JANNY WURTS: Initiate's Trial: Speculation SPOILER WARNING!!!

Amazing that I'm actually on at the same time as you, chief! I don't remember either, but will look (a look is shorter than a re-read).
 
Originally posted by Grimward
What did the Fellowship do (ie, how did they monitor and enforce the terms of the compact) before they relied on Sethvir for monitoring of the world? There were hundreds of years where Paravians existed on the continent alongside humans; did the Paravians report violations to the Fellowship?

From what I remember the purpose of the Clan lines was to stand between the townspeople and the Paravians. They were the lifeblood of the compact, as only clanborn were able to withstand incidental contact with Paravian presence.
The High Kings were the direct link between the Clans and Paravians (it appeared to be only the High Kings that sat in on Councils with Paravians - and such high frequency of Paravian contact was the reason for the very short reigns of the High Kings), and it was also the High Kings (or the Caithdain in their stead) who could ask the Fellowship for direct intervention.
Before the uprising, systems were in place to maintain the compact - the Fellowship would have been only really needed for emergencies, etc.
It was only since the rebellion, and the fading of the Paravian presence, that the Fellowship would have needed the Earthsense to keep constant tabs on the world - to ensure that the Compact was maintained.
 
If that's accurate,

Makes you wonder why Sethvir didn't see the South Gate opening sooner and send more than Traithe to close it to the migration of wraithes from Marak. That certainly would have qualified as an emergency. I recognize that it's hard to see where they're going to be, but once the gate was opened, he should have known about it instantly....I don't think it coincided with the revolt of the townspeople....
 
The Mistwraith's interrupted invasion through the South Gate happened before the Rebellion.
Traithe was the only Fellowship sorceror in the area, hence he was the one who first encounter the Mistwraith at South Gate. While at that time Kharadmon was already discorporate (Luhaine became discorporate during the Uprising at the fall of Telmandir) and could possibly have been on the scene fairly quickly, we do not know what he might have already been tied up in doing at the time.
But who could have known that Traithe (a Fellowship sorceror) was not going to be sufficient in stopping a little bit of mist from entering through the SouthGate.
It would only have been the fact was unable to halt the mistwraith, and was injured, that the magnitude of the threat of the Mistwraith was revealed.

After Traithe managed to close the Gate (and laming himself) there was a period of time when the Fellowship, Paravians and High Kings were able to confine Desh-Thiere at Earle.
It was Davien's revolution that disrupted this attempt, as the High Kings had to withdraw from the front lines of the battle against Desh-Thiere to attempt to deal with the unrest in their own kingdoms.
With the overthrow of the high kings, the attempt to keep Desh-Thiere was forced to be abandoned, and the Mistwraith blanketed out the sun.
It has been implied that it was the loss of sunlight that prompted the Paravian withdrawl.
Only when the final Centaur left was the Earth Sense granted into Sethvir's keeping.
And even with the Earth Sense, it took the attach on Arithon and Lysaer for the Fellowship to realise that Desh-Thiere was sentient.
 
Traithe was the only Fellowship sorceror in the area, hence he was the one who first encounter the Mistwraith at South Gate. While at that time Kharadmon was already discorporate (Luhaine became discorporate during the Uprising at the fall of Telmandir) and could possibly have been on the scene fairly quickly, we do not know what he might have already been tied up in doing at the time.


It's not like Janny to leave a point like that to chance (witness the careful planning and execution where Morriel disrupts one of the lanes so badly that the F7 are completely pre-occupied for months/years restoring the Grimwards). I will settle for the possibility that we may see more on this point in the coming books as we learn more about the mistwraith and the wraiths of Marak in general. I do see, however, where a Sethvir sans EarthSense would lead to greater difficulty for the F7 to monitor events (although remember that Traithe's raven has immediate means of travel for which time has little significance) .
 
Sword of the Canon will be the arc where we learn the most, IMHO (read: guess). There will just not be the room in the last one-novel arc to disclose everything there. I am willing to bet that JW comes clean on the nature of the Mistwraith and the Marak free wraiths by the end of Destiny's Conflict. IT and DC will be just as explosive as SF, though I would weight the explosiveness in favour of DC.

I apologize for the initials, but they are way easier to type. Also, as this is a spoiler thread, you should all know what I am talking about.
 
I apologize for the initials, but they are way easier to type. Also, as this is a spoiler thread, you should all know what I am talking about.

Shame on you, Clanny. We're spreading the Wurd, remember?!

We must educate the masses with our scintillating (OK, it is getting rather deep in here!) discourse on Wars of Light and Shadow. You just can't be doing it with acronyms.

For your pun-ishment, you must write "Seshkrozchiel" 20 times on the board at the front of Dek's Classroom!

Seriously, after SF (curse you! It's bleeding infectious! :p), and even with the taunting excerpts on the Paravia site, I wouldn't put any money on where and when Mme. Wurts will decide to answer questions and drop a bombshell on us.
 
Shame on you, Clanny. We're spreading the Wurd, remember?!

