The Dragon Masquerade SPOILER discussion thread

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MuonNeutrino
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The Dragon Masquerade SPOILER discussion thread

#1 Post by MuonNeutrino »

<pirate> WARNING: THAR BE SPOILERS AHEAD. If you haven't read TDM yet, ye best turn around now matey! </pirate>

Ahem. Anyway, I believe almost everyone has their copies of TDM now, and I wanted to make a thread where we can discuss the events of that comic in a bit more detail without worrying about putting entire posts in spoiler tags. So, needless to say, if you want to remain un-spoilered you probably shouldn't read any further! To get the ball rolling, there are three topics that I've been thinking about since I read the comic.

Topic 1: Who is Saria, actually?

For a long time, we didn't know too much about her. In chapter 6 we get a bit of an impression of her character - she seems more gentle than Trace and doesn't seem to have much bias against keidran (she even seemed a bit worried for Flora at times) - but not much more. Nora's flashback in chapter 10 pretty much just reinforces that. Apart from that we just had her character description, which didn't mention much other than that she was a blacksmith's daughter and didn't like to use slaves. Taken all together it paints a picture of someone who was perhaps more sympathetic towards keidran than usual for a human, but there wasn't much to go on.

From what we see here, though, it seems apparent that Saria is pretty much the closest thing to a 'keidran rights activist' that we've seen among humans. She's not just 'sympathetic' towards them, she's practically on their side outright, and is willing to maintain far closer friendships with keidran than human society apparently condones. It's fairly easy to gather from her conversation with Zen that her ideal, more or less, would be peace and maybe even friendship between humans and keidran.

That much seems fairly straightforward. The question, in my mind anyway, is exactly how much *father* than that does it go? There are three points here. First, her revised character bio lists her as a 'freedom fighter'. That seems like it would be quite strong language to describe someone who simply works for friendly relations between humans and keidran. Second, there's this sketch (and if anyone has any guesses about the meaning of the 'tk0_sk' part of the filename, I'm all ears). Is it canon? Does it represent a story Tom is planning to tell at some point? Who knows, but it's definitely suggestive of something on Saria's part beyond simple activism. Finally, there's the subtext of the beginning of the conversation between Rose and Saria. Rose is quite obviously concerned about someone seeing them acting so familiar with each other, but is she simply concerned about human society's potential disapproval of their friendship or is there some more important secret she's worried about preserving?

Basically, the question to me seems like 'does Saria run some sort of pro-keidran 'resistance organization' (for lack of a better term)?'

Topic 2: Nora, Natani, and Zen

With this comic it's obvious that Lady Nora ought to remember Natani and Zen later. Ok, in chapter 7 she didn't show up until after Zen had left the scene, but Natani is still around, and it seems odd that she doesn't show any obvious signs of recognition. Now, of course, the simplest answer is just that that part of the comic dates to 2006, and Tom almost certainly hadn't come up with the events of TDM at that point and so at the time as far as he was concerned Nora *hadn't* met Natani before. However, that's a boring explanation. :grin: Realistically this just represents a slight inconsistency due to inserting events into the backstory of various characters long after the characters themselves were introduced, but we ought to be able to come up with a more interesting 'in-universe' explanation if we try.

In particular, even though Tom almost certainly didn't intend this, the events of TDM make Nora's little comment at the end of comic 252 even more amusing. If we accept that Nora knows Natani and Zen, and moreover knows their secret, then Nora's little act of 'accidentally' putting Keith and Natani together turns into almost an extension of the way Nora had Natani show herself to retrieve Zen's mask. Nora's bio talks about how she enjoys messing around with mortals to see what happens, and her actions throughout the comic certainly seem to bear that out. From Saria and Rose's conversation earlier and from Nora's interaction with Clovis, it seems that Nora Does Not Approve of people treating women poorly. Given how a lot of Natani's hangups hinge on how society and/or the guild would react if they found out her secret, it's not surprising that Nora would be intrigued by her, and it seems that she's decided it would be interesting to push Natani to try and deal with those issues. Plus, it's very obvious that Nora thoroughly enjoys trolling the hell out of people, and I bet she found it quite hilarious to put Natani into those awkward situations. :mrgreen:

Topic 3: Rose, Saria, Trace, relationships, and timelines

Of course, as an unabashed Rose fan I was quite happy to see so much of her in the comic, even if it *did* completely screw up the stories I was writing ( :heart: Image). Of course, the major thing is that it seems obvious that she stayed among humans and never went back to her tribe. In the april fools comic from last year Raine said that Mary had sent Rose back, and given that the alt text was something along the lines of 'seriously, though, Rose was fine', I took that to mean that Raine's comment there was true even though the comic as a whole was obviously non-canon.

