Others' Island (spoilers all books incl RWC)

[Nuytsia]

Where do the ships go when they disappear from the eastern side of Others Island?

Unfortunately I have no idea!

Why was Vivacia able to sail onto this eastern side to save Wintrow.......

I can't really remember any details relating to that,... but ....

....would not a liveship then be the very ship that could enter a Skill pillar, as opposed to an everyday, wooden ship.

.....this makes sense!

Also, if Others are the products of dragons and Elderlings/humans, and have the ability to use glamour/Skill suggestions (so are therefore most likely Skilled), why have they never tried to use the Skill pillar near the beach? Is it because they are more dragon than human and can't use the pillars, or because they choose not to for some reason?

Do you think what used to happen was that dragons killed them when they hatched out as Abominations?
Maybe the only reason they have lived to form a society of sorts is that the dragons stopped coming to Others Island to lay their eggs, and the Others aren't sure what happened to them but they sure as hell don't want to come out the other end of a Skill pillar and find them!

[Farseer]

Do you think what used to happen was that dragons killed them when they hatched out as Abominations?
Maybe the only reason they have lived to form a society of sorts is that the dragons stopped coming to Others Island to lay their eggs, and the Others aren't sure what happened to them but they sure as hell don't want to come out the other end of a Skill pillar and find them!

I LOVE it !!! If this is the case, it will be interesting to see what happens when Tintaglia and Icefyre (also Heeby and Sintara!)discover that Abominations are thriving! Maybe a visit back to Others Island is as close as the next book? *begging*

[Nuytsia]

Oh oh it's gonna be ugly!! teehee...

There's got to be a visit to Others Island in the fairly near future surely.... (yay!!!) ..... the patter of little serpent ... flippers??

[maulkin]

I raised this in the "Mythical Creatures" thread but it probably belongs here too.

Who imprisoned She Who Remembers?

If it was the Others then they must have been thriving before the dragons departed in order to be there waiting when SWR hatched. Moreover, they must have been capable of working iron and stone in order to manufacture the cage in which SWR was imprisoned. It seems more likely to me that SWR was imprisoned by humans (or at least with human help) and then adopted by the Others as their oracle. It may even be that the Others only developed sentience after they gained access to SWR's memories.

This raises the question; what kind of memories (if any) do Others inherit? Do they inherit serpent memories, elderling memories or a mixture of both? If they inherit elderling memories then perhaps they would have had the ability to manufacture a cage from scratch (although I imagine that they would have needed to trade with humans for iron and tools or perhaps salvage them from the beach).

[Nuytsia]

Well that does seem very plausible to me .......

As to what memories they inherit well I guess I'd really have to know more about them.

If I had to take a guess I suppose considering that 'rainwilds touched' children don't *seem* to have dragon memories (?) then I'd say Others don't have Elderling memories. (That's making quite a few assumptions though). But it's very interesting to think that if they DID they would have access to human technological knowledge....

I am not even clear on why/how serpents seem to have some dragon memories (?) - or previous life serpent memories (?) BUT they lose their serpent memories when they emerge from their cocoons as dragons.

[maulkin]

I am not even clear on why/how serpents seem to have some dragon memories (?) - or previous life serpent memories (?) BUT they lose their serpent memories when they emerge from their cocoons as dragons.

I presume that it is a little like the process of a caterpillar changing into a butterfly. Inside the cocoon, the caterpillar's body (including the brain) is broken down and a new body (and brain) develops from clumps of stem cells. All of the caterpillar's memories are presumably lost during this process but this is OK because there is no need for a butterfly to remember how to be a caterpillar.

The whole idea of inherited memories is biologically unrealistic because memories do not influence DNA and so cannot be transmitted between generations (except through the normal human process of teaching and learning). This, presumably, is why the memory sand is needed for the cocoons, with the dragon-memories added by the attendant dragons. This raises the question of how serpents inherit their serpent memories. Perhaps serpents wait at Others Island for the dragon eggs to be laid and then help to bury them in memory sand, adding their own memories in the process. If so, there will be more problems in store when the next batch of dragon eggs is laid!

[Nuytsia]

Yeah that was one of the sticking points I came up against - how the serpents 'get' their memories in the first place.
But actually having just read your post it only now occurs to me that maybe that's what She Who Remembers was supposed to do - give the memories to the newly hatched serpents *before* they left 'Others Island'.
I'm not sure exactly how this works - maybe one serpent, after hatching and having got its memories from the previous SWR is actually *supposed* to stay put at Others Island rather than roaming the seas and going to form a cocoon (or maybe they go form the coccoon after passing on memories to a serpent successor).
This may well have happened, as it seems the serpents did HAVE their memories at first, they just forgot over time? So in this special case SWR had to go seek them out to re-tell them their memories. (presumably even hers were diminished due to the long time period)
Yes, they're in trouble now come next egg hatching! Someone should have stayed serpent! (then again this could all be bunkum. You'd think Tintaglia or SWR would have mentioned it)
Maybe that's what secretly happened to Shreever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[maulkin]

maybe one serpent, after hatching and having got its memories from the previous SWR is actually *supposed* to stay put at Others Island rather than roaming the seas and going to form a cocoon (or maybe they go form the coccoon after passing on memories to a serpent successor).

Yes, that would make a lot of sense!

I also wonder whether perhaps the Others had some role to play in protecting dragon eggs, in the same way that elderlings played a role in protecting dragon cocoons. The Others still guard the beach, but in a rather pathetic and pointless way. Perhaps their original role was to guard the dragon eggs from thieving animals or humans. In that case, the niches in the rock were presumably once filled with dragon eggs rather than junk from the beach.

[Nuytsia]

ooh i like it!

[Farseer]

Will go back through the other posts soon (have to head off somewhere...darn it!!) but 'iron' jumped out at me, and made me think of the iron works at Forge. Weren't Skill pillars, memory stone and humps in the earth (which pointed to a buried Elderling city) also found in the vicinity of Forge? Hmmm!