Notes on the Talents

[seito_no_senshi]

So, I found the quote. In Ashling. Early on in the book. *much happiness and joy*

Having done that, I think I've mostly completed the notes (mostly being that I'm still unsure of a few things, so have posted to get feedback). They'll obviously be touched up on and proper references will be added, but here they are for now, starting off with a tentative structure of your average mind! Followed by an introduction type thing! =D (Aren't I speshul?)

... Actually, they're more miscellaneous notes on the Talents than anything.

On the notes on the Talents, a lot of it is stuff that we already know, but that has been compiled together for easy reference. The guesswork is mostly in the "Coercering" section, as well as the "Mind Structure" and "Empathy" sections. There'll still be parts where I'll have questions about stuff that I'm not sure about. Feedback is muchly appreciated.

... I need a life.


The Tentative Structure of Your Average Mind

There are the three basic levels:

[The Natural Mind Shield where applicable]

1. Conscious Level:
   - The “here and now” section, for when the person is consciously thinking of something. Thoughts that are being thought of.
   - The location of vital information that a person must always remember (e.g. “air = life”) - or can remember without too much inconvenience (e.g. the “customs of halfbreed gypsies”, “when the next meeting between the rebels are”)*
   - Thought links are found here.
   - Recent memories that can be called up easily. Factors such as how important (e.g. What Elspeth’s family looked like) and how recent the memory is determine the amount of time it stays in the conscious mind. If a memory remains in the conscious mind, it will not be forgotten. Memories can be stored be stored here on the conscious level. As time passes, memories will drift down into the subconscious where they will eventually slowly be forgotten.
   - Memories can be blocked away on the conscious level, hidden away so that the person isn’t actually aware of them, though they can be brought into the open, as in the case with Dragon.
   
   [Where applicable, Natural Mind Shield dissolves at subconscious level]
    
2. Subconscious:
   - Where the deepest thoughts and desires that make up the basis of a person are found.
   - Thoughts/possible actions that a person has not actually consciously thought of yet.
   - Older memories are located here; things that occurred long ago, minor things that were of no consequence and therefore forgotten more easily (e.g. What Elspeth had for dinner two years ago).
   - Once memories have drifted down to the subconscious mind from the conscious, they will dissolve (i.e. they will be forgotten).
   - If a person wishes to FORGET something, the process can be speeded up.
   - To descend into the subconscious requires the ability to deep probe; something that all coercers, futuretellers and healers can naturally do (in fact, it’s a requirement of their abilities). However, it seems that in recent times, farseekers are also developing the ability to deep probe (though this could stem from farseekers having secondary and tertiary abilities than from the ability itself developing).
3. Mind Stream:
   - DANGER ZONE!
   - Below the subconscious.
   - This is where futuretellers go to frolic in their free time.
   - That being the case, it seems that only futuretellers have the ability to descend to this level with “ease”.
   - The place where the barrier between all minds fades at this level.
   - It’s possible to lock oneself in balance between the urge to rise and sink.
   - The mindstream “calls” to all minds to merge with it thus losing their individuality; however, to merge, means death. Elspeth describes the call of the mindstream as an “unearthly loveliness.”
   - The mindstream throws up memories from the minds it has absorbed.
   - The mindstream contains both “all that had been and could be”.
   - It is the belief of the futureteller that by thinking intensely of a matter at the mindstream draws thoughts out from people long dead who also wondered about the same thing.

* Elspeth has had the need to mind read gypsies before (to get information on gypsies), but because of their natural mind shields, she’s never been able to get what she’s needed. She says that it’s possible for her to enter their subconscious (since the mind shield fades at subconscious level) but that she won’t find what she needs in their underminds. Hence the conscious level being for information in that sense.


Miscellaneous Notes on Talents:

It would appear that all the Talented Misfits - at least at Obernewtyn - have a high awareness of their own mind. Misfits from all the seven guilds have demonstrated the ability to create mindshields. That being said, mindshields are not limited to Talented Misfits alone; all gypsies appear to have these in varying strengths (though a reason is never given) and Landfolk appear to be developing more mindshields in response to Misfits developing Talents. There are also those with “mind sensitivity” - people who lack mindshields, but who would be aware if somebody decided to enter their minds.

Garth (the teknoguildmaster) has developed a theory that unTalented people are developing natural mindshields or mind sensitivity in response to stop Talented Misfits from reading them. However, Elspeth dismisses this, saying that it must be something else causing this development, because if not, it rejects the theory that Talented Misfits are the next step in human evolution.