Now, though, it seems that 1, it was Saria who set her free, not Mary, and 2, she didn't go back to keidran lands after all. The question is, why? While her lines seem to imply that Rose is a servant, she's not wearing a slave collar and so seems to be at least nominally still a free keidran, so why didn't she return to her tribe and family? If Saria cared enough to rescue her even though it was so forbidden that she had to do it in secret, wouldn't she have been willing to let her go? What *is* the actual relationship between Saria and Rose? As I noted above, their dialogue implies keeping a secret - was the reason Rose stayed because Saria recruited her for her hypothetical resistance organization? (On a possibly irrelevant but interesting side note, Saria and Rose appear to be wearing identical necklaces.)

On a related topic, with what we now know about Saria, it makes her relationship with Trace even more interesting. Obviously they loved each other deeply, but Saria certainly couldn't have been happy with the apparent attitudes towards keidran instilled in Trace by the templar. He didn't seem to show the outright hatred he would have later, but he was obviously pretty much completely indifferent towards them in the 'they're furniture not people' sense, which obviously doesn't fit at all with Saria's own views and goals. I personally would guess that Saria was hoping to bring him around gradually, but of course her death would have cut that short.

Finally, and I know this is very nitpicky, but there are some slight issues with the placement of TDM within the timeline. We know from Nora's conversation with Trace in chapter 10 that Saria's death happened in the spring 6 years ago. Since it's now fall in the comic, that's about 6 and a half years before the current comic time. We also know that Trace and Saria started courting in the fall and were married at the beginning of winter, so they had been together about 6 months at the time of her death, and they started courting about 7 years before the current comic time. Given how they were portrayed as quite the whirlwind romance, I would guess that TDM takes place sometime the preceding summer or spring, so TDM must take place between 7 and 7 and a half years before the current comic time at the absolute latest (it could possibly be earlier, but not later).

This is a bit of a problem because of the ages of some of the characters involved. Natani is currently 13, but if TDM takes place 7 years ago, that makes her *6* at the time, which is very young for her appearance here. My best guess for keidran aging, given all of the various clues we've gotten in the comic, would have suggested that a Natani who looks as physically mature as she does here couldn't have been younger than about 8. (For example, if you work out the math Flora is only 5 in her cameo appearance in comic 407 and 7 in the flashback in comic 75 and comic 76, and looks fairly obviously younger in both cases than Natani does here.) It's only a couple years stretch, but it *is* a stretch. Similarly, based on the story Raine tells she was probably born sometime in the fall (based on the time of year apparently being winter during the flashback and the note that Mary was already pregnant at the time), meaning that if she is 18 now, the flashback must have taken place almost 19 years before the current comic time and therefore about 11 and a half to 12 years before the events of TDM. Even if we assume that Rose is as young as 7.5 or 8 during the flashback (about as young as seems plausible, given the above note on aging), that would make her 18-19 at the time of TDM, which is quite old for a keidran given that Tom has stated that most keidran die of old age somewhere between 19-21. This isn't as much of a problem as the other issue, but while Rose Rose *does* look older, she still looks a bit young for her age here. (Perhaps she's just got good genes.)

As a random aside related to timelines and years, I hadn't quite ever realized before just how much older than Trace Saria was. I hadn't paid attention to the years on the tombstone at the end of chapter 6, and so I hadn't noticed that they implied that Saria had been about 28 at the time of her death and therefore that she was almost a full decade older than Trace. It's more obvious when you look at the sketch of her rescuing Rose, though, which as noted takes place about 12 years before TDM. Trace is still a kid at the time of that flashback, but going by the dates on the tombstone Saria would have already been in her late teens.

Anyway, those are my thoughts so far on this side comic. If anyone has any thoughts on those topics I'd love to hear them, but certainly don't feel like you have to restrain yourselves to just those topics. If you've got something else you want to talk about, go for it!
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Re: The Dragon Masquerade SPOILER discussion thread

#2 Post by Schrodinger »

Okay, let me respond in kind.

