Sunday, August 18, 2013

Provide a brief sketch of the governor of Glubbdubdrib.

Glubbdubdrib is an extremely prosperous island full of magicians.  The governor is the head and eldest of a specific tribe of sorcerers that only marries one another.  The governor is a skillful necromancer, meaning that he can conjure the spirits of the dead, and it is these spirits who serve him and his family at his great palace and large estate.  He can only command a spirit's presence for one day, and he may not...

Glubbdubdrib is an extremely prosperous island full of magicians.  The governor is the head and eldest of a specific tribe of sorcerers that only marries one another.  The governor is a skillful necromancer, meaning that he can conjure the spirits of the dead, and it is these spirits who serve him and his family at his great palace and large estate.  He can only command a spirit's presence for one day, and he may not call up the same spirit for three months after.


He longs to learn about Gulliver's home, and Gulliver stays for about ten days so that they might learn from each other.  During this time, the governor generously allowed Gulliver to "call up whatever Persons [he] would chuse to name" from any place or time in history.  He assures Gulliver that these spirits will tell him the truth about anything he wants to know, and so Gulliver chooses a number of very interesting personages: Alexander the Great, Hannibal, Caesar, and more.  Unlike many of the other leaders Gulliver meets on his travels, the governor of Glubbdubdrib is actually pretty decent: he doesn't try to exploit Gulliver as a worker or an entertainer, and he does not judge him for his native country's customs.  

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