Rain Wild Chronicles (SPOILERS ALL REALM OF THE ELDERLING BOOKS)

[Farseer]

I always thought that the dragon in his vision was welcomed out of admiration from the people, but what if there was a constant subtle fight going on between the people of that age, to fall into the favour of a dragon and be chosen to become an Elderling? The crowd vying for the honour of working the windlass of the well might have done it for nothing more then personal gain. More then that, I'm sure the Elderlings would have been considered the elite, living in luxury and indulging in art, Skill and beauty, while the normal people would have ended up as the working force out on the streets.

Wow, that's awesome, and not something I had overly thought about before now! There was certainly jealousy etc between the keepers (Greft is a perfect example), not to mention the dragons themselves, so why not between Elderlings or between Elderlings and humans. In the case of Elderlings, that's made me think of the dragon statue that Lady Carrock etc passed when they were buried in Frengong/Trehaug in 'Homecoming'. At the time of reading, I remember wondering if she was the 'head' Elderling, as though there were even different classes of Elderlings...whoever she was, she was obviously someone very significant among them.

Without a doubt there would had to have been friction between Elderlings and humans (as two different 'classes' or 'races'). Of course it could be said that humans viewed Elderlings with awe, not jealousy, as they are, say, when Reyn and Malta were dancing in Jamaillia City (of course, much of this awe would have been due to the rarity of Elderlings...back in history they would have been much more commonplace and so then less awe-inspiring?).

It also talks somewhere in the RWC about the human Queen and King living in Kelsingra, as though Kelsingra was the royal seat for the entire realm and therefore different classes of humans also co-existed as well as Elderlings and dragons. A good example of your subtle friction between humans and Elderlings is when Etta sees Malta's Elderling-looking dress and tells Wintrow that not only will she learn to dance but HER dress (as Queen of the Pirate Isles) will be more magnificant than Malta's !