Topic 1: Saria the Freedom Fighter.

I feel we're taking her classification as a freedom fighter from the wrong perspective. From her rather open stance of interracial equality and her vehement opposition of slavery (giving Trace a verbal lashing when he brought a slave into their home for example) makes me think of her as more of a political activist than an armed rebel. The sketch of how Rose and Saria met however gives me a different insight. Saria's conversation with Rose in the carriage and the sketch itself leads me to believe that Saria is an operative in an underground railroad transporting slaves across borders to freedom. Rose apparently elected to assist Saria in her work rather than return home, after all she's seen Templar brutality first hand.

Topic 2: Lady Nora and Natani.

Really there's no evidence that Lady Nora didn't recognize Natani. All we get from this encounter is Lady Nora musing that she really should have verified if Natani and Keith were a couple, a big early hint that Natani is actually a woman. It fits her character because we all know how Nora likes to play matchmaker and in retrospect could be used as evidence that Nora either wasn't fooled by Natani's disguise or did in fact recognize her from their earlier encounter.

Topic 3: The sliding scale of relativity.

I'll admit Tom hasn't been the best at keeping things consistent but this is hardly the first time the math has gotten a bit fuzzy. The latest I can place the side comic in my head is around summer or fall 7 years prior to now while the earliest I could place it is around spring the same year. The timeline is muddy and that is an issue but it's far from a narrative breaker. After all, it's just a comic, we should just relax.

Topic 4: The Prince of Avarice.

Arrogance thy name is Clovis. I really do enjoy karmic retribution. He really is the worst parts of Keidran society personified isn't he? Sexist and elitist, openly flaunting his position of power over the Magi Brothers and using his illicit activities to blackmail the two into his service. Demanding he be treated as royalty despite his mixed heritage yet freely belittling those around him with the grace and subtlety of a schoolyard bully. Oh I quite enjoyed watching his blind greed and conceited nature be his downfall. Seems his studies didn't teach him a very valuable lesson, never [censored] with a dragon. Well now he suffers the same curse as the assassin he so viciously mocked.
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Re: The Dragon Masquerade SPOILER discussion thread

#3 Post by Bellhead »

A few things. Sorry for the formatting here, computer isn't working.

Where did you say you saw Mary pregnant? And how do you know when that was? From what I saw/read, TDM takes place 5 and a half years prior to comic time, using Clovis's remark as a reference. Granted, Rose's grey hair leads one to the assumption that she is significantly older than Raine's flashback, but we don't know how much older. If we assume that, currently, Raine is 18, that would mean Euchre met Mary 19 years ago, 13 years (or so) before TDM, meaning that from when we first see Rose to TDM Rose, she aged 13 years, which seems more plausible, if she was 7 or younger in the flashback. Now, let's look at Nat/Zen. Bio says Nat is what? 16? 17? This puts the mind merge when Nat was 10/11, and TDM when she was 11/12.

Comments? Complaints? Quarrels?
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Re: The Dragon Masquerade SPOILER discussion thread

#4 Post by MuonNeutrino »

Bellhead wrote:A few things. Sorry for the formatting here, computer isn't working.

Where did you say you saw Mary pregnant? And how do you know when that was? From what I saw/read, TDM takes place 5 and a half years prior to comic time, using Clovis's remark as a reference. Granted, Rose's grey hair leads one to the assumption that she is significantly older than Raine's flashback, but we don't know how much older. If we assume that, currently, Raine is 18, that would mean Euchre met Mary 19 years ago, 13 years (or so) before TDM, meaning that from when we first see Rose to TDM Rose, she aged 13 years, which seems more plausible, if she was 7 or younger in the flashback. Now, let's look at Nat/Zen. Bio says Nat is what? 16? 17? This puts the mind merge when Nat was 10/11, and TDM when she was 11/12.

Comments? Complaints? Quarrels?
I'm not sure which remark of Clovis' you're referring to. My main sources for dating things here are Nora's flashback in chapter 10, which pins down the dating of key elements in Trace's and Saria's history, and Raine's flashback in chapter 16, which (combined with the age in her bio) fixes relative ages regarding Rose.

