Inside the Skill Pillars? (Spoilers Farseer and Tawny Man trilogies)

['thul]

what do you do when you see a child you know well (not your own) playing or practicing with something that can be dangerous is misused, say a knife and whittling on a stick. Do you scold it, take away the knife, or do you sit down beside it and instruct it in how to do it right?
'thul at least would do the latter, teaching the child how to wield it properly so as not to cause harm. The presence (for Fitz at least) first warned him to be careful, that he should not be using the stones so. Then, when he did not stop, it left him to his fate for a while, before giving him a push in the right direction. This could be likened to the child cutting itself on the knife, and you, who tried to instruct it, lets it feel the pain while the wound heals, rather than giving it painkillers, so that the child remembers the danger the knife could pose. If the child had no recollection of the pain and danger of the knife, it would quite possibly repeat the incident in the future out of carelessness. (mind you, equipping a child with a very sharp knife for this is far better than equipping it with a dull one)

do you agree on that view?


perhaps the presence simply was, and that they assigned traits to it that they wanted to fit?
That early as it was for dutiful, he had no real experience with dragons, and since the pillars' current is so different from skill dreams, even if they both knew dragons in the latter, they might not recognize it in the former. Thus it could easily have been a dragon that is known. Or something else.