Bannor and Cail (Possible spoilers for both series)

[Durris]

I hadn't thought before of a parallelism between Bannor and Cail, but one exists.

Bannor among the Ramen, and Cail in the Quest company late on (after Brinn has become the Guardian of the One Tree and Hergrom and Ceer have perished) are alone among foreigners. (Bannor does say that Runnik and Terrel eventually joined him in this exile, but we never see them. In all the action we actually see, Bannor is the only Haruchai in the group.) I hadn't thought of telepathic silence as a part of Bannor's purgatory, but he didn't have anyone to kythe with for at least some of that time. (Readers of Madeleine L'Engle's A Wind in the Door will recognize "kythe", which in that mythos is a bit more than just mind-speech, but I use it anyway because no English verb for the purpose otherwise exists.)

Both Bannor and Cail also experience failure. I'm still unclear on just what it is that makes Cail a failure in his own eyes (and later his compatriots' who were not on the Search).

Cail's "failure" does not end up on the main axis of his culture's spiritual progress the same way Bannor's does. Cail's reunion with the Dancers of the Sea is most certainly a piece of his people's redemption, but his destiny (including his prior dealing with failure) is so much his own that it isn't made public cultural property. Bannor's costly acceptance of finitude is not internalized by his compatriots or descendants for many centuries, but is finally brought to fruition in "Those Who Part".

[Fist and Faith]

Nice job, Durris! Cail is my favorite Haruchai from either Chronicles because of the very solitude you're talking about. But I hadn't considered how Bannor was going through the same thing. Of course, we didn't get as much of it, and SRD didn't outright mention it for Bannor. Still, it puts him in even more of a tragic light for me.

Cail's "failure" is, I believe, his having succumed to the merewives. Part of the reason for that Haruchai melee in WGW was Cail's attempt to prove that any of them would have also succumbed. When he lost, he had to admit that he was, indeed, unworthy. (Of course, they all saw the advantage of his "unworth" when he was the only Haruchai immune to the Clave's coercion.)

And it's been way too long for me to remember the word kythe.

[Furls Fire]

It all comes back to that good ole Haruchai extravagance...

Failure was just not something they could accept. And when it did happen that overwhelming sense of unworthiness drove them to extremes just to prove that they still were worthy.

Stating the obvious, I know...

[Haruchai]

Cail and Bannor were my two favourite characters. I hope there is more about the Haruchai in the Third Chronicles.