[Amber] Jasra and Dara

[Moonraker]

We're told that Jasra was Dara's handmaiden, that Dara trained her in sorcery and set her to "ensnare" Brand so that he might become an agent of Chaos for Patternfall.

When you think about it, that's actually an astonishing step up for Jasra, who is reputed to come from one of the Black Zone kingdoms. It'd be like if Princess Deirdre had a handmaiden from the Golden Circle, trained her in sorcery, trusted her with a vital state mission, and gave her in marriage to one of King Swayvill's sons.

So how did Jasra repay her mistress for these honors? By trying to kill Dara's son, Merlin, multiple times; by coaching her son, Luke, to make attempts on his life.

Which leads to the big question: how does Dara feel about this? Does she even know? It's entirely possible the ty'iga never reported in to Dara, giving Dara the illusion that all was well on Shadow Earth during Merlin's stay there. In the final Amber story, Hall of Mirrors, Dara wishes Luke victory, as she "has nothing against him."

Why would Dara have nothing against the man who not only tried to kill her son, but savagely manipulated him, among other nefarious acts? Dara just doesn't seem the forgiving type, as her imprisonment of Corwin attests. Is Dara lying to Luke about not bearing a grudge? Or does she truly not know what Jasra and Luke have been doing?

If she does know, does that mean that everything that happened was with Dara's approval? Was Dara using Jasra to put Merlin through his paces, in anticipation of him being a King who already had experience countering assassination attempts? I find that unlikely; there were any number of times Merlin could have actually died. He seems too important to Dara for her to be so reckless with his life. There are less lethal ways to train someone than to invite Jasra to try to kill him.

Suppose, at the time of Hall of Mirrors, that Dara still hasn't learned that Jasra and Luke had been trying to kill her son? Say neither Merlin nor the ty'iga ever informed her. What is Dara's reaction likely to be should she finally find out? Will Jasra end up in a private hell for her effrontery? Will Luke be assassinated to prevent Merlin from being under the spell of Luke's manipulations (that is, saving Merlin's suggestibility for Dara and Mandor themselves)? Will the ty'iga be destroyed for falling in love with the would-be assassin of the person she was charged with protecting and not reporting in?

What do you think? And have any of these potential plot avenues been explored in actual play in anyone's campaign?

[Croaker]

Thinking about your other post about the Ty'iga, I wonder. What if the Ty'iga worked for Jasra? Or at least for a third, neutral party?

Is it a stretch to think that Jasra might have both set up her son to kill merlin, the Ty'iga to protect him, hoping either to have her revenge or to goad him through the demon? Seems feeble, since once merlin talks to dara, he's know the Ty'iga doesn't work for her.

Of course, there's still the possibility that the Ty'iga thought she was working for Dara, whereas she was under the thrall of an impersonator, or a compulsion to think it is dara. This might be interesting, serving both to protect Merlin and to drive a wedge between him and his mother. I can almost see Mandor doing this, planning for the eventual crumbling of his alliance with dara.

Sorry, it's been a long time, so I'm no longer very good at this :-/

A great many thanks for your posts, though, I appreciate them greatly.

[Moonraker]

Is it a stretch to think that Jasra might have both set up her son to kill merlin, the Ty'iga to protect him, hoping either to have her revenge or to goad him through the demon?

One big question for me is: why would Jasra be so eager to kill Merlin anyway? I can see her hating Bleys, Fiona, Caine, Corwin ... but Merlin? He had nothing to do with Patternfall. Plus, Jasra knows that he's the son of her former mistress, Dara. On that account alone, targeting Merlin is like toying with suicide.

What accounts for so much hate?

Then there's this from Courts of Chaos:

"So you were also planning a double-cross," Random said.

"Not if he kept his word. But then, we knew that he would not. So we provided for the move against him."

"How?"

"He would be allowed to accomplish his end and then be destroyed. He would be succeeded by a member of the Amber royal family who was also of the first family of the Courts, one who had been raised and trained for the position. Merlin even traces his connection with Amber on both sides, through my forebear Benedict and directly from yourself—the two most favored claimants to your throne."

So the Chaosian originators of Patternfall were planning to assassinate Brand after he got to the Amber throne. Problem is, it isn't too easy to kill a King of Amber, especially if he's also one of the universe's top sorcerers, and expecting a double-cross to boot, as Brand surely would be.

