jehan exchanged Hearts, and then ran off to be scandalous cross-House lovers and traveling minstrels together!
--
From a file titled headcanon, dated October 18th, 2012
So this is a list of my personal, oft-fannish beliefs about Dragaera. Some of them are pairings, some of them are theories, some of them are merely personality points. A couple of them even go contrary to things where Steve has said, "No, that's not the way things are," but I've clung to them because I find them interesting. What unites them all is their common disproven/unproven nature.
I totally have skyknyt to blame for some of these.
1) Sethra/Dolivar. Or Sethra/Vlad, or Kiera/Vlad.
When we first learn all about Vlad being the reincarnation of Dolivar, we learn that, 250,000 years earlier, Sethra basically kept Kieron from killing Dolivar when he defected from the budding House Dragon and made his own House (with hookers, and blackjack. Quite literally!) And of course Kiera is basically responsible for Vlad being Vlad and not some random Easterner getting his butt kicked by Orca toughs.
So it's clear there's some fondness there--or at least Sethra sees some value in Vlad. Brust has been equally clear that there's nothing romantic about it.
Buuuuuut I'm a fangirl, so I hold out hope.
(Previously I might have also made the argument that Vlad doesn't seem much for getting it on with Dragaerans, but, whoops, now we canonically have Saruchka, his Issola lover as of Tiassa).
Of course, as Skye points out, "Kiera is that hot teenager you meet when you're 12--ineffably cool and sexy. Sethra is... the flesh thin mask of a timeless, virtually unknowable god." So you know which variation of this pairing is most appealing to me.
... you do, right? 'Cause I don't.
2) The epic bromance of Vlad and Kragar. I stop short of saying that I want to ship Vlad/Kragar, because, let's be honest, I'm happy with Vlad being the Straightest Straight Guy who Ever Straighted. But I do squee over their every interaction. Dzur was a beautiful book in this regard--"Hey, Boss, I missed you so much I built you a secret tunnel to sneak in through!"
Plus, damn, but I am dying to know more about Kragar. Fifteen some-odd books so far, Steve, and nothing about the backstory of our favorite disappearing ex-Dragon reluctant Jhereg mob boss?
An aside: Sometimes, the things that frustrate me most about Dragaera is the wealth of things we know surrounding versus a handful of ANNOYING MYSTERIES that have been there for the whole entire fucking series. Like, I end up explaining large swaths of the books to Bernie as part of our writing efforts, and sometimes questions come up that I realize, "Huh, we still don't know that." So, for example, he asks me, "What does is mean that Sethra Lavode is undead? Is anyone else undead?" WHO KNOWS.
So I definitely look for this pairing, if only for an outlet for them to have MOAR AWSUM INTERACTIONS. Unfortunately, it doesn't happen very often. The most common pairing seems to be Vlad/Morrolan, which. Ugh. I'll read, but I don't find it terribly believable.
3) A bunch of hunches and speculations about the Lavodes, elder sorcery, and the Jenoine. This is a theory I only really started thinking up in writing the Lavode character in Cracks. Not really knowing what the Lavodes are, except a crack team of spellswords commanded by Sethra, I kind of had to improvise, so that when dear Dradia and Sethra sat down for klava, I could figure out what they were talking about.
I started from what we know:
- Sethra definitely has apprentices who aren't Lavodes (i.e. Sethra the Younger). So Lavodes are not merely Sethra's apprentices.
- All the ones we ever meet in depth (Gyorg, Tazendra, Telnan/Zungaron) are Dzurlords.
- We know Sethra is Dzur Mountain, in some real sense, and that Dzur Mountain has wards to prevent the Jenoine from entering the world.
- It's apparently important that the Lavodes are apart from the chain of command of the Warlord, Imperial Army, etc
- Sethra, and assumably her Lavodes, take a very... different view of elder sorcery than the rest of the Empire. In Sethra Lavode, we see Sethra checking the wards of Dzur Mountain with an artifact that uses elder sorcery. We also, arguably, see Tazendra burn down Illista with something that looks a loooooot like amorphia. (Also the only thing that would have been possible at that moment in the book, since Orb-sorcery was knocked out at that time).
- The aforementioned loss of Orb-sorcery in Sethra Lavode was caused, in fact, by a Jenoine entering the world.
