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DerynifanK

March 17, 2024, 03:48:44 PM
Happy St Patrick's Day. Enjoy the one day of the year when the whole world is Irish.

Jehana question

Started by btuey, February 04, 2017, 06:13:50 PM

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btuey

First of all, I apologize in advance if this has been asked before. Having been re-reading the series and the Codex it startles me as odd that Jehana would not have known of her Deryni heritage with her father being a well-known Deryni as were his male-relatives before him. Coupled with that, we have Jehana's relationship to Lewys ap Norfal, another well-known Deryni mage. Any thoughts as to how she was kept in the dark? Especially considering Deryni as a race did not undergo the persecutions in the south that were common in the northern kingdoms. 

revanne

In TKD we are given a glimpse of the austere nuns who were responsible for Jehana's education, most likely from a very young age. She probably did not have much in the way of close contact with her parents as a young child to counteract this indoctrination, and they would have been happy that her moral purity was being ensured, maybe accepting the anti-Deryni slant as unfortunate but not overly important. Especially if her father already had an eye on Brion as a lightly suitor.

I wonder too whether it is not so much the case that Jehana did not know but that she was in denial. Her reaction to any hint of Deryni influence is extreme even at the beginning of her marriage to Brion, although I also wonder whether just plain old jealousy of Brion and Morgan's friendship was at the root of much of her hatred and found a good justification in a "godly" fear of Deryni.
God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
(Psalm 46 v1)

drakensis

I don't recall any mention of Jehana's father King Meyric being Deryni although it's not impossible that he was although it's not implausible that it was a maternal inheritance: Meyric had inherited the throne from his brother and they were sons to the (at least) third son of King Joscerand, with two of their uncles reigning but lacking living direct heirs, so Meyric and/or his father could have married Deryni without it being such a huge scandal.

She's mentioned as a 'great grand niece' of Lewys ap Norfal which is a fairly distant relationship as such things go. Lewys was from Joux, as I recall but I'm not sure that the exact kinship has ever been laid out.

lenni

#3
Quote from: drakensis on February 05, 2017, 03:44:49 AM
She's mentioned as a 'great grand niece' of Lewys ap Norfal which is a fairly distant relationship as such things go. Lewys was from Joux, as I recall but I'm not sure that the exact kinship has ever been laid out.

https://tinyurl.com/zpk6a9v

Regnier I Buyenne-Furstan -- Jolanthe d'Alberic
+ Lewis ap Norfal (not his birth name!)
+ Countess Murielle du Joux -- Tiraquell Sieur de Jordanet
    + Lady Jordana -- Isarn I Prince of Logreine
      + Princess Rosaura -- King Meyric II of Bremagne
        + Jehana


The individuals on the Web site above often have sources and quotes.

Lenni


drakensis

Thanks.

Oh, and a Furstan. They really are to blame for everything, aren't they?

Elkhound

Quote from: drakensis on February 25, 2017, 01:42:29 AM
Thanks.

Oh, and a Furstan. They really are to blame for everything, aren't they?

Quite a nest of snakes, the whole family. 

drakensis

To be fair, I suppose that they're also responsible for long ago Deryni blood in the Haldane family, and Alaric Morgan's Deryni bloodline is originally derived from the Furstans as well. Royal and noble bloodlines being what they were...

DesertRose

Liam and Matyas were pretty decent fellows.  :)
"If having a soul means being able to feel love, loyalty, and gratitude, then animals are better off than a lot of humans."

James Herriot (James Alfred "Alfie" Wight), when a human client asked him if animals have souls.  (I don't remember in which book the story originally appeared.)

Raksha the Demon

Quote from: drakensis on February 05, 2017, 03:44:49 AM
I don't recall any mention of Jehana's father King Meyric being Deryni although it's not impossible that he was although it's not implausible that it was a maternal inheritance: Meyric had inherited the throne from his brother and they were sons to the (at least) third son of King Joscerand, with two of their uncles reigning but lacking living direct heirs, so Meyric and/or his father could have married Deryni without it being such a huge scandal.

