Why didn't Janaki dodge?

According to one of the scenes with Zindel, Cairaths can foil their own assassinations once they get a Death Glimpse, so it's obviously possible to change them. And Janaki apparently knew enough about the oncoming gryphon to throw chan Skithrik out of the way. So why didn't he try to jump away himself? It's not like leaving the nexus would matter, since he wasn't going to pass on any more information once he was dead.

I know that his death was necessary as a plot point, for revenge reasons and to make Andrin the Heir. So the authors couldn't let him survive the battle. But what kind of logical reason from his point of view would have prevented him from trying to live, for a while longer at least?

I never understood that either.

Some pure speculation not based on anything in the books follows.

Perhaps if Janaki where to survive he could never have entered a fugue state. If he meant to cheat and dodge death his talent would not have worked. Therefore no glimpse capable of helping Fort Salby hold.

Another possibility is that while in a fugue state Janaki had limited mobility, due to his talent not being very strong. He couldn't dodge until it "let him go" and this particular glimpse ended with his death, so it couldn't let him go. Maybe if his talent was stronger, he was one of those who could move and even fight while using it, then he could have dodged.

Another possibility.

I don't know what quote your referring too that implies death glimpses can be changed but it may be that they can only be changed by radically altering the situation. Thus Janaki could have left Fort Salby and thus survived or he could have had the construction crews recalled and thus caused the Arcanans to change their plans but once the attack started and he was at Fort Salby he couldn't avoid death. He could have tried to dodge the Gryphon but he knew he wouldn't survive the battle regardless. He knew he had done all he needed to do and on a battle field their are lots and lots of worse ways to die then that one.

Nicholas

brnicholas wrote:Another possibility.

I don't know what quote your referring too that implies death glimpses can be changed but it may be that they can only be changed by radically altering the situation. Thus Janaki could have left Fort Salby and thus survived or he could have had the construction crews recalled and thus caused the Arcanans to change their plans but once the attack started and he was at Fort Salby he couldn't avoid death. He could have tried to dodge the Gryphon but he knew he wouldn't survive the battle regardless. He knew he had done all he needed to do and on a battle field their are lots and lots of worse ways to die then that one.

Nicholas

Janaki didn't dodge because it wouldn't have done him any good.

He had to be where he was for the Glimpse he needed to save Fort Salby. That put him in an exposed position --- if you'll recall, the senior Marine of his detachment pointed out when the fort's CO wanted to move him that he had no choice but to be there. A gryphon is not a ballistic projectile; it's capable of mid-course correction, and if he'd dodged, it would have tracked him and hit him anyway.

Some Caliraths, with particularly powerful Talents, can move and even fight when in fuge state; Janaki couldn't. He had to take his position and then hold it at the critical nexus of his Glimpse, and he knew that if he did the gryphon would hit him whichever way he dodged. He'd Glimpsed it. So he didn't even make the attempt, choosing instead to be sure he'd be able to throw the CO, with the critical information for the defense (which Janaki couldn't provide until the very last minute), clear of the strike. It wasn't that death was inevitable from some other cause if the gryphon missed; it was that the gryphon wasn't going to miss and he knew it. Had his Talent been stronger, he might have been able to read the gryphon's flight path with sufficient accuracyto squirm out of the way at the last second --- some Caliraths have done just that, even in the face of a Death Glimpse --- but his Talent was insufficient for him to See the situation with the degree of precision (and a long enough time loop) to manage that . . . and he knew it wouldn't be going in.

I might also point out that he knew the strike would kill him basically instantly if he stood and took it; if he'd tried to dodge and failed, he would have died anyway, but probably nowhere near so quickly.

There are 2 kinds of Glimpses (so far) death glimpses, which foretell your death and which basically lock you in place and ordinary glimpses, which do not foretell your death. If you can squirm out of the way, then it is not a death glimpse, just an ordinary one. Janaki saw his own death, therefore he was going to die. No amount of squirming about was going to change that. No amount of squirming about will change any Caliraths death glimpse no matter how powerful they are.

Keith_w wrote:There are 2 kinds of Glimpses (so far) death glimpses, which foretell your death and which basically lock you in place and ordinary glimpses, which do not foretell your death. If you can squirm out of the way, then it is not a death glimpse, just an ordinary one. Janaki saw his own death, therefore he was going to die. No amount of squirming about was going to change that. No amount of squirming about will change any Caliraths death glimpse no matter how powerful they are.

