So can we actually discuss the book now? (SPOILERS WITHIN)

[Selden]

Warning: possible spoilers here.

The meeting with the LP really bothered me. One of my problems with it was all the emotions that the LP showed. I kept wondering how much of it was (supposed to be) real and how much was just what it wanted Nita to think it was feeling.

The phrase "Prince of Liars" kept repeating in the back of my mind.

If a Power can manifest itself in any way it wants, and if the whole point of the LP's manifestation is to mislead a species into making the wrong Choice, then it certainly is going to be able to seem to display any emotions that it wants. Everything it does or says has to be doubted.

Selden

[Gryphon]

Maybe, but...
I think something important is being worked into all of this. If the Lone Power previous showed no emotion and was entirely heartless, well, something is definetly up. Remember in SYWTBAW, KIT and Nita added the symbol for 'change' into the Lone Power's name(or something to that affect). Maybe it's showing that the Lone Power is starting to change a bit.
I don't really think that entropy will be wiped out entirely if at all. Death is just such a big factor. All things must eventually end and to change that now... that would be seriously altering how things are to the point where it can't be accepted. Maybe the Lone Power's creation, death, was something essential. Yet, the fact that everything will eventually ceast to exist... The thought is an awful one. But death is so deeply embedded in life itself that what would the world be like without it? A better one, maybe. But only 'maybe'.
It's all so confusing...

-MaThFrEaK

[PK]

Don't worry, Selden -- the whole thread's spoiler-warned.

The whole conversation with Esemeli is considered explicitly suspect in the book, too. I think Nita mentions wondering about every ten seconds if she's lying... but she and Kit ended up believing enough of it (partly because of her dreams, and what she sensed about Alaalu's kernel) to go on with. It's also worth noting that the Lone Power should also be perfectly capable of telling the exact truth to people who know who It is and counting on their not knowing whether to believe it. (I'm not sure Nita considered what Esemeli might be feeling to be terribly important, even if Esemeli did use the boredom -- bizarrely enough -- as grounds on which to appeal to them.)

I'm personally inclined to believe a fair amount of the emotions, however -- they're very plausibly muddled for an officially ambivalent fragment. (And the Lone Power "equivalent" for the cats is said to be the ambivalent one.) I'm sure Esemeli was playing at least some of them for maximum effect and maximum confusion, of course. But the Lone Power has actually never been presented as emotionless from the beginning of the series, really.... In SYW when Nita and Kit change the last symbol of his name from the one locking in a never-ending cycle to one with a way out (incidentally, does Nita still have that pen?!), as they're reading the rest of it they see that he does get tired of making everyone miserable, etc. ... well, and It's certainly always been shown to have a temper. I also think the emotions in HW can be taken pretty much at face value; It's caught, there, and I don't think It has the chance to lie convincingly to Dairine and the mobiles and motherboard after they've grabbed it.

I think Skitty's right that entropy is not going to be wiped out at any point in the series. It's bound very firmly into physics as we know it; time and change are necessary for creatures that exist in time, and locking them out of one's Choice are possible ways to get tricked, as we've seen in HW and WH both.

But we also saw in HW that there are parts of creation, universes, that the Lone Power's invention never got into in the first place -- and the Defender refers to the worlds where it has as "sketch-universes." And yet the ones that were "marred," as it's also described in that passage, were considered worth keeping until they do run out nonetheless. So Death wasn't essential, but can't be winkled back out, but that doesn't make the places it's got to such a mess that they ought to just be scrapped, basically. *g* (Presumably this refers to intrinsic value as well as to the interesting advantage that if the Lone Power keeps poking around within time long enough, It gets tired too and can be sat on until It sees reason. So to speak. A particularly interesting example of becoming what one makes, I suppose....)

I think I'm just rambling at this point, so I shall stop.

[db_pr]

Okay I am finishing reading the book and I wanna ask a question:

What exactly happened to the Alaalu people? Did they went to Timeheart or something?

Oh, Have you guys noticed how stupid Dairine was in that book? She did nothing valuable. That is the only thing that I didn't like from the book. I'm gonna finish the book and if I have some other questions well, *A la Shwarzennegger* I'll be back...

"I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve." -Bilbo Baggins (The Fellowship of the Ring: J.R.R. Tolkien)
"Not all who wander are lost"- J.R.R. Tolkien
"Thanks, you don't look so hot yourself." - (Yogi Berra)after being told he looked cool

[Agent M]

I didn't think Dairiene was useless exactly... But the Alaalu people became stars or just part of the universe or something, I was a bit confused to.

*Agent~M*
"Those who refuse the Powers, become the tools of the Powers, Those who agree to help the powers, Themselves become the Powers. Beware the Choice! Beware refusing it!"-Young Wizards books.
"Do what the night tells you, and read the fine print before you sign!" -Peach.

