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  • Jewelry

    (Let's see, how much text do I need to leave in here before the automated preview ends? It's probably quite obvious what I want to talk about but ... that should do it.)

    While reading GWP, I was struck by some of the details about Dairine's emerald bracelet. We see it mentioned in Ch 4, from Nita's POV about what Dairine is wearing to the Invitationals session in Antarctica:

    [Nita] also noted (and tried not to show that she noted) something Dairine was wearing wrapped twice around her narrow wrist as a bracelet. It was a double chain of emeralds strung on what at first glance appeared to be a faintly green-glowing chain. But the second glance showed this to be not a physical thing, but a construct of pure energy: simply a single sentence in the Speech, impossible to read for the smallness and fineness of the characters, and elegantly intertwined through itself like braided wire.
    (On that note, I love everything about the Dairine-Wellakh arc in this chapter. I love that Nelaid is just hanging out in her father's flower shop and going grocery shopping with him and teaming up to tease Dairine, I love that Dairine wears Wellakhit casual wear to events, I love that Nelaid is Dairine's space dad and Miril calls her daughter! I'd love to see more of this too. Just fabulous.)

    And then we see it again in Ch 16 when Dairine uses it to find Roshaun in the sun:

    Dairine daughter of Elizabeth daughter of Pearl and so on back ten generations and more to match his: Roshaun ke Nelaid ke Teriaufv ke UmrenAnd what if this
    Presumably these are the emeralds that Dairine picks up in Ch 5 of WAW when visiting Wellakh? But I'm a little confused about the details -- as I remembered, the jewelry came into existence as a result of Spot's spell, not as a gift from Roshaun:

    And it was the necklace that Dairine kept, not the bracelet:

    Cut to Ch 7, Dairine & Roshaun arriving on the Mobiles' planet:

    [Dairine] also realized that her clothes had changed again, back to her T-shirt and jeans. What happened to that dress? Dairine said.

    I replaced it with your normal clothes while in transit, Spot said.

    Okay. However, Dairine put a hand up to her throat and found that big emerald still there; she smiled slightly. Good call. Come on.
    And in Ch 15, when Dairine has gone to Wellakh to tell Roshaun's parents of his disappearance:

    The idea of green as Earth's life-color was established back in WH, and again in WAW. Dairine could have switched out the necklace for the bracelet -- but where does the "Roshaun giving it to her" stuff come in? Was this something we didn't see in WH or WAW (so an entirely different piece of jewelry?), or is this a reinterpretation of the dialogue around Dairine's magical wardrobe change? Am I just overthinking this?

  • #2
    huh.... I overlooked all of this, somehow I missed that last bit about the necklace in WaW every time I've read it... wow. I need to pay closer attention when reading. Anyway, good catch. I'm not really sure how to answer your question though. Other than plot hole? I mean it seems clear now reading the WaW passages that the there's foreshadowing there to the necklace being important. And the GWP passage does say "wrapped around twice" which could indicate it's the necklace being worn as a bracelet. But the description given in GWP of a chain of multiple emeralds doesn't match the one in WaW of a single emerald (obviously meant to mirror the Sunstone). As for Roshaun giving it to her... you could argue, I guess, that that's a reinterpretation of their conversation. He certainly does encourage her to keep it. However; I think him giving it to her, and then the description of both their names implies an intimacy to the necklace that it didn't really have in WaW. Its creation was probably influenced by their growing partnership but there definitely wasn't any conscious effort on Roshaun's part. (Not to say Dairine and Roshaun don't have intimacy - though I like them as more platonic partners than romantic).

    What's interesting with the way it's portrayed in GWP (as a gift from Roshaun that includes his name and hers intertwinned) is that if you've read Lifeboats there's a scene between Kit and Nita that sort of reminds me of it, and thus strikes me with more romantic undertones. Which is funny given that most of GWP was Dairine explaining their relationship wasn't romantic.

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    • #3
      Hm. I recall inferring that the necklace was was a gift from Roshaun - or that both it and the bracelet were a gift from him... or at the very least that the Speech-thread holding the jewelry together was of Roshaun's doing, before GWP came out. I'm currently just finishing AWAb in a re-read through the Millenium editions, so when I get to that bit I will certainly pay attention to find out where I picked up that idea.

      Certainly I'm happy to know what it said, as, in addition to "where is Roshaun" this was one of my secondary burning questions...

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      • #4
        @SpacePen, please let us know what you find when you reread! I'm fairly sure I was reading the NME version of WAW, but now I'm wondering if this was something that DD changed between editions in preparation for the way it's presented in GWP. The basic elements are there already, just not quite

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