Vagel: More Bark than bite?

[Revan]

Also, there is a possibility that he wasn't so "arch" an arch-Imager after all. Maybe the translation through flat glass that so destroyed Havelock's mind messed Vagel up as well, but in a different way.

So while Havelock was about as sane as a fruit loop, Vagel just lost all drive, all ability to think laterally. Was left able only to do those things he had already mastered, tasks that were logical and sequencial - like creating mirrors that showed a specific place. And even then, he may have needed direction from Eremis or Gilbur to get much done.

Nah, I doubt it. If that had happened to any degree- Donaldson would have at least hinted at it in the books.

[danlo]

Not necessarilly, that's one thing I really like about MN: visualizing or imagining how things work in the entire world. Like the map there's alot of stuff that SRD doesn't tell us--or totally fill us in on. The book is kinda like an impressionist painting--it's written in a way that's very open for interpretation. Definately alot of stuff that happens in Carmag or Alend is left up to your imagination.

Vagel probably used up alot of energy escaping Joyse and establishing himself with Festten. We don't really know--heck for all we know the King had such a tight rein on him that Gart was under orders to kill him if he got too jumpy.**shrugh**

[Avatar]

I think danlo has a point where he mentions that a lot of things happen "off-screen" in MN, and we're left to fill in the blanks as it were. It's mainly written in terms of what the main charaters know or perceive, and offers little insight into the motivations of side-plots as it were.

Gerarden and the Congery and all only know what they've learned in the past about Vagel, which pretty much stops with Havelock's attempt on him.

Anything is possible.

--A

[Revan]

You both have points... perhaps this would be a suitable question for the GI.

[Cord Hurn]

He did decades of research perfecting the method that allowed mirrors to be made depicting something you wanted them to depict. He didn't have to randomly make mirrors to find things he needed, he could predict what he'd find before he made the mirrors. Without Vagel and his years of work, Eremis would have been powerless to affect Mordant with his imagery because he wouldn't have mirrors showing the right scenes.

Vagel was more important than Eremis.

He was more important in the sense that his skill was the only way that Eremis' machinations could come to fruition, but I think the point of this was something along the lines of Vagel, touted through the books as this evil genius, seemed a little less than awesome when he finally appears.

I think Danlo makes a good point about him being perhaps diminished by the decadence of Carmag, and, in that other thread, Irrational Sanity mentioned the fact that the years of wandering after his initial defeat may have left him somewhat of a broken man, another good point I think.

Very good points made by Nathan, Avatar, and IrrationalSanity (and danlo) years ago! When we finally met him in AMRT, Vagel was indeed physically reduced from the terror he was known to be from legend, yet his formidable talent made everything possible for Eremis and Gilbur. And I think Vagel performed at least some of the horrific translations we read about in Mordant's Need, because he's bitter, still ambitious, and has never had any moral qualms about translating terrors to obtain his goals.

[Avatar]

I must say, in my last read, I didn't experience any sense of disappointment in him. More a sense of a spider waiting in a web.

--A

[IrrationalSanity]

I am going to have to try finding my original manuscript for Havelock's Triumph, as the site where I had posted is long since retired.

[wayfriend]

Vagel, when he appears, is a bit of a brute, isn't he? I've always had the impression that, despite being an 'adept' with mirrors, he wasn't really a chessmaster sort of bad guy. It was Eremis who made him dangerous, because he harnessed that talent and knew what to do with it. Vagel was probably pretty easy to pay off, given his hungers.

[Cord Hurn]

I am going to have to try finding my original manuscript for Havelock's Triumph, as the site where I had posted is long since retired.

Sounds like that would be a lot of fun to read, IS! I've never seen it!

[Avatar]

Vagel, when he appears, is a bit of a brute, isn't he? I've always had the impression that, despite being an 'adept' with mirrors, he wasn't really a chessmaster sort of bad guy. It was Eremis who made him dangerous, because he harnessed that talent and knew what to do with it. Vagel was probably pretty easy to pay off, given his hungers.

