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SofTS Official Snippet #8

Fans of Bahzell and Tomenack come on in! Let's talk about David's fantasy series and our favorite hradani!
Re: SofTS Official Snippet #8
Post by fallsfromtrees   » Thu Feb 12, 2015 12:44 am

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Graydon wrote:
Are we going to see a redeemed Carandosan sorcerer? We don't know why a group of people with lots of magical talent in the Ottavaran Empire wanted to escape the strictures. It's not impossible someone had a defensible reason, or that in a thousand years, someone is trying to overcome their cultural background and be basically decent.


Actually we do know. Wencit explained it once. If you have the ability to wield the power, there is something in you that dries out to do so, and any restriction on what you can do is deeply resented, which is what the strictures imposed.
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Re: SofTS Official Snippet #8
Post by jsburbidge   » Thu Feb 12, 2015 10:49 am

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Graydon wrote:If the hypothesized Torren Sword-Arm has been flung forward in time, getting them to Norfressa is much, much easier to explain. Stasis sort of implies they were transported in that state, presumptively in Wencit's luggage, which makes explaining where the Emperor went -- it's not like Wencit flew through O'Hare -- kinda difficult.


It's becoming overly complicated to imagine Torren both being flung forward in time and having his memory selectively adjusted, both to subtract identity and too much Kontovaran knowledge and to add relevant knowledge regarding Sothoii garottes and such. I think I'll go with someone contemporary, at least until other evidence surfaces.

Graydon wrote:Except Wencit's said they want wizardry to go away, or at least so I recall Warmaid's Choice. And the Carnadosians had to have got started somehow, and Wencit's been enforcing the strictures for the last fourteen hundred years. (Presumably on the basis of the continuing authority of either the Empire or the Council of Ottovar.)


Wencit's been enforcing the Strictures more or less in the way a Marshal in the Wild West enforced the law -- on an ad hoc basis as he can apply personal force.

Above, though, Wencit says "But, yes. I spoke the Word of Unbinding, yes, and freed the Council from the Strictures to let us strike our enemies." That sounds as though the Strictures had a certain amount of self-reinforcing power (although obviously not inerrant) power on their own, not as though Wencit just made a simple legal declaration that they were in exceptional circumstances.

It also depends, I suspect, more on what Semkirk wants (or is working towards) than on what Wencit wants. (Which raises the question: wizards are to Semkirk more or less what warriors are to Tomanak, or bards to Chesmirsa. What corresponds to a Champion of Tomanak?)

Graydon wrote:The big theme of this series is redemption; redemption of the Hradani in several respects through all the Bahzell books, the (social, at least) redemption of the War Maids, Vajon's personal redemption, there's a pile of examples.

Are we going to see a redeemed Carandosan sorcerer? We don't know why a group of people with lots of magical talent in the Ottavaran Empire wanted to escape the strictures. It's not impossible someone had a defensible reason, or that in a thousand years, someone is trying to overcome their cultural background and be basically decent.


It's worth remembering that Weber is a Methodist Lay Minister (who started out Episcopalian). As someone who's an Anglican with an (originally, pre-1926) Methodist minister as a grandfather that tells me a certain amount. Methodists don't tend to think in terms of things like the Fortunate Fall (more of a Catholic/Anglican trope) but they certainly think in terms of God bringing good out of evil, and very much in terms of personal redemption narratives. So, yes, redemption (as well as personal responsibility, which he's talked about as being a religiously inspired theme) is likely to be a continuing major theme here.
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Re: SofTS Official Snippet #8
Post by Knightfire   » Thu Feb 12, 2015 10:18 pm

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Actually I think the more important part of this snippet is Wencit's wince at the fact Leena trusts Wencit when it comes to Gwynna. I think Gwynna will be a wild wizard...remember Wencit said that Human Hradanni crosses can inherit the best of both from their parents, link to magic field and wizardry.

