TSH: I liked it!

Gwern Branwen · 24 Mar 2010, 19:50 · from 2010-March.txt.gz

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From: gwern0 at gmail.com (Gwern Branwen)
Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2010 15:50:06 -0400
Subject: (urth) TSH: I liked it!
In-Reply-To: <B3A99FE8-3937-4326-9D87-7D81C88842E6 at phyast.nhn.ou.edu>
References: <B3A99FE8-3937-4326-9D87-7D81C88842E6 at phyast.nhn.ou.edu>
Message-ID: <cbf55b101003241250i4807f45ar51d3ba6432472570 at mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 3:02 PM, Kieran Mullen <kieran at nhn.ou.edu> wrote:

> ?The picture of Ted that Doris has looks like the man who stopped Iuean from
> beating up Baxter (p.134). ? That man is later identified as the Black, the
> father of Iuean and Emlyn. ?However, Doris does not seem to know about
> faerie. ?(On occasion I suspected her of knowing more than she ever let on.)
> ? ?I think that Ted and Black are also twins, one magical and the other not
> (as Black himself states is often the case). ? "He" is also seen talking to
> Lupine and vanishing. ? I don't know if this is Ted or Black. ?What is the
> wet thing left behind on Doris's bed with the initials TAG?

I've not figured that one out either. It's not a body part, and it's
apparently square or rectangular, and is likely made out of wood or
metal, since paper wouldn't stand being wet and there aren't many
usable materials which could have initials stamped on it. I thought
that it might be the triannulus, but the shape isn't right. And the
initials are a mystery: the T might be for Ted, and the G for Griffin,
but A? The character index lists exactly one character who has any
name starting with 'A': Ambrosius. As in, the supposed usurper of
Goldwurm.

Perhaps Ted pulled a Bax, if you will: shacking up with a mundane wife
for a while, and then vamoosing for faerie when he leveled up. At
least, this is the best explanation of Ted I have so far, though it
still doesn't explain what the object is or why he/his ghost visited
Doris.

> ?I am also intrigued by the "unfinished numen." ? ?Emlyn points out that
> Baxter is in big trouble due to the incorrectly terminated "spell." ? ?How
> is that resolved? ?Is it simply that he gets more money and more fish? ?Or
> does it go deeper than that?

As I've written earlier, the numen is really frustrating. It's like
AEG's time travel or clones - an extremely powerful game-breaking
mechanic which apparently is used only for trivial things. The entire
novel could be controlled by numen. Or nothing but some fish and the
werewolf.

-- 
gwern

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