• Books
    • Book One: The Music Mage
    • Book Two: Redeemer of the Realm
    • Book Three: Trials of the Redeemer
    • Book Four: Acts of the Redeemer
    • Book Five: Lake of Fire
  • People
    • Alannys Gale
    • Lord Malrec of Glennayre
    • Prince Dorramon
  • Places
    • Ravanmark
  • Errata
  • About

The Ravanmark Saga

~ Art is Power, Music is Magic

The Ravanmark Saga

Category Archives: Philosophy

Q&A #1

03 Thursday Sep 2015

Posted by Sandra Miller in Philosophy

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Philosophies of Ravanmark, Ravanmark

Q: In The Music Mage, why does Alannys feel a spark when she touches the painting of Dorramon and Raman?

A: This is an interesting bit of magic that I worked through in my notes for the series. Here’s what I wrote:

The short answer is that this is an effect of the mindlink. But it isn’t quite that simple. I am making an assumption here that this painting has been opened, which is reasonable if Lord Malrec wanted to use it to eavesdrop or spy.

Magic leaves traces.

This is especially try of magic involving a tangible object, like a painting. Part of the object used in the magic is bound up with the object(s) the magic was used on. In this case, that painting of Dorramon has a connection to the real Dorramon. As the magic grows more distant in time, the connection fades. This painting, however, was used recently.

But this connection isn’t enough to explain the spark. The painting is bound up with Raman, too, but touching him in the painting wouldn’t cause any particular reaction. The magic entanglement is the underlying process that makes the spark possible.

But it is the mindlink that makes it happen.

And here’s where it gets important. Touching the painting of Dorramon produces a reaction because the painting is entangled with the real Dorramon–which means touching the painting is in some sense like touching the real Dorramon.

Did you catch that? Because it’s really important. It means touching Dorramon has to produce the same sensation, and the same for him, when he touches her.

To put it shortly, the mindlink creates the electricity that each feels whenever they touch. Because the painting is entangled with Dorramon, some of that happens when she touches the painting. In this case it is even more pronounced, because….

Q: How do mindlinks work? How are they formed?

A: A mindlink is a telepathic connection between two individuals. I don’t want to delve into the mechanics of how that might work.

What we are interested in here is when the thing is formed, and when it becomes active. How does one discover they are mindlinked?

I don’t think you can be mindlinked to a person you’ve never met. I think some physical contact is necessary to forge the link. Even a handshake would do it. Or touching a painting of that person, if the painting had been opened. 🙂 (So this explains the intense, arcing spark as the forging of the mindlink.)

We also have a conceit where talk of executing Alannys causes Dorramon physical pain. We see the reverse as well, when Lord Malrec uses just this conceit to gain information about the mindlink that Alannys does not want to give. A pain response like that encourages each participant in a mindlink to become protective of the other, ensuring longer survival for both of them. The physical pain isn’t enough to incapacitate, but it does prod him to defend her against all comers, and vice-versa.

Q: What are the limits of this effect?

A: That’s not easy to answer–I don’t think there is a sharp, clear line. An execution order hurts. I imagine Queen Farrine telling her to burn in the Seven Hells smarts a little too. What about things that are painful to Alannys, even traumatizing, but not fatal? “I hope she falls and breaks both legs, and her arms too!”

Well, that’s going to piss him off, because he loves her. But I don’t think it will physically hurt.

Philosophies of Ravanmark

07 Tuesday Apr 2015

Posted by Sandra Miller in Philosophy, Ravanmark

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Philosophies of Ravanmark

RavanmarkRavanmark is a really fascinating place to me (I hope it is to you too!) Even after several years and several hundred thousand words, that continues to be so. I hope it is always so.

What I never expected was how surprising it would be to me to see the things that have influenced its creation.

I have a fairly intensive revision process. Part of that process involves marking out the things about the story that are important to me on a high level, the things that matter, the things that these stories are really about. (At least to me. It’s entirely possible that no one else reading these books will ever see the same things in them that I do, and that’s perfectly fine. It’s part of what makes fiction so wonderful.)

Perhaps because I am nostalgic and reflective by nature, when I work on revising any of the books in this series, I have a tendency to look back over the revision notebooks of previous books. Sometimes I am surprised to see what I have written there–surprised to see things jumping out at me that I don’t even remember writing down.

They are the philosophies that underlie Ravanmark–every person who lives there and every thing that happens there. And in the hope that someone else might find them as interesting as I do, I lay them out here, as they were originally written in my notes.

The power of humans to create is sacred–I wrote that for the first book, and it still applies. But more than that, life is sacred, living is sacred, and how we do it matter. We matter–each of us, all of us, and we are all valuable and deserving. Too much time is spent sectioning us off into various categories and then denying some of them–whether it’s because we think they are less than us and look down on them, or because we think they are more than us and fear them. All people deserve to live in peace, and to make use of their abilities however they choose, without impinging on others’ freedoms. There are no people who are somehow less human than others.

This makes me reflect on several things in Ravanmark, from the rather feudal class structure to the treatment of the Singari. What about you?

 Freedom and equality aren’t just pretty words–they are fundamentally necessary for humans to achieve their full potential, as individuals or as a species. And the thing about them is that they go hand in hand–you only have freedom inasmuch as you have equality, and you can’t be really equal if you aren’t free. And if people around you aren’t free or equal–don’t think you are, either.

Again, I think of the Singari. And of the class structure…it seems to me that freedom and equality are not just issues for the disadvantaged, but for the very powerful as well. How free is a king, really? How equal is he? How much of his ordinary life–if he even can be said to have one–suffers for the demands of his position? And if he is an unjust king, how much do the lives around him suffer for the power of his whims?

Those are just a couple of items I came across while I was flipping through old notes. I’m sure there are many more waiting to be re-discovered; if I find them, I’ll try to keep them all in this category, with the Philosophies of Ravanmark tag.

New Releases

Find out first about new releases in the Ravanmark Saga. Get email notifications of new releases--join the mailing list!

Subscribe to New Release list

Visit Me on Facebook

Visit Me on Facebook

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

The Ravanmark Saga


RedeemeroftheRealm_ebook_Final_small
TrialsoftheRedeemer_ebook_Final_smaller
ActsoftheRedeemer_ebook_Final_small
LakeofFire_ebook_sparkles

Recent Posts

  • Available Now–Lake of Fire: Book Five of the Ravanmark Saga
  • New Release: Acts of the Redeemer
  • Acts of the Redeemer, Ravanmark Book 4: Going up for pre-order now
  • Q&A #1
  • Philosophies of Ravanmark

Archives

  • September 2018
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • April 2015
  • October 2014
  • May 2014
  • September 2013
  • January 2013
  • November 2012
  • October 2012

Categories

  • Books
  • Errata
  • New Release
  • Philosophy
  • Ravanmark
  • Uncategorized
  • Videos

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • The Ravanmark Saga
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • The Ravanmark Saga
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...