Janny Wurts: Are the Koriathain misguided, corrupted or evil [SPOILERS]

Does Morriel know that the Waystone has grown to unmanagable for any future Prime to manage? Could that be the main reason she has decided to hop bodies?
 
I don't think she knows - she knows it has gotten harder and harder to deal with, but I hadn't picked up any hints of her thinking that she was the last one who will be capable of dealing with it. She'd been trying like blazes to get Lirenda up to scratch (Lirenda will never be up to scratch) and bemoaning the general lack of talent - it is pretty pathetic that Lirenda is all she has to pick from.

I still haven't been able to figure out why this is. I mean granted, the Waystone has become more and more "wayward" but why aren't there other initiates at Lirenda's level? Its not like they have a dearth of raw material is it? Or are less girls joining the Order and I have forgotten?
 
Wasn't the most pure talent snapped up into the Clans when humans first came to Athera, as people with talent were the only ones who could stand Paravian presence? Since the Uprising, talent has not been trusted by the townborn, so it follows that the Koriathain do not get the best and the brightest. They live in the forests, and the Clans would never willingly allow the Koriathain to poach the dwindling clan bloodlines. Remember, they almost grabbed Dari s'Ahelas, who would have been a great choice as a Prime, and loaded with talent.

I re-read CotMW last summer, so it is really fresh. In this series, you have to read them again because the amount of detail is so vast.
 
That is true - they love to get hold of Clan by-blows, don't they. But even so people like Elaira and Lirenda pop up - I'm not sure if Lirenda's problem is power so much as self-control - so surely there must be the occasional strong talent even from among the general populace. Perhaps it is the case that magical power is being slowly "bred out" of the townborn? I am inclined to think its not only the Waystone that is the problem, as Morriel has had many many years to find and train a successor but has not had many candidates show up. Or am I remembering incorrectly and she has had many candidates but they have all died?
 
Some of them definitely died, or at least were reduced to mindless husks, Pro. I can't cite you the passage and book (although I'm looking at Grand Conspiracy again, and may find it there), but I remember Morriel thinking about failed attempts in that manner. Will let you know if it turns up in my read.
 
I am paraphrasing, but in Curse of the Mistwraith (which I am currently in the midst of re-reading), during one of the early Morriel, Lirenda and Elaira scenes, it was revealed that:

Morriel regretted that the result of failure of the final trial to Prime succession was fatal.
41 candidates failed the final trial to prime succession.
After the first, Morriel doesn't care about individual candidates.
Morriel would only allow herself to love the one that would succeed.

And so forth.

I believe Morriel was also considering Lirenda's shortcomings.

I will have a look again and see if I can find the exact paragraph.
 
Seems to me that the paragraph you found answers my (actually, Pro's) question more than adequately, Dek!
 
Already done. See Traitor's Knot, where Arithon, by sheer cunning, dropped an iyat in the bloody thing, instead of letting the witches kill him and the crew of Khettienne. That iyat is still buzzing about within the crack'd majesty of the massive amethyst.

The Twisted Sisters have only been able to use the Skyron focus ever since. And who knows what that iyat has done, or will yet do, to the Great Waystone...
 
I was under the impression that Morriel/Selidie believed that she could remove the iyat from the Waystone, if she had use of her hands.
Being handless, she is unable to work the Waystone.
Perhaps if Selidie ever regains use of her hands, we might see an attempt at the removal of the iyat from the Waystone?
 
Or a new 8th level initiate appears to become Morriel/Selidie's "hands", as it were....
 
How much damage would the iyat do the the Waystone (from the Koriani point of view) in the centuries it would take to train up a new initiate (if one is ever found again with 8th level potential) all the way to the 8th level?

Wasn't the highest potential level of the last batch of initiates (that we have seen in the books) only 5th level?

Isn't the low potential of the available pool of initiates one of the reasons Morriel wants to breed Arithon and Elaira (and via the trap in Elaira, to breed Arithon with every future woman he would sleep with), to breed potential 8/9th level koriani?
 
Perhaps that's how Asandir will deal with the "mutual reckoning" from the morning of "bitter defeat more than two centuries past", referred to in that nasty snippet Janny smacked us with (God Bless her!). Heal her hands!

That would show the nasty fiend. Kill her with kindness! Or at least, her ambitions.
 
Hmm, I don't remember seeing any place where Janny actually describes such long passage of time as a REQUIREMENT for mastering levels of initiate prowess. I always thought the issue (as seen in the screening process you mentioned, Dek) had more to do with the capabilities of the individual and their aptitude for managing a crystal's focus and its attendant powers. True, the last batch didn't reveal any diamonds (argh! awful pun, that!), but would attribute this result to the luck of the draw (ie, unrelated to how long it takes to educate/mentor a Koriani to 8th/9th level). I do vaguely remember, however, an insight into Morriel's (don't think Selidie was in the picture yet) thoughts on the matter; she almost seemed resigned to the fact that she'd never find anyone who could "train up" quickly.
 
Perhaps initiate ability has been bred out of the townborne, due to the clans having to stay as pure as possible in order to withstand paravian presence and mysteries.

This might be what is preventing the Koriathain finding anything but lower-level talent.
 
I think you're correct in general, Your Grace, but we have Lirenda as an anomaly (daughter of townborn privilege, if I remember correctly) here. Maybe (heaven forbid that there should be a common sense answer), it's that anyone with any other choices who doesn't owe a debt of service is smart enough to stay away from the Koriani because they're (come on, say it with me now) E - V - I - L ?
 
Originally posted by Grimward
I don't remember seeing any place where Janny actually describes such long passage of time as a REQUIREMENT for mastering levels of initiate prowess.
Click to expand...

In The Ships of Merior, in the final paragraph of the chapter called Disruption (pg 162 in my HarperCollins British paperback edition), Janny wrote:

Should Lirenda fall short in her training, should she fail to survive the trials of Koriani primacy, the added century Morriel must cling to breathing life to select and mould another candidate yawned frightfully cruel and dark.
Click to expand...

I would presume that a century would be a minimum or average time it takes to train an Koriani Enchantress to the point that she could undertake the trials of succession.
 
Good find, Dek.

*Calls for a motions from The Horse"men"*

- Where, as the Horseman known as Dekket has delivered research services for the good of the whole, I nominate him as "Wurtsian Scholar Laureate" ;)

* Strums 12-String, harmonic phrasing of E chord, raising lane flux. A golden magnifying glass shimmers into existence briefly above Dek's head, then disappears.*

100 years. Wow. Well, if the 200 years teaser is accurate, she'll have had time to train 2 potential successors by the next book! :p
 
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