Subject: Book 9, I assume.
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Posted on: 2015-04-14 22:34:00 UTC

Actually, speaking of Mamvish... I'm wondering whether her Ordeal has certain parallels to Darryl's. Specifically, I'm wondering whether the sum total of her 'Ordeal' was in actually bringing herself to say the Oath.

I read Mamvish as being very... not quite self-centred, but definitely self-confident. I can't help but wonder if she used to be [even more?] arrogant and sure of herself - to the point where reciting an Oath which promises to help everyone else, rather than just doing what she thinks is right, might have been a serious challenge.

This is part of a wider musing, specifically: a lot of the Ordeals we know about seem to have one aspect of the wizard in question as both a challenge to overcome - and as the weapon they need to use. Kit is a loner who's more comfortable around machines - he has to learn to work with others (Nita, specifically), but also gets a lot of use out of inanimate objects. Dairine is... uh... enthusiastically naive, which gets her into heaps of trouble - but also lets her do 'the impossible' simply because she refuses to admit that it is impossible.

I'unno, maybe I'm reading too much into it... but Diane does like to theme things like that. Even non-Ordeal things like Ponch in War fall into this pattern: he used his loyalty to Kit, but also had to overcome it.

By this theory, Mamvish's overconfidence in herself had to be overcome to actually read the Oath - but was also so powerful that the Lone Power bought it and 'had a headache'. Like I say, it's just a theory - but it fits a lot of the facts.

(Which of course leads down the path of 'so what would MY weakness/strength be', but that way lies madness and/or utter thread derailment. Though the fact that there's canonically an instance of Middle-earth out there leads to some interesting notions...)

hS

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