: Surely the women in the Circle were being influenced,
: just as the female Taken were being influenced...
: right? This is probable, and very believable. But we
: must look ahead into the later novels...
: Spoilers below (the below spoils certain parts of the
: Glittering Stone series.. seraph it might be a good
: idea to ignore this, or bookmark this for later
: reference once you get this far).
: Let's examine the female Taken, who were supposed to be
: tempted by the Dominator. Soulcatcher is the first and
: foremost. It turns out that she was acting for
: herself... neither the Lady nor the Dominator. Now,
: Stormbringer. Though she is female, and therefore
: supposed to be in the service of the Dominator, she
: winds up in the deep south after the Battle at Charm.
: Note that she moved as far away from him as possible.
: The other, third and final (and still unnamed) female
: Taken, logically went south also according to Otto and
: Hagop's report that the remains of Nightcrawler, the
: Faceless Man, and Moonbiter were not found in their
: supposed graves. In my "Taken and Shadowmaster
: Breakdown" analysis (which I posted on the Glen
: Cook fanmail) I described how Moonbiter is a logical
: choice for the 3rd female Taken, and how she was
: killed with 2 others before Longshadow could seal the
: shadowgate.
Actually, as I recall, it was Lady that suggested the female Taken were under the influence of the Dominator. It also becomes evident that the Taken are fighting each other at the battle of Charm, when all hell breaks loose between the Taken. That's when most of them die/disappear.
: My point: The three female Taken might have been tempted
: to serve the Dominator, but by the Battle at Charm, 2
: executed other plans and went AWOL from both him And
: the Lady, faking their deaths, to independently seek
: out power in the south as Shadowmasters, while
: Soulcatcher was busy executing her own plans (e.g.
: putting her 'head' together).
Soulcatcher most definatly did NOT execute any plans. Cook doesn't spell out anything about how she ends up alive again, so we're left to guess how she manages it. The best possible theory is that one of the other Taken give her head a hand (heh) and take her south for their own purposes. The only real power here, though, is Shivetya. We know he's been manipulating things around the world for ages. My guess is he put things in motion long ago to get the right players to the south.
: The female Circle members appear to be much more tempted
: by the Dominator in that case, right? The only
: positive example we have of a female Circle member is
: Whisper, who suborned the Limper. It is questionable
: if even she herself was tempted by the Dominator.
: Maybe the Lady is a better schemer, but that does not
: make her darker (Alric schemed his way to victory
: against the Leveler).
There's no mention of the gender of the Circle, that I recall. Lady just suspects that the Dominator has used them to get at her. And I'm not neccessarily suggesting that Lady is "darker" than old Dom', just that in a game of evil vs evil, one of them is still alive and the other is "dead". If nothing else, it says Lady is smarter. :)
: (( It's also arguable if Bomanz the Awakener actually got
: the Lady from the ground. Technically, he was used,
: like a tool, by the Resurrectionists. One of which was
: his son, the other, was the true Awakener (I
: apologize, I cannot remember his name at the moment).
: ))
His son and Besand (had to look too) were responsible. It doesn't mean that Lady didn't get out though. They were actually trying to get the Dominator out and she snaked the bastard.
: The books note at least twice that she is not as evil as
: the Dominator himself, and that having her in charge
: is far better than having him in power. She also has a
: good streak that Croaker pulls out, mentioned oodles
: of times.
Hey, I won't argue it. But everything about the Domination died long ago (what, 1000 years?), so all we have is Lady's point of view. On the other hand, the Silver Spike is "pure evil". So hey, whatever. It's really not important.
: Though she doesn't employ as many of those ravenous
: monsters her husband used, it makes her no less
: violent. She slaughtered an entire Town Square
: packed-to-busting full of priests and clerics! I think
: you might be a bit confused about those aspects you
: mentioned: she's violent when she must be, just like
: the Dominator, but is not as nasty or dark.
I'm not confused at all. I didn't say she was worse. I simply suggested that she was more powerful than the Taken, and not neccesarily less powerful or evil than The Dominator. Rememebr that she's been around for ages, and for all we know, Cook just wanted her to have a change of heart. Maybe if another book in written she'll come back as a saint (of Croaker :).
: Although it's true that the Nine of Myth were crafted
: with the Circle in mind (I never denied that) it is
: false to say they have much more in common than the
: fact that they both are groups of mages which lose
: members in battle. The Nine of Myth fight against the
: Leveler, and they do not support (unwittingly or
: intentionally) greater evils, which the Circle clearly
: does. So, yes: they are both groups of powerful
: people, and they lose members through attrition. But,
: they differ greatly on far too many accounts to have
: much else in common.
Granted. Bungie couldn't exactly just rip Cook off directly. Just saying that the circle was likely the basis for the Nine. No more, no less. :)
: And no, the Head is not a greater evil than the Leveler.
: :)
: Yes.. thankfully they didn't.
: Referenced, yes. But not copied so liberally :) If you
: Stinger or any other reader wants to see the Breakdown
: analysis I referred to, email me and I'll send a copy,
: or check the August archives of the Glen Cook fans
: mailing list.
: http://www.xmission.com/~shpshftr/GC/GC-Mail.html
: -Welly
Eh, this is the reason I don't stop by here too often. Much as I'd like to argue minutia about the stories, it gets tedious, and there's only so much you can actually "rpvove" anyway. It's not like historical fact, where things can be at times proven or disproven. Half the time in a fictional story the author just plain forgets things. Take Tolkien for example. Recent versions of the trilogy actually have fixes, because JRR contradicted himself on several occasions. This is even better illustrated with the cutscene for the Five Champions. Two dwarfs, or two berserks? It doesn't matter, really. It's "just a game". :)
--Stinger