We know from Nora's flashback that Saria died six years ago in the spring, or about 6.5 years before the current comic time. TDM must therefore take place before that. Nora also says that Trace and Saria started courting in the fall (7 years before the current comic time) and married at the beginning of winter, so I am guessing that TDM takes place sometime the preceding summer or spring (since it seems to not be cold at the time, given the dress of the characters), or 7-7.5 years before the current comic time. It *cannot possibly* take place any more recently than that, because it has to happen before Saria and Trace become involved.

Similarly, it can't possibly take place any *earlier* than that because if it did Natani would become much too young for her appearance here. Natani's bio lists her as being 13, so even with it happening only 7 years before that still makes her only 6 at the time. I detailed above why I believe that to already be too young for her appearance, but certainly making her even *younger* is right out. So, for those two reasons, I think I can definitively state that TDM takes place somewhere between 7 and 7.5 years before the current comic timeline, with the caveat that you have to bend Natani's age slightly to make her old enough (which I simply chalk up to Tom being willing to bend his own timeline for story purposes).

As for Raine's flashback, it tells us several things. Her bio says she is 18. The line about when Mary was pregnant comes from this page during the flashback. If you go back a few pages before that, you can see that the flashback happens in winter, meaning that Raine must have been born sometime during the late summer or fall, 7-9 months later (depending on exactly when you think Mary became pregnant and exactly when during the winter the flashback takes place). So, if Raine is 18 at the current comic time, then the second part of the flashback takes place in the winter about 18.75 years before the current comic time and the first page of it takes place in the fall, about 19 years before the current comic time.

If you put those two pieces of information together, then Rose needs to age by 11.5 to 12 years between her first appearance and her appearance in TDM. This is why I was saying that, despite the obvious signs of aging in her character design here, she actually still looks kinda *young* for her age. Even making her 7.5 at her first appearance (which is about as young as is plausible, in my opinion) still makes her at least 19 during TDM, and Tom has said that most keidran die of old age between 19-21. Laura was only 16 and she already had grey hair and lines at the corners of her eyes, yet Rose is at least three full years older and doesn't look much different. Now, maybe (healthy) keidran simply age gracefully and don't look that old at a casual glance, or Rose just has long-lived genes (perhaps not too implausible given her long-lived cousin Euchre, even though he *is* extending his life magically as well). Realistically, it's probably Tom slightly bending his timeline again in the interest of storytelling, since you can't get all three characters in the same place at the appropriate stages in their lifetimes otherwise. This one is a less major issue, though.
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Re: The Dragon Masquerade SPOILER discussion thread

#5 Post by Bellhead »

MuonNeutrino wrote:snip
Heh.. I kinda figured something I had was wrong. There was no way I could have known all that off hand flawlessly...

For some reason, I thought Nat had said that the mind merge had happened 6 years ago, and went from there.
What I thought was Clovis was actually a monologue, the very beginning where the time is given, 6 months after the Merge.

I have once again succeeded in making a complete fool of myself for not knowing that. Derp on me...
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Re: The Dragon Masquerade SPOILER discussion thread

#6 Post by victorymon »

let me say it like this: I really had to laugh. :nora: is still one of my favorite characters in the comic. And SPOILER!!!

it looks like gender-change is one of her favorite spells. But changing the race? And even rewriting the mind? :mrgreen:

also... is that Nats dress burning in the fire?
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Re: The Dragon Masquerade SPOILER discussion thread

#7 Post by Bellhead »

victorymon wrote:Is that Nats dress burning in the fire?
Yes. Yes it is.

Do you think she'd actually choose to keep that thing? Even knowing how good she looked in it? :P
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Re: The Dragon Masquerade SPOILER discussion thread

#8 Post by lemurvid »

I just love the fact that Nat is male in the dream world. Of course.

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Re: The Dragon Masquerade SPOILER discussion thread

#9 Post by Him »

Off topic, I hate this thread. (;_;) I keep coming here because someone makes a post. Then some tiny bit of information escapes me. I need to buy this already.

