The Height of Torturers?

[Noalei]

I'm not particularly sure which book discusses this, but I remember there being a paragraph that said something like torturers had to be able to stand under something at a certain age. In other words, they were required to be short, rather than tall. What is the reason for this? I always assumed it had something to do with the exultants being especially alien and especially tall. So, they wanted individuals that were definitely from Urth?

[mantis]

I'm not particularly sure which book discusses this, but I remember there being a paragraph that said something like torturers had to be able to stand under something at a certain age. In other words, they were required to be short, rather than tall. What is the reason for this? I always assumed it had something to do with the exultants being especially alien and especially tall. So, they wanted individuals that were definitely from Urth?

It is in book one, chapter two, paragraph seven:

"In our Matachin Tower, a certain bar of iron thrusts from a bulkhead at the height of a man's groin. Male children small enough to stand upright beneath it are nurtured as our own . . . "

=mantis=

[bsharporflat]

I'd tend to prefer more fantastic explanations in this story but I can't see the iron bar test as a way to distinguish humans and aliens. It seems intended to exclude those boys who are too old to become indoctrinated in the guild's mystery. I think in the same section it mentions the guild rejecting homeless sorts of guys who try to gain admittance by promising to perform all manner of crude, unskilled tortures.

[Noalei]

I'd tend to prefer more fantastic explanations in this story but I can't see the iron bar test as a way to distinguish humans and aliens. It seems intended to exclude those boys who are too old to become indoctrinated in the guild's mystery. I think in the same section it mentions the guild rejecting homeless sorts of guys who try to gain admittance by promising to perform all manner of crude, unskilled tortures.

I think you're right. For some reason, I had always thought that it meant they were a certain age when they were measured, but now that I look at the chapter again, it doesn't say that. I must've just imagined it. Thanks for clearing it up.