Do you guys think that Nita will still be able to communicate with the Peridexis effect when her power levels go down (because of the seniors taking the power back)?

Maybe... Her power levels have been rising throughout the series for some reason, so she might not lose any of her power at all. We'll just have to wait until A Wizard Of Mars to find out.

Cant wait for that book. Thought it might be out for pre-order b now but it is'ant (who said i could not wait!), and I also think that her power levels will remain higher for now. Got a feeling somehting bigs going to come up soon .

Love that peridexis, a great addition by the great all powerful DD
Fox

What is the peridexis?

Okay, lame answer first: The peridexis is what it says it is. Namely, it is wizardry.

Okay, now for the not so lame answer: If the peridexis is wizardry, then we need to ask what exactly that means. What is wizardry here? Wizardry, as far as I can tell, is the ability to use the Speech to get the universe to do things normal people can't do. In the YW universe, the Speech works because all objects are sentient. You can communicate with plants, rocks, artificial constructs and even molecules. In some sense, wizardry is the Speech, or rather an ability to use it to communicate and get things done that normally wouldn't be possible (or very difficult at the least). The way I see it, the peridexis is taking this idea to the next level, this ability is also sentient in and of itself, which is in some ways bizzare, but also very neat.

However, we have seen wizards communicate with wizardry in some ways before, so this is not entirely new. For example, Darryl originally got his wizardry from "The Silence", which spoke to him, and the cat wizards in the Feline Wizardry sequence get their wizardry from "The Whispering", which also speaks to them. In fact, Nita did speak with The Silence in A Wizard Alone. What's different about the peridexis is that it is sentient, and Nita can actually have conversations with it. This opens up many more possibilities that The Slience and The Whispering didn't provide, such as simply asking wizardry to help power you up.

Dee: That metaphor is a bit off the mark, but not entirely so, as it's true that the peridexis probably does embody wizardry in some way, but when normal wizards use wizardry, they aren't trying to get at it, they're just using it like any other tool. What's different about the peridexis is that Nita can actually speak to the tool that she's using.

It's true that the peridexis can be seen in the same way as the Transcendent Pig, in that they are both anomalies. However, I'd say the peridexis is a bit more abstract than the Transcendent Pig (even if the pig is transcendent ).

Why does Nita have this special ability to be able to communicate with the peridexis while other wizards can't? I don't know, and I can only speculate that it has to do with some of the other things about her wizardry that seems special. I guess we'll find out in the next book.

What does interest me is the name "peridexis". I would venture a guess that it comes from the same word as Peridex, but Peridex is a kind of mouthwash, and while I am aware that DD was a nurse at some point and does get some of her terminology from medical jargon, I have no idea what the connection is between this kind of mouthwash and the peridexis...

Well, "peri" is a word root that means "around". I have no idea what "dexis" might mean though. Sometimes it helps to figure out what the roots mean.

I read much of the thread but I'm positive I missed several sections since I read quickly so forgive me if I become repetitive.

First, though definitely of a different variety - isn't this very similar to the Irish way (Ronan) of communicating with the Manual? Most notably, Nita's ability to see the spell ready to initiate when under fire at The Crossings.

Also, I found these sources enlightening if not interesting as to the root and meaning of "Peridexis"

Peri - In Persian mythology, a beautiful and benevolent supernatural being or fairy, earlier regarded as malevolent.

Some of the other meanings included on the page are thought inspiring.

Deixis
- The function of a deictic word in specifying its referent in a given context.
- the function of pointing or specifying from the perspective of a participant in an act of speech or writing; aspects of a communication whose interpretation depends on knowledge of the context in which the communication occurs.

Deictic - Linguistics. Of or relating to a word, the determination of whose referent is dependent on the context in which it is said or written. In the sentence I want him to come here now, the words I, here, him, and now are deictic because the determination of their referents depends on who says that sentence, and where, when, and of whom it is said.

edit: apologizes for the spelling. T'is fixed.

First, I must note that the peridexis says that it is "the combined effect of the words of the Speech and the power that lives within it", not quite "wizardry itself", as Nita first assumes, and seems to be the preferred way of characterizing it here; the peridexis makes this distinction because wizardry itself needs wizards to "speak the words and decide how to use the power". (However, "wizardry [itself]" is a convenient shorthand for the more nuanced characterization, and I shall not avoid it in that guise.)

Moeen: To me, the analogy and distinctions you draw between the peridexis and both Darryl's "Silence" and the feline "Whispering" are far from clear: First, both of those (and the "Irish way … of communicating with the Manual" Raeinar mentions) appear to be performing more Manual functions than the peridexis, and I don't think that conflating wizardry and the Manual can be justified. However, the peridexis does evince certain Manual-like tendencies (e.g., how it aids Nita during the battle in the Crossings¹, as Raeinar points out) and does acknowledge that it is, "to a certain extent, the soul of the Manual²", during its initial conversation with Nita. Moreover, according to the Wizard's Manual Concordance entry³, "The issue of Manual sentience [this link currently leads to a stub] is always cause for discussion among wizards". Secondly, there is a sentient being—the "Whisperer" Hrau'f, the feline equivalent of the "Athena Power"—who converses with the cats in addition to—and even while—supplying them with information on spells and generally acting as their "Manual", so such dialogue is not unique to the peridexis.