Interesting point, but I always had the feeling he was letting Eremis think he was in charge.

--A

[shadowbinding shoe]

Throughout the story the characters' magical talents were a reflection of their character in some way. We know what Terisa and Geraden's talents represented. They were the main characters of the story after all. But what did Vagel and Havelock's talents represent?

Havelock was infamous for his strategy skills and his spying days in Vagel's school. He could play a role to perfection to infilatrate into Vagel highly secured compound and play the role for months. Later he exagerates his insanity and drags his king along for the ride to entrap Eremis and his flock and he does it successfuly for 10 years. His unmatched strategy is reflected by having the highest form of learned mirror-lore.

Vagel on the other hand wasn't just an Arch-imager. He was also the leader of a group of dark imagers. Havelock said they were so rotten and depraved they were beyond redemption and had to all die. How much of that was inspired by Vagel? He also showed talent outside Imagery when he invented Carrier Pigeons. Being an Arch-Imager is the ability to show absolute truths and handle them. The meaning of his talent is that he is Mordant version of a scientist. An evil Mengele-ish scientist. He wasn't much of a plotter like Eremis or Havelock. He just had a lot of raw talent that he misused in horrible ways.

[Avatar]

Hmmm, interesting interpretation. I quite like it.

--A

[Cord Hurn]

Vagel's been humiliated by being forced to depend upon the charity of the petty Alend barons, and needs the other two Imagers to facilitate his revenge upon King Joyse. And he's been getting old. But he's still quite dangerous. I think Vagel is every bit as evil as Eremis and Gilbur, every bit as cruel. When Eremis has to stop molesting the captive Terisa to answer High King Festten's demand for a personal report, Vagel remains behind to savor the sight of Terisa lying there half-naked, frightened, and helpless. Not a nice guy at all!

The chain left her room to move around the bed. Grimly, she pulled up her trousers, tied the sash tightly, and began to rebutton her shirt.

"Unfortunate," the rattling voice muttered.

She froze.

How many people were watching her--people she couldn't see?

"I see well without light. Darkness conceals not secrets from me. But opportunities to witness such nakedness have been rare in recent years." The speaker's voice sounded like pebbles on glass. "A woman with such proud breasts, and yet so full of fear A tantalizing combination. And there is time. Eremis will be away for some little while. Festten will question him narrowly before allowing him to go ahead with his plans."

Terisa wanted to finish buttoning her shirt, but she couldn't make her fingers work. How many people--? Until now, she had only been afraid of Eremis, not of the dark itself, not of the place where he had left her.

"Sadly, however, Eremis does not like used meat. And I do not like any meat enough to risk my alliance with him. Hide your breasts--or flaunt them--as you choose." She heard relish as well as scorn in the rattle. "They will not sway me."

As if she had been waiting for his permission she fumbled at the fastenings of the shirt.

[Cord Hurn]

So Vagel would have been glad to rape Terisa if he thought Eremis would let him get away with it. Really, a very nasty man, and it's no wonder Mordant knew so much suffering and horror when Vagel was at the height of his political power.

At last, her eyes were adjusting to the dark. When she peered hard, she was able to discern the outlines of a figure near where she guessed the doorway to be. The voice came from that direction.

Clenching her teeth for courage, she stood up and tested the chain. She was able to swing her arms before she came to its limit. Following it to its anchor, she found that it was stapled into the wall at the head of the bed--nearly ten feet of it, enough to let her perform almost any conceivable gymnastic feat on the bed, but not enough to let her evade the dim figure in the doorway. Nevertheless she was comforted to have that much range of motion. If everything else failed, she would at least have a chance to hit Master Eremis before he touched her again.

Deliberately, she wrapped some of the chain around her fist to give it weight. She placed her back against the wall. Then she faced the figure with the rattling voice.

