questions i most likely won't ever get answers to.
i really am curious about how different duviri and the tales of duviri are.
first of all, is the drifter in the tales of duviri at all?
certainly they seem not to be depicted whatsoever on the vandalized copy of the book we have. it shows thrax, the courtiers, the courtiers as wyrms, and the scribbles.
if they displaced a character, they haven't said anything about it.
secondly, do all the citizens have names?
acrithis, pip and fergin, brimon, mathila's children koral and barris, her husband garmi: non-courtiers who we know have names.
most of them are still 'key' characters,
i think the bard is pip? that still leaves fergin and garmi, though they aren't exactly alive anymore. garmi died in the rain of chains, and fergin disappeared at some point before we get to speak to pip.
there's also ula, who acrithis mentions in the lake verula codex entry; she used to sing to the rainbow eels. she too is dead- broken-hearted over the eels' extinction, apparently.
beyond those, there are brief mentions on gravestones: Caxa, Govio, Hogo, Jinn, Leem, Mother Opa, Pol, Qig, Roon, Vana, Velkk, and Yimi. Ula and her eels are also mentioned again.
they could all be representative of something, so they're not necessarily evidence of the common citizens of duviri having names.
in opposition we have the unnamed archetypes: the friendly, the pensive, the lover, the cleaner, the reader, the friend, the cheerful, the morose, the lover again but male this time, the sweeper, the merchant, the boatman, the sage, the prisoner, a bunch of children, and the warden.
most notably, the prisoner seems to imply mmmmm that they exist to serve a narrative, as it wasn't ever in doubt that they would get rescued, and such. the prisoner is Optimism, anyway.
the warden is probably kullervo's creation instead of the drifter's. we all know that's balls 2.0 guilty guy edition, anyway.
...so, what qualifies a citizen of duviri for having a name? is it nothing? or do you need to represent something to be entitled to experiencing a rich inner life, to individual experience instead of being a narrative existence?
what does it mean to have a title in duviri?
thirdly: does the drifter's presence spoil the stories?
was there something thrax was supposed to do that he isn't, because the drifter stepped into that role instead? what's thrax's role in the tales of duviri anyway?
on the other hand, the tales could be in the style of bad-ending cautionary tale fables. yknow, like 'fox goes through hole in fence, eats so many grapes they can't fit the hole anymore, farmer comes back and kills it, the end' type of endings. but more 'courtier exists in an okay state until they overdo their Emotion and screw it up real bad, turn into horrible wyrm, land is ravaged, the end'.
is thrax. not experiencing emotional growth because he makes someone else process the emotion instead. so he never does any of it. not feeling the emotion itself, letting it run its course, and also not physically fighting the resultant orowyrms- makes the drifter do that instead...