[papercrane]

Well, Dairine wasn't the focus, but she did have a rather interesting time.
Re the Alaalu people: I'm not sure, but I think they just started over, if you catch my meaning.

"That's right," he said. "We're philosophers. We think, therefore we am."
-- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)
*Look kindly upon the decaffienated one*
http://pub15.ezboard.com/ftimeheartf...opicID=3.topic

[Selden]

I think one way of describing what happened is that they "transcended." Their species evolved all at once into something much more subtle and effective: closer to being Powers, perhaps.

Their bodies changed from being made of matter into ones constructed of less physical substances, energy fields or something like that. As individuals they became much more "able" -- capable of things we can't even imagine.

(This is a common theme in some kinds of science fiction. Also, some people think that our own society actually may be approaching something like that, sometimes called a singularity. As some things change more and more rapidly (like computers), at some point everything will change suddenly in ways that we can't possibly imagine now.)

Selden

[FireWitch]

I loved the part with the Keks. It was so...fitting...that the things that you leased expected to matter, were the building blocks of a new civilization. It was kind of like in Alone where Darryl, the one you'd expect to not be capable of anything, was the one who saved the world.

A Jedi Ewok
And proud of it...

Loyal reader of Harry Potter and Young Wizards books, great lover of Moon Cakes, and self-proclaimed Queen of Halloween...

[db_pr]

Selden:
That sounds good but I think it'll have been really great if Nita & Kit met Quelt one last time after that....
So, what do you guys think Dairine did at the end?

Uh-Oh! Uh-Oh! Uh-Oh! LOL

"I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve." -Bilbo Baggins (The Fellowship of the Ring: J.R.R. Tolkien)
"Not all who wander are lost"- J.R.R. Tolkien
"Thanks, you don't look so hot yourself." - (Yogi Berra)after being told he looked cool

[PK]

*blinks* What Dairine did? Actually, I took it as pretty sure that the frantic "Uh-oh"ing at the end has to do with something a great deal more cosmic than anything Dairine's done lately -- this isn't nerves, it's terror, and I think Spot's reacting to something regarding the impending "War" in the title of the next book, probably....

[readingqueen]

ah i kindly disagree PK. the "uh-oh"s tend to come from spot knowing dairine did something wrong, and is going to get in trouble. I don't think he is "uh-oh" ing about the War. perhaps Dairine has done something and found out about trouble brewing....but i seriously doubt spot was worried about that. I mean, something that serious? Wouldn't Tom and Carl...oooo wait a minute...they left now didn't they! Ah, I think I am seeing your point Pk...

Call me Q :-)

you never know who your real friends are until the hard times come. When it isn't all happy laughs and fun. sometimes your old friends will rough it & stay. but usuall they tend to fade away. If they fade, do not fear, bcuz better friends are always near.

[PK]

Yes. Tom and Carl are gone; evidently all the "in charge" levels of wizards are occupied to the point of being uncontactable, up to the Galactic Arm Coordinator who finally authorized the intervention with the sun... I'm pretty sure that part is setup for the next book.

Could you give me other examples of Spot going "uh-oh" about Dairine messing up besides the one at the start of Wizard's Holiday itself, Q? I'm blanking on them, and I'm not sure "tends to" applies unless it's more of a pattern. It seemed to me that Nita thought it was strange behavior and didn't figure out it meant "Dairine's getting in trouble" until she got more information, and I can't remember it happening before this book or after the start of this one. But I don't actually have my own copy of A Wizard Alone, and I know Dairine was not exactly on her best behavior through most of that, so I'm thinking you might be referring to things I've forgotten from that book and would appreciate it if you'd remind me.

[readingqueen]

ah, you're right. i just re-read the book (for the third time ) and the "uh-oh" was only for when dairine got in trouble at the beggining of the book. forgive me for my mistake, i tend to make them a lot. (there, the tend to was used correctly this time )

Call me Q :-)

you never know who your real friends are until the hard times come. When it isn't all happy laughs and fun. sometimes your old friends will rough it & stay. but usuall they tend to fade away. If they fade, do not fear, bcuz better friends are always near.

Just a thought. Has anyone thought of the possibility that maybe wizards at war means something more local like a disagreement between nita and kit? I dont think this is the case because it wouldnt fit with the rest of the story ,but does anyone else think that maybe that might be the subject of the next book?

[PK]

I think it came under consideration, but while it could certainly happen that they disagree over something (the fifth and to some degree sixth books did have that as an element, too), it seems to be pretty definite that what the title refers to is something fairly widespread, but more specific than the usual "conflict with the Lone Power and entropy until universe's end." There's the disappearance of local wizards in authority; there's also a rather fascinating story-fragment in Out of Ambit, at that.