Random questions about Liveships (spoilers Farseer, LST and TM)

[Farseer]

I thought the same 'thul..all to do with spoiling the wizardwood hull. Now, I'm not so sure, though that could still be a small part of it, maybe?

Possibly. I have to admit that I hadn't even considered the wizardwood issue as I'd just thought it was a 'sailor thing', though I didn't know *what* thing (being a soft landlubber as I am ). It could likely have been a bit of both? It's true that Brashen was not initially overly happy with Amber wanting to recarve Paragon's face and, as those beings known as 'thul have mentioned, Bingtowners and Rain Wilders *are* very protective of their 'cocoon wood', so...

Another little thing that came up in the Newsgroup within that same conversation was the subject of 'the sympathy bell' which Grag Tenira employed as a warning during The Mad Ship. Do any of you recall it? I am looking forward to taking a peak where it was mentioned but any LST reads I've done in the past, well, the fact that it was a sympathy bell just hadn't even been a blip on my radar. It's amazing how many details we capture but, just as incredible, is the number we pass over or don't even know enough about to consider it a 'detail'! OUr Tangle Leader packs so much into the tale...

I know that some of you have read Patrick Rothfuss where apparently sympathy is used as a magic item? I am speaking here of what I don't know, and merely paraphrasing a comment made by a Newsgroup member who has read him, so feel free to explain this spoiler-free, if possible!

With regards to this subject of sympathy/sympathy magic/the sympathy bell etc, this is what Robin had to say on the matter:

I think it came to me because at that time my daughter was learning to play harp. I often accompanied her to her lessons. One day her instructor pointed out that when she played a note, his harp's sound box was in sympathy making a sort of shadow sound.

But even that wasn't the first place I'd heard of that. The notion of 'sympathetic' magic is actually pretty old. The 'voodoo' doll in which a doll made with items from a person can transmit sympathetic pain to the target for example. Or the superstition that if you whistle on the deck of a ship, you can 'whistle up a storm' is a sort of like-makes-like magic. Ditto for putting a hatch cover upside down on the deck of a ship. It might make the whole ship turn over!

And 'sympathy' magic often works in our very real world. Some men get sympathetic labor pains when their wives are in labor!

I found it all extremely interesting , and thought you may all too!

['thul]

sympathy bells (or similar constructs) are a typical magical version of modern alarm systems.

[fool-ish]

I don't think I could explain the Sympathy magic used in Pat Rothfuss's series, other than it requires bindings...it's something you have to read about to understand. Though, voodoo doll/mommet/poppet sympathy is very much in evidence and would seem to be fairly basic stuff when one considers the vast scope of magic available to sympathists in the series.

It's a highly recommended read, and just as people either love or hate Fitz, so do they feel the same about Kvothe...

[Narya]

Having messed around in boats for 50 years, I'd say the upside down hatch is a very bad thing, all superstition aside. Seawater weighs 64 pounds per square foot, so a three foot square hatch under a foot of water would have to hold up 576 pounds. (For you non-imperialists, a meter-square hatch, under 30 cm of water would have to hold up 260 kg.) A hatch is generally built to be larger than the opening, and to lie across it, so that it won't be pushed through the hole by the weight of the water. The more the water pushes down on it, the more water-tight it becomes. An upside down hatch would have to have very strong fasteners to hold up any water (or any person walking on it) and would likely be leaky.

Not putting a bucket on top of a closed hatch that some unsuspecting person might come up thru is, well, common sense.

['thul]

Indeed. that is a danger with hatches... But at the same time, it was in a pretty safe place for a wrong-side-up hatch... inside one of the cabins...
It would have been truly dangerous to stick such hatch on deck...

[Farseer]

Crikey we are acquiring some threads on LST and Kennit of late!
As such, I wasn't quite sure where to put this...

Nothing significant except that the name of Kennit's ship never really struck me as being overly important until only yesterday...the Marietta or, depending on how you pronounce it, it could be the 'Marry-Etta'. Oh, the games our Tangle Leader does play with us!

I have quite a bit to add but instead hoping to set aside some time tonight to do so...catch you soon!

['thul]

is that a game, or accident? now that is the question...

[Farseer]

Funnily enough, when I attended SupaNova, this was part of a question that I asked Robin. Not specifically about the Marietta but about the riddles or games vs accidents.

She replied that readers often pointed out connections that she was completely unaware of until they were pointed out, so, who is to say? Maybe such connections are subconscious things that come out without an author having to put thought behind them? They become so immersed in their worlds that the links come naturally...

['thul]

some of them are subconscious, but these beings suspect that most are truly accidental. Especially as names go. Its often very hard to name characters, as most names simply do not fit the character or give the wrong connections.

[londonlassie]

Crikey we are acquiring some threads on LST and Kennit of late!

This makes me happy, it's so hard to find anywhere on the internet that isn't almost wholly Farseer-centric.

Nothing significant except that the name of Kennit's ship never really struck me as being overly important until only yesterday...the Marietta or, depending on how you pronounce it, it could be the 'Marry-Etta'.