I think the distinction is different. There is only one sort of Glimpse. Glimpses that that involve the individual directly can trigger a fugue state. Depending on the strength of the Calirath Talent in question, the fugue state may or may not require immobility to maintain.

As I see it, weaker Talents cannot process the increased variables of an active participant. Perhaps it is better to say that the weaker Talent means the individual's mind cannot process the increased variable. Regardless the individual glimpser cannot move. This is true if death is avoidable or not.

RFC's explanation suggests that a death Glimpse is simply seeing the possibility of one's death. That possibility ranges from 1%-100% depending on as many variables as there are people involved with situation the Glimpse reveals.

That makes the Calirath motto even more important to understanding the high esteem with which they are held. They will often Glimpse their possible demise as well as the options available to avoid it just like Janaki. The Calirath's earned that esteem because as a rule they KNEW when their duty led to death and still accepted their duty. Other rules might calculate the possibility of their death and still perform their duty. That isn't the same by orders of magnitude.

PeterZ wrote:

Keith_w wrote:There are 2 kinds of Glimpses (so far) death glimpses, which foretell your death and which basically lock you in place and ordinary glimpses, which do not foretell your death. If you can squirm out of the way, then it is not a death glimpse, just an ordinary one. Janaki saw his own death, therefore he was going to die. No amount of squirming about was going to change that. No amount of squirming about will change any Caliraths death glimpse no matter how powerful they are.

I think the distinction is different. There is only one sort of Glimpse. Glimpses that that involve the individual directly can trigger a fugue state. Depending on the strength of the Calirath Talent in question, the fugue state may or may not require immobility to maintain.

As I see it, weaker Talents cannot process the increased variables of an active participant. Perhaps it is better to say that the weaker Talent means the individual's mind cannot process the increased variable. Regardless the individual glimpser cannot move. This is true if death is avoidable or not.

RFC's explanation suggests that a death Glimpse is simply seeing the possibility of one's death. That possibility ranges from 1%-100% depending on as many variables as there are people involved with situation the Glimpse reveals.

That makes the Calirath motto even more important to understanding the high esteem with which they are held. They will often Glimpse their possible demise as well as the options available to avoid it just like Janaki. The Calirath's earned that esteem because as a rule they KNEW when their duty led to death and still accepted their duty. Other rules might calculate the possibility of their death and still perform their duty. That isn't the same by orders of magnitude.

Close, Peter, but not quite.

There's only one sort of Death Glimpse, and that's a Glimpse which involves the death of the person receiving the Glimpse. It's not possible for a Calirath to have a "Death Glimpse" of someone else, although they may have Glimpses in which deaths occur. The distinction may seem artificial, but it really isn't because except in a "true" Death Glimpse, no one can ever see his or her own death.

Now, the mere fact that you've had a Death Glimpse doesn't necessarily mean that you have to die. There are Death Glimpses from which there are, in effect, no escape. There are also Death Glimpses which can be avoided by simply changing the parameters that led up to the situation — that is, if Halian had chosen not to defend his allies, he could have avoided the death that he had Glimpsed. And for Caliraths with exceptionally powerful Talent, the ones who can enter fugue state without effectively being frozen in place, what seems to be an "unavoidable" Death Glimpse can, in fact, be avoided. For example, it is probable that the Calirath with the strongest Talent of all was Erthain, and you'll be finding out a couple of what I think are interesting hints about him and his Talent in the new book. But one of the things that you won't be finding out in this book is that Erthain was an absolutely lethal swordsman, because his Talent was sufficiently great that he could enter fugue state in an actual sword fight. He could actually see incoming thrusts or cuts or the way someone might parry one of his attacks — and act to defeat the attack or evade the parry — while he was actually in combat against them . Someone with that level of Talent — or even a weaker one, but much stronger than Janaki's — can sometimes "ride" a Death Glimpse and slip through the . . . probability gaps between events. In a case like that, a Death Glimpse isn't necessarily a sentence of death. In those cases, it's a "here's what's going to happen unless you manage to do something really, really extraordinary at this point, or this point, or this point." In most cases, the odds of evading a death which has been Glimpsed are very, very low, regardless of the strength of the Calirath Talent involved, but in those cases, survival is at least possible.