It’s common for a Misfit to have secondary or even tertiary abilities. The choice of a guild then depends on the dominant ability. What’s uncommon is for said Misfit to be equally strong in two, much less three of them. Prime examples of this is Elspeth who is an equally powerful farseeker/coercer/beastspeaker, and Zarak who is a powerful farseeker/beastspeaker. With cases like those, choosing a guild then comes down to preference.

Some Talents are not limited only to Talented Misfits; probably the main case is when people receive True Dreams. This is the ability to foresee an event in the future through a dream, hence the name. They are identified as True Dreams by the fact that they recur (though they don’t necessarily have to recur to be so). The Twentyfamilies pureblood gypsies also display the ability to tell if somebody is lying or not; this is done by looking at “the patterns of energy that hover about all things” and reading the fluctuations of pattern and color. (Elspeth believes that he is talking about peoples auras.) Swallow states that seeing is the easy part; it’s learning how to read those waves that is difficult. He calls it “more of a trick than a Talent” and believes that anybody can learn how to do so. This would also explain the way the purebloods seem to look around a person instead of at them. The Twentyfamilies gypsies can also futuretell, though they call it “seering”.

Misc. abilities:

• The ability to create a mental net that captures pain. There is a danger, however; pain cannot be allowed to build up, because it has an accumulative effect. “The pain from a simple leg cramp left too long could become a crippling agony.” [Ashling, Chapter 21, page 242]. There comes a point when too much pain has accumulated, and nothing can be done, prime (and only) example being Elspeth in The Farseekers, and her legs. Elspeth is the only one who demonstrates it in the series, but it could be that other people can do it too. In The Farseekers, Elspeth talks about Roland knowing it as if it’s not such a big deal that he knows about her trick (and it is common knowledge that Elspeth is very secretive about her powers).
• Contact enhances all Talent.
• Some Misfits are sensitive enough to be able to receive impressions from things such as objects, impressions in rooms, words, etc. This probably is more related to empathy, coercing and farseeking. As well, it really depends on how long an impression of a thought lasts; there are dozens of things that affect it, some being that it depends on the thinker, time and place. Pain enhances sensitivity.
• A tightly shielded mind/mind probe doesn’t prevent the mind from sensing other minds; it just prevents thoughts and images etc from leaking out. The way to hide a mind from others would be to use a tight coercive shield.
• As demonstrated by Rushton in Obernewtyn, a mind can shield another mind from mental pain if they are linked.
• Misfits and possibly people with sensitive minds will sense if they’re being coerced; Elspeth describes the feeling as a “panicky shift” in Ashling.
• Any misfit can learn to shield their mind. There are some unTalents that develop natural mind shields, though.
• Rain can interfere with a probe. Jak suggests that there is the possibility that rain itself carries some sort of mild taint that humans have developed immunity against.
• Farseekers and coercers can recognize the difference between human and non-human minds. There’s nothing to suggest that a healer wouldn’t be able to do the same, and beastspeakers too.

Crossguilding:

Farseekers/Coercers

• Unlike a coercer who has to coerce somebody who’s near them, a Farseeker/Coercer can coerce somebody from a distance.
• With crossguild farseeking, a coercer is able to project an image into a farseeker’s mind, but it hurts.
• Elspeth is able to use Matthew’s eyes; she takes control of his nerves and synapses (with permission) and sees through his eyes. Matthew is required to make himself passive by opening his mind for this to work. They have been able to use this maneuver since “The Farseekers.” As of Ashling, Elspeth says that she has not yet found a way to add hearing. It’s mentioned that unless Elspeth takes over Matthew’s sight, what she sees will be influenced by what Matthew feels. A difficult maneuver. Given the nature of this Talent as well as of coercers, it’s more likely that the farseeker taking control probably has to have coercive skills for this to work (or just be a coercer, period) while the viewer just has to be a farseeker/coercer and able to make themselves passive (which a coercer would most likely find very difficult). Elspeth has never managed to use this method with Ceirwan.
• If coercers can beastspeak, then they can also coerce animals.

The Beastspeaking Guild:

Guildmaster: Alad
Function: Managing the farm (with the help of the beasts).

