LMB Quote Game

[SPetty]

Voralfred is occasionally VERY good at convoluted.

Back to the quote:
Book ? Mirror Dance
First Speaker ? Cordelia (literally "The Countess" in the second spot)
XXX (article, adjective, noun)? A rational government
"him" ? Miles
YYY (article, noun, noun as in "coffee pot")? a space fleet
ZZZ ? Mark
and who else is present ? Count Aral Vorkosigan (who should be BBB CCC, not DDD EEE, but it's a minor point)

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

I was thinking along these lines:

In 'A Civil Campaign' :
The Komarran conspirators wouldn't allow him [Mark] possession of a pocket-knife, let alone a stun gun. And so, Mark, when you were finally forced to choose between two palpable evils and a lunatic [Miles] — you upped and ran after the lunatic.
"I think Mark does very well," objected the young woman [Kareen Koudelka].
"Agh." Miles's clone-brother buried his face in his hands, briefly. "Love, we are discussing...

The first part - which I coloured blue - should be in double quotes too because it's part of the conversation (I checked). Their lack in Voralfred's question- and hint-posts put me thoroughly on the wrong leg.
VORALFRED, YOU SCAMP, did you omit the quotes on purpose?

Anyway, congratulations to SPetty for her correct solution.

As for me, my headache's gone, so back to bed and, hopefully, to sleep ...

[voralfred]

Sorry about the missing double quotes.
Since the quote starts in the middle of Cordelia's line which was quite long and too explicit.

"I'm not sure you're ready for this, but here goes. You had exactly three role models to learn how to be a human being from. The Jacksonian body-slavers, the Komarran terrorists—and Miles. You were steeped in Miles. And I'm sorry, but Miles thinks he's a knight-errant. A rational government wouldn't allow him possession of a pocket-knife, let alone a space fleet. And so, Mark, when you were finally forced to choose between two palpable evils and a lunatic—you upped and ran after the lunatic."

So I could not have written them just there. I should maybe have written
"(...) XXX wouldn't BLA BLA BLA lunatic."
but you are right I should have put them at the end of Cordelia's speech in any case.

Anyway, Suzette got the right answer. One full sherlock and the next quote.

And EPS has one pair of same-name characters right.
Note that Dono/Dona's and recently-late-Count Pierre Vorrutyer's grandfather is not a character, since absolutely no discussion concerning him appears anywhere. But in the absence of storks (an replicators) on Barrayar at the time of the birth of Dono/Dona's and his/her brother, the grandfather certainly had to exist at some time. The time elapsed since Pierre Le Sanguinaire would just about allow him to be the latter's son with rather widely separated generations, or just about his great-grandson for rather "bunched up" generations, but then it would not be clear why the youngest Pierre would be called that name. Ockham's razor tells us this grandfather is Le Sanguinaire's grandson, about the age of his first cousin Count Piotr Pierre Vorkosigan, and thus is called Pierre Vorrutyer like both his grandfather and his grandson.
There are still at least two more same-name characters pairs, and one of them is also a pair of Vorrutyers, as I have previously mentioned.

[SPetty]

Eh, I recognized the quote once he expanded it to a choice between two palpable evils and a www. I remembered that as being distinctly Cordelia. It just took me a few to actually find my copy of the book, to figure out who the other person in the room was (Elena? Aral? Ivan?).

Anyway, next quote:

Xxx had never before been thrown out of any place with such exquisite politeness.

Book?
Who is thrown out?
Why?

[SPetty]

Anyway, next quote:

Xxx had never before been thrown out of any place with such exquisite politeness.

Book?
Who is thrown out?
Why?

Hint: It's in the Vorkosigan Saga, but not on Barrayar.

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

Xxx had never before been thrown out of any place with such exquisite politeness.

Book? Labyrinth
place? Fell station
Who is thrown out? Miles and Bel
Why? because Bel lost his temper

[SPetty]

Correct! Your sherlock and you have the next quote.

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

New question:
One particular tree played a minor part in XXX's life. Was it a Tuscan Oak, Ibran Pine, blighted Ash, Dendarii Maple or what?

What kind of tree was it?
XXX?
Could an other, even different tree have served just as well? Yes or no, and why?

[voralfred]

New question:
One particular tree played a minor part in XXX's life. Was it a Tuscan Oak, Ibran Pine, blighted Ash, Dendarii Maple or what?

What kind of tree was it?
XXX?
Could an other, even different tree have served just as well? Yes or no, and why?

In _Spirit Ring_, Master Beneforte's body is smoked (after his death, granted) in a smoke-house, I suppose with wood of some tree. I forgot which, or even if the origin of the wood is mentioned. Hickory? Would it have changed the power of his ghost if the wood had come from some other kind of tree?

