The difference between Flat and Curved mirrors?

[Revan]

What are they? Apart from if you pass through flat mirrors you'll go mad? Do they have a different power setting?

[danlo]

"An arch-Imager is someone who has mastered what we consider the apex of translation--the ability to pass saftely through flat glass. As far as we know, only one man has ever done it--the arch-Imager Vagel.

"In theory, the difficulty is that translation changes whatever it touches. When the translation involves a passage between separate worlds--or, if Master Eremis is right"--he grimaced--"between our world and Images which are known not to exist in our world--the changes are appropriate. For instance they solve the problem of language and breathing. But when you pass through a flat glass, you don't actually go anywhere. I mean you move from place to place, but you stay in the same world. So you don't need to be changed. But you are anyway." He looked down at his hands. "It made Adept Havelock mad."

"theoretically, if you looked into a flat mirror that showed you to yourself--in other words, a mirror that was focused on the exact spot you were standing, so that you were also in the Image looking out at yourself--you would go into a kind of translation cycle, passing simultaneously back and forth between yourself and your Image, changing literally without going anywhere. Probably nobody who looked at you would be able to see the difference. But your mind would be gone. Not just mad. Taken away."

[Krilly]

To be a little more objective... a flat mirror shows an image in the immediate world it was made and curvy mirrors show images of other worlds. I speculate the more the surface is distorted, the greater the "distance" away the world shown.

Tinct plays a part in where exactly an image within the shown world is. For example... a flat mirror with no tinct (a normal mirror) shows exactly the place where it is. Adding some tinct will shift the image away to a different coordinates.

The reason you go mad when passing through a flat mirror is because you translate without really going anywhere.

Most of this is just my theory filling in the blanks... but that IS the different between them.

[Dirty Whirl]

I always thought it was weird that Geraden could make curved mirrors show places in mordant that were in the present, as I thought only flat mirrors could do that. Did Terisa ever make her flat mirrors show other worlds?

[I'm Murrin]

I think she used a flat mirror when they were translating things from the swamp world. Can't remember any other specific occasions.

[wayfriend]

I don't think Terisa ever made a mirror.

Terisa could change mirrors, make them temporarilly show something different than what was there. She could only do it to flat mirrors, and it would continue to show something from Mordant's world.

Geraden could change mirrors to, but only curved mirrors, but ... help me here ... I think he could change them to show something from Mordant's world, too. Whereas originally they showed a different world.

Then there was something that involved you never ending up going to the place the mirror showed. It's all hopelessly complicated to me...

[IrrationalSanity]

Gereden and Terisa both had somewhat "wild" talents, which didn't follow the "known" rules of imagery, and I doubt we got anywhere near the full extent that either could perform.

While Terisa had vast power with flat glass, Gereden's demonstrated talents with "normal" mirrors were myriad:

1. Translations that had nothing to do with the current display image
2. Shifting an image to display any "known" location, and translating to/from there.
3. Tele-shifting a mirror from within an alternate world.
4. Causing curved mirrors to translate within the current world without invoking the insanity.
5. Translating through time.
6. Working with mirrors he did not create.

All of this is on top of the fact that since these are "new" talents, there has never been any training on this kind of thing, so he's done all of it "by the seat of his pants".

[wayfriend]

Good list... but ... translating through time? I don't remember that one.

[I'm Murrin]

They did a translation at the end of book 1/beginning of book 2 (one of those, I think) that took months, IIRC (the season changed), but that's the only example I can think of. Didn't seem like translating through time, more like he just didn't have control and got stuck for a while. Or was it because he was remembering what the place looked like in springtime? I can't remember. Whatever it was, it was more like a delay than a time shift.

[IrrationalSanity]

Spoiler

The first time Gereden tried to send Terisa back to her (our?) world, she ended up in the Closed Fist in springtime, even though it was really winter. She didn't go all the way through, however, and was pulled back to the castle.

Somewhere later in the story, Terisa accounts for that as Augury, but what does she know, really? While it may be a manifestation of the same aspect of glass that makes Augury possible, the appearance is, she could have completed going through the mirror and she would have been there at the time depicted, rather than the time she left.

[Avatar]

Time travel. (Nice to see a bit of activity in here. )

--A

[IrrationalSanity]

Yes, it is!

Of course, we don't know just *which* spring was depicted...

Spoiler

Gereden was waxing rhapsodic about his childhood at the time. For all we know, Terisa could have ended up 20 years in the past, rather than the following spring.

Then again, consider Augury. The visible pieces tend to show events and places of significance, so it is quite likely that (if it isn't activley controlable) it would have been the "right" time for purposes of history.

[danlo]

(Nice to see a bit of activity in here. )

So! You're infering I'm slacking, eh? A PM would have done just as well

[Avatar]

Not you danlo. The rest of the lazy uncommitted buggers.

--A