[Amber] Smart Ty'iga, Dumb Ty'iga

[Moonraker]

So the ty'iga claims throughout the second series that she couldn't determine if her protective charge was supposed to be Merlin or Luke! I always found that bit to be a little weak whenever it came up.

Dara knows earth is an Amberite haunt. Would she really just say, "Protect my son of Amber on shadow earth?" Why not show the ty'iga a Trump image? Would Dara really send an agent out on such an important mission with such a poor briefing?

Did Dara tell the ty'iga her son's name? If the ty'iga knows it's "Merlin," well, damn, "Merle" is not such a far stretch.

When the demoness gets to earth and sees two sons of Amber walking around, she's also going to observe that only one also bears the image of the Logrus. How hard is it to conclude that yep, Dara's son would probably be the one with the Logrus as well?

Finally, if that ty'iga is really confused, why not just speed back to the Courts for clarification? Something like, "Mistress Dara, there are two sons of Amber on shadow earth right now. I pray thee, show me an image of your son, my charge, so that I might be of service to the correct one?"

I don't buy it.

One possibility here is that the ty'iga was somehow playing mental games with herself in order to get as much "wriggle room" as she could as against the strict wording of Dara's compulsion. Enough, perhaps, to avoid having to kill the guy she's hot for. After all, she's pretty much shown to be one smart cookie. Too smart for such a lame excuse.

Anybody out there have similar thoughts?

[Croaker]

Agree with you. It also seems strange she had no means to contact Dara should the need arise, which would help solve things greatly.

From the top of my head, other possibilities:
- She wasn't send by Dara
- Her memory was altered (by who, why?)
- She lies about her mission (although I can't see why)

[Moonraker]

It also seems strange she had no means to contact Dara should the need arise, which would help solve things greatly.

If you mean a Trump or means of remote contact, then yes, it's strange that Dara never set things up so she could keep in contact with the ty'iga.

But what strikes me as even stranger is that the ty'iga, with the power to travel through shadow as a blue mist, doesn't just zip back and ask Dara personally?

That the ty'iga didn't do this simple thing tells me that she knew full well who was who. She knew she ought to waste Luke in order to protect Merlin, but she didn't want kill him for personal reasons. Since zipping back to Dara would result in a "protect Merle Corey, kill Lucas Raynard" order—which the ty'iga doesn't want to receive—she stays put.

But there's a further problem: even her standing orders might require her to kill Luke. So to avoid this she controls her thoughts to give the geas less influence over her, almost like someone who manipulates their own emotions to fool a polygraph. That is, if she can "convince" herself that she doesn't know which one is which, she can go on protecting both and avoiding a kill order.

On the other hand, there's that whole business of "What was your mother's name?" Which makes Dara look really, really sloppy at issuing binding orders to demons. You'd think a sorceress that careless would've become demon-chow long ago.

I don't know exactly what's going on, but the ty'iga's protestations of ignorance are simply not plausible.

[Croaker]

The more I read you, the more I think there's a problem.

I'm not bothered by the Tyiga not taking the time to travel in mist form in order to report: This may take a while, meaning too much time away from her marks.

But the rest... I don't think Dara was sloppy.

The more I read you, the more I think the demon was either lying (maybe despite herself), or deceived

[Moonraker]

I'm not bothered by the Tyiga not taking the time to travel in mist form in order to report: This may take a while, meaning too much time away from her marks.

She was apparently Gail Lampron for years, though. The ty'iga could not have constantly monitored Merle for every second of every day. For example, while the ty'iga is going on dates with Luke, Merlin is elsewhere. She doesn't know that Luke will be the only threat, correct? So her protection is different than, say, a Secret Service detail, which is constantly hovering around the client.

How long would it take her to zip back and ask Dara? A few days? I grant that we really don't know her travel speed, but my general impression was that the time spent seems inconsiderable compared to the intelligence that would be gathered.

In fact, if she really doesn't know which son of Amber is her charge, then she's already splitting her time up between the two of them, leaving each vulnerable when she's with the other. Even if it takes her a week to travel to Chaos and back, in terms of overall time monitoring her charge it's a plus, since after she collects the intelligence, she'll no longer have to waste half her time and energy protecting the wrong client and absenting herself from the correct one.