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

...
In _Spirit Ring_, Master Beneforte's body is smoked (after his death, granted) in a smoke-house, I suppose with wood of some tree. ...

No, you're on the wrong track. Nobody gets smoked, smashed nor stoned ...

[voralfred]

New question:
One particular tree played a minor part in XXX's life. Was it a Tuscan Oak, Ibran Pine, blighted Ash, Dendarii Maple or what?

What kind of tree was it?
XXX?
Could an other, even different tree have served just as well? Yes or no, and why?

I did not seriously believe myself in my Master Beneforte answer...
Let me clarify your question:
In the first question you mean one particular tree, a tree situated at such and such place, of such and such size, age, and species.
Does the second question mean:
Would a tree of the same species but at a different place do (not on the other side of the earth, but say, several tens, or hundreds, of meters away) ?
or:
Did it have to be there, with a very precise position, but provided the general size and strength was comparable (if the point was to climb it, for instance) the species did not matter?
Or both :
Would any tree of comparable size, within a reasonable distance, do ?

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

...
Would any tree of comparable size, within a reasonable distance, do ?

Yes.

[SPetty]

Ooh, ooh! It's holly, the kind of tree that Harry's wand is made of! No? Wrong series? Ah.

I was thinking it was one particular tree that grew in a courtyard with another tree (being two trees, Xxx could actually be different depending on the tree). Or one particular tree that was the memory that muddied the deduction of the memory's owner's identity. Or the tree that a character climbed to futilely escape detection from her future husband. Lots of trees in these books, aren't there?

Since I can't play for three days, I might as well stir the pot, so to speak.

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

...
Since I can't play for three days, I might as well stir the pot, so to speak.

You must be sharing some genes with the Lady of Spring.
Even though you were stirring a pot of my manure, you elicited an enchanting perfume.

[voralfred]

Ooh, ooh! It's holly, the kind of tree that Harry's wand is made of! No? Wrong series? Ah.

I was thinking it was one particular tree that grew in a courtyard with another tree (being two trees, Xxx could actually be different depending on the tree). Or one particular tree that was the memory that muddied the deduction of the memory's owner's identity. Or the tree that a character climbed to futilely escape detection from her future husband. Lots of trees in these books, aren't there?

Since I can't play for three days, I might as well stir the pot, so to speak.

Well, I identified Suzette's two last suggestions (second is "maple tree" as a species in _Mirror Dance_ or rather, as a source of sugar, third in TSK1 when Fawn climbs a tree to try and hide from the Lakewalkers party). Not sure about the first one, but if I guessed right one of the two trees would play a major part for thousands (make it tens of thousands) of characters, by feeding all of them for days on a row...

I'll try my luck on yet a fourth idea:
In _EoA_, the oak tree in which Janos crashed Ethan's lightflyer. Any tall tree on Athos would probably have been just as historically important anyway, so the loss of Janos' social duty credits would have taken place irrespective on which particular tree he'd crashed.
The effect was not so major on Ethan since he'd have to go to Kline anyway, and have come back very different. Janos still there would have been more an embarrassment than anything else. The fact that Janos went renegade and fled in the wild certainly helped Ethan in his new life, but only in a minor way, by avoiding an unpleasant confrontation.
On Janos' life, the tree was a more major event, though I assume some other event, sooner or later, would have led him to renegade status anyway, considering his psychology. "Sooner or later" makes it a minor role.
So XXX is probably Ethan, but Janos in a candidate, too...

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

...
So XXX is probably Ethan, but Janos in a candidate, too...

No. The Athosians are more or less obsessed with their genealogical tree.

In my question I mean a physical, down in earth, living tree.

(I also exclude the May Tree here and the many pictures here.)

[voralfred]

...
So XXX is probably Ethan, but Janos in a candidate, too...

No. The Athosians are more or less obsessed with their genealogical tree.

In my question I mean a physical, down in earth, living tree.

(I also exclude the May Tree here and the many pictures here.)

That my answer is not what you have in mind, I can understand. But oak tree Janos hit is a real, living tree, planted in soil. Sure, it is on a different planet, either on local teraformed (by earth-born bacteia and such) or imported wholesale (improbable) and the oak could have been a sapling rather than an acorn, when imported. But it is clearly locally grown, over several decades or centuries. And therefore a valuable, historical, object. It qualifies as a "down in earth, living tree" provided on understand "earth" with a lower case letter, soil, ground, dirt, and not the planet Earth.

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

That my answer is not what you have in mind, I can understand. But oak tree Janos hit is a real, living tree, planted in soil. Sure, it is on a different planet, either on local teraformed (by earth-born bacteia and such) or imported wholesale (improbable) and the oak could have been a sapling rather than an acorn, when imported. But it is clearly locally grown, over several decades or centuries. And therefore a valuable, historical, object. It qualifies as a "down in earth, living tree" provided on understand "earth" with a lower case letter, soil, ground, dirt, and not the planet Earth.

