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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.

Warren de Grey

Started by HealingWaters, June 18, 2015, 10:43:53 AM

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HealingWaters

Where do his powers stem from?

DesertRose

I don't think it's ever made clear.  He's really kind of a loose thread in the story, because he never reappears after he gets his faith shaken by seeing that Alaric Morgan can heal.
"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.)

HealingWaters

Agreed, but just as Duncan and Morgan wonder so do I, and I have a theory on it but not sure how much water it would hold

Aerlys

Go ahead and share it. We won't bite, and it should make for a lively discussion. Welcome aboard, BTW!
"Loss and possession, death and life are one, There falls no shadow where there shines no sun."

Hilaire Belloc

Elkhound

My theory is that he was Deryni.  Morgan & Duncan said that he wasn't but they were only half-Deryni and not all that well-trained, and they may have been mistaken.

Jerusha

I wonder if perhaps de Grey was descended from a Deryni family whose powers were blocked by the Baptizer cult.  Perhaps his healing talent was strong enough to break through the block while the rest of the abilities did not.  Morgan and Duncan would not be able to penetrate the block, and would have known nothing about the existence of the technique or how to reverse it.
From ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggity beasties and things that go bump in the night...good Lord deliver us!

 -- Old English Litany

Laurna

#6
I have a genetic theory on second sight, non-Deryni magic, Haldane potential, and being Deryni.

Being Deryni means the person has a gene that turns "On" their ability to use magic. You either have that gene or you do not. This gene is dominant and it must be inheritable from a parent. It will never be hidden, If you have only one copy of the gene from a single parent than you are Deryni. This gene, however, does not define the strengths of the magic abilities that a person may have. There are likely a number of genes that sequence together to give a person their magical strength. Some families are known to be stronger than others. These sequence of magical genes can pass down the gene pool even if the Deryni "On" gene does not pass down. Perhaps there can be other circumstances that can activate these magical genes and give non-Deryni the abilities of second sight and the abilities like those of Warren de Grey.

There is a second consideration for Warren's abilities. The Haldane potential is carried on the male chromosome. Essentially every single male progeny will inherit that potential.  Kings are known to have natural children and some of those male children may never know who their father was and go off to  have male children of their own. It is thought that one must be anointed King to turn that potential "On", but we know now it just takes Deryni ritual to turn that potential "On".  What if Warren was a natural descendant of a Haldane and what if something ritualistic happened in his young life?

It would be interesting to read more on the outcomes of blocked Deryni. I do not know if Deryni who are "Blocked" will thereafter have children who are "Blocked". I personally tend to think, No, that their children will be unblocked Deryni. Women's eggs are formed in the female fetus before her birth. It would seem impossible to me that the genetic code of those eggs can be changed if she becomes "blocked" as an adult. Her children will still carry the Deryni gene. It would take someone to block each generation as they were born.   Is there any discussion on this one way or another?
May your horses have wings and fly!

Evie

Quote from: Laurna on June 18, 2015, 12:33:15 PM
It would be interesting to read more on the outcomes of blocked Deryni. I do not know if Deryni who are "Blocked" will thereafter have children who are "Blocked". I personally tend to think, No, that their children will be unblocked Deryni. Women's eggs are formed in the female fetus before her birth. It would seem impossible to me that the genetic code of those eggs can be changed if she becomes "blocked" as an adult. Her children will still carry the Deryni gene. It would take someone to block each generation as they were born.   Is there any discussion on this one way or another?

Yes, if I remember correctly from Deryni Magic, the children of blocked Deryni do not have blocked powers. However, being unaware that they are Deryni with any potential powers at all, and living in a culture that actively discourages any attempt to dabble with "forbidden Deryni powers," these Deryni children would grow up believing they are regular humans and their powers would remain latent.

However, such a Deryni ought to have been easy enough for Morgan and Duncan to detect, which leads me to surmise that either Warin's gifts were from some other, less well understood, genetic trait (perhaps similar to that which makes second sight more prevalent in Border areas), or he could have been a genuine faith healer whose gifts were divinely granted, although their purpose ended up being misunderstood and misused against the Deryni. Even if one doesn't believe in the existence of true miracles in the real world, KK's mileage on the subject may vary, and there are several times in the series where she seems to make the circumstances deliberately ambiguous enough to allow for genuine miracles without a naturalistic explanation to happen in the world of the Deryni.
"In necessariis unitas, in non-necessariis libertas, in utrisque caritas."