Concerning the etymology (and thus assumed meaning) of "peridexis": Rycr is absolutely right about the meaning of "peri-" (from the Greek περι-), though it can also mean "around about", "about", "encircling", "surrounding", "in the vicinity of", and "near", according to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). While "dexis" is not anything nearly as standard, it appears to also come from the Greek, with two possibilities: δεξιός ("dexios"), meaning "right"⁴, and Raeinar's suggestion of δει̂ξις ("deixis"), meaning "reference" (according to the OED's etymology of the English "deixis"). The first is far better known as a root in its Latin incarnation of "dexter" ("dextr-", in combining forms, e.g., "dextrose"); however, "dexio" does arise in at least one medical term, viz., "dexiocardia"⁵. (Aside from concerns about sound—"peridexter" sounds perilously close to "Poindexter"—DD may have been led to use the Greek root as the prefix is also originally Greek; and while this prefix was subsumed into Latin without change, it is considered poor taste in certain circles to mix languages when coining words.) While "deixis" does not appear to be etymologically associated with any medical terms (though it's not as if I know tonnes), I am quite partial to the possibilities it offers, particularly considering the peridexis' acknowledged connexion with the Manual.

Thus, pace a dropped "o" or "i", the meaning of "peridexis" seems best rendered along the lines of "around/surrounding the right" or "near/encircling the reference", or some other permutation of the above, as suits your fancy. (One could even attempt to follow my mom, who likes to have things both ways if at all possible, and let both meanings be implied here, though I personally am unsure of the wisdom of doing this.)

I'm unsure of the applicability of the other etymological possibility Raeinar proposed: For one thing, it does not seem to lend itself (together with the above suggestions) to a cogent meaning for "peridexis" (though I could just be missing something, and the above suggestions do leave something to be desired, particularly in terms of transparency). Secondly, περι- is an established prefix, while the (Persian) "Peri" Raeinar gives is not (though there is obviously still the possibility of a portmanteau word; however, recall the aforementioned deprecation of mixing original languages). (Of course, both suggestions require some syncope, though it strikes me as plausible in either case—I venture nothing more definite, not being either a linguist or philologist.)

I would quibble with Dee's interpretation that the peridexis is somehow more "real" than wizardry itself. Instead, my position is quite similar to that many others on this thread have advanced (though not exclusive of all of Dee's suggestions), considering it rather to be a personification of wizardry—a sentient being that has arisen, in essence, to fulfill the seeming requirement in the YW universe that everything is able to communicate; and for something as complex as wizardry this seemingly requires sentience to be meaningful. (I seem to remember it being clearly stated somewhere in the YW books that, although they are able to communicate, many objects, and even some living things—e.g., rocks, grass, etc.—are not actually sentient, but I can't remember where at the moment, and may be misremembering certain important points here.) I am even tempted to relate the peridexis, roughly, to the particle that is associated with every (force) field in physics—e.g., "the photon is the quantum of the electromagnetic field"—but shall refrain for several reasons, not the least of which is the fact that photons are not unique—i.e., there can be, and often is, (many) more than one of them—and the peridexis appears to be only one entity.

Also, to respond to one of Peter Murray's comments, do we actually know that Nita is the only wizard in the universe to be able to hear the peridexis? All we seem to know is that none of the other wizards she mentions it to were able to hear it or knew of any other wizards who had heard it. (However, if I remember correctly, she only asks Nguyet, who knows nothing about the peridexis at all—in fact, besides Nita, only the mobiles seem to know about it.) But I think that we can safely assume that none of the other main characters converse with it, which may be all you meant, though your statement seems more sweeping. We can probably also presume, based on the peridexis' statement, that any other wizards who would have heard it would have to be those that would not be bothered by a sentient wizardry, and that these are few and far between (though it doesn't seem a terribly unusual qualification to me). More to the point, as mentioned above, Nita only mention the peridexis once—and not to Kit or Dairine or even Tom and Carl (though she was going to annotate the Manual's "overviews" for them later), which I find to be quite surprising—so any other wizards who have conversed with it might be similarly reticent about it. Nita also doesn't ever look in the Manual for information about the peridexis (I wonder why not?)—she might then have found out about other wizards who had conversed with it, as such information, while ordinarily probably embargoed, would presumably have been freely available to her.

Finally, I think that Nita will indeed have trouble communicating with the peridexis outside of lucid dreams now that her power levels have returned to their 'pre-conflict' state, as she specifically missed being able to do so at the end of WAW (but was still able to communicate with it during a lucid dream).

¹ Incidentally, its comment that Callahan's Unfavourable Instigation was "one for the book" reminded me of Erdős' oft-quoted remark about beautiful proofs being contained in a God-authored "Book".

³ DD appears to have differing thoughts about whether or not "Manual" should be capitalized: It appears to be capitalized uniformly in the Concordance (which I'm following), but not in the books. (I have enquired about this on the Wizard's Manual talk page.)

³ Note that this entry is, at present, incomplete, and thus, by DD's warning, nondefinitive.

⁴ Here "right" can presumably be taken to have all of the positive (non-political! ) connotations we currently associate with it, as they all appear to have been associated with it (at the expense of the left—cf. "sinister") since time immemorial in Western culture

⁵ For those who are interested, the meaning is precisely that you would expect from its roots; the OED gives: "An anomaly of development in man in which the heart is on the right side; sometimes applied to cases in which the heart is displaced to the right side in consequence of disease." As far as the mouthwash is concerned, the resemblance is doubtless coincidental (unless DD admits to the contrary, e.g., having come up with either the peridexis itself or its name after noticing the name of that particular brand of mouthwash) and probably best explained by the tendency of pharmaceutical corporations' marketing departments to give their products names redolent of scientific terminology, considering that both of the pertinent roots (though particularly the former—for the latter I am referring to "dexios" in its Latin guise) are ubiquitous in scientific discourse.

Edited to work around Groupee's breaking a link.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Nathan,

Oh, that was ambiguous of me.

Yes, I meant that Nita seemed to be the only wizard of the featured characters in WAW who was in touch with the peridexis. The universe is too big to speculate any further than that group.