"You're Vagel." She didn't need confirmation: she was sure. "The famous arch-Imager. The man who drove Havelock mad. Why do you do it?"

"Do what?"

"Put up with him. You call it an alliance, but he probably treats you like a servant. You're the arch-Imager. The most powerful man anybody has ever heard of. Why are you serving him? Why isn't it the other way around?"

The outlines of the figure suggested a shrug. "Power," he said like stones scattering against a mirror, "is more often a matter of position than of talent. He told you the truth, in a way. The whole world hinges on the little discovery which enables him to translate glass through glass. But that is not his real power.

"Really?" She couldn't stifle her impulse to goad Vagel. She was too frightened and furious for any other approach. Apparently, Vagel been listening--watching--while Eremis had her naked. "What is?"

"His real power," rattled the arch-Imager, "is that he is irreplaceable to all his allies--because of his talents, of course, but also because of his position, in the Congery, in Orison. What access do I have to his resources, his freedoms? Gilbur, I grant you, has also been favorably placed. But there it is his talent which is replaceable. He is only swift--uncommonly swift--rather than brilliant. And he hates everyone too much to form bonds--everyone except Eremis.

"No, Eremis' real power is that he can have his way with anyone.

"He has his way with me, although my Imagery far surpasses his--and although I am the link which allowed him to begin his dealings with Festten, years ago when he rescued me from renegade destitution among the Alend Lieges. He will have his way with Festten, despite the High King's taste for absolute authority. He will have his way with you"--Vagel let out a malign chuckle--"until the only thing with prevents you from begging for death is that he does not let you speak.

"He will even have his way with King Joyse in the end." Now Vagel's tone suggested hard things--broken things with sharp edges. "For that reason I do not care how utterly I serve him"

Vagel has that rattling voice, and it suggests old age, but it also suggests a certain kind of poisonous snake--a rattlesnake--waiting for its ideal moment to strike.

[Cord Hurn]

I must say, in my last read, I didn't experience any sense of disappointment in him. More a sense of a spider waiting in a web.

A description I think is just as apt as that of a snake waiting to strike.

[Cord Hurn]

Unexpectedly, Terisa had stopped listening. The Alend Lieges. The way he said those words triggered a small leap of intuition, fitted an odd, minor detail into place. In surprise, she said, "Carrier pigeons."

Vagel was silent, as if she had startled him.

"You're the one who brought carrier pigeons here. You gave them to the Alend Lieges."

"Those mucky barons," growled the arch-Imager. "Their squalor and their petty ambitions nearly drove me mad. They demanded--demanded--Power. Imagery. I had to satisfy them to keep myself alive, me, the greatest Imager they had ever known. And yet they were satisfied with birds that could carry messages. I would have destroyed them long ago--I would have required that of Eremis--if they weren't such little men.

"For that also, for the humiliation they cost me, Joyse will suffer."

"Revenge," Terisa muttered. Her attention shifted back to Vagel. "He and Havelock beat you back when you thought you were about to become master of the world, and you can't live with it. Now you don't care who has the power. You don't care how much Eremis humiliates you. All you care about is hurting the people who showed you you were wrong about yourself.

"What Eremis is doing to you is worse than anything King Joyse ever did."

"Is it?" Vagel's voice purred like a fall of small stones. "How strangely you think. Your defeat becomes less and less surprising, despite all the nearly unguessable implications of your talent.

"Eremis' manner is demeaning, but the rewards he offers are not. Do you believe that either Joyse or Havelock proved themselves better men than I am--more able or deserving, more powerful? No. They only proved that they were more treacherous. And you have seen in the decline of Mordant and the collapse of Orison that there exists nothing so desirable, worthy, or powerful that it cannot be betrayed. I was beaten, not by a good Imager or a good king, but by a good spy."

She expected the arch-Imager to advance, but he didn't. "Do not despise revenge. Unless I am much mistaken"--he was sneering at her--"you yourself have no other passion.