The Beast Guild:
Guildmistress: Avra
Guilden: Rasial (as of TKP)
Notes: The Beasts have their own merge, which is held at night (Elspeth believes that this is because during the years that the animals had been owned, the night had been the only time they could call their own). Alad believes that there is a beast guild branch in the lowlands that are led by Sallah (Brydda’s mount). He believes that the Beast guild has also been supplying mounts to this branch so that rescues and sabotages can be executed, and that there is some sort of animal spy network. This is confirmed in TKP.

The Abilities

Beastspeaking is the ability to speak to beasts via the mind. Communication involves a combination of emotions, empathized emotions, images and human and beast speech.

The Finer Points

• The beast must also be Talented for communication to be established.
• Beasts use words from their own dialects.
• Like humans, beasts are capable of thinking together, though not so deeply or intimately.
• Even in the Beforetime, there were beasts who could communicate in such a fashion, though it was in a more limited form.
• It’s also easier to communicate with tamed/partly tamed animals.
• Beastspeaking is a very difficult talent to master. Communications are entirely idiosyncratic (dependent on the way the beast thinks), how much Talent a beast has, what their mood is at the time of communication, what type of relationship they have to the human whom they’re talking to, and sometimes what is being told. (quoted almost word for word from “Ashling”, Chapter 36, page 418)
• Beast conversations are often open/not shielded. It is clear in the conversations what is being directed to which mind.
• It’s not stated clearly in the books as to whether or not beastspeakers can mindspeak with humans, but given the fact that beast conversations are often open, it’d be strange if two beastspeakers participated and were able to understand the beasts, but unable to understand what each other said.
• The images that beasts send will have “emotions and human words, enhanced by empathized emotions.”
• In TF, Elspeth speculates that wolves have some ability to cloak their minds because she cannot sense them and only found out because Gahltha informed her of their presence.
• There’s a possibility that beastspeakers can farseek as well.

Misc.:

• The body and inner spirit of beasts are much more closely linked than humans.
• When a beast is injured, it is injured in both mind and body.
• Of the two, the mind is more dangerous.
• Even if the physical wound is healed, if the mind wound is left to fester, the beast will eventually die.
• That being said, if the mind wound is healed, it can almost miraculously help a physical wound.
• Elspeth believes that the Agyllians have the only avian minds capable of full communication with humans. However, in TF, as part of the rescue of Jik to bring him to Obernewtyn, they used Beastspeaking scavenger birds.

Beast thoughtsymbol meanings

Vocab

adantar = what the animals (or is it just Maruman?) call Gavyn.
ashling = “dreams that call”. dreams were messages come.

barud = equine word symbol for homeplace.
brothermind/sistermind = a title. Elspeth calls Faraf “littlesistermind.”
Brildane = what wolves call themselves.

coldmetal painmaker = what equines call the bit and bridle.
coldwhite = winter.

darkOne = what Maruman called Madam Vega.

funaga = human

Gahltha = leader.
Galta = nothing. What Gahltha named himself when he became depressed because of his “cowardice”.
gehdra = non-wolves call them the gehdra because they are invisible.
gladshield = shield.
glarsha = machines.

h’rayka = Translated loosely means “one who breaks and rends”. When Elspeth asks Maruman who/what the h’rayka is, he answers with “one who brings destruction”.

Innle = wanderer. Also the title of a heroic figure in beastlegend. (e.g. Elspeth Innle, ElspethInnle)

jahrahn = the cold ones. What Sallah calls the Herders.

longsleep = an enquine term for death. Equines believe that the two states, sleep and death, are related, hence the similarity in the names.

mornir = brightmane. The name the animals at Obernewtyn gave Dragon.

oldOne/s = What Maruman calls the Agyllians.

Sahric = Those who sing. (What Gahltha called birds in Ashling)
seliga = Gahltha tells Elspeth on the dreamtrails that Maruman is seliga. (“The Keeping Place”, page 640) Elspeth doesn’t recognize the world, but she thinks that ‘seliga’ means ‘behind’ or ‘back’.
shortsleep = an enquine term for sleep. Equines believe that the two states, sleep and death, are related, hence the similarity in names.
skyfire = Lightening.
Sudarta = a title that praises somebody’s strength (e.g. Sharna calls Ariel’s wolves “Sudarta” in Obernewtyn).