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Re: The Dragon Masquerade SPOILER discussion thread

#10 Post by Bachaddict »

lemurvid wrote:I just love the fact that Nat is male in the dream world. Of course.
It's in her mind, and her mental gender is male. Everything else is still female, including hormones and feelings!
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Re: The Dragon Masquerade SPOILER discussion thread

#11 Post by Chris »

MuonNeutrino wrote:That much seems fairly straightforward. The question, in my mind anyway, is exactly how much *father* than that does it go? There are three points here. First, her revised character bio lists her as a 'freedom fighter'. That seems like it would be quite strong language to describe someone who simply works for friendly relations between humans and keidran. Second, there's this sketch (and if anyone has any guesses about the meaning of the 'tk0_sk' part of the filename, I'm all ears). Is it canon? Does it represent a story Tom is planning to tell at some point?
My guess is that 'tk0' means 'twokinds prequel' (the number 0 is often used to indicate a prequel, like 2, 3, etc, are sequels), while 'sk' could mean 'sketch'. So tk0_skpreview would be 'twokinds prequel, sketch preview'.
Basically, the question to me seems like 'does Saria run some sort of pro-keidran 'resistance organization' (for lack of a better term)?'
I wouldn't be surprised.

But another thing that intrigues me about her is when Rose mentioned Lady Nora hanging around Trace a lot, she goes off about how it's 'completely inappropriate' since Nora is 'a completely different species!'. And while that's obviously her jealousy talking, I find it interesting that she would play the 'species' card. There's also this comic page where Saria is happy to see Trace happy with someone again, "even if she is.. a Keidran". The way that's said makes me think him being with a Keidran like that is something she's not exactly fond of, but is still content in that he's happy with it.

But then, Saria gave Rose a rather affectionate hug in public and Rose called her "darling" in response, which indicates a level of closeness that's a bit more than simple friends (not saying romantic partners, though I admit I couldn't get that idea out of my head when I first read it, but still closer than just friends).
In particular, even though Tom almost certainly didn't intend this, the events of TDM make Nora's little comment at the end of comic 252 even more amusing. If we accept that Nora knows Natani and Zen, and moreover knows their secret, then Nora's little act of 'accidentally' putting Keith and Natani together turns into almost an extension of the way Nora had Natani show herself to retrieve Zen's mask.
I take the way Nora made Natani go out in the dress as part of a punishment, rather than trying to make him deal with his body issues. Natani was able to resist Clovis' control in part by asserting that his body was his, even if he doesn't like to admit it, and Tom's stated that Natani has more willpower than he (Natani) gives himself credit for, which the events of the comic play out... so that doesn't seem like an aspect Nora needs to get involved with. And of course, we can still see later on that Natani doesn't like others seeing him with a female body, even with people who already know.

I mean, Natani did just steal the mask, so Nora stole Zen. Natani offered to trade back, but just making the trade back wouldn't really teach them a lesson. So for a punishment, Nora had Natani go out in the dress to exchange the masks, knowing how uncomfortable it made him. Saria says Nora's the 'an eye for an eye' type, and Natani and Zen tried to humiliate her by stealing her mask, so as recompense, she made Natani humiliate himself to get Zen back.
Finally, and I know this is very nitpicky, but there are some slight issues with the placement of TDM within the timeline. We know from Nora's conversation with Trace in chapter 10 that Saria's death happened in the spring 6 years ago. Since it's now fall in the comic, that's about 6 and a half years before the current comic time.
Or 5 and a half years. 6 years rounded up, rather than rounded down. Here's the way I see it:

Late winter 476: Natani's accident and soul merge operation.
Late summer 476, six months later: TDM
Fall 476: Trace and Saria finally hook up and marry.
Late spring 477: Saria's death.
Late fall 482, 5 years and 6 months or so later: The current comic time period.

So '6 years' may not be entirely accurate, but still closer than '5 years'.
This is a bit of a problem because of the ages of some of the characters involved. Natani is currently 13, but if TDM takes place 7 years ago, that makes her *6* at the time, which is very young for her appearance here.
Or with my estimation, Natani would be 7, which I think fits fine. Flora is only 11 but is technically middle-aged. So a 7 year old Keidran would probably be like someone in their late teens or early 20s. Natani was already going into heat before the accident, according to what he told Kat.
(For example, if you work out the math Flora is only 5 in her cameo appearance in comic 407 and 7 in the flashback in comic 75 and comic 76, and looks fairly obviously younger in both cases than Natani does here.)
For those latter two, I think that's just the way Tom's style was back then. In the early days of the comic, everyone looked much younger than they were supposed to be. Compare this with this, and you can see both Trace and Flora look younger in the earlier pages, even though it's actually the same night (and that page is actually a redraw made for the first book, while pages 75 and 76 are the originals).
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Re: The Dragon Masquerade SPOILER discussion thread

#12 Post by Dragonfolk2000 »

Okay, so I finally caved and bought the PDF.

