Carmella a Wizard?

[Emily H.]

Well Carmella does know the speech, and to be a wizard ur supposed to be good w/ languages. If she did become one, kit would freak.

Emslie is finally here!

[Nathan]

Given that the quote involving "circles of sibling wizards" has been alluded several times on this thread, but never attributed or quoted fully, I will do so here (especially as the full quote strikes me as extremely pertinent to the topic at hand):

In Deep Wizardry, in the chapter Fearsong, when Nita is thinking about Dairine becoming a wizard:

"The aptitude for wizardry sometimes runs through a whole generation of a family. Several famous 'circles' of wizards in the past had been made up of brothers or sisters or cousins, rather than unrelated people such as she and Kit, or Tom and Carl, who met by accident or in some other line of work and came to do wizardry together by choice. But families with more than one wizard tended to be the exception rather than the rule, and Nita hadn't been expecting this [Dairine becoming a wizard]."

I would say that the last line of this quote pretty much rules out Carmela becoming a wizard. At the moment (having not read Holiday yet) I'm surmising that all of the various incidents that have been taken as evidence for Carmela becoming a wizard are attributable merely to her aptitude for languages (and, of course, the infamous "wizardry leakage").

Nathan

Pauca sed matura. --Karl Friedrich Gauss

Non doctrinam, sed perspicuitatem quaero.

[Luthien_Tinuviel]

I would attribute most of what's happening to Kit's family to the wizardry leakage, though it is possible that either Carmella or his mother could become wizards. I don't think it said anywhere that people had to be below a certain age to become wizards. It's just that all the ones we know of became wizards when they were young.

[Vaughn]

Well, this is completely off the wall - but just *who* is the wizardry leaking from anyway?

They're having trouble finding it, after all (still waiting for my copy of Holiday), and it seems to me that a completely uneducated wizard might do that. You know that Carmela knows at least some of the Speech, too - but where did she learn it? Osmosis only works on small children, after all, and even then not this easily. And we *know* that Kit didn't teach her.

Something's definitely up with here...

[Wilf]

Just because someone can speak Spainish, it doesn't make them a Spainiad.

"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hadrin, in Isaac Asimov's Foundation

[Vaughn]

It does if no-one taught hir.

[Birdhead]

Wilf, I think you'll find it's "Spanish" and "Spaniard."

As for Carmela's facility with the Speech: no, her being able to speak the Speech is unusual, but doesn't mean she is a wizard: we know that everyone is born with the knowledge of the Speech, and perhaps now that Kit has started speaking it quite openly, and Carmela was good with languages to start with, that knowledge is resurfacing: at some level everything understands the Speech, after all. On the other hand, she does seem to be picking it up as a normal language, ie having vocabulary problems too... still, we know she's very good with languages.

So no, she doesn't need to be a potential wizard. On the other hand, wizardry is really only using the Speech with intent, isn't it? I mean, you have the spells and the diagrams and all that, but in its most basic form, wizardry is just talking- persuading things to do stuff for you, like Nita talking the air into being solid for her in SYWTBAW. Even Nita talking to her fridge in Holiday could be construed as a wizardry: although she didn't technically "make anything happen," she did make the fridge feel better, didn't she? So.

Anyway, speaking of this issue, there's a related point: it had occurred to me that by this time, surely you have more people on Earth who do know about wizardry, and are keeping it quiet, than those who don't! Or perhaps not more, but definitely more than you think- as we saw with Millman. See, wizards tell the truth. This is a basic fact. Nita and Kit told their parents and family about wizardry, because they felt uncomfortable not telling them, right? They got around it for a while, but in the end they feel a lot more comfortable being able to tell the truth to their families. This doesn't seem to me to be something that would be restricted to Nita and Kit. I think it would be widespread, especially for people like Seniors, who spend a lot of time on errantry or doing errantry-related stuff- like Johnny, who obviously travels a lot. I think I remember him mentioning family of some description (but check me on this.) Surely it would be difficult for him to conceal that? So.... yeah. Add it all up, and I bet you find many more people than you might guess, all of them carefully not mentioning wizardry to each other.

Er... yeah, that was just a thought I had. Sorry.

"We are philosophical geniuses [sic] who will one day rule the world!"
--Agent M
Ahahahaha, Ahahahaha, Ahahahaha!
Still the Typo Queen

[calliope]

Carmela? She definitely has wizardly potential...I was thinking along the same lines while reading the last few books, especially WH. Glad I'm not alone.

calliope- the greek muse of epic poetry and song

"I saw eternity the other night
Like a great ring of pure and endless light
All calm, as it was bright
And round beneath it, Time, in hours, days, years,
Driven by spheres
Like a vast shadow moved, in which the world
And all her train were hurled"
H.Vaughan

[Fox]

Its a good thought about Carmela having Wizard potential but I'm sure I read in one of the books that she is to old to become a wizard, all wizards have to start young. I think it was when Dar became a wizard and they where comparing her to Carmela and Kit was thankfull that she was to old to become one! But maybe not everyone that helps the powers that be are wizards, maybe there are normal people that help out in some way, book keeping or something? She could do that, or help with Species relations, an Ambassador of sorts!
-DAZ-

[bookfanatic_ally]

[calliope]

About Carmela being too old-- hey, for every rule there is an exeption. Who knows, maybe she'sthe exeption.

Calliope, the muse of poetry and song

http://headintheclouds.blogdrive.com

[greycardigan]

I don't see why Carmella couldn't be a wizard. She'd be quite a good one I think. She's got a cool personality and since, wizardry can run in familes, why not? It seems like Dairine had a driving ambition to become a wizard. Carmella would be a good female foil for Darine.

I am on errantry and I greet you. Dai!

[Wilf]

Originally posted by Birdhead:
Wilf, I think you'll find it's "Spanish" and "Spaniard."

I bow to your superior spelling. *bows*.
The point I was making, which not everyone fully picked up on, is that there is much more to being a wizard than being able to speak the language. Since making that post, I have become less convinced about that. Consider the varient of the Speach used to create the universe (the Enactive tense?). To me, it defines the way the world is. You say "this is yellow" in the Enactive tense, and it *is* yellow - even it wasn't before.
What is Carmella learnt this tense? She could use it, and change how the world is. What would be the difference between that and being a wizard?
(Leaving things like having a manual and undergoing an ordeal aside).

"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hadrin, in Isaac Asimov's Foundation

[FireWitch]

Wow...Wilf just gave me an idea...

Someone who wasn't a wizard learning the enactive tense and being turned loose on the world. To me, that seems like the perfect material for the Lone Power: someone who has the power of the Speech without all of the oaths and stuff to make them safe....

A Jedi Ewok
And proud of it...

Loyal reader and Young Wizards books, great lover of Moon Cakes, and *almost* a new driver...

[PK]

Is it really just knowledge of the Enactive? (Actually, I was thinking it was "Edactive," but I don't have my own copy of Alone yet... Also, I could be associating it with "edict" as well as with the actual word "enact," and to some degree either works if you think of it as an advanced variety of imperative.) There seems to be structure involved in spells as well (the circle, the cloverleaf Dairine and guests did for the sun), and it strikes me as likely that while wizards do provide much of the energy to change things from their own being, the contract entered into with the Powers may in fact be necessary to permit this to be accessed, or to acquire the authority to have the universe LISTEN when they use those structures.