Headscratchers / The Warded Man

• The whole plot revolves around the idea that man has lost the offensive runes, but in the second and third books, it seems that the Krasians still know some. Why couldn't the same runes that the dama'ting use to throw lightning or fire from demonbone be added to the wards on Krasian shields? If a warrior's shield shot fire or lightning at every demon that tried to hit it in addition to repelling it, alagai'sharak would have been far easier and far more demons would have died.
  • Because humans are fickle and greedy just as often as they are noble and self-sacrificing. The dama'ting retain their knowledge of their magics to maintain their personal power over the others in their culture. Just as the Herb-Gatherers maintain the 'secrets of fire' of science, though that's also because of simple historical archiving and preventing the duchies from waging a terrible war on itself whilst the demons remain a threat.
    • Also all times dama'tings have shown the offensive runes the runes have been carved into demonbones, maybe its needed.
    • The troper above is right, although wards need not necessarily be carved into demon bones, the hora (a.k.a. demon bones) simply need to be close enough to power the wards. Without the offensive wards it is really hard to kill a demon without showing it to the sun, therefore there is a dire lack of bones to power the wards. Plus, bones are destroyed each time the magic is used by dama'ting, so there's that, too.
• Why didn't Arlen ever repeat his One-Arm experiment? He could have tattooed a miniature Circle of Warding onto his palm, then point his fist towards the opponent and open up his fingers to incinerate said opponent. As we see from the One-Arm Situation, being caught in the Circle completely obliterates the part that was in the circle.
  • The narration mentions Arlen staring at the arm on the ground, so it didn't obliterate the part inside the circle, it just severed it. There's no reason to think that a tattooed circle would be able to be used as a blaster like that. As for repeating the exact circumstances of the experiment, it would involve intentionally taking down your circle and leaving yourself exposed—one second off on the timing and all you've done is trapped yourself in with a demon.
  • Maiming One-Arm nearly got him killed the first time. For all that people talk about Arlen having a Night Wish, he's not stupid.
• When do the Sharum sleep? They spend all night fighting demons in the maze and all day escorting Dama around and harassing Khafit.
  • This troper is pretty sure that it was clearly stated (though it's hard to remember in which book) that the Sharum sleep in the mornings after the nights' battles. Assuming the battle usually ends during the sunrise. sleeping till noon would give them a hefty amount of sleep.
  • Tangential to your point, the Sharum escorting dama around aren't the same ones who are generally fighting at night. It's mentioned that dama with enough influence are able to get their personal Sharum guards released from their typical sharak duties, so that they only need to fight on the nights of Waning. This is one of the reasons Inevera's brother is so eager to become a dama's personal guard (aside from, you know, wanting to get in his bido).
• How did Colinne Trigg, herb gatherer for Tibbet's Brook, not know that a common weed like hog root could cure demon fever? In a world like this that kind of information should be common knowledge.
  • That bothered this troper a little bit too, and it's important to realize that outside Tibbet's Brook, it is. But this is a post-apocalyptic, medieval level society. And Tibbet's Brook is a small, secluded village, even without nightly coreling attacks. It's irrelevant to the point that their own duke outright says he doesn't give a crap about them. Only a handful of people in that area can even read, they didn't know about currency until Hog introduced them to it, think gold is worthless and don't realize how valuable the rest of the world thinks it is, and they don't know about how the Church claims corelings are the Creator's Plague. Education is not their strong suit.
• Selia the Barren is Speaker of Tibbet's Brook. It may have been mentioned in book one, but I'm reading book 2 at the moment. Earlier in the same book, the Duke mum was - or at least pretended to be, since she made it clear she's the real ruler of that city and her sons are puppet kings/dukes - shocked by the idea of a female speaker.
  • Tibbet's brook is an isolated hamlet in a foreign duchy.