Trull, on 26 May 2013 - 02:58 AM, said:
sorrysort, on 25 May 2013 - 07:19 PM, said:
Caladan Brood is in no way a servant, even in GotM.
He isn't a servant in so far as he does everything that anomander wants without question. He does serve Anomander nonetheless, taking control of part of his army and working towards Anomander's military goals at that point (unless I'm mistaken; I don;t recall Brood having alternate goals at that point, aside from helping a bud). He serves, but is not subservient.
Two points on this...
1) Brood and Rake were allies. Neither one of them commanded the other, and, in Brood's one and only 'on screen' moment in GotM, Brod actually sends the Crimson Guard to prevent Rake from acquiring Oponn's Coin, knowing full well that will put the Guard in opposition to the Andii, which happens more than once.
2) There's a massive difference between 'serve' in the military sense of taking commands from someone else, and serve as in servant. I'm fairly sure the original point was raising the former, not the latter, and hence my response that dragons willingly allied themselves with the Jaghut in the War on Death. We don't know whether they took commands, but there they were.
The question then follows... does a Knight of Death willingly 'just' take commands from Hood, or serve him?
And the answer is 'it depends', because while the Baudin seems to clearly serve, the Second seems to push the bounds, and Dassem bailed on Hood entirely.
Karsa is another example... invested as Knight and Champion, he still did what he wanted and at one point even 'kills' one of the Rockfaces who aspected him.
Another good example is Featherwitch, who essentially forces the Errant to aspect her, and is killed by him in turn. Who exactly served the other, if at all, is anything but clear.
Hence, if Arathan is Dassem, and i stand by my point that he isn't, it's entirely open to him deciding to serve as hood's Knight for his own reasons, and then change his mind.