Jaxomfaux wrote:I agree. Brandark won't be a mage. He'll be a wizard :P the major hints are:
we don't know about his mother, but we do know his father's had dealings with other nations and on good terms with them. plus has some "strange notions" since he let brandark grow up as he did.
The only non-Hradani we know that was on good terms with Brandark Sr. was Kilthan. And that was shady trades to offload hradani loot from raids... possibly done on other human counties. It is most likely that Brandark Sr. was NOT on good terms with any of the neighboring human countries.
Let's look at what we do know about Brandark Sr:
1. He is a conservative Bloody Sword Noble who chose to live in Navahk and take part in the snake pit politics of Churnazh's court.
2. Brandark Brandarkson was his fully acknowledged and accepted heir.
3. He very quickly took steps to disown his son when he found out his heir helped Bazhell escape.
Brandark Sr. was part of a conservative association of Bloody Sword nobles that were mutually supporting each other to keep Churnazh from killing them and taking over their lands. I get the impression that they formed a sort of 'Loyal Opposition' that supported Churnazh so long as he didn't mess with them. Since we know that Churnazh didn't like opposition, loyal or otherwise, I imagine he was looking for any excuse to off them and replace them with one of his lackeys.
Anyone who was actively supporting this association in Churnazh's Court would have had to be a 'perfect' Bloody Sword with an impeccable history and reputation. If Brandark Sr. had a half-human son, would he have enjoyed the support of his fellow conservative nobles? Would he have survived the deadly politics of Churnazh's court (which is well known to be exceptionally xenophobic, even for Hradani)? I don't think so. It is very unlikely Brandark Sr. would have even survived Churnazh's bloody ascent to the throne if he had a half-blood human for a son.
Then there's the fact that Brandark was his father's heir. MWW doesn't say anything about Hradani inheritance laws and customs for nobility, but I would be very surprised if it didn't require some sort of acceptance from his conservative, noble peers. It may have been possible for Brandark Sr. to politically arm twist enough of his peers into allowing his son to be his heir, but it would probably have cost him all of his political support to do it. Since his father did have the support of his fellow nobles in the years that Churnazh ruled, it is again very unlikely that Brandark Jr was anything but a full blooded Hradani.
Finally, there's the fact that Brandark's father quickly disowned him for what amounted to a short term political advantage. Everyone knew that Churnazh was going to be defeated by Bahnak when they finally started fighting again. If Brandark was a halfblood, then his father would have had to devote most of his political efforts to keeping his son as his heir. It would have had to be one of the major goals in his life. Knowing that and knowing that Churnazh would soon be defeated by Bahnak, he would have continued to fight to keep Brandark as his heir, not immediately disowned him as he did. This tells me that there was never a long term fight in keeping Brandark as his heir, so it was never a major priority for him.
Brandark is a full blooded Hradani. Simply saying 'we don't know anything about his mother, so she must have been human' is a very poor argument.
Jaxomfaux wrote:Secondly Weber going out of his way to have Wincent explain it's good thing there hasn't been any Hradini-half bloods in forever, cuz only they and pure humans had the ability to be a wizard. And half-Hradini wizards would have massive magic and long lives but be sterile.
I saw this as nothing more than MWW taking the opportunity to put in an info dump on the rules of his world. It may be that the offspring of one of his characters will end up a half-hradani wizard, or he may later introduce a half-blooded hradani wizard character. However, I see nothing in the books to indicate anything in this was particularly directed at Brandark.
Jaxomfaux wrote:lastly, the dark gods in the first two books write off Brandark but the light gods keep saying he's as important as Bhazel. in the third book they say killing Brandark is almost as important as killing Bhazel. Something's going to happen soon with him, that gives him enough power to make the dark gods pause.
since he's not going to be a champion it's logical he becomes a wizard. which don't have "mage-crisis".
Who says that Brandark isn't going to be a champion? I have not read that anywhere. The only thing for certain is that he is not going to commit to Tomanak. In fact, in the next sentence, he indicated there may be a god he could follow. We don't know who god that is, but I think that it is quite likely Brandark will be a champion of some sort.
As to the dark gods not knowing that Brandark was not important until the third book, I don't find that terribly remarkable. The dark gods didn't know Bahzell was important until about halfway through the first book when Tomanak began to openly recruit him.
