The Sword and Laser discussion

Ok, I am a bit confused about Kivrin's actions at this point. I'm reaching chapter 11 now, so only click to help if you've reached that point.
Specifically:
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She is trying to communicate with the people from Middle-Ages, but her translator does not seem to be working properly. Yet, she keeps trying to ask specifically for them to take her back "to the drop". At the same time, she has clearly concerns about being considered a witch - pretty sensible, I'd say.
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Isn't there a paradoxal behavior? I am presuming that (view spoiler)[ her translator would try to convert "to the drop" to something the locals would understand - but it still seems too much trusting on a device which doesn't seem to be working properly right now.
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Can anyone help me understand that?

BTW - loving the book so far

Fevered delirium I think.

She's really sick at that point, so you can't really expect logical thinking.

Melani wrote: "She's really sick at that point, so you can't really expect logical thinking."
Yes, I think the delirium and sense of illness came across very well.

I think they oversold the danger of being burnt at the stake for witchcraft, but that's another issue altogether (The witch processes was a 16-17the century phenomenon, and as far as I know burning in this time was generally the ultimate punishment for unrepentant heresy, while witchcraft was if not accepted, then at least more tolerated than in later centuries)

And the English never punished witchcraft with burning at the stake. That was a continental thing. Willis isn't a great historical researcher.

Sean wrote: "And the English never punished witchcraft with burning at the stake. That was a continental thing. Willis isn't a great historical researcher."

Is it Willis who isn't a great historical researcher or Kivrin? Remember, the fear of being burned at the stake is ALL Kivrin's.

Yea, I wouldn't be so quick to lay this on the author. The whole rushed affair is rife of incomplete information, and the only person to worry (excessively) about the real danger involved is Dunworthy, who isn't even an expert on the time period. The stake burning is probably one of his fears, if it isn't stated directly.

I seem to remember a scene where a guy dug a grave in frozen ground with a wooden spade. There were numerous small things that made me think Willis had done minimal research.

That's possible. It's been about a year since I've read this one (and I have no plans to revisit it, it is not a comfortable book to read) so I don't really remember the little details. However, in general Willis is known for being a bit of an overresearcher if anything.

Melani wrote: "Is it Willis who isn't a great historical researcher or Kivrin? Remember, the fear of being burned at the stake is ALL Kivrin's."

It's Willis. Back when Blackout/All Clear came out, there were a ton of reviews from Brits pointing out factual errors, such as using anachronistic names for Tube stations, and even mentioning stations that weren't built until thirty years after the story takes place.. At one point a character finds the station he needs is out of service and walks miles to the next station even though his destination was only a fraction of the distance away.

Sean wrote: "Melani wrote: "Is it Willis who isn't a great historical researcher or Kivrin? Remember, the fear of being burned at the stake is ALL Kivrin's."

It's Willis. Back when Blackout/All Clear came out,..."

Well, clearly The Oxford Time Travel books have altered history somehow. :-D No cell phones. But maybe it turns out they have been altering history all along and don't know it. They could be wrong about the net not allowing paradox.

I'm tempted to put the blame for that particular bit on Dunworthy, since I believe he's the one who first mentions it. But yeah, Kivrin should have pointed out that people were never burned at the stake for witchcraft in England - they were hanged. At the very least, she should know this. That I will blame on Willis.

So I'm kind of confused also. Is the translator somehow embedded in Kivrin's head? Did they surgically altar her brain? Does it automatically infuse language directly into her audio cortex somehow? Or is there an external device I missed?

@ Bruce - it's like a tiny translator computer implanted near her ear, I believe. Like a Babelfish, but tech. It can send the sounds directly to her eardrums from inside her head. It's only meant to be a back-up, since she has already "studied" the language. It's just that what she learned was mostly wrong about accent and inflection and so on. Once she gets the hang of it, she doesn't need it's help except with a few unknown words.

She also has the recorder ('corder) implanted in her palm.

Well, it's very hand-wavy, but this isn't trying to be hard scifi or anything.

Michele wrote: "@ Bruce - it's like a tiny translator computer implanted near her ear, I believe. Like a Babelfish, but tech. It can send the sounds directly to her eardrums from inside her head. It's only meant t..."

Okay, thanks, now I get it. That's why she was pretending to pray when she was recording. I must have missed the explanation somewhere...

They actually say it's a chemical thing, not something mechanical. For a while, Kivrin thinks it must be broken, but then remembers that it can't be broken, because there's nothing to break.

Sean wrote: "They actually say it's a chemical thing, not something mechanical. For a while, Kivrin thinks it must be broken, but then remembers that it can't be broken, because there's nothing to break."

That would make sense for implanting in a human ear, a chemical machine.

I actually took the time to look this up. From chapter 10 (page 139 in the 1994 edition):

"It [the interpreter] can't be broken, she told herself. It's not a machine. It's a chemical syntax and memory enhancer. It can't be broken."

My take was that Dunworthy suffered from anxiety (which is apparent) and the way that he coped with that was to make sure that every single base was covered (view spoiler)[you saw that when he insisted that Badri recheck the fix for the net (hide spoiler)] so one of his ways of coping with this with Kivrin was to dump every single possible anxiety of his onto her. She clearly took some of this to heart which is why (view spoiler)[cutthroats figured so highly in her fears (hide spoiler)], for example.

Yeah, Dunworthy's constant fretting over every little thing was pretty damn annoying. It's kind of why I couldn't really take his side, despite all the crap Gilchrist was pulling. The only person in the early chapters I really felt any sympathy for was Kivrin.

As to Kivrin taking so much of it to heart, I put that down to (view spoiler)[her being sick and delirious shortly after going back, and thus not thinking straight. (hide spoiler)]