Vlar-rei = “children of the waves” - beastspeech for dolphins.

whiteface = what Maruman calls the moon.

yelloweyes = what beasts call Maruman. (“Maruman/yelloweyes”)

Suffixes

ha = an obscure word which suggests reverence for the subject it is attached to (e.g. “freerunning-barud-ha”)
heartfire = The beast equivalent of a soul. This is a beastlegend of a heart that burns eternally with souls of all beasts, past, present and future. It is a symbolization of harmony between all beasts, no matter their place on the food chain, and life and death are seen as part of the cycle, something that shouldn’t be feared. Talented and unTalented beasts are included in this. Humankind are excluded from this, and some beasts speculate that this is the reason that humans have such a great desire to dominate and are so afraid of death. To say somebody burns with the heartfire is to pay a very, very big compliment.

li = a word that gives the subject it is attached to a derogatory meaning. (e.g. “funaga-li” is the derogatory form of “funaga”. Rasial calls her former master “master-li.” Maruman calls Sutrium “barud-li” in “Ashling”.)

ra = a suffix. Elspeth first hears it as “funaga-ra” in page 620 of “The Keeping Place”.
Rasial = literally means whiteshield in human speech, but can also mean silvertongue. The name of the Beast Guilden.


The Healers Guild

Guildmaster: Roland
Ward: Kella
Function: practitioners of herblore, they use this in conjunction with their Talent to cure the sick.

The Ability

Healers have the Talent to heal people. Like the coercers and the futuretellers, their Talent is shaped around the ability to deep probe.

The Finer Points

• It’s not possible for a healer to force a body to heal; they can only encourage it.
• They can siphon off fatigue but they must “dissipate the fatigue poisons” within their own body.
• Can also siphon off pain by taking it within themselves; their bodies then dissolve the pain poisons. This DOES cause them to experience pain, however.
• They can place sleep seals on people. The sleepseal slows everything down in the body.
• If healers want to go beyond the subconscious, a futureteller is required to take them along.

The Futuretellers Guild:

Guildmistress: Maryon
Guilden: In TF, Christa is named as guilden, but Dell is listed as guilden in the character index of TKP while Christa seems to have ceased to exist altogether.
Ward: No ward is mentioned by name.
Misc. Notes on Guild Leaders: … There seem to be some discrepancies concerning the identities and genders of the futureteller guildens and Wards, period. In “The Farseekers”, the futureteller ward is described as “she”, and Christa is named as futureteller guilden. In “Ashling”, the futureteller guilden is not named and is only described as “he”.
Function: they handle the household; the monotony “allows their minds to soar”.
Misc. Notes on the Guild: The Futureteller Guild’s contribution to the moonfair following wintertime is a tapestry depicting a part of Misfit history.

The Mind Stream

• Possible only to reach the mindstream by deep probing.
• Below the subconscious.
• The place where the barriers between minds all find.
• The mindstream “calls” to all minds to merge with it thus losing their individuality; however, to do so, means death. Elspeth describes the call of the mindstream as an “unearthly loveliness.”
• It’s possible to lock oneself in balance between the urge to rise and sink.

The Abilities

Futuretelling is the Talent to foretell the future. Futuretellers share a common ability with coercers and healers; the ability to deep probe. In this case, the futureteller deep probes into their own subconscious mind (and lower).

The Finer Points

• Futuretelling is inexact even for a futureteller.
• Training requires a futureteller to be able to descend through the levels of their mind successfully while maintaining a shield on their deep probe at the levels where minds lose individual focus.
• Novices can experience “deep probe illusions” if they don’t have the strict mental discipline required to deep probe successfully. Until they have that discipline, novices are permitted to go no further below their subconscious.
• It’s very easy for a descending mental probe to become lost in a memory, nightmare, or some other illusion.
• It’s their goal to reach the mindstream (Elspeth thinks that it is also an addiction).
• Futuretellers spend much of their time hovering above the mindstream. (It is Elspeth’s opinion that resisting “that lovely death” is what causes their remoteness.)
• To see the future is not the entire purpose of a futureteller, rather, it is to know themselves deeply and though this, to know life.
• It is the belief of the futureteller that by thinking intensely of a matter at the mindstream draws thoughts out from people long dead who also wondered about the same thing. They believe that knowledge is best obtained on the brink between life and death of the individual being.
• It seems that futuretellers are the only ones with the ability who can “safely” descend further pass the consciousness. Using this ability, futuretellers are able to draw healers along further than healers can usually go by themselves. This has saved a person’s life or sanity many times.
• Elspeth says that it’s never possible to predict how the futuretellers will view a matter; they have “a broader, though more uncertain view of the world” than the rest of them. That being said, futuretellers are very careful in keeping their opinions and judgments separate from actual futuretell warnings.