Random questions about Liveships (spoilers Farseer, LST and TM)

[Farseer]

I thought the same 'thul..all to do with spoiling the wizardwood hull. Now, I'm not so sure, though that could still be a small part of it, maybe?

Possibly. I have to admit that I hadn't even considered the wizardwood issue as I'd just thought it was a 'sailor thing', though I didn't know *what* thing (being a soft landlubber as I am ). It could likely have been a bit of both? It's true that Brashen was not initially overly happy with Amber wanting to recarve Paragon's face and, as those beings known as 'thul have mentioned, Bingtowners and Rain Wilders *are* very protective of their 'cocoon wood', so...

Another little thing that came up in the Newsgroup within that same conversation was the subject of 'the sympathy bell' which Grag Tenira employed as a warning during The Mad Ship. Do any of you recall it? I am looking forward to taking a peak where it was mentioned but any LST reads I've done in the past, well, the fact that it was a sympathy bell just hadn't even been a blip on my radar. It's amazing how many details we capture but, just as incredible, is the number we pass over or don't even know enough about to consider it a 'detail'! OUr Tangle Leader packs so much into the tale...

I know that some of you have read Patrick Rothfuss where apparently sympathy is used as a magic item? I am speaking here of what I don't know, and merely paraphrasing a comment made by a Newsgroup member who has read him, so feel free to explain this spoiler-free, if possible!

With regards to this subject of sympathy/sympathy magic/the sympathy bell etc, this is what Robin had to say on the matter:

I think it came to me because at that time my daughter was learning to play harp. I often accompanied her to her lessons. One day her instructor pointed out that when she played a note, his harp's sound box was in sympathy making a sort of shadow sound.

But even that wasn't the first place I'd heard of that. The notion of 'sympathetic' magic is actually pretty old. The 'voodoo' doll in which a doll made with items from a person can transmit sympathetic pain to the target for example. Or the superstition that if you whistle on the deck of a ship, you can 'whistle up a storm' is a sort of like-makes-like magic. Ditto for putting a hatch cover upside down on the deck of a ship. It might make the whole ship turn over!

And 'sympathy' magic often works in our very real world. Some men get sympathetic labor pains when their wives are in labor!

I found it all extremely interesting , and thought you may all too!