It wasn't a possibility in Janaki's case, and he knew that going in, just as Halian knew it before he went into his final battle.

And you're right that one of the reasons the Caliraths are as highly regarded as they are is that even though the imperial family has never officially confirmed the way that Death Glimpses work (at least outside of those cleared for the Ternathian equivalent of Top Secret, Burn After Reading), people for several thousand years have known that they do glimpse "the future," and that time and again they have walked into the path of danger which presumably they saw coming before they exposed themselves to it.

Note, however, that this attitude towards the Caliraths is not universal, especially on the part of people like the Seneschal or Uromathians in general, because the anti-Calirath factions in Sharona have tended (over those same thousands of years) to deny that that's how it works.

Hello RFC!

Thanks very much for the clarifications!

Always great to see more of your non-snippet posts!

L

runsforcelery wrote:

PeterZ wrote:*quote="Keith_w"*There are 2 kinds of Glimpses (so far) death glimpses, which foretell your death and which basically lock you in place and ordinary glimpses, which do not foretell your death. If you can squirm out of the way, then it is not a death glimpse, just an ordinary one. Janaki saw his own death, therefore he was going to die. No amount of squirming about was going to change that. No amount of squirming about will change any Caliraths death glimpse no matter how powerful they are.*quote*


I think the distinction is different. There is only one sort of Glimpse. Glimpses that that involve the individual directly can trigger a fugue state. Depending on the strength of the Calirath Talent in question, the fugue state may or may not require immobility to maintain.

As I see it, weaker Talents cannot process the increased variables of an active participant. Perhaps it is better to say that the weaker Talent means the individual's mind cannot process the increased variable. Regardless the individual glimpser cannot move. This is true if death is avoidable or not.

RFC's explanation suggests that a death Glimpse is simply seeing the possibility of one's death. That possibility ranges from 1%-100% depending on as many variables as there are people involved with situation the Glimpse reveals.

That makes the Calirath motto even more important to understanding the high esteem with which they are held. They will often Glimpse their possible demise as well as the options available to avoid it just like Janaki. The Calirath's earned that esteem because as a rule they KNEW when their duty led to death and still accepted their duty. Other rules might calculate the possibility of their death and still perform their duty. That isn't the same by orders of magnitude.

Close, Peter, but not quite.

There's only one sort of Death Glimpse, and that's a Glimpse which involves the death of the person receiving the Glimpse. It's not possible for a Calirath to have a "Death Glimpse" of someone else, although they may have Glimpses in which deaths occur. The distinction may seem artificial, but it really isn't because except in a "true" Death Glimpse, no one can ever see his or her own death.

Now, the mere fact that you've had a Death Glimpse doesn't necessarily mean that you have to die. There are Death Glimpses from which there are, in effect, no escape. There are also Death Glimpses which can be avoided by simply changing the parameters that led up to the situation — that is, if Halian had chosen not to defend his allies, he could have avoided the death that he had Glimpsed. And for Caliraths with exceptionally powerful Talent, the ones who can enter fugue state without effectively being frozen in place, what seems to be an "unavoidable" Death Glimpse can, in fact, be avoided. For example, it is probable that the Calirath with the strongest Talent of all was Erthain, and you'll be finding out a couple of what I think are interesting hints about him and his Talent in the new book. But one of the things that you won't be finding out in this book is that Erthain was an absolutely lethal swordsman, because his Talent was sufficiently great that he could enter fugue state in an actual sword fight. He could actually see incoming thrusts or cuts or the way someone might parry one of his attacks — and act to defeat the attack or evade the parry — while he was actually in combat against them . Someone with that level of Talent — or even a weaker one, but much stronger than Janaki's — can sometimes "ride" a Death Glimpse and slip through the . . . probability gaps between events. In a case like that, a Death Glimpse isn't necessarily a sentence of death. In those cases, it's a "here's what's going to happen unless you manage to do something really, really extraordinary at this point, or this point, or this point." In most cases, the odds of evading a death which has been Glimpsed are very, very low, regardless of the strength of the Calirath Talent involved, but in those cases, survival is at least possible.

It wasn't a possibility in Janaki's case, and he knew that going in, just as Halian knew it before he went into his final battle.