How to do the job?

They only got to Oberon by treachery. So it follows that that's the route they use.

To that end, they've already got a long-term sleeper agent in place. Sometime after Brand takes the throne, whenever they're ready, they activate the sleeper. Brand is quietly killed.

It's got to be someone who not only has access to him, but someone whom he'd never expect.

Like Jasra.

Which explains why she hates Merlin to such an extreme, even though he had nothing himself to do either with Patternfall or Brand's undoing. The very fact of Merle's existence reminds Jasra of her hidden purpose: after seducing Brand and leading him to Patternfall, she is then to betray him for a Chaosian prince, later revealed to be Merlin. She even has a deadly venomous bite to that effect.

This is why Jasra is obsessed with killing Merlin—he serves as a haunting reminder that her whole purpose was to betray and kill her beloved husband. Her driving unconscious thought process is that if she wipes out Merlin, she can "prove" to herself that she never would have gone through with destroying Brand.

There's even the strange way Jasra attempted to engineer turning Julia into a weapon against Merlin, seeking to have him slain by a loved one. It's a strange parallel to what the Elders of Chaos had intended her to do to Brand.

Speculative? Sure. But explains Jasra's otherwise pointless fixation on Merlin quite well.

[Name Not Provided]

I don't have my books in front of me, but I got the impression Merlin was just practice for Luke to off the bigger fish in Amber. But then it kept failing, and I think Jasra just kept it up out of irritation at failing so often. She seems the vindictive sort.

[Moonraker]

I don't have my books in front of me, but I got the impression Merlin was just practice for Luke to off the bigger fish in Amber. But then it kept failing, and I think Jasra just kept it up out of irritation at failing so often. She seems the vindictive sort.

She does mention to Merlin that she wanted Luke to "get some practice," but the amount of effort she puts in, coupled with the sheer measure of malice, leads me to believe there's more going on than just that.

For example, Jasra confesses that she trained Julia as a sorceress specifically so that she could turn Julia's love to hate and make the final blow that much more delicious.

So I think Merlin was always more than a mere practice target for her. We don't know her true reasons. Is it simply because he's Corwin's son? Specifically because he's Dara's son, and she wants to wound her former mistress? Then there's Merlin as a symbol of the fact that Chaos was going to betray Brand, probably expecting Jasra to pull the trigger.

So there's an awful lot going on here.

[Name Not Provided]

Keep in mind that Jasra was a pretty busy lady outside of the Merlin issue. The Keep of the Four Worlds, Kashfa and all the politics surrounding the area, trying to get Luke to stop hanging around that barbarian Dalt, so on and so on. If she turned all of her considerable resources on Merlin, she probably could have had him dead sooner rather than later. But she had bigger fish to fry, in her view. The yearly Merlin assassination was mostly Luke's thing until they got close, as well.

In short, a priority, but maybe not top of the list. Though one she may have had strong feelings involved.

A good bit of speculation though. I'll have to reread and ponder further. Any excuse to read it all again.

[jibbajibba]

The Dara planting Jasra doesn't work for me it's an unconvincing retcon.
From Corwin's chronicles we learn that she is born to Lintra and Benedict during the Patternfall war as a result of the black road.
We think that the black road is due to Corwin's curse but it turns out that its not it's due to blood on the Pattern or a mix of both.....

So Dara as a precursor to the turning of Brand and the planting of Jasra just doesn't play true it's too big a jump even for Zelazny (the master of retconing on the fly)

[RTrimmer]

The only thing I've come up with is: Lintra was an old flame of Benedict's, and Dara's mum or gran was a result. Quite a while ago. Jasra is not that young.

This also helps explain why Ben was so taken with his new, enemy lover as to hesitate in battle and lose an arm to her.

So, re: Jasra, maybe Plan A was to kill Brand and make Rinaldo king of Amber. Then Plan B --  Puppet King Merlin -- supplants Plan A. J is not amused. Jasra decided that sucking up a death curse for someone else's kid was a bad deal, didn't betray Brand, but he died anyway. Still angry about the Plan B thing, so having Rinaldo kill Merlin on the way to Caine, Fiona and Bleys, tougher targets all, was a fine idea. Then Merlin Did Not Die. Several times. Vexing, that.