Ask Luna #116

From: Richard Lee

Hi Luna,
Why can’t anyone see that Richard is a diviner? A while ago when Alex was debating whether to grab a knife off himself table and stab Richard … Richard just sat there – I think henwasndoingbexactkynwhatbLaex does and diving the situation.

I had to squint and read that last sentence about three times before I figured out what you were saying. I’m guessing it was meant to be “he was doing exactly what Alex does”.

From: Kevin

So I have a few questions about diviners other than Alex such as..
1. Why did Helikon teach Alex when he seems so focused on survival? I don’t see him as the helping someone for nothing kinda of guy, nor as a teacher but I have only seen him a few times so maybe he has a softer side? Unlikely but that is all I can come up with.
2. Do you know anything about Alaundo, who seems to be the premier Light Council diviner? Alex seems to be the exception when it comes to active diviners in politics so why does Alaundo seem to take a greater interest in them when all the other diviners seem to hide out and work on a case to case basis?
3. Is Alex also an exception when it comes to short term divination? It seems the diviners we have met seem to work better with mid-to long term, while Alex seems to do better with short term futures?
4. Also are Helikon and Alaundo similar in that they work better with long term divinations, or do they specialize in a different sort of divination. It could be that the Council just wanted a second opinion in Burned and that they are long term specialists I just thought I would ask to be certain.

1. It’s more common than you’d think. There are a lot of mages out there, and from personal experience, very few of them are the ‘something for nothing’ sort. But despite that, most mages take apprentices at some point or other. As to why, your guess is as good as mine. Either they do actually care about the next generation, or it’s about ego.

2. Don’t really know anything about him. For whatever reason he works with the Council when the others don’t.

3. Yeah, pretty much. Your magic isn’t just based off your personality, it also grows with you, and the more you practice something, the more your abilities develop in that direction. Alex spends way more time getting himself into dangerous situations than most diviners, so he’s gotten really good at short-term precognition.

4. Again, this really isn’t my speciality. Sorry.

From: Kevin

So I wanted to break my questions off and to wanted offer a theory on Richard and his potential magic type. Now this question has been asked so many times and all we can do is speculate, but have you ever thought that Richard using that strange universal magic for lack of a better term, is also shielding others from detecting his magic by way of deflection? He also seems to want people to think he is a mind or enchanter mage, but what if the source of his power grants him other abilities we have not seen such as enhanced mental abilities that go with manipulation as some mind mages can do. He is already physically enhanced so why wouldn’t he enhance his mind as well. As for his true magic type I think he is a diviner but unlike the others he is only good at path walking and not short or long term predictions. He seemed quite surprised when Alex rejected his offer in Hidden, along with Rachel attacking Alex, Onyx’s presence during the break in at the Vault and Alex striking him in Bound and I don’t think he predicted Alex helping Anne get away from the jinn in Marked. Perhaps a side effect of that power he has gained is that only certain types of divinations can be granted towards him, power does have a price as Arachne points out. Plus free will can be hard to sort out in general
as people can make split decisions and it seems to be harder for long term diviners judging by what we have seen thus far. Plus awhile ago someone pointed out that Alex being confined in the mansion was a great way to hone his combat divination perhaps he wanted a resourceful diviner who could do the types of short term divination that he could not? This is just speculation but every mystery is solved little by little and this seems to be viable what do you think?

Sure, I guess. I have a bit of trouble figuring out how to answer all these ‘I think Richard’s magic type is X’ questions. I mean, yes, it could make sense. But we’ve spent a long time talking and thinking about it and we’ve basically all decided that the answer comes down to ‘don’t know enough, have to wait and see’.

From: Grey

How big is the Light Council in Britain? And how does it compare to the other Light Councils based in other countries? Thanks.

Depends. If you mean “how many mages sit on the Junior and Senior Council” then it’s thirteen. If you mean “how many mages are involved in the Light Council in some position of power or other” then it’s hundreds, maybe as many as a thousand. If you mean “how many people does the Council employ or can call on” then it’s easily ten times that number, since the Council has way, way more sensitives and adepts than it has mages.

Councils in other countries are pretty similar, and their sizes are more or less proportional to the size of the country as I understand it.

This entry was posted in Ask Luna. Bookmark the permalink.

3 Responses to Ask Luna #116

  1. Serack says:

    @Richard Lee
    You’ve got me thinking. Alex is generally only a threat to the safety of an individual if they are actively a threat to him. So many of his problems with light mages is in their not understanding that his extreme skill in permanently neutralizing enemies doesn’t make him a threat to their order since he is by nature of his magic also supremely adept at assessing threats to him.

    Richard Drakh /gets/ this on a level that is so empathetic that that alone is a pretty strong indication of where his own talents lie.

  2. Vinita says:

    Everybody is assuming that Richard Drakh is a diviner based on Alex theory. But in my opinion he is Chance Mage. His pragmatic nature stems from his habit of twisting events to his benefits. He never take unnecessary risk. He appears to present options but deck the odds to his liking with his Chance Magic(in other words he limits the odds of his opponents to his liking). He intentionally had his magic type hidden may be because anonymity is his greatest advantage, undetectable while manipulating people in general. More I think of it, more evidence support my theory. Luna’s teacher Chalies use here magic, Alex couldn’t detect any magic in working. Also here temperament matches that of Richard’s.

  3. Kurt Von Bosse says:

    Hello Luna!

    I was thinking about Richard Drakh and Mage Morden and what an odd couple they make. From the way Alex has talked about Dark cabals it seems that for the cabal to work well, someone has to be the boss. There must be one Dark mage that everyone else takes orders from and is afraid to cross otherwise chaos would ensue. Each Dark mage would scramble to assert themself as the leader or would attempt to doublecross their fellow cabal members and not much could be accomplished and not for very long. Even Dark cabals that have strong leadership can still have problems as we saw when Onyx disobeyed orders and openly joined the raid on the Light Council’s vault which resulted in Morden’s fall from power on the Light Council.

    Everytime Alex has seen Mage Morden working with other Dark mages or been forced to work with him, Morden has been the unchallenged leader of those Dark mages. Morden is gregarious or pretends to be. He is seen at social gatherings and is often a center of attention.

    Richard Drakh rarely openly works with other Dark mages. It was an unusual occasion when he showed up at the Tiger’s Palace with an entourage and they were there for their firepower and not their social skills. When he helped raid the Council’s security vault in disguise, even his fellow Dark mages didn’t know he was Archon. He no longer uses human servants at his mansion. He wasn’t known for taking apprentices before taking on Alex, Tobruk, Rachel and Shireen.

    It seems to me that Morden and Drakh have worked well together because they haven’t had to physically work together. Each of them has acted as the boss of their own domain. I wonder that now that Morden is no longer a member of the Light Council if that working relationship will continue to run as smoothly as before. Between the two of them I think of Richard Drakh as being the leader, but I’ve never seen Morden defer to anyone else before.

    Finally, there is a wildcard in Vihaela. She has a habit of double crossing her bosses and taking their places of authority. She’s probably not as strong as Drakh or Morden, though we have no way to measure that. My guess is both of Drakh and Morden think they can control Vihaela or deal with her more forcefully if the need arose. Then again, I bet her former employers thought exactly the same thing.

    I’m wondering if Alex has said anything about Mages Drakh and Morden and if he thought their working relationship was unusual or out of the ordinary?

Comments are closed.