Small, random questions about RotE that still bother you (spoilers all RotE books)

[fool-ish]

Yeah. She was up to something with that skilled hand.

['thul]

anyone that has tried crafts knows that precision is considerably worse while wearing gloves. The sensory nerves in the hand provide information that no glove can compensate for. You might be able to, say carve, something decent while wearing gloves, but nothing truly good. The feel of a piece of wood in your hand is uniquely important to working it.

Amber's silvered fingers provide her with a little extra information when using those sensory nerves.

[fool-ish]

That'll be it then. Gloves are a great nuisance! My job requires that I wear gloves a lot of the time. Makes some aspects of the job twice as difficult, still they are necessary...for the greater good and all that!

[Farseer]

3)
Why aren't the OutIslands on the map?

Quick reply as I need at least an hour or two of some shut-eye...it's so hard keeping up with old posts, let alone new ones, especially when working on other 'stuff' in between...!

Yes, I agree with 'thul with regard to the laws on charts and maps. The Outislander laws are very firm with regard to their creating charts and maps.

I also have a little theory that the positioning of the islands could be somehow significant eg that they create some kind of pattern or shape when seen from above. I'm not sure why I think that but they are "The God Runes" after all, so, ah, I don't know ...I guess I'm thinking that El, or Eda, etc put them in some kind of special order? At the very least, they make me think of the Stone Game, with the islands being in strategic places rather than the stones.

It is also worthy to again note that Aslevjal was depicted as the most likely centre of the entire 'world', at least on the map within the Aslevjal map tower. This makes me wonder if there is some true connection to it and the gods...or was it like that as those in Aslevjal simply considered themselves the centre of the world (as we humans once believed we were the centre of the solar system?)...or was it merely to hint at the (unknown) lands to the north and to the very east of the map?

Beware, Farseer is on the path of randomness again...sorry...!

The former point within this post just popped into my head and I suddenly couldn't help but wonder if my theory regarding The God Runes as seen from above is not so far-fetched when one considers Alise's words regarding Kelsingra being set out like some strange kind of art. Ah, looking for the passage as reference for you...it is in DH at the beginning of Chapter Eleven, 'Revelations', though I will quote only the main gist of it:

I think I was a dragon in my dream. Because I saw the city, well, as if it were small and I were looking down on it...You know, in my dream, the city looked as if it had been planned to be seen from above. Like a strange form of art...

The plot thickens...

I have so many other 'random' things to prattle about. Hmm. It's 10:25pm. To sleep or not to sleep?!

---

I don't know if this has been talked about before (time gets in the way of post-trawling, alas) but when Amber is re-carving Paragon's face, there is a moment when she is running her hands around it glove-less and hence the skill imprint is 'active' as it were. So, now I'm wondering if the skill from Amber's hand has had any effect on Paragon? Would he have felt or known about fool's torture and death and would he have any awareness at all of Fitz?

Crikey, I have so many posts I have overlooked somehow! I check them as often as I can as mod but then never seem to get back into them or the nitty-gritty of throwing myself into the fray...

Just quickly, and I will try to find the post where I have chatted about this somewhere, but I do know that Paragon had seen and come to know of Fitz, and also Amber's love for him, through his contact with Amber. He even went on to ackowledge that Fitz made up a part of him. Possibly it would be far easier for me to find a reference from the text rather than sift through posts. *goes off to flick through some pages!*

Okay, have finally found the passage I was thinking of in SoD, a couple of pages into Chapter Thirty, 'Convergence' - this from Paragon to Amber:

'You loved him didn't you?' ...Sometimes, when she worked on his face, he could feel her affection for the countenance she carved...She would not speak of him, but sometimes in the brushing touch of her fingers, he glimpsed the man she saw in his mind.
'Now I am layer upon layer upon layer,' he observed as he held her up to the railing. 'Dragon and dragon, under Paragon Ludluck, under...whoever this is. Will you give me his name also?'

As has been said though, Paragon and Amber did both respect each other and kept from prying during contact, much the same as happened with Fitz and Fool etc...

['thul]

Fashioning islands to fit a goal is not worth the work. Not even for dragons. It might be possible to provide vague direction for volcanic expansion, but not more than that.
Cities on the other hand, that is most probable that they would design as art.

[Farseer]

It was the glove-less thing really, as it's a rare occurrence for them to be taken off which made me think she was using her 'skilled' hand for some purpose when carving.

I'm sorry to back-track even further in this thread but I just thought this use of a gloveless hand thingy for Amber was no different to Fool using his bare, Skill-silvered fingers to carve Starling's harp, Lord Golden's use of charms etc, or to work wood in all of its forms even better than he had previous to the transfer of Skill silver from Verity?

Even further, in the case of Amber carving a likeness of Fitz to replace Paragon's damaged face, Amber would not only have used her Skill touch to assist with the actual working of the wizardwood (just as she did with her beads and bowls etc and just as Verity and Kettle did with the carving of their stone dragon) but possibly she also used the love and/or her Skill-link between she and Fitz to assist with the accuracy of her carving? Though she'd not have forgotten what he'd looked like, Amber had been gone from Fitz for quite some time and thus her connection with him via the Skill would have also aided in the carving-from-memory process?