And you're right that one of the reasons the Caliraths are as highly regarded as they are is that even though the imperial family has never officially confirmed the way that Death Glimpses work (at least outside of those cleared for the Ternathian equivalent of Top Secret, Burn After Reading), people for several thousand years have known that they do glimpse "the future," and that time and again they have walked into the path of danger which presumably they saw coming before they exposed themselves to it.

Note, however, that this attitude towards the Caliraths is not universal, especially on the part of people like the Seneschal or Uromathians in general, because the anti-Calirath factions in Sharona have tended (over those same thousands of years) to deny that that's how it works.

Thanks for the clarification RFC! You've answered my original question, and I always like it when something in a book happens for a better reason than "the author wanted it that way". Picky of me, I know, and I at least try to keep in mind that sometimes it's inevitable. And the sneak info on Erthain is greatly appreciated.

Of course, one answered question always brings up others. In HHNF, it says:

There was one Glimpse that was given to most of those who carried the activated Calirath Talent, and cold comfort it was. It was the Glimpse of their own violent deaths. Not in accidents, or of disease, because the Calirath Talent didn’t work that way. A Glimpse revealed the consequences of human actions, human events, not the simple workings of fate or chance. That was one reason there’d been so few successful assassinations of Caliraths over the millennia. It was hard for a killer to sneak up on someone who was able to Glimpse the moment of his or her own murder, after all. Not impossible, as history had unfortunately demonstrated, but difficult.

I'd assumed that meant that a Calirath that Glimpsed they were going to die also knew how to avoid it, but it sounds like they can only avoid it by making either serious changes or really last-minute ones. That is, one that knows he's about to be assassinated can arrange for extra guards or whatever, but battlefields aren't amenable to that kind of thing. I suppose that means the more the circumstances can be controlled, the easier it is to avoid the Glimpsed death. Would that be a fairly accurate way to put it, or is it more complicated than that?

Thanks!

runsforcelery wrote:Close, Peter, but not quite.

There's only one sort of Death Glimpse, and that's a Glimpse which involves the death of the person receiving the Glimpse. It's not possible for a Calirath to have a "Death Glimpse" of someone else, although they may have Glimpses in which deaths occur. The distinction may seem artificial, but it really isn't because except in a "true" Death Glimpse, no one can ever see his or her own death.

Now, the mere fact that you've had a Death Glimpse doesn't necessarily mean that you have to die. There are Death Glimpses from which there are, in effect, no escape. There are also Death Glimpses which can be avoided by simply changing the parameters that led up to the situation — that is, if Halian had chosen not to defend his allies, he could have avoided the death that he had Glimpsed. And for Caliraths with exceptionally powerful Talent, the ones who can enter fugue state without effectively being frozen in place, what seems to be an "unavoidable" Death Glimpse can, in fact, be avoided. For example, it is probable that the Calirath with the strongest Talent of all was Erthain, and you'll be finding out a couple of what I think are interesting hints about him and his Talent in the new book. But one of the things that you won't be finding out in this book is that Erthain was an absolutely lethal swordsman, because his Talent was sufficiently great that he could enter fugue state in an actual sword fight. He could actually see incoming thrusts or cuts or the way someone might parry one of his attacks — and act to defeat the attack or evade the parry — while he was actually in combat against them . Someone with that level of Talent — or even a weaker one, but much stronger than Janaki's — can sometimes "ride" a Death Glimpse and slip through the . . . probability gaps between events. In a case like that, a Death Glimpse isn't necessarily a sentence of death. In those cases, it's a "here's what's going to happen unless you manage to do something really, really extraordinary at this point, or this point, or this point." In most cases, the odds of evading a death which has been Glimpsed are very, very low, regardless of the strength of the Calirath Talent involved, but in those cases, survival is at least possible.

It wasn't a possibility in Janaki's case, and he knew that going in, just as Halian knew it before he went into his final battle.

And you're right that one of the reasons the Caliraths are as highly regarded as they are is that even though the imperial family has never officially confirmed the way that Death Glimpses work (at least outside of those cleared for the Ternathian equivalent of Top Secret, Burn After Reading), people for several thousand years have known that they do glimpse "the future," and that time and again they have walked into the path of danger which presumably they saw coming before they exposed themselves to it.

Note, however, that this attitude towards the Caliraths is not universal, especially on the part of people like the Seneschal or Uromathians in general, because the anti-Calirath factions in Sharona have tended (over those same thousands of years) to deny that that's how it works.