From: greg@pomona.claremont.edu (Tigger)
Subject: Re: Dryad progeny
Organization: Pomona College
Date: 18 Aug 92 16:38:31 PDT

In article <1992Aug18.144817.3219@kth.se>, tomas_e@LINK.Physchem.KTH.SE (Tomas Eriksson) writes:
> In article <yc0nb0k1@csv.warwick.ac.uk>, esrby@warwick.ac.uk (E.Bright) writes:
>>
>>1. All Dryads are women.
> 
> Yes, as far as we've seen in the books.

In chapter 21 of _Queen of Sorcery_, Garion asks Polgara, "Where are
the boy Dryads.  All I see are girls."  To which she replies, "There
aren't any boy Dryads, dear."

Polgara seems to be familar enough with the Dryads that I think we
can take her statement as authoritative.

>>therefore all Dryad children are half-Dryad.
> 
> No, not necessarily.

Definately not, as shown by the case of Ce'Nedra.

>>Q1. Do the above two points indicate an increasing dilution of 'true' Dryad
>>blood ? We are told C'nedra was 'half Dryad' and it was implied that she
>>was therefore 'less Dryad' than the ones still living in the woods.
> 
> Without assuming an incident out of the ordinary, this is an 
> inconsistency in the books.

Where is is stated or implied that Ce'Nedra is only half Dryad or in
any way less than the others?  There are many examples in The Belgariad
that say exactly the opposite.  Perhaps the most clear is in chapter
nineteen of _Queen of Sorcery_, in which we have the following exchange:

   "I'm a Dryad," Ce'Nedra said rather proudly.
   Garion stared at her.
   "Technically she's right," Wolf said.  "The Dryad line seems
   to breed true on the female side of the house of Borune."

The way Belgarath phrases his statement, it might imply that this is
unusual for Dryads.  However, if we take it as a simple statement of
fact with no implications beyond itself, it could also be used to
show that it is quite possible that all female children of Dryads
are true Dryads, house of Borune or not.

>>Assumption: Female children born to Dryads are in fact fully Dryad <leaving
>>out the genetic implications of this>

It's been quite a while since I've taken genetics, but in any event
who says that it works the same way in that world as it does in ours?
Eddings obviously did not think of things on this detailed of a level,
he simply made the statement that all female (Borune, at least) children
of Dryads are Dryads.  Whether it is genetics or magic is irrelevant.

Incidently, for a real nice treatment of the genetics of a different
"race" which can interbreed with humans, check out one of the appendices
to either the first or third book (I don't remember which) of the first
Deryni trilogy by Katherine Kurtz.  'Deryiness' turns out to be a factor
on the gender chromosomes, as I recall, and it works in such a way that
having a "double-prime" configuration is no better than a "single-prime",
except that the children of a "double-prime" Deryni are guaranteed to
be Deryni because they will inherit a prime from that parent no matter
what.

This probably can't quite explain Dryads, with their connections to
their personal trees, but Belgarath does say "The Dryads are so
closely related to humans that the differences are hardly significant."

> This is how I remember it, yes. This would mean that Ce'Nedra should 
> have been a full dryad, which she apparently is not.

Again, where does it say that she is not?  Perhaps somewhere in The
Malloreon, which I don't know nearly as well as I do The Belgariad.
But even The Malloreon supports Ce'Nedra's true Dryad status indirectly
at least, due to the complicated series of things that had to be done
in order for her to conceive.

--
|  Greg Orman                         greg@pomona.claremont.edu  |
|     A man's best friends:  a Harley, a Beretta and a Gund.     |