Kohjen delivers an understatement.
5 responses to “Control”
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Kohjen delivers an understatement.
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Just wondering if the stonebreaker is nearby or some other demon? I get the feeling at some point in this conversation someone is going to attack.
«stonebreaker is nearby or some other demon?»
Stonebreaker is obviously not hostile, or no longer hostile to humans; he says that he knows Anyalin’s name, but does not steal her memories, but asks her what she seeks; also shows her and Kohjen a bit of the backstory.
It looks like that he has mellowed with age.
As to the other demons, I wonder too, but the unformed jellyfish-like demons probably would be too weak and mindless to interfere, and Kohjen managed to kill a soldier-demon at the beginning. Also they would not know the names of Anyalin and Kohjen (but the name of TORIS has been said aloud). Also apparently the focus stone around the head was needed by the Noridi to have a good chance to bait a mindless demon in the well of memories.
«Kohjen delivers an understatement.»
Ah no dear author: if you refer to “not quite total control” that actually works. For demons with a single name knowing their name gives total control (which is not the same as total loyalty), according to your prequel etc.
For demons with many names, using just one name gives only weak control, e.g. in “over the wall” and Anyalin commanding MOGIS (who was CANATOPIS and also HALIN and TORIS and many others). So my understanding so far is that:
* When a full set of names is used to issue an order, a demon has to obey it, and the more incomplete the set the weaker the force of the order.
* When an order is not given, or the demon’s names are not used, the demon has initiative, and because of the human memories, the demon also has its own will; e.g. TORIS in the library before Koris commands him to go away.
* At some point demons discovered that if they knew the names of humans they could acquire more names and resist orders given with just one name.
* This probably is what happened to VELANID a long time ago before Noridun was founded.
Now some speculation as to the plot:
* Because Koris said that it was very dangerous to give all of Toris memories to a demon, even if the other guy argued it would be very useful, and we know that this happened, I suspect that:
* The first demon that discovered that he could free himself by acquiring multiple names was TORIS, because certainly the memories it got from Toris included that knowledge (thus Koris saying it would be very dangerous).
* Probably TORIS, having the memories of Toris who was a very nice mild geeky guy, was/is also a very nice mild geeky demon, so he passed the knowledge on to to free themselves to the other demons.
* Probably TORIS, on seeing that his fellow demons took advantage of that to steal many names and to massacre the humans, also took pity of the humans and helped them escape, as Anyalin says in “Over the wall” when she gives him back his name. That’s why CANATOPIS calls him traitor and takes his name.
I intended Kohjen to be talking about the rebellion that kicked the humans out of Noridun, which was a pretty complete loss of control.
Your analysis of the way demons work looks about right though! At least, going off what I’ve shown so far :V.
Other interesting news: Kohjen thinks that the barrier stone was *hid* on the platform under the well of memories. Interesting because:
* The Noridi scroll and great well door show Stonebreaker breaking his great club onto the barrier, from the outside,while Tenid is inside. So it looks like like it was used to keep Stonebreaker out.
* But presently the barrier is used to keep the demons in, not out.
* Therefore either the barrier can be switched in direction, or it is impassable to demons in both directions, so even the tame demons before the great rebellion could not go outside Noridun.
* Since Koris jumped into the well to hide the barrier stone, not to “reprogram” it, it looks like that the barrier stops demons in both directions and does not need reprogramming (if it can only stop demons in one direction, the barrier stone should have been put outside Noridun).
Other detail: looks like that when a body was dipped into the well it was retrieved after that. So the pile of bodies on top of that of Koris are probably the priests around Koris in the final scene that have been thrown down the well by the demons, after they overwhelmed the guards in the scene where FERADIN has a memory vision.