"In your case, however, revenge must fail. You do not serve any man who can make glass from the blood-soaked sand of your desires. Eremis will have his way with you, and then the truth of you will be proven absolutely."

"It's the same for you," she retorted, fighting back so that what he said wouldn't crush her. "He's using you--having he's way with you. And when he's done, he'll just discard you. You won't get your revenge after all. He wants all the fun for himself."

Vagel made a sharp, hissing noise. After that, there was a long silence. Terisa tightened her grip on the chain, although the vague figure hadn't moved.

"No," he said at last, as if she had provoked him to candor. "All his allies must fear the same thing--but he will not discard me. Festten trusts me. Eremis' plotting would have come to nothing, if I had not stood with him before the High King. He needs Cadwal too much to risk that alliance by discarding me.

"And without me all the force of Imagery disposal will become a blunt instrument--able to strike hard, but unable to strike at will. Useless. I am the arch-Imager, as you have observed. The procedures by which we shape mirrors that show the Images we desire are mine. Did you believe that our successes could have been achieved randomly? That Gilbur for all his speed could have made the glass we need simply by mixing accidental combinations of tinct and oxidate, sand and surface? I tell you, he could have until his heart burst without ever producing a mirror which gave access to Vale House--or one which showed the audience hall of Orison. That victory is mine.

"Alone, I have overturned the tenets of Imagery, and no one among Joyse's foolish Congery can compare with me."

Vagel's voice intensified. "Eremis cannot do without me. His need for glass which only I can provide will never end. And because of that"--he seemed to be controlling an impulse to shout--"before I am done I will roast Joyse's guts over a slow fire. I will hear him howl until his mind goes, or by the stars! I will take my satisfaction from Eremis himself."

A visceral tremor started up in Terisa's guts, so hard that she couldn't speak.

Abruptly, the arch-Imager turned to leave. "Remember that," he snapped while his voice faded. "Perhaps it will inspire you to surrender to him prematurely, and then his pleasure in you will be made that much less."

He left her with the chain wrapped around her fist and no one to strike.

Vagel's as much of an egomaniac as is Eremis, and every bit as sadistic. He's older than when he ran Festten's cabal of Imagers, and thus more physically reduced, but he's no less depraved than before.

[Avatar]

Anything can fall to treachery. One of the eternal human conundrums.

--A

[Cord Hurn]

Vagel on the other hand wasn't just an Arch-imager. He was also the leader of a group of dark imagers. Havelock said they were so rotten and depraved they were beyond redemption and had to all die. How much of that was inspired by Vagel?

I would say a lot was actually inspired by Vagel, Shoe! Consider this description of how Vagel looks when Terisa and Geraden finally burst into the mirror-room of the evil Imagers:

The arch-Imager's mouth hung open, but he didn't look surprised. He looked hungry, avid for some bloody sustenance he had been too long denied, insatiably destructive. His chin was wet with drool, and his eyes smoldered like the eyes of a lover lost in cruelty.

Vagel seems rotten and depraved to the core of his being!

[Cord Hurn]

Anything can fall to treachery. One of the eternal human conundrums.

Certainly! Vagel's assertion that Mordant's decline proves Joyse and Havelock aren't better, more deserving people than he is doesn't logically follow.

[Cord Hurn]

]I've always had the impression that, despite being an 'adept' with mirrors, he wasn't really a chessmaster sort of bad guy. It was Eremis who made him dangerous, because he harnessed that talent and knew what to do with it.

He wasn't much of a plotter like Eremis or Havelock. He just had a lot of raw talent that he misused in horrible ways.

I [respectfully] disagree with both these assertions. The above quotes where Vagel is talking to Terisa indicate that its the favorable placement of Eremis and Gilbur to spy on Joyse and Mordant that was their advantage over Vagel, not any superior ability to plot.

And, it's Vagel who makes Eremis dangerous, because without Vagel's precision talent all Eremis' resources and plotting would be just "a blunt instrument", as Vagel says.