originally posted by Tom Balogh
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Someone please help me with a page reference for this as I don't have my book with me… I'll try and put it in when I get back to it but that may not be for a week.
Somewhere in Traitor's Knot, I think when the love scene goes wrong, there is a mention of a Paravian that implies to me that they are still on Athera itself.
Has anyone else spotted this?
originally posted by ishmael smith
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do you mean the reference to a Unicorn lifting its head when Arithon asks "Grace" of Ath and his presence "resounds through all of Ath's Creation"?
(Message edited by admin on June 17, 2005)
originally posted by Trys
FYI, adding white space does nothing to hide the content of the post when a list of messages is displayed through the front page or search feature. 
originally posted by Tom Balogh
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Finally got to my copy and found the line.
UK Trade Paperback edition, p 493 - 494.
"Across the five kingdoms, sleepers smiled in dreams, Unicorns flung up their horned heads and tossed their floss manes in astonishment."
This implies to me that Unicorns are present in this time and in the kingdoms of Athera.
What does everyone else think? If I am right this is a momentous announcement - perhaps they have shifted themselves to a different vibration?
Tamas
originally posted by Hunter
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We have come across several mentions of Paravians in the current time. In Curse when the unicorn was confused by the re-emergence of sunlight, the unicorn who visits Elaira in Ath's hostel, the centaur who visits Arithon in Kewar and this mention. So we know they are still around - but not exactly where.
This of course assumes that the grace of the Paravian intercession is actually bound by temporal or physical constraints.
originally posted by Trys
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If memory serves the Centaur in Kewar tunnel was called across time (he references his death). He was real in Kewar where as the on that answered Jieret's call was but a 'ghost'. The only thing I'm not sure of is were they the same Ilitharis Paravian?
Trys
originally posted by neilw
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"tender touch…real…kewar tunnel's…spellcraft…bridged space…time…through crown prince's passion longing" (I'm too lazy to type it all (from "second recovery", Peril's Gate))
I feel the centaur is the same one:
"I give you my memory (each word rang with crystalline overtures, wild and free as his horn call had been, ranging over the vales of Daon Ramon)"
originally posted by Hunter
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The Centaur says to Arithon "the riddle was not written, the day I greet my death" so I'm not sure he's actually dead at that time. But are the Paravians bound by time? They are semi-mortal, they can die, either violently or through attrition or diminishment.
It is the same centaur because Arithon is reliving Jieret's death in the Kewar Tunnel when the Ilitharis Paravian strides onto Daon Ramon Barrens. Arithon's longing causes the centaur to appear - as he says, "I was called, truly".
originally posted by Tamas
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Yes, but if Unicorns across the five kingdoms flung up their heads it implies both multiple ones (not just the one that Elaira saw) and also that they are in Paravia itself - still in the real world.
It could be spirit wraiths I suppose but it seems to me to imply that they are alive and in the kingdom's - under the fellowship's nose but somehow hidden.
Tamas
p.s. Trys; any chance you can change my name in my earlier posts to Tamas? I don't know why it turned up in the first place.
originally posted by Trys
quote:If memory serves, Elaira didn't see the unicorn.not just the one that Elaira saw
Tamas,
Sorry, this board software doesn't have a facility for editing the user name on the posts, only the content of the post.
Trys
originally posted by Hunter
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Your memory is fading gryphon…
Page 162 UK tpb edition of PG.
"Then, stunned to stopped breath, Elaira saw the unicorn enter the glade". And basically sat like a stunned mullet until she was given Paravian blessing, wherein she passed out… I wonder if this was the normal process for Paravian's annointing specific humans as worthy? Elaira is not, as far as we know, a caithdein so the blessing wouldn't be for the ascension to a caithdein's position.
So now both Arithon and Elaira have had the honour of Paravian blessing bestowed upon them. Arithon used this to great effect in TK - I wonder what Elaira might be able to do? Abrogate or avoid the gross abuse of the Law of the Major Balance that is the Koriani mode of magecraft? Opens more intersting possiblilites? No?
originally posted by Auna
His memory isn't quite failing…
Elaira then forgot about the incident after passing out 
originally posted by Trys
"They say the mind is the first thing to go… and I forget what the second thing is."
I think on the initial reading I concluded that Elaira had a vision initiated when she placed her hand in the spring and didn't know that what she saw was real. Not until the Adept acknowledged the Riathan did 'we' know it was real. I just re-read that scene. Now I can see where the scene may have been real since the beginning having been spun out of Elaira's true self such that a Unicorn would come to that created reality.
Perhaps the most significant point is when the Adept says something to the effect that she may forget but her greater being will remember.
Trys
originally posted by Hunter
I believe this scene also took place in the sacred grove so it was the "reality" of the sacred grove rather than the "normal" reality outside the borders of Ath's Adepts hostel. Similar to when Kevor ventured into the grove to meet the other adepts from hostels all across Paravia.