The presence of gloves for Amber would simply have been to disguise the discolouration of her fingers? As happened onboard Paragon with Malta and also when she placed her hands in Paragon's/Kennit's blood place, Amber went ungloved whenever she required the full use of the Skill. It doesn't say that she touched Wintrow at all but possibly Amber touched him ungloved at one point and it was this Skill connection that created the 'lightning' feeling he experienced. In any case, the state of her fingers was easily noticed by outsiders, as we can tell from Keffria's reaction to seeing them after Malta has collapsed? After that episode, Amber quickly replaced her gloves...

[fool-ish]

3)
Why aren't the OutIslands on the map?

Quick reply as I need at least an hour or two of some shut-eye...it's so hard keeping up with old posts, let alone new ones, especially when working on other 'stuff' in between...!

Yes, I agree with 'thul with regard to the laws on charts and maps. The Outislander laws are very firm with regard to their creating charts and maps.

I also have a little theory that the positioning of the islands could be somehow significant eg that they create some kind of pattern or shape when seen from above. I'm not sure why I think that but they are "The God Runes" after all, so, ah, I don't know ...I guess I'm thinking that El, or Eda, etc put them in some kind of special order? At the very least, they make me think of the Stone Game, with the islands being in strategic places rather than the stones.

It is also worthy to again note that Aslevjal was depicted as the most likely centre of the entire 'world', at least on the map within the Aslevjal map tower. This makes me wonder if there is some true connection to it and the gods...or was it like that as those in Aslevjal simply considered themselves the centre of the world (as we humans once believed we were the centre of the solar system?)...or was it merely to hint at the (unknown) lands to the north and to the very east of the map?

Beware, Farseer is on the path of randomness again...sorry...!

The former point within this post just popped into my head and I suddenly couldn't help but wonder if my theory regarding The God Runes as seen from above is not so far-fetched when one considers Alise's words regarding Kelsingra being set out like some strange kind of art. Ah, looking for the passage as reference for you...it is in DH at the beginning of Chapter Eleven, 'Revelations', though I will quote only the main gist of it:

I think I was a dragon in my dream. Because I saw the city, well, as if it were small and I were looking down on it...You know, in my dream, the city looked as if it had been planned to be seen from above. Like a strange form of art...

The plot thickens...

I have so many other 'random' things to prattle about. Hmm. It's 10:25pm. To sleep or not to sleep?!

---

I don't know if this has been talked about before (time gets in the way of post-trawling, alas) but when Amber is re-carving Paragon's face, there is a moment when she is running her hands around it glove-less and hence the skill imprint is 'active' as it were. So, now I'm wondering if the skill from Amber's hand has had any effect on Paragon? Would he have felt or known about fool's torture and death and would he have any awareness at all of Fitz?

Crikey, I have so many posts I have overlooked somehow! I check them as often as I can as mod but then never seem to get back into them or the nitty-gritty of throwing myself into the fray...

Just quickly, and I will try to find the post where I have chatted about this somewhere, but I do know that Paragon had seen and come to know of Fitz, and also Amber's love for him, through his contact with Amber. He even went on to ackowledge that Fitz made up a part of him. Possibly it would be far easier for me to find a reference from the text rather than sift through posts. *goes off to flick through some pages!*

Okay, have finally found the passage I was thinking of in SoD, a couple of pages into Chapter Thirty, 'Convergence' - this from Paragon to Amber:

'You loved him didn't you?' ...Sometimes, when she worked on his face, he could feel her affection for the countenance she carved...She would not speak of him, but sometimes in the brushing touch of her fingers, he glimpsed the man she saw in his mind.
'Now I am layer upon layer upon layer,' he observed as he held her up to the railing. 'Dragon and dragon, under Paragon Ludluck, under...whoever this is. Will you give me his name also?'

As has been said though, Paragon and Amber did both respect each other and kept from prying during contact, much the same as happened with Fitz and Fool etc...

Yes, Paragon had a good idea of whom Amber was thinking of when creating his new countenance, but I still wonder if the 'skill touch' left Paragon with a much deeper awareness of Fitz and perhaps more importantly, fool. By that, I mean experiencing, to some degree the various traumatic events that fool and Fitz went through later on. These thoughts have plagued my mind ever since finishing LST!

[Farseer]

Now I get your drift fool-ish ...sorry for the previous misinterpretation! *Arnie voice* I'll be back...

[fool-ish]

Now I get your drift fool-ish ...sorry for the previous misinterpretation! *Arnie voice* I'll be back...

No worries. My ramblings are often open to misinterpretation!

[Relpda]

Just wondering if anyone can help - I've noticed some discrepancies with Realder's dragon and while I can't find another thread with this in I could very easily have missed it.

On re-reading AQ it says quite clearly that Realder's dragon is a big dragon in the stone garden. Fitz and Nighteyes wake him up while Fool is on the back of Girl on a Dragon who was made by Salt's coterie.

Now in the TM trilogy I'm pretty sure that the Fool refers to Realder's dragon as Girl on a Dragon and tells a story behind it with the whole giving her the rooster crown scene (I can't remember the exact words, my head is still full of Farseer at the minute lol). I was just wondering if I've missed something here or if it's just an oversight in the text - I don't mind if it is, I'll just overlook it myself, I'm just worried I'm missing something obvious hehe