The Mad Ship > Chapter Twenty One to Twenty Five

[Hanne]

ch 21 - i love Paragon behaving like a spoilt brat, still being stubborn even though he knows this is the right thing to do. he hit some kind of delayed puberty, and he's pulling out all the stops.

the boy rescued from Davad is also very interesting. (i do hope he will start making real sentences soon though, i have to focus very hard to understand him :))

[Hanne]

ch 22 - nice guys finish last
there is an entire song about it.

poor grag :(
i felt for him, but aye, i cannot see Althea anywhere else but on a ship, sailing it. Althea at home with a flock of babies, no, can't see it.

[Rob]

Hanne wrote: "the boy rescued from Davad is also very interesting"

I don't remember him at all. Could you refresh my memory?

[David Sven]

Rob wrote: "Hanne wrote: "the boy rescued from Davad is also very interesting"

I don't remember him at all. Could you refresh my memory?"

That would be the elf. I mean Clef. After the Trader meeting where someone kills a pig and puts it in Davad's carriage, Althea takes him home and he promises he'll do anything for her. So she goes to town on him for dealing in slaves and she asks him to release a slave boy. Brashen has taken him under his wing so far.

[Rob]

Oh. I remember Clef. Just not where he came from I guess. Thanks David.

[David Sven]

Hanne wrote: " i love Paragon behaving like a spoilt brat, still being stubborn even though he knows this is the right thing to do. he hit some kind of delayed puberty, and he's pulling out all the stops."

I felt sorry for him earlier when his owner came and went off at him.

I wonder if they'll get any help from Reyn and the Khuprus family.

[Hanne]

Yes, it's been suspiciously silent from the Khuprus side... something must be boiling, but what?

[Hanne]

Ch23 Serilla had a tough journey, but it looks like she knows how to work it to her advantage after all. Please tell me this ship will meet Kennit before getting to Bingtown?!. In that case Serilla might have been better off locked in that room rather than in charge, but i guess that this is easy for me to say

[Hanne]

Ch24 o boy, did this chapter deliver!!
First of all i'm so glad that the serpents didn't go after Vivacia, but chose some liveship we hadn't met yet (i guess some other trader family is up for a rough time)

There is not one but many who remember, all in cocoons waiting to be freed. There is now one more left...

The whole make-them-remember process is quite violent though

[Hanne]

Ch 25 - oooh, he's "un-beached", and clearly recovering. A bit cocky even, our Paragon. One thing though, it's clear from VIvacia's story that previous memories can come back if there's no family member around. So what happens if the serpents meet Paragon? Will he remember before they take him down?

[David Sven]

Hanne wrote: "Ch23 Serilla had a tough journey, but it looks like she knows how to work it to her advantage after all. Please tell me this ship will meet Kennit before getting to Bingtown?!. In that case Serilla..."

Cosgo is a bastard. I felt outraged for Serilla.

[Hanne]

David Sven wrote: "Cosgo is a bastard. I felt outraged for Serilla.


He is. But the Satrap might be an even bigger one for closing his eye. His explanation of why there is no such thing as 'rape' was utterly despicable!

[David Sven]

Hanne wrote: "Ch24 o boy, did this chapter deliver!!
First of all i'm so glad that the serpents didn't go after Vivacia, but chose some liveship we hadn't met yet (i guess some other trader family is up for a ro..."

Yeah - this delivered alright! Wow. So let me get this straight

Draquius spoke on. “It was the time of the change. We had swum far up the river, to where the memory silt was fine and thick.

So I'm assuming this is the Rain Wild River

We had spun our cocoons, encasing ourselves in thread woven of memory.

So the serpents make the wizardwood cocoons and eventually transform into dragons - like caterpillars to butterflies sort of.

When the dragons hatch they consume the wizardwood shell and thus resume their memories. Then there was like an earthquake or volcano or something that buried them all. The Elderlings saved a lot of the cocoons - but then the Rainwild traders came and took the memories for themselves and built the ships and layered their own memories into cocoon material.

Have I got that right? And the serpents have the ability to consume the wizardwood and their memories.
Wow. Fantastic.

[Hanne]

i'm just not 100% sure whether the wizardwood is the cocoon or the soul within. Draquius talks about them shredding the remains to built the ship, but he still has the memories so maybe they use both for the ship?

the eggs hatch with sun, but they are built before that can happen. i guess the new memories are coming from the dying on the deck.

the ability to consume memories was a bit gross though :)
look like they only consume serpent memories or all serpents would hav gone mad already with the dead slave memories, no?


i'm still not sure whether the elderlings are just the dragons or whether the dragons are part of the elderlings. it seems a bit weird to have dragons built the 'houses' and all the magical items the rainwild traders are finding now

[David Sven]

Hanne wrote: "i'm just not 100% sure whether the wizardwood is the cocoon or the soul within"

Well back in chapter 3 when Reyn is speaking with his mother

You know the properties of wizardwood. A log, broken free of its contents, becomes free to take on the memories and thoughts of those in daily contact with it.

This seems to indicate that it is not the contents that is the wizardwood but the "log" that contains it.

and the memories of the parents (dragons?) is woven into the cocoon

We had spun our cocoons, encasing ourselves in thread woven of memory. Our parents laved us with the silt of memories, gave us our names and their memories to share.

and when they hatch they eat the cocoon and absorb the memories

Had Draquius survived his transformation, he would have devoured his shell and taken all his memories back into himself.

The liveship also says he is not Draquius but Draquius' memories - so that seesm to reinforce the idea that the cocoon is the wizardwood storing memories

“I am no more than the memory of Draquius. If he had survived, he would have been one of your guides, to bring you safely home. But he did not. I am all that is left, this poor shell of a life.


I think there is a distinction made between the dragons and the elderlings - because Draquius talks about his parents - and his friends

Our parents laved us with the silt of memories, gave us our names and their memories to share. They watched us, our old friends.

And then he compares the Rainwild traders to their old friends

After a very long time, another people came. They were like and not like those who had sought to save us.


That's how I read it anyway.

[Rob]

I always took wizardwood to be the "cocoon" protecting the dragon, and imbued with their memories (and that of all dragons?), an imprint as it were.

I'd weigh in the ederlings, but it's hard to remember what I know comes from where, and I don't want Hanne to hurt me! ^_^

[David Sven]

Ah...if all the memories are imprinted into the wizard wood then that might mean that last dragon Reyn is protecting is "She who Remembers." If she were to hatch then she could imprint those memories into new cocoons for the serpents.

[Hanne]

i understood that all of them where "the ones that remember" - or supposed to be before they turned into ships.

at the end of the chapter they talked about the "ones" in plural. however given that the last log is the only one left that could hatch, i do believe she will be the only real one to remember yes.

[Hanne]

thanks for the cocoon explanation i had forgotten (again) about that early information.

[Rob]

Hanne wrote: "i understood that all of them where "the ones that remember" - or supposed to be before they turned into ships."

I think I'm with Hanne on this.

[David Sven]

Rob wrote: "Hanne wrote: "i understood that all of them where "the ones that remember" - or supposed to be before they turned into ships."

I think I'm with Hanne on this."

Oh I agree. But there is only one left - that we know of anyway.

[Hanne]

aha, then we are in agreement indeed!

[Sumant]

The white serpent is the Liveship Ringsgold ? because I thought the the serpents attacked another serpent and not a Liveship, confused a bit in this chapter.