She's mentioned as a 'great grand niece' of Lewys ap Norfal which is a fairly distant relationship as such things go. Lewys was from Joux, as I recall but I'm not sure that the exact kinship has ever been laid out.

In King Kelson's Bride, Jehana gives Kelson some rosary beads with a small medallion attached; and tells him that it had been a gift from her mother for her first communion.  Kelson notes that the figure on the medallion has Deryni mystical connotations and he gets a sense of freshness, of spring, from handling it.  Kelson wonders what Mom would think if she realized it had Deryni origins.  In The King's Deryni, it's mentioned that Jehana's mother had died 'some years before' (before Brion's visit to Bremagne and courtship of Jehana, at which time she is around 14).

I think it's fairly obvious that Jehana's late mother was Deryni; but the gift she gave her young daughter makes me wonder if the late Princess knew it, and was in some way constrained from telling her daughter.

If one rereads the scenes of young Alaric and Brion's time at the Bremagni court; there's no indication that the king or the courtiers give a darn about Alaric being Deryni.  He's allowed to flirt, fondle, and apparently have sex with various young ladies of gentle to noble birth.  No one so much as raises an eyebrow that the boy who Jehana will soon shun as evil-Deryni is having innocent fun (playing with hound-puppies) with her two younger sisters in a friendly atmosphere.  Wouldn't the younger princesses of Bremagne also been subject to being sent off to the Anti-Deryni Convent and Finishing School or whatever?  Yet Alaric, who, unless King Meyric is an idiot with no news of the outside world, has to be known to be Brion's pet Deryni, is allowed to frolic with the second and third highest-ranked maidens in Bremagne?

The court of Bremagne seems to be indifferent to the notion of Deryni being creatures of sin due to their birth alone.  Yet Jehana is a rabid adherent of that notion, and is flanked/guarded by nuns who might well be the ones who taught it to her.  The Codex says that she was educated at a convent whose Abbess was a known "Deryni-hater".

So I wonder why the young Jehana's education was entrusted to a woman known to hate Deryni. Was there any correlation to her mother's death?  Jehana states (I believe in King Kelson's Bride) that she was terrified, as a young child, of some Torenthi visitors to her father's court, due to their potential for evil magic - I wonder if something happened to spark that fear, or if someone told her to fear them.

Jehana's early life had some interesting contradictions, didn't it?   

lenni

Drakensis,

Quote from: drakensis on February 05, 2017, 03:44:49 AM
I don't recall any mention of Jehana's father King Meyric being Deryni although it's not impossible that he was although it's not implausible that it was a maternal inheritance: Meyric had inherited the throne from his brother and they were sons to the (at least) third son of King Joscerand, with two of their uncles reigning but lacking living direct heirs, so Meyric and/or his father could have married Deryni without it being such a huge scandal.
Deryni Rising mentions that Jehana is a full Deryni meaning that her father, King Meyric, was Deryni as well. ["Suddenly, all the unleashed power of a full Deryni lashed out at the Shadowed One, guided only by the despair of a mother who must try to save her only child, whatever the personal consequence."]

There are Buyenne-Furstáns on Jehana's mother's side of the family (and that includes Lewys ap Norfal) and Furstáns way back on Jehana's father's side of the family. And that's only what we know of! :-)

Lenni
http://elevenkingdoms.com/getperson.php?personID=I3&tree=elevenkingdoms
or
http://elevenkingdoms.com/ss5/p1.htm#i3

Raksha the Demon

Quote from: lenni on March 27, 2018, 06:17:40 PM
Drakensis,

Quote from: drakensis on February 05, 2017, 03:44:49 AM
I don't recall any mention of Jehana's father King Meyric being Deryni although it's not impossible that he was although it's not implausible that it was a maternal inheritance: Meyric had inherited the throne from his brother and they were sons to the (at least) third son of King Joscerand, with two of their uncles reigning but lacking living direct heirs, so Meyric and/or his father could have married Deryni without it being such a huge scandal.
Deryni Rising mentions that Jehana is a full Deryni meaning that her father, King Meyric, was Deryni as well. ["Suddenly, all the unleashed power of a full Deryni lashed out at the Shadowed One, guided only by the despair of a mother who must try to save her only child, whatever the personal consequence."]

