Voyages of discovery? (spoilers for all RotE books)

[maulkin]

Now that I think of it, perhaps the fool's intervention was actually intended to prevent (or at least moderate) industrialisation of the Six Duchies/Bingtown culture by reintroducing dragons as a potent symbol and agent of the natural world. The Elderlings had developed a high-technology culture but this was built around partnership with and respect for nature in the form of dragons. The Six Duchies, on the other hand, displayed a growing alienation from nature, as evidenced by their treatment of the witted (and by the Piebalds' abuse of their animal partners). The Rainwilders had shown their own contempt for natural wonders and sense of entitlement to natural resources through their slaughter of unhatched dragons to produce wizardwood for liveships. The SS trilogy provides a vivid example of the unstoppable nature of runaway industrialisation, once it has acquired cultural momentum. Perhaps the Fool was attempting to prevent a Gernia-like culture from arising in the Realm of the Elderlings.