>> I don't think the White Sun Lords are nobles.
> [...] (well, Karvanyar was sort of a commoner, though an odd his grandfather was an Emperor).
Supposedly. Faking ancestry for political purposes is one of the more common acts of propogandra there is.
> But of course, they are generally called the White Sun Lords once Karvanyar becomes Emperor, and among their number are the immediate household of the Emperor, who obviously, at that point, they are about as noble as it is possible to be.
But they are still not noble in the sense of coming from an exalted and distinguished family. The closer parallel would be Claudius's ex-slaves, Tyrion Lannister's sellswords, Sartar's Telmori Bodyguards and so on. They are politically ascendent because of their identity as the Emperor's own retainers but in the socal sense, their base origins are held against them with extreme prejudice.
> So regardless of its origins, the White Sun Lords path is definitely one that can continue to be practiced as a noble. They are not called Lords for nothing.
They were still called White Sun Lords when they were hunted down and persecuted by the next Emperor so I don't think that analysis is persuasive.
> That is true. But Napoleon, despite the revolutionary origins, was clearly a noble who restored many aspects of the traditional nobility while placating the mob. Karvanyar much the same.
Focusing on Karvanyar, I see little evidence for his restoring the traditional nobility. His warlord, for example, was a Sable Rider. The traditional nobility failed to stop the EWF from taking over so there's little incentive to reward them. As for respecting the traditions, Karvanyar is "noted for his ruthlessness and brashness, for he was the only person ever to give notice to Yelm himself" (Fortunate Succession p 79). Elsewhere p74, it's observed that although he "claimed to restore the Empire [he] had little Empire". Since he liberates Dara Happa as far south as the Plains of Saird, it seems to me the Little Empire comment refers to his lack of statesmanship rather than the smallness of the territory that he ruled.
> Do you think Karvanyar is not the son of Urvanyar, or that Urvanyar is not the son of Dismanthayar, or that Dismanthuyar was not a legitimate emperor, or that all of this does not add up to him being a legitimate heir to Karvanyar?
> Because Karvanyar as 'the Poor Woman's Son' is of course an issue of legitimacy, but otherwise it seems straightforward enough.
Being a Great Hero, Karvanyar had enough clout to become Emperor on his own merits. He's killed the Dragon, the EWF are terrified of him and he's so illuminated he gives Yelm shit. In such circumstances, having proper ancestry is for pussies.
Secondly if Karvanyar is being remembered as the Poor Woman's Son, that means none of his contemporaries knows who his father was, *not* that his father was the the son of the previous Emperor reduced to destitution. Otherwise he would have been remembered as the Beggar's Son.
In my opinion, Karvanyar's genealogy was made by his successors who were embarrassed that the lowest of the low could become Emperor of Dara Happa.
>
> I don't think Dara Happa Stirs tries to represent the reign of the Dragon Emperor as particularly illegitimate, just deeply unpopular with traditionalists - rather, it is only once the dragon itself conveniently shows it rejects true Justice that it becomes vulnerable.
"The Golden Dragon gives the impression of being close to Yelm but it is an illusion, just as its completion of the Ten Tests was an illusion."
Dara Happa Stirs p45
> This all seems a bit circular in its reasoning, though. While Illumination is one explanation for the sudden rise of Avivath to be the Avatar of Antirius, it seems as if the explanation is that Avivath must be be Illuminated because he is able to do this unusual thing, and then the explanation of how Illumination works in the pre-Nysaloran era is based on the assumption that this unusual thing Avivath did demonstrates the mechanism.
And I have buttressed this mechanism by pointing out parallels between Avivath and other Yelmic Illuminates (Karvanyar, Kerestus, the Margins) after Nysalor's birth and also the allusion to the Chakras in loosening the knot of Antirius. Any alternative view would have to explain why Yelm bestowed his grace on a thief and a beggar.
> And I'll note its more or less explicitly refuted by the 'Current Belief' section, which says Illumination became available to mortals only after Nysalors birth.
If Illumination wasn't available to mortals until Nysalor was born, how did the Dara Happans know that such a thing existed? And the Upward Growing Free Spirit (Fortunate Succession p20) takes place before Nysalor was born giving the lie to the 'Current Belief' section, which is merely the Order of Day's opinion more than a thousand years later.
> Well, sure, the terminology is clumsy. But the power to not be effected by things does seem to come up again and again, whatever we call it.
What power is this?
>> And I am loathe to introduce the "soft spot over the dragon's heart"
>> motif as an excuse for how Dragons can be defeated.
> Me neither, though I have absolutely no idea at all as to how that relates the mystic refutation concept.
I am merely observing that saying that mystic refutation could be used to take down dragons is about as contrived and unconvincing as Smaug having a soft spot over his heart that could be penetrated with a bow and arrow. The big difference is that the Hobbit was written for children living in a less critical age.
> There is not much we do know about the methods used by these groups to fight dragons. I much prefer the model in which dragon slaying magic is able to eliminate the advantages of size and strength etc and engage it on more equal terms, in the Orlanthi (Alakoring vs Drang, etc) mode, but I have no idea if the Yelmic methods are at all similar in their operation.
One does not engage dragons on more equal terms. One fights to win. And the Orlanthi dragonslayers don't do anything as mechanistic as eliminating the advantages of size and strength. The Dragon's Weaknesses are its avoidance of entanglement with the world.
> It is the only one we know of. Given there are several we know nothing about,and the later condemnation of Illumination as Umbarism, I'm not convinced that the two can be so easily separated.
The condemnation of Umbarism as a Nysaloran Heresy (not vice versa) was a political judgement that was disproved when the means of detecting Nysalorans proved ineffective against the Umbarites. They appealed to the same segment of Dara Happan society but they had different magics. And if the traditions were as compatible as you think they were, I would expect to see more cults that just the Good Old Shadows.
> The Old Good Shadow doesn't, but Umbarism as associated with Nysalorism keeps returning right up until the Lunars at least.
I'm not seeing that. Umbarism doesn't return after it is crushed by the Denesiod Dynasty. The New Umbarism is Carmanian philosophy.
--Peter Metcalfe
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