This comic did several things:

1) It followed up on a bunch of characters who were introduced earlier but were not fleshed out much. I especially liked the bits with Saria and Nora.

2) It only introduced one new secondary character of importance (not including the triplets or the guards). I hope this isn't it for Clovis(group B villain?).

3) Natani is further shown to have impressive will power. I hope we get to see her use this to the group's advantage.

4) Not that Zen could have done anything to prevent this but he kinda got his [censored] kicked again. This gives us three separate times when Zen was on the job and failed. Like I said, he couldn't have done anything different with what he had to change this but I'm hoping Zen will get to shine in the future.

5) Nora is shown to be even more impressive than before. This time she is shown with a Detect Magic type ability that sense mental connections. So far, she's the only character we've seen capable of doing this. Nora also changes the gender of Clovis and according to the information presented at the end of the book this is a physical transformation (otherwise she wouldn't be 'particularly absent during spring and fall seasons). This spell is not only cited to be damn hard to perform (Raine states this but was talking about physical transformations in general) but she did it over a huge distance. Mike's change was only an illusion and up close but this is nearly at the opposite end of the spectrum of 'power'. And don't even get me started on what she did to Zen. The point I'm trying to make here is that Nora may be the most powerful character introduced in this comic, barring any gods. We have only heard of her making threats to turn a human into a horse but I have no doubt she could pull it off.

Okay, make of this as you will. Last time I posted here I got laughed off the boards so lay it on me.

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Re: The Dragon Masquerade SPOILER discussion thread

#13 Post by Chris »

Dragonfolk2000 wrote:Nora also changes the gender of Clovis and according to the information presented at the end of the book this is a physical transformation (otherwise she wouldn't be 'particularly absent during spring and fall seasons).
Not only that, but she can even change how he speaks. After the transformation, whenever he tried to call himself "Prince" he said "Princess" instead. That's some scary magic skills there.
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Re: The Dragon Masquerade SPOILER discussion thread

#14 Post by Dragonfolk2000 »

Chris wrote:
Dragonfolk2000 wrote:Nora also changes the gender of Clovis and according to the information presented at the end of the book this is a physical transformation (otherwise she wouldn't be 'particularly absent during spring and fall seasons).
Not only that, but she can even change how he speaks. After the transformation, whenever he tried to call himself "Prince" he said "Princess" instead. That's some scary magic skills there.
I realized that after I posted. I assumed this to be an alteration of the mind of some kind. It hasn't been stated yet (to my knowledge) how hard it is to alter someone's mind, specifically the subtle ways a person talks. In Dungeons and Dragons terms this would be an enchantment.

Now that I'm thinking about it, is there anyone trying to put together a table-top roleplaying game for Two Kinds?

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Re: The Dragon Masquerade SPOILER discussion thread

#15 Post by avwolf »

It's not a significant enough modifier to make the real difference, but strictly speaking, it's the very beginning of autumn in the story, so if Saria died in the "late spring," that's probably only three or four months difference, rather than six. Likewise, as we do not know Natani's birthday, it's possible that she was born in the late summer, and so was only barely thirteen when introduced and is now fourteen -- and the bio represents age when introduced. (Tom should have just stuck with fourteen for her age like when he originally revealed it on the forums. :P Then I could argue that she's fifteen for the purposes of our math, and would be nearly eight for the purposes of TDM.) I'm likewise frustrated that the math doesn't work out very well. The Law of Unintended Consequences appear to have caught up to Tom for creating a race of short-lived people and then making so many of his main and popular characters be of that race.

I appreciate that Muon brought up the fact that now we can expect that Nora recognized Natani in the forest ambush, and would have placed her and Keith together as a further part of her cruel sense of humor. Though in Nora's defense, they were in each others' arms when she first got a look at the situation, and were holding hands when she landed.

Here's another twist: does anyone here think there's any chance that Natani has forgotten Nora? I wouldn't offer very good odds, personally. No wonder Natani's got a look of stark terror there. She's dealing with one of the few beings that knows her secret, and probably has very few qualms with revealing it. Fortunately for Natani, Nora had other sophonts that she preferred concentrating attention on. Though then again...Maybe Nora's interference is why Natani can't seem to manage to keep any clothes on. That'd suit the dragon's sense of humor just fine.
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