The Speech and Lying

[Wolf]

It's okay... usually I'm so darn confusing my friends just shake their heads and tell me to shut up already. My stories are infamous for being like, half an hour long.

And.. I really like the way you put that.... "fierce and courageous, yet full of emotion." Definitely. And always seem to be wearing jeans... heehee. Powerful mom-like figures! (Hey, I'm not gonna buck it... women can be strong and scary and powerful! Just ask my mom when I try to take the remote when she's watching a chick flick...)

[Birdhead]

To me, the only confusing thing about slowly losing your power levels as you get older is, how can Tom and Carl do all this big stuff if they're older and supposedly have less oompf? Experience and complex spells, I guess?

To hijack the thread a little, because I'd been thinking about that too - I think two things go on for older wizards.

1. As a general rule, the older you get, the lower your power levels are, but your increased skill and experience make up for it. Imagine having a conversation with someone trying to persuade them of something. When you're young you might be good looking, or really strong/threatening looking, or just really given to displays of impassioned idealism - all of which can be convincing in the right situation. But the older you get, the more sophisticated and experienced you are, the better able you are to convince someone without needing to exploit that kind of thing. So that's one thing, and I think that applies to wizards generally. They get better vocabularies, they can describe things better, etc.

2. Wizards higher in the hierarchy are trusted with more power. This is problematic because it confounds the idea that power is related to biology somehow (like Nita and Kit getting a power spike because of hormone surges in HW) and it's not explicit in canon or anything, but it's a theory I'm formulating because every now and then people will mention a power rating for a being that I would think would be no more physically strong or w/e than the average human - or not *so significantly more* that it would explain their power ratings. (And now that I've said that, I can't think of any examples! Just take my word for it.) So I'm thinking that Seniors and Advisories just get a little more to play with, because they need it.

[SilveredBlue]

I agree with #2 (and #1, but there's no debate in that)- I think the power levels are a mixture of biological effects and status. Actually it makes a lot of sense: whem you're young and taking your Ordeal, you need raw power because you're sure not going to defeat the LP by spell elegance. Then your level slowly decreases, forcing you to develop elegance, and finally either you "level up" because you're shown to be responsible enough for more power (as an Advisory), or you remain at your status quo.

This also goes some way to explaining Nita's contrary power levels: she's done so much and done it so well that she's being given more and more power.

[Priellan]

I've been listening to the SYWTBAW audiobook and came across the section where Tom tells Nita and Kit not to be careless with the Speech because if they named something or someone incorrectly, they would redefine it. So it appears that lying or not properly naming something would in fact lead to altering the object, situation, or person in question to fit the new definition in the Speech.

[Lazy Leopard]

Well, that could be Tom using a slight exaggeration in order to make a point, or it could also be that he's warning Nita and Kit because they're young and channelling a lot of power, and if they mis-Speak they might effectively cast a spell accidentally.

[illiriam]

Priellan, yeah I think that was the part from the book that I had been thinking of when I tried my convoluted explanation.

And I agree with the energy levels conversation pretty much. I guess the PTB pretty much just let puberty (because of the thing with the hormone levels) and gradual maturity take care of power levels under normal situations, but for those that show unusual aptitude, they send a little something extra, like with Advisories and Seniors. With greater responsibility comes greater power levels.