--WARNING!!!--
I have a vocabulary in excess of 75,000 words, and I'm not afraid to use it!

Shiral

KK may have sent Warin to the fictional hinterlands intentionally,  in the hopes fans would forget about him. It may be she couldn't come up with a logical origin for his powers, either.  Or she just had issues she preferred to explore in the books.  ;)

Melissa
You can have a sound mind in a healthy body--Or you can be a nanonovelist!

Laurna

#9
As an aside to the genetics of magic abilities, I want to say that the Camberian Council is not completely wrong in their thinking that half- Deryni may not be able to have as much magical abilities as full Deryni. If a human parent has no magical genes to pass on to their child's genome, then the genes for magic must come solely from the Deryni side. The Deryni must be homozygous in all magical genes for them to pass all their abilities down to their half Deryni children. Over time those magical genes could become diluted, lessening the strength of the part-Deryni child's ability to do magic, even if they carry the Deryni "On" gene.

What the CC did not count on was that the human half of Alaric and Duncan already carried strong magic genes from their ancestry to Camber and to the Healer Rhys. Adding the Deryni "On" gene, and the strong magic genes found in the Cynfyn family and Corwyn family lines likely made both of them homozygous in nearly all their magical genes and abilities. Thus, once they had a little training, they become strong Deryni not to be taken lightly.
May your horses have wings and fly!

Evie

OK, now that you've more or less got the genealogical charts sorted, I say a full length essay on Deryni and Deryni-similar humans ought to come next, Laurna. KK does mention that some humans are able to learn at least certain forms of magic as well, so it would be nice to see how that explanation fits in. (I think she mentions that in Alaric's discussion with Duncan about Derry's ability to learn certain skills, despite not belonging to one of the lines, like the Haldane line, that are known to have the potential to assume Deryni-like powers. I find the discussion interesting because it implies that a) at least some humans are able to learn some types of magic, and b) there are other families we haven't yet heard about with Haldane-like abilities to assume powers. Lots of room for exploration of the hows and whys there!)  ;D
"In necessariis unitas, in non-necessariis libertas, in utrisque caritas."

--WARNING!!!--
I have a vocabulary in excess of 75,000 words, and I'm not afraid to use it!

HealingWaters

My theory is that he is descended from some of the deryni that got "turned off/blocked" from the Willimite camp

Elkhound

Quote from: Evie on June 18, 2015, 01:16:11 PM
Quote from: Laurna on June 18, 2015, 12:33:15 PM
It would be interesting to read more on the outcomes of blocked Deryni. I do not know if Deryni who are "Blocked" will thereafter have children who are "Blocked". I personally tend to think, No, that their children will be unblocked Deryni. Women's eggs are formed in the female fetus before her birth. It would seem impossible to me that the genetic code of those eggs can be changed if she becomes "blocked" as an adult. Her children will still carry the Deryni gene. It would take someone to block each generation as they were born.   Is there any discussion on this one way or another?

Yes, if I remember correctly from Deryni Magic, the children of blocked Deryni do not have blocked powers. However, being unaware that they are Deryni with any potential powers at all, and living in a culture that actively discourages any attempt to dabble with "forbidden Deryni powers," these Deryni children would grow up believing they are regular humans and their powers would remain latent.

Even unintentional truthreading could simply be attributed to a knack for being able to see through deception, which some people without a drop of Deryni blood have.

I also like the idea of an unknown Haldane bastard somewhere in the deGray background.

HealingWaters

I forget if it was Jiri or Jamyl that found that even Kenneth had shields, albet not strong but still there

Evie

Yes. It's also been established elsewhere in canon, IIRC, that other humans who spend a lot of time in the company of Deryni can begin to form rudimentary shields as a result of such exposure, so I think Kenneth's shields are an example of such shields forming from his exposure to Alyce (and possibly other Deryni at Court as well, or his exposure to Donal Haldane, but I would think in his case they would primarily be due to his proximity to Alyce).
"In necessariis unitas, in non-necessariis libertas, in utrisque caritas."

--WARNING!!!--
I have a vocabulary in excess of 75,000 words, and I'm not afraid to use it!