There are Buyenne-Furstáns on Jehana's mother's side of the family (and that includes Lewys ap Norfal) and Furstáns way back on Jehana's father's side of the family. And that's only what we know of! :-)

Lenni
http://elevenkingdoms.com/getperson.php?personID=I3&tree=elevenkingdoms
or
http://elevenkingdoms.com/ss5/p1.htm#i3


If the description of Jehana as a "full Deryni" truly means that both of her parents were Deryni, then I think someone must have forgotten to tell them.  Would a self-aware Deryni king allow his oldest daughter to be taught to hate their own kind, or teach her that kind of hate himself?  In The King's Justice (Chapter Two), we find this very telling quote:
Taught from childhood by family and Church that Deryni were evil, she had not yet reconciled the religious and moral dilemmas raised by the discovery that she, too, was of the race she had long believed accursed...early indoctrination continued to warn a still-childlike Jehana that she had sinned.

Perhaps KK forgot that she had mentioned in Deryni Rising that Jehana was a full Deryni, or changed her mind, by the time that she wrote the Codex and The King's Justice and, later, The King's Deryni?

DesertRose

Quote from: Raksha the Demon on March 27, 2018, 07:47:46 PM
Quote from: lenni on March 27, 2018, 06:17:40 PM
Drakensis,

Quote from: drakensis on February 05, 2017, 03:44:49 AM
I don't recall any mention of Jehana's father King Meyric being Deryni although it's not impossible that he was although it's not implausible that it was a maternal inheritance: Meyric had inherited the throne from his brother and they were sons to the (at least) third son of King Joscerand, with two of their uncles reigning but lacking living direct heirs, so Meyric and/or his father could have married Deryni without it being such a huge scandal.
Deryni Rising mentions that Jehana is a full Deryni meaning that her father, King Meyric, was Deryni as well. ["Suddenly, all the unleashed power of a full Deryni lashed out at the Shadowed One, guided only by the despair of a mother who must try to save her only child, whatever the personal consequence."]

There are Buyenne-Furstáns on Jehana's mother's side of the family (and that includes Lewys ap Norfal) and Furstáns way back on Jehana's father's side of the family. And that's only what we know of! :-)

Lenni
http://elevenkingdoms.com/getperson.php?personID=I3&tree=elevenkingdoms
or
http://elevenkingdoms.com/ss5/p1.htm#i3


If the description of Jehana as a "full Deryni" truly means that both of her parents were Deryni, then I think someone must have forgotten to tell them.  Would a self-aware Deryni king allow his oldest daughter to be taught to hate their own kind, or teach her that kind of hate himself?  In The King's Justice (Chapter Two), we find this very telling quote:
Taught from childhood by family and Church that Deryni were evil, she had not yet reconciled the religious and moral dilemmas raised by the discovery that she, too, was of the race she had long believed accursed...early indoctrination continued to warn a still-childlike Jehana that she had sinned.

Perhaps KK forgot that she had mentioned in Deryni Rising that Jehana was a full Deryni, or changed her mind, by the time that she wrote the Codex and The King's Justice and, later, The King's Deryni?

As with a number of authors, I think KK was finding her footing with the original Deryni trilogy, because she has abandoned certain concepts and changed others quite significantly in the books written since.  (Anyone seen a Stenrect crawler lately?  ;) )

It does wreak havoc with internal consistency, though.
"If having a soul means being able to feel love, loyalty, and gratitude, then animals are better off than a lot of humans."

James Herriot (James Alfred "Alfie" Wight), when a human client asked him if animals have souls.  (I don't remember in which book the story originally appeared.)