Jan-28-2012, 01:24 AM (UTC)
(This post was last modified: Jan-28-2012, 02:03 AM (UTC) by Farseer.)
(Feb-27-2011, 08:39 AM (UTC))thul Wrote: Girl on a dragon was not the official name, and if these beings recall correctly, it was named after not the coterie leader, but the most prominent member of the coterie...
While you beings do recall correctly, and G-o-a-D was not its 'official' name, it was the name given to the dragon from Fool's dream by Fitz and Fool in AQ, and G-o-a-D was a totally different simulacra to that which they did name as Realder's Dragon back then. In AQ there is both G-o-a-D and Realder's Dragon. They were not the same in any way.
As per previous posts, Fool had dreamed of Realder's Dragon during their trip up the Skill Road where RD had promised Fool that he would fly him. He then went on to recognise Realder/Realder's Dragon from his dream and other half-memories when they first came across him in the Stone Garden (I believe that Fitz even felt his Wit sense of the simulacra increase when Fool spoke the name 'Realder') and Fool could almost remember knowing him.
It was also during this introduction to Realder's Dragon that Fool and Fitz spoke of the experience at the plaza where Fool had told Fitz afterward that Realder's Dragon had promised to fly him. In all ways and at all times, this dragon was the one that they both spoke of as Realder's Dragon for the remainder of AQ.
Fool did not come across G-o-a-D until they reached the quarry and did not even acknowledge at any time having remembered or dreamed or seen G-o-a-D ever before. To Fool, Realder's Dragon from back in the Stone Garden was, at that stage, a totally different being to G-o-a-D/the Realder's Dragon that G-o-a-D came to be known as in FF.
As you say, the 'official name' given to G-o-a-D in FF was Realder's Dragon and this was because, as you also say, it was named after not the coterie leader, Salt, but after Realder, the member of Salt's Coterie who was willing to give heart to the dragon.
While all of that is true of the text in FF, it still does very much conflict with the text in AQ. Up until then, while we had not known G-o-a-D's official name, we did know Realder's Dragon's and it was...Realder's Dragon...and they were different beings.
When Fitz and Nighteyes woke Realder's Dragon together (the first one of the Stone Garden dragons for them to do so because it was Burl's death by Nighteyes that had earlier allowed G-o-a-D to finally be 'finished', not 'wakened'), Fitz noted that whoever Realder had been, he'd put a healthy appetite into his dragon. G-o-a-D was the first to lead the attack on the Red Ships, carrying Fool, and Realder's Dragon was the very last one to leave the Stone Garden. Two totally different simulacra in different places at different times.
Later, in FF, Realder's Dragon is the name given to G-o-a-D and, yes, it is G-o-a-D who Fool confirms as being the dragon that he'd announced during his announcing of "the flight of Realder's Dragon" way back in AQ but it still does not shed any light on the reason why the other dragon, first known as Realder's Dragon, had been named that way.
The only ways I can think to explain it away (if it is not a plot hole) is that Fool got it wrong between having his dream and coming across the dragon in the Stone Garden. He got it wrong and thus wrongly named that dragon as Realder's Dragon, only to have got it right by the end of FF after being in possession of all of the facts eg while it was Realder's Dragon who had promised to fly him etc, it was actually G-o-a-D who was always Realder's Dragon and not the other dragon which they had mistakenly took to be him. This makes no sense to me, and it is rare for the Fool to be so utterly wrong, but it is possible. It could be explained away by the confusion he experienced after the Skill experience and the groping for the dreams that were not as clear as his prophecies would normally be.
There is one other possibility that I can come up with (as mentioned a couple of posts ago, that they could both be named after Realder) but it's even sillier and makes even less sense. Why would two dragons be known as Realder's Dragon even if portions of Realder were found to be in both (much like it could be said that Fool is a part of both G-o-a-D and the PW/Kebal's Rawbread's simulacra)?

If it is a plot hole, it's actually just as much a plot hole within AQ, as far as I can tell, and not only between AQ and FF. This is because it was back in AQ that we are first told that it was Realder's Dragon who promised to fly Fool. Even by the end of AQ it was actually G-o-a-D who flew with Fool, even before it happened with them again in FF. Fool only ever flew with G-o-a-D (who came to be known as Realder's Dragon by FF), and never with the dragon we were first introduced to as Realder's Dragon in AQ.
I can't stand it any more. I'm asking Robin even though I'm hoping things will be cleared up further in later books!


EDIT: I did ask, and will share anything that comes of it.
"I am the Catalyst, and I came to change all things. Prophets become warriors, dragons hunt as wolves."