Vashtara
Breakfast All Year
In which Cho and Win Ton bid farewell to Theo.
When I finished reading this chapter, my eyes might have been a bit wet too.
Despite saying to Theo earlier that very few of her teachers on Delgado are likely to be pilots, Cho knows that there’s at least one, because Theo already knew some piloting lore when they met. She must have a good idea who it is, too; Theo’s told her outright that Professor Kiladi was the one who introduced her to the lacework, and probably has likewise mentioned that it was him who chose and proposed the Suwello lessons (and if she hasn’t, Cho’s the type to have been able to find it out anyway). But I think she’s refraining from being specific at least partly by way of nudging Theo herself to the realization of the role Jen Sar has played in her education.
I wonder if Cho knew it was Daav (alias Jen Sar) who taught Theo about lace making, etc. If memory serves, the name Kiladi was an invention, based in a bet between Clonak and Daav? Maybe Cho, being roughly their age peer, would have heard the story from Clonak.
For my thoughts on this subject, I refer you to my entry for Chapter 24.
Ah. I see it now. I admittedly haven’t been following each chapter entry, becoming too engrossed in the plot. I am only now thoroughly reading this book for the first time (I skimmed it years ago).
This time through the series, I keep getting hung up on this term piloting “lore.” Previous to the Liaden books, I had encountered the word lore only in its most conventional meaning: “a body of knowledge relating to a particular field of learning” or “a body of traditions,” i.e., what is sometimes called “head knowledge,” that is, “information,” not physical movement.
That’s how I understand “pilot lore” to be used in this series as well: a body of knowledge and traditions shared between pilots. The packing rule is pilot lore, and the proverb “the usual rules apply”, and the lesson that Win Ton describes in this chapter as the “bit of piloting lore which my captain required me to learn best on this part of our journey”.
Some of the information shared between pilots involves physical movement: how to speak with your hands, how to dance the moves of menfri’at – and I see, on skimming through, that where the word “lore” appears in this book it’s often in one of those contexts – but still it is the knowledge of the movements, how to do them and what they mean, that constitutes the body of lore, as I understand it.
True, but that’s beyond “tales” and “folklore,” which is what I would usually think of.