We must educate the masses with our scintillating (OK, it is getting rather deep in here!) discourse on Wars of Light and Shadow. You just can't be doing it with acronyms.

For your pun-ishment, you must write "Seshkrozchiel" 20 times on the board at the front of Dek's Classroom!

Seriously, after SF (curse you! It's bleeding infectious! :p), and even with the taunting excerpts on the Paravia site, I wouldn't put any money on where and when Mme. Wurts will decide to answer questions and drop a bombshell on us.

No! Not that!!! Anything but that!!! AAAAAAAAARRHGH!

Okay, I'll try not to use acronyms.

Your latter point is taken, however, Janny has so much to do in three novels that the information has to spill pretty quickly. Destiny's Conflict will be the set up for the final arc, so there has got to be some pretty significant developments (there always are anyway).
 
I must agree with Clansman. Janny has three books left in this series, and a seriously huge amount of information to relay. The cork has got to come out, or it will be too rushed. Stormed Fortress was just packed with information, and I don't think she could have put more into it.

I expect the same from all three of the coming novels.
 
It amuses me, in this day and age, that anyone (not targeting you specifically, Your Grace!) would ever presume a project of this magnitude not to grow beyond original scope. Now, I agree that Janny laid out a definitive organizational structure for the project, and that we're more than 75 percent of the way thru it, but I guess I will just have to see it end after just three more novels to believe it, Tier. Not only that, she insured that all of her non-transitional characters were adequately endowed for ridiculously long lifespans, and as of the end of Stormed Fortress she'd only used about 75 years of that 500 year allotment ( or is my math off? ). I did see the excerpt from the next one on her site, and I see that she's jumping ahead, but am hopeful that there might be more coming beyond the 3 (yeah, I'm an optimist!).


Of course, Janny may have wanted to do something else with the rest of her life, too!
 
Ah, but Grimey, The Tailspinner herself has declared that the next arc will be two books, and has even named them. Mind you, Stormed Fortress was split in two, but that was early on in the writing of Traitor's Knot. She seems to have a pretty clear vision of what is coming.

Also, as to her jumping ahead, there is a great deal of debate about that. It is not clear at all that she is jumping ahead (at least, not from the painfully small snippet she has released).

Maybe there will be more than three books. I think we all hope so. But, as you point out, JW may in fact want to do something else.
 
I've got it! We need more Arks! Now if I can only figure out how long a cubit is...:p

If you get a chance, o legal eagle, take a gander at the EBay finding in France and enlighten us all (well, me, anyway!) with your educated opinion. I'm afraid three semesters of business law and hospital law in undergrad gave me enough to know how much I don't know!

OK, now returning us to our regularly-scheduled thread....
 
Sorry, Grimey. The link didn't lead to anywhere but "server not found". Care to PM me, or try again in here?
 
PM coming with the link, chief. Ursa had problems, too, but figured it's his firewall....
 
Okay, is Initiate's Trial going to jump ahead in time? I mean, this is supposed to be a 500 year conflict, and JW hasn't even used up 50 years. From the sneak preview from JW's website (here is the link: Janny Wurts Chat Area), it is not at all clear whether or not she jumps, and when did the "bitter defeat" occur?

I don't think JW is going to jump 200 years into the future. She has too many good characters right now who don't have longevity bindings (Sulfin Evend in particular, but also Arithon's daughter, Glendien, etc. and so on).
 
See? Didn't think I was crazy. Still got centuries left, she 'as (OK, where'd the blasted cockney accent come from?).

Well, reviewing our agenda (both here and the proposed one on the Koriathain thread), it seems like we've touched on Davien and Dragons (although Dek's blackboard has no lines of "Seshkrozchiel" on it yet). How about the S'Brydion, and the likelihood of Alestron having a single point of failure? By that I mean the dry dock where their ships are repaired, of course. How could such an impregnable citidel, guarded by defenses that hamstrung conventional armies and even balked Lysaer after the outer wall and town were melted, have such a weakness in such a commonly-travelled thoroughfare as its seagate? This just seems unlikely; the S'Brydion would never have rested on their watch towers in the Harbor to keep enemy ships out, and surely had to figure that someone would sooner or later deliver a fleet to their doorstep that Parrien's boats would not be able to stop.....
 
Didn't Lysaer reduce the seagate to slag with his gift of Light? It was not Paravian-constructed, after all, and therefore had no defence against his arcane attack.

Conventional attack had failed for the better part of five centuries, and probably would have continued to fail, barring some technological innovation, likley not permitted by the terms of the Compact.
 
I remember Lysaer torching Evenstar (not to mention Feylind, who is a coming topic for discussion), Tier, but I don't recall it saying anything about Lysaer destroying the Seagate. Rather, I think it was the boat that Cattrick, Ivel and Arithon's former shipwrights had rigged (with Fionn Areth's help) with explosives, intended to break the blockade, that destroyed the shipyard and it's "lower weir gate" (Stormed Fortress, p.460). Accordingly, we're back to a ship full of explosives breaching the "impregnable" fortress.....
 

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