With this in mind I think Wencit is not happy that Leena trusts him with Gwynna because he will need to awaken her Wild Wizardry and that will require some horrible traumatic event to Gwynna that Leena as a mother would do anything to prevent but Wencit knows it must happen.
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Re: SofTS Official Snippet #8
Post by fallsfromtrees   » Fri Feb 13, 2015 12:42 am

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Knightfire wrote:Actually I think the more important part of this snippet is Wencit's wince at the fact Leena trusts Wencit when it comes to Gwynna. I think Gwynna will be a wild wizard...remember Wencit said that Human Hradanni crosses can inherit the best of both from their parents, link to magic field and wizardry.

With this in mind I think Wencit is not happy that Leena trusts him with Gwynna because he will need to awaken her Wild Wizardry and that will require some horrible traumatic event to Gwynna that Leena as a mother would do anything to prevent but Wencit knows it must happen.

This is an interesting speculaton. I hadn't considered it before, but it has a ring of plausibility to it.
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Re: SofTS Official Snippet #8
Post by Peter2   » Fri Feb 13, 2015 8:26 am

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Knightfire wrote:Actually I think the more important part of this snippet is Wencit's wince at the fact Leena trusts Wencit when it comes to Gwynna. I think Gwynna will be a wild wizard...remember Wencit said that Human Hradanni crosses can inherit the best of both from their parents, link to magic field and wizardry.

With this in mind I think Wencit is not happy that Leena trusts him with Gwynna because he will need to awaken her Wild Wizardry and that will require some horrible traumatic event to Gwynna that Leena as a mother would do anything to prevent but Wencit knows it must happen.


I was thinking along similar lines, but concentrating on the quote from the review "an eleven-year-old girl with a heart of harp music". Bearing in mind the meeting of Bahzell and Brandark with Chesmirsa in Oath of Swords, I was wondering whether or not Gwynna might turn out to have a link to Chesmirsa similar to that which Bahzell bears to Tomanak. If the story should develop along these lines, Brandark very probably has a considerable part to play.

Apart from being Bahzell's side-kick, Brandark's role has always seemed to me to be more than a bit foggy. He obviously has a keen and inquiring mind (collecting books, wanting to know not only how a ship's sails work, but why, etc.), but I do not remember any use being made of it except for helping Bahzell to think on a few occasion, and, of course, composing the Lay of Bahzell Bloody-Hand. Chesmirsa said to him in Oath of Swords "Music you will have always, and my blessing on your joy in it, but another career awaits you. One that will demand all you have and are, and which will fill you with a joy you never knew to seek. I promise you that and" – her eyes danced at him – "I think you'll find it one to suit a poet's soul. Live it well, Brandark."
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Re: SofTS Official Snippet #8
Post by GregD   » Mon Feb 16, 2015 4:01 am

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Graydon wrote:Are we going to see a redeemed Carandosan sorcerer? We don't know why a group of people with lots of magical talent in the Ottavaran Empire wanted to escape the strictures. It's not impossible someone had a defensible reason, or that in a thousand years, someone is trying to overcome their cultural background and be basically decent.


Yes, we do, it was discussed in Oath of Swords. Doing magic according to the Strictures is more difficult, and less safe, than just doing it however you please.
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Re: SofTS Official Snippet #8
Post by chrisd   » Thu Mar 05, 2015 10:12 am

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If Bahzell and Leeana are running a tavern, and have been doing so long enough to become established AND with an eight year old daughter, then

Where are Walsharno and Gahyrfressa, and what have they been up to with their "wind-riders" grounded?
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Re: SofTS Official Snippet #8
Post by Vince   » Thu Mar 05, 2015 5:10 pm

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chrisd wrote:If Bahzell and Leeana are running a tavern, and have been doing so long enough to become established AND with an eight year old daughter, then

Where are Walsharno and Gahyrfressa, and what have they been up to with their "wind-riders" grounded?

Quibble: Eleven year old daughter.
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