We know that Ath's adepts visit the Fellowship regularly, such as attending Sethvir in Althain. Apart from Davien, was there any other instance of the Fellowship entering a hostel?
Just as important as Elaira's greater being remembering is the blessing and acknowledgement by the Paravian and, I suspect, therefore the elements and greater Athera, of Elaira. Which will probably be rather useful should she throw off the shackles of her Koriani vows and serve the Compact and the land…
There is a line by the Adept that is rather intriguing…
page 163 UK tpb - "Upon right choice of destiny, Elaira's true love for a man might one day give rise to the key that recalls the lost Riathan home to the continent…" FP gave Elaira a "choice of destiny" to make about an Aratheurian goat herder. What a conundrum that would make… Elaira will make the choice of which of Fionn Areth's fates come to pass. If Arithon is present when she makes that decision, given Arithon has given Fionn Areth his vow of protection, will Arithon allow Elaira the choice that kills Fionn Areth? Would Arithon know which choice might forever deny the Paravian return and would he sacrifice Fionn Areth to ensure Paravian return?
Similar to Jieret, if Fionn Areth makes the choice for Elaira, there is probably very little Arithon could do to stop him, without transgressing the tenets of free will.
originally posted by Auna
TK has a reference to a Fellowship member winding up in the grove as the destination of a focus transfer.
I thought Elaira made the choice to trust Arithon with Fionn when she decided to go along with Lirenda's scheme to transform Fionn. I think the next part is up to Fionn to decide how he dies. Finally, it 'feels' to me like the final destiny choice Elaira makes will pit her against the Prime and the Waystone, but maybe that's just wishful thinking on my part
originally posted by Hunter
In TK, Kharadmon was transferring someone from the Paravian focus circle in Meth Isle to the Ath's Adept hostel in Spire. The first such time I think that it was mentioned that the Paravian focus circles were linked in this way, or at all, with the sacred groves of the hostels. Interesting concepts!
Elaira's confrontation with Morriel is a question of when, not if. I'm hoping it's in TK. If Lysaer's assaulting Alestron, do you think Morriel would sit on the sidelines and simply watch? I think not…
originally posted by neilw
Elaira's burden is to choose "hour of the trial",
Fionn's burden is "to give the natural death or sacrifice" (resulting in betrayal?)
"Crossed steel and smoke" - my bet, today, is Alestron…Arithon will be aiding the fall out there perhaps and come a cropper with the Koriani who will be waiting for their moment…
I've always wondered whether "the key" is in fact a descendant of Arithon…it's not necessarily Arithon who'll bring back the paravians but his actions/choices and their impact on the future?!?
"the lost Riathan home to the continent" - why only the riathon?!? Because they just saw one and thus this race is foremost in the minds? And the other 2 paravian races?!?
originally posted by Hunter
I'm also wondering if the "key" is probably a metaphorical object - an action or occurrence that may also be what releases Ciladis to return?
I'm thinking Ath's Adepts are called Ath's Adepts for a reason - and the unicorn's horn is "the purest, most direct connection to Ath Creator". The Centaurs are guardians of the land and the sunchildren keepers of the mystery but I would suggest that the Riathan are the Paravians the Ath's Adepts were most aligned with.
Do we know if Ath's Adepts arrived on Athera with the remnants of humanity, or was an order started on Athera? If so, by whom? Was this something as part of the Compact? Or started as a calling for those High Kings and clansmen who went mad or were altered by contact with Paravians?
Crossed steel and smoke would seem logical for Alestron…
originally posted by R’is’n
I've spliced these observations together:
From Trys:
"…she may forget but her greater being will remember."
From Auna:
"Elaira made the choice to trust Arithon with Fionn"
From Hunter:
"should she throw off the shackles of her Koriani vows and serve the Compact and the land"
And from my own memory, Elaira saying to Arithon as they were finally together "Where are you taking me?"
This all seems like she keeps giving up choices that engender any interference? Hence she forgets the paravian blessing, she entrusts Arithon, she is carried along by events, in contrast to Arithon who seems to make things happen around him.
I wonder if her role will not be to act, but to let things resolve themselves? Her 'actions' towards Arithon so far demonstrates this - and her philosophy on life in general. Like her element - she just goes with the flow - as with her 'choice' to let love determine Arithon's fate, rather than hate.
I'm not sure what I'm getting at myself here - but I'm wondering if waiting for Elaira to do an Arithon styled act against Morriel/Seldie isn't misunderstanding her character?
Mmm… time for a reread? *grin*
originally posted by Trys
R’is’n,
Interesting observation on Elaira. Sometimes the one who appears to not be making changes (i.e., goes with the flow) is in fact "catalyzing" the events that lead to change. So perhaps that will be her role.
On the other hand, this is Janny telling the story…
Some how or other it's always time for re-read. One of these days I'm getting myself cloned, one to work, one to take care of the house and me to read. <bg>