Also, I speculate that Tazendra actually started experimenting with elder sorcery fairly early on in the Romances, probably between TPG and FHYA--and that that is probably what brought her to Sethra's attention. We have all these little details--she explodes something in the barony of Daavya; it becomes much much quicker for her to make flash-stones; and, when she wakes up after having been teleported away from Adron's Disaster, she makes a comment about how this reminded her of the event where she blew something up in Daavya.
So I think what's actually happening here is that the Lavodes--as representatives (perhaps even direct descendants) of Sethra--live outside the power structure of the empire because they have to do things that are outlawed in the Empire.
Like use elder sorcery.
Which is apparently Jenoine kryptonite.
4) Seodra = The Sorceress in Green. I know, I know. Steve has said, "no one is anyone else." But I wonder if this is so small an example that it might have flown under the radar. I mean, neither of these are exactly major characters.
Let's review the facts:
- The Sorceress in Green: as reported by Vlad, a Yendi who passes herself off as an Athyra. Older than an average Dragaeran, but not nearly as old as Sethra (several tens of thousands of years, I believe). Was the "unknown Athyra" in the plot to discredit Norathar e'Lanya's family as the Dragon Heirs and put someone malleable in as Emperor, with a Warlord who would be a-okay with invading the East. Interestingly, turned down a position at court in the 17th Athyra reign.
- Seodra: as reported by Paarfi, an Athyra who was the Court Wizard in the 17th Athyra Reign. Was involved in a complex (Yendi-complex?) plot in The Phoenix Guards that involved Kathana e'Marish'Chala's murder of the Marquis of Pepperfield (an e'Lanya), leaving contested land along the Eastern border, setting Khaavren and the Marquis' son Uttrik against each other, and various machinations to undermine the Emperor. Her eventual goal was to make sure the e'Lanyas controlled the Pepperfields, but we're never told why. (I have a theory in Cracks, but I very much doubt it's canonical ;) )
Admittedly, what Seodra is doing in late Athyra/early Phoenix reigns seems at cross-purposes with what the Sorceress in Green is doing. But if we're supposing a Yendi is involved, all bets are off as to simple, logical plots.
Also notable: Seodra is the only villain in the Khaavren Romances who doesn't die a violent death. As far as we know, Seodra just died in prison.
It seems to me, given all this information, that Seodra might have just been a disguise that the Sorceress in Green put on.
5) Adron as high-functioning autistic/Asperger's. This is something that largely came out of discussions with Skye. It also found its way into Cracks!
I'm finding it hard to explain, but... he just has always struck me as this nerdy guy, more concerned with theory than realities, who doesn't understand social cues. He's supposed to be this brilliant tactician, but I feel like the orderliness of the militaristic Dragon culture allows him to be that; in less organized circumstances, like the Imperial Court, he clearly has trouble understanding people's motivations and working with them.
I mean. We're talking about a guy who--even though, had he only been patient, would have been Emperor some day!--decided to use elder sorcery to push the Cycle*. With disastrous consequences! (Although I'm one of those Adron defenders who wonders why Mario shouldn't take just as much as responsibility for what happened).
*We had originally added, in our conversations, "without even talking to anyone about it." But re-reading FHYA recently, I realized he explains his logic to Aerich quite thoroughly... and then, when he finds out Aliera has been arrested, utterly ignores it, because he's so goddamn pissed off.
We're talking about a guy who apparently schtupped a goddess. And no one else, if his befuddled state in TPG, when he gets news of Aliera's birth, is to be believed.
Some of my favorite Adron-as-Asperger's moments in include:
When Khaavren et al arrive at Eastmanswatch in TPG, and he immediately jumps to the conclusion that they are here to arrest him (because apparently Tortaalik would send four of his guards to the opposite end of the Empire to arrest Adron for the sin of talking to his wife). "Are you here to arrest me. Very well, I'll go peacefully. Let me go get my weapon." (Or something like that)
(actually, funny observation: there are two times in TPG and FHYA where Adron erroneously thinks Khaavren has come to arrest him. Before, of course, Khaavren does come to arrest him for real, at which point it's too late).
When asked by one of his officers how long they must hold off the Imperial Army while he prepares the spell to attack the Orb. "You must hold them off as long as possible. How could your task be anything else?"
On receiving the letter supposedly from Calvor of Drem about the dedication ceremony (secretly sent by Pel to discourage him from attending), he rants at Molric adorably, where "Stuff!" seems to be the harshest word he can think of to show his displeasure.
Of course, the "As everyone knows, I never dabble" quote is the most telling :)
--
To paraphrase cristovau, more half-bakery anon.