Well, I didn't specify it concerned a main character.

As your reasoning has undeniable merit as a secondary solution, I declare two Sherlocks to be had.
You have won the secondary point. I so rule.

I'm sure that once past her restriction period, Spetty will tell her solution, which I suspect is the event I was thinking of. Of course this does not preclude you cutting her of for the primary Sherlock point.

In any case, you have also won the next quote/question, but I beg you not to present it before November 21st.

If the primary tree hasn't been identified by November 26, I'll give the solution.

[voralfred]

Well, I didn't specify it concerned a main character.

As your reasoning has undeniable merit as a secondary solution, I declare two Sherlocks to be had.
You have won the secondary point. I so rule.

I'm sure that once past her restriction period, Spetty will tell her solution, which I suspect is the event I was thinking of. Of course this does not preclude you cutting her of for the primary Sherlock point.

In any case, you have also won the next quote/question, but I beg you not to present it before November 21st.

If the primary tree hasn't been identified by November 26, I'll give the solution.

Well, why should I have the next quote? Apparently, you believe that Spetty really has found what you have in mind, which I did not. So thanks for the sherlock of the secondary quote, but if Suzette gives the right answer when her time is up (unless I see the light before that ,as "cut her off", as you wrote, before she had a chance to answer) in all justice she should get the next quote in addition to the primary

[SPetty]

By all means, take the next quote, voralfred. I'm going to be away from the internet all next week, so it's probably for the best.

The first one I alluded to is not in the same series as the other two that Voralfred discerned.

[voralfred]

Why don't you post right now? The ping-pong rule is not so powerful as to keep you from posting if you are to be offline for some time...
I jokingly pretended to believe you referred to the two trees that were in the park that Ekaterin was to rearrange as a Barrayaran garden, one of which was to be replanted somewhere else while the other one was to be fed to the butter bugs (tens of thousands of butter bugs, but these are hardly main characters), but in fact I have no idea of what your first idea was, while EPS clearly recognized it as the correct one. So just post it now and then the next quote and we can wait for your return to confirm if anyone guesses your newt one rapidly.

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

Why don't you [Spetty] post right now? ...
EPS clearly recognized it [your solution] as the correct one.

Okay with me.

Spetty's "the tree that a character climbed to futilely escape detection from her future husband" says it all without naming anybody/-thing.

I'll let you, Spetty, dot the i's and cross the t's.

[SPetty]

Well, I identified Suzette's two last suggestions (second is "maple tree" as a species in _Mirror Dance_ or rather, as a source of sugar, third in TSK1 when Fawn climbs a tree to try and hide from the Lakewalkers party). Not sure about the first one, but if I guessed right one of the two trees would play a major part for thousands (make it tens of thousands) of characters, by feeding all of them for days on a row...

I'll try my luck on yet a fourth idea:
In _EoA_, the oak tree in which Janos crashed Ethan's lightflyer. Any tall tree on Athos would probably have been just as historically important anyway, so the loss of Janos' social duty credits would have taken place irrespective on which particular tree he'd crashed.
The effect was not so major on Ethan since he'd have to go to Kline anyway, and have come back very different. Janos still there would have been more an embarrassment than anything else. The fact that Janos went renegade and fled in the wild certainly helped Ethan in his new life, but only in a minor way, by avoiding an unpleasant confrontation.
On Janos' life, the tree was a more major event, though I assume some other event, sooner or later, would have led him to renegade status anyway, considering his psychology. "Sooner or later" makes it a minor role.
So XXX is probably Ethan, but Janos in a candidate, too...

If it's that one, Voralfred already identified it. My first tree was either Illvin's apricot, or Arhys's almond tree in Paladin of Souls.

[E Pericoloso Sporgersi]

... third in TSK1 when Fawn climbs a tree to try and hide from the Lakewalkers party). ...

If it's that one, Voralfred already identified it.

Er ... I don't know how, but somehow I missed that sentence.

But Voralfred's answer still isn't complete. It states only 1 (XXX = Fawn) of the 3 elements in the question.

[voralfred]

But no ! I did not find it!
It was my interpretation of Suzette's "stirring the pot". She had offered three choisces, I did not identify the first one (Illvin's apricot, or Arhys's almond tree, from her latest post) but from Suzette's early post I understood her second choice as sugar maple trees in general, interfering with the amnesiac's identification with either Admiral Naismith or the Komarran-created clone, and her third choice as Fawn fleeing from Dag. But I did not think about it by myself, it was Suzette's idea I had commented upon. Then I suggested my own idea, Ethan's lightflyer in an oak tree. So Suzette is the winner.