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The Temptations of Power (a major theme in Brahe's work)

There are many examples of the theme of tempations of power within The Elemenstor Cycle. Some characters are driven to madness by temptations, and from there lead down the path of evil. We see this in the Pixlie Bibee, whose imprisonment leads to madness, and the unbalanced hunger for the power of the Mosaic Platter of Ronard. The ruin this unleashed is well known.

We see temptation of a different sort with the Wasted Elemenstors, whose themes run throughout the cycle. Their power is one of an easy life to command free of responsibilities, based on their reputation and deeds past, feeling that it frees them of societal obligations that are rightly coupled with the Knack.

Power through financial gain is best examplified by the NightLairds of Lands of Va. Their greed lead them to construct giant Mercury Boiling Plant of Va, in order to sell their high quality mercury in larger and larger quantities. This of course brought close to hand their only weakness... boiling mercury.

Looking to larger temptations... we see the rise and fall of Char Reyarteb. Shown to him is the greatest of all powers, but the originator of High Elemenstation, the great Harbinger Portent. Char proves unable to resist the siren song of power to disasterous ends, both for himself and his world. His greed, and extention of the power of the sentient Starborn Gem itself, whose beings use the power for their own gains and to their ultimate undoing.

Going to the end of the cycle, the most egregous example of the temptation and subsequent abuse of power can be seen in the Glaivemistress of Book 13. Given access to the time steam, she is unable to resist trying to undo all that has gone before. The temptation to subvert evil through unnatural powers leads her down a dark path, whose effects are unknown and unknowable.

These examples all ultimately tie metaphorically into the larger meta-theme presented, which alegorically points to the temptation of power theme as one that applies to Tycho Brahe himself, both as a victem and the penultimate example. His power over the world of Battal, and the success and windfall that brought him, and ultimately the depths of depravity in the drinking and pill binge, and ultimately the very penning of said Book 13, all point to this theme being a powerful one in the life and mind, and therefore the works of the ultimate wasted elemenstor, the author himself.